Morgan Dunbar never screamed. She was very professional the whole time. She was never asked to leave by security. They tackled her and dragged her out the door. As a former NYS Corrections officer I am well aware of excessive use of force and it was definetly used here. This whole scene reminded me of a news clip I would see from a third world country. Her civil rights were violated on the evening of September 9, 2011 and I am willing to testify in a court of law to this injustice. Shame on Canisius College and Dr. Noonan.

We have the right to free speech in this country, I'm embarrassed that Morgan was treated this horribly, and at an event she was invited to. One question I have is, why couldn't he just answer her question about the malnutrition? It seems he definitely has something to hide- it would have made things a lot easier if he'd simply answered.

I am appalled reading this! How you can treat someone who is standing up for what she believes in so poorly is beyond me. Her right to Freedom of Speech was taken away, and abruptly so. Canisius should be ashamed.

Hopefully everyone that was present at the "symposium" and everyone who reads this article will contact the President of Canisius College.
Erica C. Sammarco ’00
Assistant to the President
(716) 888-2100
sammarce@canisius.edu
... ...
Laura A. Montaro
Executive Associate to the President
(716) 888-2100
montarol@canisius.edu

Jeepers, Noonan! You do realize that you appear incredibly defensive, right? You sure are getting worked up as you lie about what you initiated that night against the person you say you care so much about. How could you care so much about Morgan's well being when you motioned to the security guards to take her away. Your invitation is right there in the article, Noonan. I read your condescending email the day it was sent, which was sent literally an hour after Morgan's initial email. However, when a response letter was written wherein Ms. Dunbar asks you to complete this "symposium" panel with an expert who may have an opposing viewpoint, you failed to respond. It is obvious that Micheal Noonan is fearful of the repercussions of his hasty actions that night. In the future, i would recommend that you refrain from inviting people who might stir up controversy if you cannot handle it. It is painfully obvious that this event was set up as a feeble attempt to indoctrinate your students in favor of animal research. You messed up, Noonan. Good luck with that, because I totally hope you are all right, and I hope you didn’t get in trouble, because that’s genuinely how I feel.

I do not know Morgan but I applaud and respect her for standing up for what she believes in and having the courage to speak about it. If you are going offer up a microphone than you should be prepared for what people might say or ask, especially with a sensitive topic such as this one.

This was truly an injustice to Morgan and her rights.

Well, I am reading Dr. Noonan's "recollection" of this incident which I attended and I have to believe he is either lying, senile, covering his proverbial, professorial behind or all three. What I saw was zero "yelling, twisting, resisting, etc." on Ms. Dunbar's part. The only outrageous act was committed by campus security and done only on Noonan's cue. Now is this professor also trained in criminal justice and has the ability, with a simple gesture, to have a student acting in good faith and demeanor, to be assaulted by police? Noonan opened the door and offered invitations to speak, but not only was Morgan cut off by use of excessive force by police, but anyone that wanted to know more about the details of Ha's research was sent away with a pat, "Question asked and answered"..not! This is a university professor? This, as a witness to the entire event, was a dictator in full, close-minded, arrogant regalia.

I know Morgan as I'm also involved in many animal organizations locally. I did not attend the event but give props to Morgan or any of my fellow animal activists for trying to inform the public of the outrageous acts done to these poor defenseless animals. The fact that she was silenced YELLS to anyone with a brain that they didn't want serious questions asked by intelligent informed people. What a sham to hold such an event and not have an honest person answering the questions asked by those in attendance. It sounds like, as mentioned above, that it was an attempt to tell students that animal testing is just fine, anyone that believes that is naive. Shame on Canisius College for treating one of their own with such ignorance and scorn.

Are we describing a symposium at an institution of higher learning and enlightenment here or a Nazi bund meeting? This lady was placed under arrest and humiliated in front of her peers and professors. The Canisius administration owes the whole community a thorough and unbiased investigation and report of this incident.

Next time student activists plan a protest, they better bring along a camera crew. I find it amazing how civilizing accountability can be.

Dr Noonan is a straight out liar. I was there, and what he said was all a lie. I have absolutely no respect for him. Morgan wasn't screaming, she was very professional the whole time. And the safety officers didnt just touch her arm, they grabbed her arm and pulled her forward very forcefully. Completely unnecessary. It was a disgusting thing to witness. Morgan did not deserve that.

I was at the event and witnessed the whole thing. I was amazed when reading Dr. Noonan's piece, he doesn't seem to recall the same scene the rest of us saw. It is a shame that Morgan was treated in such a way that night but I applaud her for her courage. She was speaking out for the animals and it truly was an inspiration.

I find it ridiculous that Dr. Noonan is even trying to defend what he set into motion that night. He and the safety officers should be ashamed of what they did. Arrested for what? "Criminal trespassing" when she was invited inside to listen AND invited to ask her questions? What happened to freedom of speech and to defending your opinion? Symposium? Ha!

Apparently Dr. Noonan wants to have serious conversations, but only as long as no one challenges his positions. He said himself that they would "welcome all points of view", so what was he expecting? People are free to present only one side of an issue if they want, but we shouldn't let them claim to welcome open discussion when they do so. On top of that, excessive force has no place in a public forum when the "offending" party has done nothing but speak her mind. If violence is the answer to having one's opinions questioned then we are in a sad state.

I was at this particular demonstration (along with a few others) with Morgan. As for the outside demonstration everything was very peaceful. I did go inside to hear what Dr. Ha had to say but I left halfway through it. I did not see what happened inside but I did see how she was treated when they brought her outside in handcuffs. They were being very pushy with her and it was all very disrespectful. I know Morgan and she is not violent or a liar. She knows her facts and she speaks the truth! I applaud Morgan and everything she does and stands for and I am proud to call her a friend! And for all the people who treated her in such a horrible manner, you should be ashamed of yourselves!!

This was one of the most deplorable acts of brutality that I have witnessed, especially coming from campus safety? Leave the important stuff to the police, boys, and go back to working for mall security.

Despite attempts to make himself look better, Dr. Noonan cannot change the events that took place at this symposium. Morgan was man-handled in an unnecessarily violent manner (she has bruises to prove it!) We just wanted an answer, and she was willing to stick up for herself and the rest of the group until we got one. She did what should have been done in the first place by inviting the audience to hear the other side at a later date - apparently the appropriate reaction to that is to drag her out of the venue in an uproar.

Shame on you, Canisius College and Dr. Noonan! I'd say shame on Dr. Ha, but I think that is already implied.

Honestly, no one cares. Animal Allies of WNY is apparently unaware of the fact that they are quickly garnering themselves quite a poor reputation in the WNY animal rescue community because of their overly-dramatic antics. If you have a worthy cause (which I believe, at its core, this is), be serious about it...don't turn it into a never-ending soap opera that, after awhile, no one wants to bother to listen to/watch.

I became acquainted with Morgan during her work on another issue, an issue I didn't have a stake in except as an observer. I found her to be passionate, but very reasonable, professional and intelligent. I don't know Noonan, but he sure doesn't come off that way in this article. He clearly didn't want his speaker embarassed, but Dr. Ha, as a professional, should have been prepared for those types of questions. I'm sure it's not the first time he's had to defend his work or his points of view.

Questioning is what higher education is supposed to be all about. If Dr. Noonan can't handle it, he should stick to the research side of academia. Whether or not you agree with Morgan, she's accomplished more than a lot of people have even attempted at her age, and she deserves to be treated with respect. Colleges are all about training the "leaders of tomorrow." I never understood that phrase to simply mean "people who quietly hold down a decent-paying job."

As a friend of Morgan Dunbar and a member of her organizations, I applaud her for her bravery in this event. I was not able to come to this event but from my past experiences with her and from what I have heard, this was a case of a man defending an abuse to the animals and refraining from questioning that would incriminate him any further. Being that this was an awareness event, Morgan had every right to question this man on the issue and it is an embarrassment on himself that he did not answer a fair question. Thank you for standing up for the primates Morgan, at least you had the bravery to speak your mind, despite the unfair consequences.

Noonan's gotta go. He's arrogant, abusive, and detrimental to his program at Canisius. Parents: You want this guy advising your kids?

I wonder how many of you would even be alive if it weren't for the use of animals in medical research. You all scream for your vaccines but you don't realize how hard it is to make them. Another thing that wasn't mentioned: there is a MORATORIUM on using great apes in medical research. YOU CAN'T DO IT. You can only watch them. So much for the creative protest display.
Also, the public safety intervention was completely justified. Morgan is a smart girl, she knows it will be reported that she was yelling "I'm not resisting!". However, the majority of the audience can confirm that she was. I myself was sitting two seats away from her. Here is what I heard/saw:
"Are you kicking me out?" (Morgan)
"No, we are just asking you to come back here to the back." (Pub safe)
And then, she DID start resisting. At least, if you consider "resisting" to be straining against the police and shouting about "both sides". And the police brutality photos she posted - let's just say that most people get worse bruises during a horseback riding jaunt.
In regards to Morgan's question, Dr. Ha answered to the best of his ability. I notice that no one reported how, when the situation was explained, Morgan herself admitted that the so called "unapproved" research surgeries seemed to sound more like clinical surgeries. And clinical surgeries DO NOT require approval. When the verdict of "unapproved surgeries" was handed down, the lab paid the fine just like they were supposed to. When the badgering about the starved animal started, that was when Dr. Noonan, the MODERATER, decided to moderate. How novel that he would decide to do his job.
Do I think it is terrible that the animal starved? Certainly, I am an animal lover as well. However, I know that blaming someone like Dr. Ha (at whose lab, I might add, the animal was never housed) is not only ridiculous, but WRONG. He is working to put himself out of business! He also wants to stop the use of non-human primates in biomedical research! He got so emotional when he was describing the time when he first saw the animals in the lab that he had to take a break from the talk for a few seconds to compose himself! Does that sound like a cruel animal abuser to any of you? Animals are treated more cruelly in the wild, by their fellow animals, then they are in labs. Do you think a monkey that is torn apart by an angry fellow primate is going to get some special medical attention to patch him up? As far as I know, no primate run hospitals have been found anywhere in the wild. Yet there are so many regulations in a primate medical lab that the monkeys can barely sneeze without being examined for medical issues.
And finally, Dr. Noonan DID respond to the accusation that both sides weren't being represented. He explained that Canisius would also be inviting the producers/directors of a film against animal research to the College to speak. They would also be showing the movie. He also mentioned that the leader of an NATIONAL animal welfare group would be coming to speak. So you are all encouraged to attend those events. Hopefully no one will show up and disturb the proceedings by screaming about how unfair Canisius is.
Dr. Ha was a very competent speaker. His talk was informative and interesting, in spite of the tense atmosphere and sensitive subject. For him to be personally attacked in the question answer period (another fact that was not reported, by the way) was terrible. I understand the animal right's view that "a life is a life" and all, so why doesn't his life matter? Why does no on care about his rights?
And someone might want to have a talk with the girl who said we shouldn't test drugs on animals because we can just test on sex offenders and retarded people. Maybe that's why animal rights people get a bad rap - some of you are acting like Nazis.

I did not attend this event but from what I could tell, it seems like Dr. Noonan invited this researcher here as an answer to the growing animal rights activism at Canisius College. In his condescending email to Ms. Dunbar (Jeepers?) he claims he wants to improve the way we think about and treat animals. So he brings a breeder and experimenter of primates to the College. There is currently a bill in Congress to ban the use of primates for experimentation in the U.S.; we are one of the few industrialized countries in the world that still do so. How can anyone claim to love animals yet keep them in cages for their entire life only to perform cruel experiments on them? Linda, if the animal were given a choice to live in the wild, in his own habitat, or in a laboratory, what do you think it would be? Medical research can proceed without the use of animals. In fact, it's probably more dangerous to test drugs on live animals because their physiology is different from ours--witness the many drug recalls and serious side effects of medications.

Dear Linda, Dr. Ha was a good speaker... so why did Noonan block him when he tried to answer Dunbar's question about the starvation / water deprivation death on his watch?

Also, the greatest problem today in medicine is not the speed at which the forefront is progressing; that can afford to slow down, as we re-examine unnecessary procedures in research.

The major problem today is the lack of equitable distribution of extant medical care, but that's a separate debate topic.

It'd be nice is someone other than a friend of Morgan (or animal rights activist) would report on their perception of events. I always find it somewhat suspicious when everyone has a vested interest in a single person's agenda and go out of their way to smear whoever got their compatriot in trouble.

When Bruce Friedrich was banned from speaking at a school, it wasn't just AR activists voicing their opinion that the school was being unprofessional.

"Animals are treated more cruelly in the wild, by their fellow animals, then they are in labs. Do you think a monkey that is torn apart by an angry fellow primate is going to get some special medical attention to patch him up? As far as I know, no primate run hospitals have been found anywhere in the wild. Yet there are so many regulations in a primate medical lab that the monkeys can barely sneeze without being examined for medical issues."

Out of curiousity, have you read the USDA reports Ms. Dunbar was citing? You speak as if you are an expert on lab conduct, and I'm not questioning that you are -- I'm just wondering where you are drawing your expertise from. Dr. Ha tacitly acknowleges that labs are under-inspected. There's fairly broad consensus that the number of inspectors in the employ of APHIS relative to the size of the job makes the inspection system a joke. And unfortunately, whistleblowers have faced recriminations for reporting violations, even when they are themselves prominent scientists (Dr. Jan Moor-Jankowski at NYU is a classic example).

Incidentally, I don't like where your logic takes us. Is it acceptable to exploit migrant farmworkers because in their home countries they might face even more severe povery and repression? You do realize that you've used precisely the moral argument used to justify slavery, right? Taking "savages" out of the jungle and giving them Christianity and civilization. Why slavery was a massive humantiarian project! So Linda, given the choice, would you rather live with your family in your hometown with the possible risk of a sudden and violent end or have your entire family shot, be kidnapped and spend the rest of your days isolated in a cage, subjected to painful and ultimately legal experiments?

"And someone might want to have a talk with the girl who said we shouldn't test drugs on animals because we can just test on sex offenders and retarded people. Maybe that's why animal rights people get a bad rap - some of you are acting like Nazis."

Yes, the girl who made this comment is a moron, no argument. But--hmmm. Nazis --- replaced democracy with a repressive totalitarian regime, exterminated 12.5 million people in concentration camps, conducted hideous experiments on people in said camps, and were an agressor in the bloodiest war of the 20th century.

Whereas one animal activist asked questions about violations of law at a research facility and another person (more likely a random wingnut than an activist) made an asinine comment.

Yes, that sounds entirely comparable.

@ Linda--

“I wonder how many of you would even be alive if it weren't for the use of animals in medical research.” -Linda

We all would be, Linda. Each and every one of us. The fact of the matter is that animal experimentation is fallacious and wrought with error, to say nothing of its moral depravity. Contrary to what the animal research community (beneficiaries of multi-million dollar grants) spoon feed us, animals are not reliable or appropriate models for humans. How many drugs that passed through preliminary trials with no sign of ill effects have gone on to kill in the clinical trials? How many drugs have we discounted and never allowed onto the market because they proven deadly to certain non-human models? False-positives and false-negatives are disastrous to scientific advancement. Does Penicillin ring a bell?

In a 2006 press release Mike Leavitt, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, conceded that, "Currently, nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies.”

Dr. Charles Mayo, co-founder of the prominent Mayo Clinic, also rejects the necessity for animal experimentation. He was quoted, stating “I abhor vivisection…it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil.”

I can keep going. Medical advances are NOT contingent on animal testing… To the contrary, scientific progress has been seriously delayed by our continued reliance on vivisection. Indeed, we see scientific regression as a result of this reliance and the failure to implement more advanced alternatives to animal experimentation. The real reason animal experimentation continues is because of GREED. Researchers receive hundreds of billions in grant money (money that comes straight from the taxpayer's pocket). There is NO INCENTIVE for grant beneficiaries to stop torturing animals. I am not against research-- In fact, I am pro-science. Therefore I am against animal experimentation, not only because of the injustices inflicted on non-human animals, but because the human race has been deprived of the benefits of pure science. There are countless alternatives to animal experimentation that have proven (and continue to be proven) far more reliable than the fraudulent "science" of vivisection.

“…there is a MORATORIUM on using great apes in medical research. YOU CAN'T DO IT.”- Linda

As you should know, Linda—“Moratorium” means temporary cessation. This is not a law or ban. It is because of activists like myself, who will not tolerate cruelty and deception at the hands of our government, that the Great Ape Protection Act continues to be presented to congress. It is thanks to the big money lobbysists, who influence our elected representatives, that this moratorium has not been solidified into law. Are you familiar at all with the Alamagordo Chimps? These chimps were released from research ten years ago and now reside in a New Mexico sanctuary. Now, however, the NIH wants to ship the surviving chimps to a lab in Texas where they will once more be subjected to the painful daily horrors of medical experimentation. I suggest you review the April 2011 McClatchy report, entitled “Chimps: Life in the Lab.”

“And the police brutality photos she posted - let's just say that most people get worse bruises during a horseback riding jaunt.”- Linda

I am an animal rights activist, so I don’t ride around on the backs of many non-human animals. But I wonder, how many times to horseback riders get hoof prints all over their forearms, sprained wrists and strained shoulders. How often do horses wrench the rider’s limbs when applying handcuffs?

“When the badgering about the starved animal started, that was when Dr. Noonan, the MODERATER, decided to moderate. How novel that he would decide to do his job.” - Linda

Dr. Noonan did not act as a moderator that night-- he acted as a censor, shielding his “good friend” from difficult questions. What you call “badgering” I can “persistence.” Society deserves an answer to the question I asked. Dr. Noonan’s “job” that night was to protect his friend and ensure that the truth about the horrors of vivisection would continue to go unchallenged.

“…I know that blaming someone like Dr. Ha (at whose lab, I might add, the animal was never housed) is not only ridiculous, but WRONG.” - Linda

Linda-- again you are sadly misinformed. I have the USDA report in my hand right now. Report certificate number: 91-R-0001/ site: 001- University of Washington, Seattle Washington 98195/ Date: Sep-17-2009. The report reads, “…a 3.5 year old male nonhuman primate had been found dead due to malnutrition with a resulting 25% loss of body weight.”

“He got so emotional when he was describing the time when he first saw the animals in the lab that he had to take a break from the talk for a few seconds to compose himself!” -Linda

And now he is so hardened and desensitized that he can go into that lab every day and come out bragging about the “guaranteed sterility of the steel cages.” How naïve one must be to perceive alligator tears for true emotion.

“For him to be personally attacked in the question answer period (another fact that was not reported, by the way) was terrible…Why does no on care about his rights?” - Linda

His rights? He droned on for over an hour, plodding through his tedious PowerPoint presentation. There was not so much a cough or sniffle to interrupt his presentation, despite the fact that many members of the audience were highly highly offended by his reference to animal activists as “terrorists,” “crazy,” “wild,” “extreme” and “violent.” There was no interference with Dr. Ha’s rights September 9th. He was not physically assaulted by police. He was not silenced for asking a difficult question. He was not disrupted at ANY point during his spewing forth of propagandized, pro-research rhetoric.

His ridiculous claim that society approves primate research because research facilities receive federal funding, is a hideous lie, and had the Q&A session not been disrupted by a brute show of force and academic repression, this falsehood would have been addressed. The torture of primates in labs goes on, not because society approves of the cruelty, but because big money pharmaceutical lobbyists and private research labs invest multi billions to ensure that this hideous and lucrative practice continues.

“And someone might want to have a talk with the girl who said we shouldn't test drugs on animals because we can just test on sex offenders and retarded people…some of you are acting like Nazis.” - Linda

I have serious reservations about whether or not this statement was even made. I heard no such remark prior to my “removal.” Let me assure you that such an outrageous statement in no way reflects my views or the views of Animal Allies of WNY. We stand in unity for human rights as well as non-human rights and totally denounce those views.

@Randy--

"It'd be nice is someone other than a friend of Morgan (or animal rights activist) would report on their perception of events." - Randy

I would love it if every person who was present at this "symposium" came forth and shared their views, regardless of their perception of the event. What hasn't yet been mentioned here is that the only other audience members not associated with the protest were Dr. Noonan's students, required to attend for a grade. I have spoken to several of Dr. Noonan's students that were in attendance and each and every one of them has made it quite clear that they are afraid to come forward and voice an opinion either way.

I received the following message from one of Dr. Noonan's students, just yesterday:

"I also asked two students (who I could correctly identify) who agreed about the situation, but they, too, were not comfortable commenting. So I guess you can kind of see that there is a conflict here, not just on my part, but on others in the program as well, and I hope you understand. I am willing to give my testimonials and as much information as possible, but as far as working with the rest of the people in the program, I don't think you're going to get much further than that. I'm sorry."

See what I'm up against, Randy?

Oh, and Linda?

In generally, when being highly condescending, it's a good idea to make sure you have your facts straight.

"The United States is the world's largest user of chimpanzees for biomedical research, with approximately 1,200 individual subjects currently in U.S. labs.[2]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_research_ban#cite_note-1

There's a moratorium on government funded breeding of chimpanzees, not on chimp research:

http://www.janegoodall.org/chimps-GAPA-fact-sheet

Morgan-

Your actions last Friday were despicable. I was there. Dr Noonan did NOT motion for public safety to usher you out of the auditorium. He merely motioned for the microphone to be turned off, because you were being RUDE and disrespectful, blatantly disobeying Dr Noonan's requests. The symposium was a place for an exchange of ideas, which you were not allowing (as you hardly let either Dr Noonan or Dr Ha speak), and it was definitely not a place to plug a one-sided Animal Allies event. Sitting across the auditorium, I heard public safety calmly ask you to sit down twice, but you ignored their requests, perhaps to make a spectacle. You then struggled against the officers as they were trying to escort you out of Montante. This is probably where your bruises came from, your own strength.

You are recruiting the support of those who are as one-sided as you are, most of which were not at the symposium.

I suggest you gain some respect, humility, and calm down.

Bill, I was there too. Noonan clearly hand gestured, and campus security responded right away. You are correct in saying "The symposium was a place for an exchange of ideas". Why then, did Noonan interrupt? Dunbar's question was very clearcut and straightforward. There was nothing despicable about her actions. The problem is that no video footage has surfaced (yet), so anybody can claim anything, and as time passes, the claims will become more absurd, because eyewitness memory is the worst kind of evidence... eroding and shifting with time and external pressure. That's why I immediately wrote down what I saw in the form of an official complaint. I shall now claim then, as memory has faded, that Noonan was waving his penis around on stage. There. How's that for non-sense? Let's stick to the facts, OK Bill?

Regarding Randy's statement that he wished someone comment on these events from someone who is impartial: This was a college symposium. EVERYONE there had a vested interest in the subject matter: Noonan's students' attendance was mandatory and graded-- so out the window with any "impartiality" there as they fear repercussion. Animal activists were there to express the other side during the Q&A session. What I objectively saw haunts me to this day because of the blatant brutality by Canisius Campus Police.
This discussion has nothing to do with Dr. Ha, Linda's long, unnecessary missive here on her view of primate testing. This incident has nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of vivisection despite it being a passionate subject matter.
It has EVERYTHING to do with the use of excessive force by law enforcement and violation of a citizen's constitional rights. Let's end the hyperbole on who said what--- the verbal exchanges were peaceful on both sides. The nod from Dr. Noonan started a fireball of outrageous, illegal conduct by overzealous campus security who seemed primed to "get her" (I know...they were directly behind me gesturing to one another on his cue).
Can we keep this discussion point and admit something is wrong at Canisius with the way they handled (or shall I say "manhandled"?) their own student on a professor's whim and now are dancing as fast as they can to minimalize the obvious "order" to police rid Morgan Dunbar from the "symposium"?

I am not even going to dignify Morgans reprehensible behavior with a response.

I just want to know if Morgan Dunbar really works in the pet industry? Seriously???

@ Joey--

"I just want to know if Morgan Dunbar really works in the pet industry? Seriously???" - Joey

Only if you consider my four years as the Director of Swansea Small Animal Rescue in Great Britain, where I managed the rescue, rehabilitation and adoption of unwanted and injured companion animals. I also worked alongside a certified animal behaviorist while in the UK, wherein we worked together to save the lives of at risk animals with behavioral disorders. I also managed puppy training and early socialization classes at a veterinary clinic in Great Britain. Perhaps this is what Dr. Noonan was referring to?

I am hesitant to even comment because I don’t want to perpetuate this issue any further, but this situation has been manipulated to such a degree that I find it very upsetting.

Morgan was given a chance to ask her question (regardless of its respect or tone) and she was given a generous response from Dr. Ha. Period. Beyond that it was HER choice to subsequently not to give up her turn at the spotlight. From an outsiders perspective it appears to me to have been a very calculated choice.

As an animal lover, I applaud Canisius for creating a symposium that brings these issues to the public eye. I also applaud them for attempting to represent ALL sides of a controversial topic. Finally, I applaud the moderator for DOING HIS JOB when Morgan Dunbar refused to act respectfully and sit down after her question was addressed by the speaker. If she did not feel that her question was adequately answered by the speakers there are professional ways of following up after the talk. But instead she chose to keep talking about her own personal agenda/organizations. Instead of handling things calmly and maturely, she made a spectacle. And she continues to make a spectacle.

As far as this line of comments go - Morgan, you basically accuse your institution of censorship yet you cannot seem to respect or find any validity in anyone who has an opinion contrary to yours. You didn’t want Canisius to host someone with an contradicting perspective to your own beliefs in the first place! It seems to me that you are not willing to put your own actions into perspective. Everyone else is the bad guy. Based on your previous responses I assume you will proceed to pick everything I have said apart, rather than actually consider any of it as an alternate perspective.

I love animals (I don’t claim to be very well informed on issues of animal research), so I find it sad to think that future organizations might be afraid to create a dialogue representing BOTH sides of an argument, for fear of something like this happening. This is any public forum’s worst nightmare. It’s such a shame.

I sincerely hope that you continue to advocate for animals, but I also sincerely hope that you get back to issues of animal rights and stop exaggerating a manipulated situation into a smear campaign.

Morgan, have you ever read the reports that some of your sources came from?

In particular, Mark Leavitt's statement regarding 9/10 drugs not making it through Phase I clinical trials. First, the wording of the quote itself makes it impossible to attribute this failure to the animal model alone. Note he says "animal" AND "laboratory" studies. It's the models that cause the problems, not the animals/man disconnect itself. Any type of theoretical model is prone to failure regardless of the environment where it's conducted.

You should also note that this report does not blame animal models. Rather it blames ALL types of models used in drug development. Furthermore the report identifies both animal and non-animal models that had been recently implemented which were having much better results than the previously accepted methods. Elimination of animal testing was not even an inferred point within the report. What was a major point was validating current methods used in academic research for regulatory testing, and developing more tests looking for specific outcomes rather than relying on archaic procedures like LD50 testing.

http://www.nipte.org/docs/Critical_Path.pdMorgan, I take issue with a great deal of the rhetoric you are purveying.

I also take issue with your spiteful and misinformed rhetoric.

First we have the "Equate animal researchers to greedy individuals in order to imply they are inherently evil" statement:

"Contrary to what the animal research community (beneficiaries of multi-million dollar grants) spoon feed us..."

--Contrary to what Morgan is feeding us, most animal researchers do not live opulent lives. Where I work, electrical engineering and business graduate students make 10k more annually, and this discrepancy carries over into the career field as well. To top that off, researchers typically spend 10 years in college and end up in low-paying postdoctoral positions. It doesn't make sense at all for a greedy individual to take up biology.

You might hear about an academic lab getting a million dollar grant, but at least half of it will go to the university. Bio research materials aren't cheap, so a good chunk will go to them, and the last bit will need to cover the salaries of everyone involved in the grant. To give you an idea, annual salary for a graduate researcher on our eight million dollar grant was $16,000. The PI on our grant made $100,000. And just so you're aware, million dollar grants (much less eight million dollar grants) aren't the norm. So out of that huge sounding 8 mil, the head researcher only actually ends up with 1.25% of it. (and that came with lots of 60 hour weeks).

...and of course that sentiment totally neglects that the non-animal research industry is also a "multi-million dollar industry." Yet almost no one in that camp ever seems to declare animal research pointless. Typically what one sees when going through methods journals is "Hey, we developed this model that's cheaper, easier, and gets the same results as with animals--buy it!"

Then you move onto the "Drugs have killed people, so animals are to blame" statement.

"How many drugs that passed through preliminary trials with no sign of ill effects have gone on to kill in the clinical trials"

--Morgan, you really should answer that question as you've posed it. First, I'm pretty sure this isn't what you meant to ask. Second, if it was, as far as I'm aware that data hasn't even been made available. Do you have statistics for how many people die in clinical trials from adverse events? Are you sure you're not asking how many drugs kill post-approval? (This is just typically the question that's asked). Regardless of what you intend to ask, in vitro testing is often also directly implicated in such failures (often even some human testing is done prior to full blown clincals).

Then we get the "animal research HURTS progress statement"

"To the contrary, scientific progress has been seriously delayed by our continued reliance on vivisection"

--Let me guess, you'll either mention tobacco testing (where industry used pseudoscientific experiments to defend their product despite real researchers knowing they were inapplicable), or penicillin (where urban legend states that it was abandoned because of failure in rabbits). Did you know that Fleming conducted multiple in vitro tests in parallel to the rabbit tests, and that he actually noted the drug would be too short-lived for systemic use? Did you know that he only conducted one of the animal tests his directors required him to do, because they themselves knew that not all aspects of the drug could be examined using a single animal model (i.e. they were aware of the model's weaknesses). Did you know he didn't even get the production method correct, which resulted in many other experimenters testing extracts that did not contain penicillin? Did you know he abandoned penicillin to pursue more lucrative research even though his colleagues still had faith in penicillin's potential? Did you know he blamed everything under the sun for his failure each time he was questioned on the delay? Did you also know that the story about him randomly pulling out the penicillin and giving it to some really sick guy as the moment of success is not even true? (Totally different researchers were successful, and he actually was pretty dismissive of their results).

Even if you ignore that non-animal methods contributed to Fleming's failure in this classic anecdote, the cited FDA report also explicitly labels non-animal methods as fallible. As stated previously, the type of test is irrelevant. All that matters is that it accurately models what is being studied.

Finally you follow with the "Alternative methods are superior" statement:

"There are countless alternatives to animal experimentation that have proven (and continue to be proven) far more reliable than the fraudulent "science" of vivisection."

--But of course this fails to mention that there more in vitro experiments published every day that produce results which fail to match the outcome even in the originating species. It also fails to mention that in vitro methods have also contributed directly to failed drugs as detailed in the FDA report. The alternatives aren't infallible as you suggest.

Of course, I imagine you may be able to cite something showing an in vitro test performs better than a preceding animal model (and I could vice-versa), but I highly doubt you could find anything to back up the generalized statement you've made.

What you have put forth here is not sound and reasonable facts, but information that you have failed to adequately think through and examine for veracity likely because it already agrees with your ideology.

Also, I have a hard time imagining a university program director who wields so much power that even a group of students fear repercussion. I could imagine a lone whistle-blower being timid about contradicting their mentor...but a whole class present because it's mandatory?

What kind of nancies is this school producing if an entire class is afraid of retaliation from one man if they speak up about his alleged misconduct?

Since the link to the report Mr. Leavitt referred to got destroyed in a copy-paste hiccup.

http://www.nipte.org/docs/Critical_Path.pdf

And a published examination of the advent of penicillin, wherein, as I forgot to previously mention, he also conducted failed treatments with humans.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1139110/pdf/medhist00088-0005.pdf

Randy writes "What kind of nancies is this school producing if an entire class is afraid of retaliation from one man if they speak up about his alleged misconduct?"

Yeah, really, man! What's wrong with these guys? They're afraid to print their full names, too.

Now let's suppose animal experimentation works well (the more brutal, the better). Does that justify it? After all, we are a pest species... 6 1/2 billion of us... so many that we can't live without stepping on each others toes. But seriously, the new research could abruptly end today, and that wouldn't be the problem; the bottleneck comes from the lack of availability of standard medical care for the masses.

You got it right, Randy. It's the Universities that are benefiting from this research.

And big pharma has the audacity to put up giant billboards with the false choice of a little kid or a lab mouse suffering. Quick! You gotta choose one or the other. I'll bet the kid dies because of pre-existing conditions, or the medicare part D doughnut hole, or by simply being dropped for costing too much, or for living in one of them red states where the AG is filing suit against Obama care.

I come from an aggressor nation that did medical testing on "lower animals" during WWII. They just had a sliightly different definition of "lower animals". You might want to read up on the Japanese 731 st medical unit, or the 731 butai. I now live in an aggressor nation with a history of testing on "lower animals"... again a slightly different definition of "lower animals". See the Tuskegee project.

What? Are you offended by the comparison? Well, anything below you socio-economically is fair game. If you have less legal representation, you are a "lower animal". If you have less clout, you're a "lower animal".

No wonder the masses grab onto the coattails of the powerful. They want out of the animal pool. They are programmed -- almost Pavlovian -- to help the powerful beat down dissenters. Did I do well, boss? Do I get my reward? That is how the status quo is defended. An exercise in aberrant human psychology becoming the norm.

James,

I'm not sure you've understood what I've said regarding "nancies". What I'm implying is that the claim made by some of the anti-research folks on this thread is bordering on unbelievable. I for one can't fathom that students in Dr. Noonan's class would not speak up for fear of academic retaliation considering they outnumber him. Other schools have no problems criticizing their own administration when poor decisions regarding the free expression of anti-research ideas are made. (i.e. Bruce Friedrich's Columbia talk being cancelled)

While universities do technically take in money from research, as with the portion that goes to a research team, most of this is simply directed into operating and improving the university and running the vivariums. It's not like the Dean is rolling naked in $100 bills thanks to animal research. Additionally, animal research is only a small portion of the grants many schools receive. The expansion of my school, for instance, is driven primarily by electrical engineering grants that allow for new research facilities and dormitories to be constructed each year. Bioscience grants barely bring in enough to pay the annual electricity bill of the primary electrical engineering research building. Animal research isn't the bread-and-butter of universities like many of you folk like to suggest.

In my professional opinion, research would stagnate if animal use was ended this instant. We haven't reached the point where it is no longer necessary yet, and as such I think the billboards (while being overly melodramatic, and potentially misleading) are making a valid point.

Of course the rest of your diatribe is technically irrelevant to what I've said as it addresses the ethics of animal research. As I've said on plenty of other public forums, everyone is perfectly entitled to their own ethical perspective on the use of animals in research. All I'm concerned with is making sure that facts are presented accurately for people to make their own decisions.

I'm not offended by your comparison to human experimentation, although it means little to me considering my defining ethics aren't based on an whether an organism is "lower" than a human or not. I'd wager that you yourself are guilty of the moral fallacy you accuse researchers of. Do you kill insects? Use antibacterial soap? Drink beer or eat bread? Does this not require that you delineate between life which you can destroy and life which you cannot since these things routinely kill living things? The notion that any organism is "less" than another is just as stupid as insisting that they are all equal. Each organism is different, and how they are handled should be based on their unique capacities.

And yeah, the human-loathing doesn't do anything for me either. Nothing makes me want to vomit more than people who trivialize their fellow men by declaring them sheep. I'm sure everyone makes their decisions based on sucking up for rewards. pfft.

Morgan was not out of line, she was simply expecting an answer to her question. It’s frustrating to have to listen to someone make misleading or demonstrably false claims, and not have them answer for it. I also asked a question for which Dr. Ha could provide no (valid) answer.

Dr. Ha didn't really answer my question about Thalidomide, a drug that was found safe as a result of animal testing, but caused thousands of birth defects when pregnant mothers took it. Dr. Ha claimed that Thalidomide had not been tested on ape species whose systems are allegedly comparable to that of the human being. However, in Drugs as Teratogens, J.L. Schardein observes: "In approximately 10 strains of rats, 15 strains of mice, eleven breeds of rabbit, two breeds of dogs, three strains of hamsters, EIGHT SPECIES OF PRIMATES and in other such varied species as cats, armadillos, guinea pigs, swine and ferrets in which thalidomide has been tested, teratogenic effects [birth defects] have been induced only occasionally." (emphasis mine)

Ironically, Dr. Ha has done studies on macaques that purport to show that the drug AZT is beneficial in treating HIV in pregnant mothers. This is a picture of the warning label on AZT that is administered to “lab animals”:

http://healtoronto.com/images/label1j.gif

The warning label further cautions:

“Retrovir (AZT) has been associated with Hematologic Toxicity (blood toxicity), including Neutropenia (loss of neurophils, an essential component of blood) and Severe Anemia (potentially fatal lack of blood production). Prolonged use of Retrovir has been associated with Symptomatic Myopathy (muscle wasting), Lactic Acidosis and Severe Hepatomegaly (liver swelling) with Steatosis (fat degeneration). Fatal Cases have been reported with the use of Nucleoside Analogues (AZT, 3TC, ddl, D4T) alone or in combination, including Retrovir and other Antiretrovirals.”

Dr. Ha’s AZT, which is supposedly such a great gift to humanity, is extensively documented in the medical literature as causing severe health problems, including immune suppression: essentially, the drug causes the symptoms of what is described as HIV infection. The outrageous and fraudulent process that was used to pass it through the FDA has been extensively documented by Dr. Peter Duesberg, Harvard-trained John Lauritsen, Anthony Brink, and others.

The following quote is from Dr. Irwin Bross, who was Director of Biostatistics at the Roswell Park Memorial Institute for Cancer Research for 24 years. It explains the true reason why animal testing continues.

"Among experienced public health scientists it is well-known that you can 'prove' anything with animal studies. This is because there are so many different animal models and each system gives different results. By selecting whatever results happen to support a particular position (and ignoring the results to the contrary), one can come out with the desired 'conclusion'. This obviously is not the way that genuine science works but this is how animal studies are commonly used.

"Whenever government agencies or polluting corporations want to cover up an environmental hazard [or the dangers of some drug, additive, etc], they can always find an animal study to "prove" their claim. They can even do a new animal study which will turn out the way that they want by choosing the 'right' animal model system. If you happen to be one of the millions of Americans who has been or will be exposed to dangerous mutagens that are officially called 'safe', the games that are played with animal research can kill you."

Bryan,

First off, you've made a huge error regarding thalidomide. Dr. Ha was correct in stating that thalidomide was not adequately tested prior to approval. Prior to approval in Europe, it wasn't even tested systematically in pregnant animals, and almost no pregnant women were included in the human trials. Dr. Frances Kelsey, the FDA agent in charge of reviewing thalidomide's application, knowing this at the time, rejected the application repeatedly and insisted vital aspects of the drug testing process had been disregarded.

It wasn't until AFTER human effects were reported that tests were done in pregnant animals. Thalidomide did induce detrimental effects in many species, but only when administered during a specific window during development. The failure of many animal tests to produce deformities resulted from administration during the wrong time during pregnancy, as well as an error in the thalidomide patent that resulted in some researchers administering degraded thalidomide. Once the phases of pregnancy were better understood in the model animals, testing produced more predictive results.

I also imagine that you are taking Schardein's quote either out of context, or before teratogenic mechanisms (such as the critical period for thalidomide) were understood, as he conducted a review 13 years later which concluded that "animal developmental toxicity data closely paralleled human outcomes" in many known teratogenic substances.

So what you'd need to do to declare animal testing ineffective is prove that animal testing has failed to keep teratogenic drugs off the market AFTER tests for it had been designed and implemented. Identifying the tragic event that triggered the development of such tests and the difficulties in designing reliable tests does not prove animal models are useless. It simply proves that whoever thought we didn't need to test on pregnant animals/humans because drugs don't cross the placental barrier was totally wrong.


Furthermore, what you've described is not the true reason animal research continues. What you've described is how business supports and uses bad science to protect itself via either their own ignorance, or to take advantage of the ignorance of normal individuals. The biggest flaw in your criticism is that you completely ignore that even non-animal research can be used "to prove anything", and is used by business to do so. (There are far more studies touting the benefits of antioxidants based on in vitro studies than in vivo studies)

For example, read any of the dozens of in vitro experiments on semaphorin3A. In some papers this protein repels sensory neurons, in others in attracts them. According to you, I could conveniently neglect all the papers where it repels neurons and say it's a great protein to use for regenerating damaged nerves. Well, to do this would I'd either need to be stupid or devious. To be responsible, I'd need to consider the conditions in each experiment, appreciate that in vitro models don't always predict correctly even within the originating species, and pay attention to the questions the authors were actually studying.

The point is, is that any method can be used to prove any thing. This isn't exclusive to animal research. Merck could just as easily hold up in vitro data using human cells to defend itself when needed--not to mention the much more relevant human trials that almost always precede dangerous drugs hitting the market.

I've done corporate research, and I can assure you that the average biotech CEO is not qualified to come up with sound experiments or interpret existing experiments. I have been required to interfere with pointless experiments using animals proposed by businessman who do not realize they are pointless. I have also been forced to interfere with publication of my own work due to the company hijacking it and attempting to present it in a way that is supportive of their products, when none of the data is even intended to do such a thing.

If anything is detrimental to science, it's corporate interference--not animal research.

Randy-

Thalidomide was extensively animal tested both before and after it was widely known to cause birth defects in humans. You are right that you have to look at the right species, in the right dose, at the right time in development in order to know the potential teratogenicity of a drug. But the fact remains that, even after researchers knew exactly what to look for in terms of adverse reactions, there still wasn’t ANY animal model that was truly comparable to humans.

Some more quotes:

“More than 800 chemicals have been defined as teratogens in laboratory animals, but only a few of these, approximately 20, have been shown to be teratogenic in humans. This discrepancy can be attributed to differences in metabolism, sensitivity and exposure time.” (Dr Beat Schmid, Trends in Pharmacological Sciences; 8:133, 1987)

“There is at present no hard evidence to show the value of more extensive and more prolonged laboratory testing as a method of reducing eventual risk in human patients. In other words the predictive value of studies carried out in animals is uncertain... With thalidomide, for example, it is only possible to produce specific deformities in a very small number of species of animal. In this particular case, therefore, it is unlikely that specific tests in pregnant animals would have given the necessary warning: the right species would probably never have been used.” (Professor George Teeling-Smith, in A Question of Balance; the benefits and risks of pharmaceutical innovation, p 29, publ. Office of Health Economics, 1980)

“…rats are refractory to thalidomide-induced teratogenesis” (Neurotoxicol Teratol. 2001 May-Jun; 23(3):255-64. Neurobehavioral teratogenic effects of thalidomide in rats. Vorhees CV, Weisenburger WP, Minck DR)

“Grünenthal has tried to reproduce phocomelia [the birth defects caused by Thalidomide] in rats, mice, and rabbits and has failed, In Keil the drug was fed to hens and the chicks were normal.” (Helen Taussig, Journal of the American Medical Association, June 30, 1962: A Study of the German Outbreak of Phocomelia: The Thalidomide Syndrome)

“Numerous attempts to reproduce the malformations which occurred in human babies from Thalidomide-treated mothers have met with only limited success. Although many representatives of aves [birds] and mammalian experimental species have been investigated for this purpose, the results fall short of paralleling the effect of the drug on the human foetus.” (Nature 1966;210:958-959)

“We chose a dose of thalidomide close to the estimated amount required to produce human anomalies. This dose had no detectable toxic effects in the monkey” (Science 1963;139:1294-95)

The context of Schardein’s quote:

"It is the actual results of teratogenicity testing in primates which have been most disappointing in consideration of these animals' possible use as a predictive model. While some nine subhuman [sic] primates (all but the bush baby) have demonstrated the characteristic limb defects observed in humans when administered thalidomide, the results with 83 other agents with which primates have been tested are less than perfect. Of the 15 listed putative human teratogens tested in non-human primates, only eight were also teratogenic in one or more of the various species. The data with respect to ‘suspect’ or ‘likely’ teratogens in humans under certain circumstances were equally divergent. Three of the eight suspect teratogens were also not suspect in monkeys or did not induce some developmental toxicity.” (Schardein, JL, Drugs as Teratogens, 1976 and Schardein, JL, Chemically Induced Birth Defects, Marcel Dekker 1985)

Mice and rats were tested and not effected by thalidomide. The White New Zealand rabbit was effected only at a dose of 25 times that given to humans. Monkeys were effected at 10 times the normal dose. So if we take the closest approximation to the human system in this case (monkeys), teratogenic effects were only induced at a dosage level of an entire order of magnitude higher than they were exhibited in humans.

Perhaps this is what Schardein meant when he said "animal developmental toxicity data closely paralleled human outcomes". The animal research community touts Thalidomide as a classic example of the need to do "adequate" animal research… yet even the best model (which could only be identified after causing over 10,000 human birth defects) was radically different from humans. So maybe, when Dr. Ha said that the macaque model was “the same” as the human model, he meant that it was “the same” in the sense that monkeys tested with thalidomide were within the *acceptable* degree of “SAMEness” to humans.

An article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on April 15, 1998 entitled, "Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients", evaluated serious and fatal adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in US hospitals. The study revealed that in 1994, ADRs accounted for 2,216,000 serious events and 106,000 hospital deaths. According to a 2003 comprehensive study of medical peer-review journals and government health statistics (Deficiencies in US medical care, JAMA, November 2000, 284(17):2184-5.), there are 783,936 iatrogenic (medically induced) deaths every year in the US. Furthermore, the actual figure is estimated to be much higher, as only a fraction (between 5% and 20%) of iatrogenic acts are ever reported.

Yes, there is enormous corruption in all levels of biomedical research, not just animal testing…

Bryan,

After reviewing your quotes I can tell that you have not read the papers you are citing. To get something out of the way though: You are correct to assume that no SINGLE species is predictive of human teratogenicity. However, this is already appreciated in developmental toxicity testing, and is the reason why systematic review has lead to the conclusion that testing needs to be done in at least two species that have demonstrated predicitive reliability.

On to your points...

If thalidomide had been extensively tested as you claim...
1. Name two studies occurring BEFORE thalidomide was widely approved internationally where births were systematically examined in animals
2. Explain why Dr. Kelsey rejected the application of the drug repeatedly on the grounds that it hadn't been tested extensively enough.

As for Schardein's quote: Did I not leave open the door saying that he may have said that before mechanisms of teratogenicity were fully understood? Explain to me why 13 years later he came to the opposite conclusion. Perhaps because once a testing paradigm had been validated, results became somewhat more indicative?

In "Species Sensitivities and Prediction of Tetratogenic Potential" Schardein examined the history of teratogenicity testing and concluded correctly that no single species is 100% predictive, which is not at all surprising to either of us I'm sure. After examining the results from the previous two decades he did reach the conclusion that it was justified to continue teratogenicity testing in animals. His examination also included both predictability of both positive and negative outcomes in humans.

As for your quote “More than 800 chemicals have been defined as teratogens in laboratory animals, but only a few of these, approximately 20, have been shown to be teratogenic in humans. This discrepancy can be attributed to differences in metabolism, sensitivity and exposure time.”

--This is hardly surprising. This exact notion was also examined by Schardein. First, this does not mean 780 chemicals were teratogenic in animals, but not in man. Only one substance known to be teratogenic in humans had not been found to be teratogenic in animals as of 1985.

Consider:
1. Most of these compounds aren't drugs, so they have never been systematically administered to humans. They are typically things found in occupational settings, in the environment, in food, etc.

2. Schardein notes that human epidemiological data outside of the clinical setting is not reliable, and has only ever discovered 3 teratogens. Thus, for most of these 780 substances, there is no means to confirm human teratogenicity.

3. The only way to prove that these substances are not human teratogens would be to conduct a clinically controlled trial. (Good luck convincing expectant mothers to eat pesticide to see if their babies become deformend).

As for “…rats are refractory to thalidomide-induced teratogenesis”
--I suppose that killing embryos in 20% of cases technically isn't teratogenesis, but it certainly is indicative of developmental toxicity.

As for “Grünenthal has tried to reproduce phocomelia [the birth defects caused by Thalidomide] in rats, mice, and rabbits and has failed, In Keil the drug was fed to hens and the chicks were normal.”

--Schardein's review concluded that while a battery of animal tests is useful as an indicator for teratogenicity, it is not indicative of what type of problem will occur. These are two entirely separate issues.

As for “Numerous attempts to reproduce the malformations which occurred in human babies from Thalidomide-treated mothers have met with only limited success..."
--This falls in with the previous case. It's not appropriate to assume that the teratogenic outcome in animals and men will be homologous. In 1966 when this bried was submitted to nature, that was not yet widely appreciated. As an aside, in this paper the authors did successfully generate limb deformations in their test subjects.

As for “We chose a dose of thalidomide close to the estimated amount required to produce human anomalies. This dose had no detectable toxic effects in the monkey”

--You have just betrayed the fact you have not read your sources. This statement is NOT referring to developmental toxicity. It is basically referring to their pre-experimental test wherein they determined that thalidomide is not poisonous to adult rhesus monkeys. Thalidomide KILLED every single embryo in the group that received thalidomide during pregnancy. Again, I'm pretty sure that indicates thalidomide is developmentally toxic.

So to quickly address your last few paragraphs:

Thalidomide was not safe in rats, it did have developmental effects. Initially they were not noted because dead embryos were absorbed during pregnancy.

While monkeys show the most similar outward symptom, they are not the most indicative of teratogenecity of a substance, as was denoted in Schardein's review.

Schardein meant exactly what he said. When conducted by the guidelines for teratogenecity testing, the results from the suggested battery of tests is better than chance at predicting human teratogenecity (or lack thereof). He published more than one review supportive of and outlining good practice in teratogenicity testing.

If Dr. Ha said thalidomide went undetected because it wasn't tested on primates, then he is technically incorrect. It was not systematically tested on pregnant animals, and how to conduct such tests was not even established until 1966.

ADRs have nothing to do with appropriateness of animal testing. You'd at least need to provide the number of fatal ADRs that weren't "on-label" to make a point regarding this. In addition, unexpected ADRs would suggest a failure in human trials as well.

Iatrogenic deaths also have nothing to do with animal testing. A nurse who accidentally gives a man a drug he has a recorded allergy to has nothing to do with animal testing.

Nor do iatrogenic or ADR-related deaths portray medical corruption. Iatrogenic deaths are attributable to human error and possibly lack of sufficient checks to prevent mistakes. ADR-related deaths are an accepted risk that comes with the use of any drugs. Even something as common as a tetanus shot can cause an ADR-related death.

Schardein's paper: Environmental Health Perspectives Vol. 61, pp. 55-67, 1985

You seem to not comprehend the depth of the corruption that exists in the revolving doors of the Pharmaceutical-University complex and the FDA. Allow me to illustrate using one of Dr. Ha's own studies. This has been used to trumpet the benefits of AZT, a "miracle drug" that is being targeted primarily at gays, the underprivileged, and Africans.

Here are some excerpts from one of Ha’s pigtailed macaque “studies”. You can see how “beneficial” Ha’s research is and how “respectful” and “caring” he is of the macaques. Note that teratogenic effects ARE observed in this model, yet the drug gets approved anyway. This happens all the time.

http://journals.lww.com/jaids/fulltext/1998/05010/fetal,_infant,_and_maternal_toxicity_of_zidovudine.5.aspx

From Ha’s study:

“The toxicity of azidothymidine (AZT) was studied in monkey dams [moms] and fetuses that were exposed to the drug over the entire gestational period… The AZT animals developed an asymptomatic macrocytic anemia, but hematologic parameters returned to normal when AZT was discontinued.

Total leukocyte count decreased during pregnancy and was further affected by AZT administration. AZT-exposed infants were mildly anemic at birth. AZT caused deficits in growth, rooting and snouting reflexes, and the ability to fixate and follow near stimuli visually, but the deficits disappeared over time.”

“However, another study reported fewer pregnancies, fewer healthy fetuses per mouse, and a greater number of resorptions when mice were treated with AZT at 0.25 mg/ml (47.6 mg/kg/day) beginning 6 weeks before mating (13). The investigators suggested that AZT exposure in early gestation resulted in pregnancy failure rather than fetal malformation.

Finally, in a study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute, the offspring of pregnant mice exposed to high doses of AZT (close to the maximum dose allowing fetal viability) developed liver, lung, and reproductive organ tumors at rates several-fold higher than those of controls, as reported in the Seattle Times, Wednesday, January 15, 1997 (p. A5).”

“Owing to differences in drug administration and metabolism, the absence or presence of teratogenic effects in rodents may not adequately predict teratogenic effects in humans. Before AZT can be recommended for women in the first trimester, additional studies in a representative animal model should be done.

The pigtailed macaque (Macaca nemestrina) is an ideal experimental animal for this purpose. Pharmacokinetic data indicate that AZT crosses the macaque placenta passively, as it does in humans, and exhibits a similar metabolic profile.”

“Fourteen M. nemestrina with good estrus-cycling histories were selected from the colony at the Washington Regional Primate Research Center (RPRC)… After the animals had several successive, normal menstrual cycles, they were surgically implanted with a gastric catheter while under halothane anesthesia. They were treated postoperatively with analgesics and allowed to recover from surgery before treatment began.

AZT (1.5 mg/kg/dose) or water (control) was delivered every 4 hours through the gastric catheter with the aid of a syringe pump and timing device. Body weight was recorded before treatment, after 2 and 4 weeks of treatment, and then every 4 weeks until delivery. AZT concentration was adjusted monthly according to weight gain or loss.

After beginning treatment, all animals were mated with the same male beginning on about day 12 of the menstrual cycle.”

“When they were 4 to 6 weeks preparturition, the animals were moved to an area that was equipped with video monitoring on a 24-hour basis. From gestational day 140 until delivery, weekly examinations were conducted with the animal under ketamine anesthesia (10 mg/kg IM). Cervical status and fetal orientation were determined by palpation.”

“Directly after birth, infants were separated from their dams [moms] and placed in isolettes in the nursery of the Infant Primate Research Laboratory (IPRL), where they received 24-hour intensive care. Once they were temperature-regulating (∼2 weeks of age), they were transferred to individual cages in a general infant housing area. There they experienced the standard housing, feeding, and behavioral testing used in the IPRL (20).

All infants were provided with similar visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile stimulation in their home cages, including surrogates (cloth diapers) until 140 days of age, and daily, 30-minute socialization with an unchanging group of non-AZT-exposed animals of the same species.”

“Sixteen pregnancies were carried to term (9 pregnancies in 9 AZT females and 7 pregnancies in 6 control females). In contrast to our preliminary observations (15), the numbers of conceptions achieved and pregnancies brought to term were not statistically different between AZT-treated and control animals (p > .05).

The four pregnancies that were not carried to term (3 AZT, 1 control) were discovered to be nonviable within the first 40 days of gestation (normal gestation for M. nemestrina = 172 days). In the control pregnancy, the dam [mom] was recatheterized at 35 days of gestation and subsequently lost her fetus. *

Two of the AZT-exposed fetuses never appeared viable by ultrasound and were resorbed. The third AZT-exposed fetus was lost when the dam [mom] became ill and died. This animal had lost 15% of its baseline body weight at 31 days of AZT treatment and died at 41 days of AZT treatment. Pathologic findings revealed hepatocellular atrophy and lesions consistent with a toxic etiology.”

“Of the 16 term pregnancies, 6 were delivered by cesarean section (4 AZT, 2 control). Two of these infants were stillborn (1 from each treatment group). The fetus of the control dam [mom] had the umbilical cord wrapped 4 times around its waist and probably died during attempted vaginal delivery. *

*[In both these cases, the group not administered AZT had infant mortality due to lab mistreatment or extenuating circumstances, which skewed the statistical results. -B]

The AZT-exposed fetus was diagnosed with hydrops fetalis at the 160-day ultrasound examination and died during cesarean section 2 days later. The dam [mom] exhibited polyhydramnios, but no signs of preeclampsia or diabetes. The fetus had severe anemia (hematocrit 12%) and severe generalized edema. It also had an apparent lack of bone marrow cellularity, a marked reduction of lymphocytes in the spleen, and vascular mineralization in the brain.”

“In a subsequent control pregnancy, the dam [mom] carried a healthy infant to term.”

P.S.- With regards to your thalidomide comments-

It is controversial that no pregnancy testing was done prior to thalidomide's widespread use. There is evidence that it was done in Germany for instance (Kunz et al of Grunenthal, published in Arzneimittelforschung (1956) 6:426- 30.) However the clinician who was responsible for sounding the alarm on thalidomide in Germany, Lenz, has said "The papers published in 1956 by Kunz et al on animal experiments and by Jung on clinical experiences have so little scientific value that in my opinion they should not have been accepted for print." But the drug was specifically marketed to pregnant women, and manufacturers specifically claimed it was "harmless for the pregnant woman and the foetus". So either way, it was reckless.

You claim that thalidomide DID induce birth defects in rats, but this disagrees with a great deal of research (for instance, T. Koppanyi and M.A. Avery, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Vol. 7, 1966, pages 250-270). The only cases I know of where birth defects were caused in these animals is where massive doses were given, hundreds of times in excess of what would have caused birth defects (as a percentage of body weight basis) in humans.

Or perhaps a different strain of rat was used. After all, "Different strains of the same species of animals were also found to have highly variable sensitivity to thalidomide."(J. Mason and D. Wise in Casarett and Doull's Toxicology, 4th. edn, McGraw-Hill, 1993)

As for Dr. Kelsey, she saw that a number of researchers has pointed out potential harmful effects of the drug IN HUMANS, including Dr CF Somers and WG McBride. Although many researchers sounded the alarm, the withdrawal of thalidomide was delayed for many years... in part due to foot-dragging that came with the inability to induce teratogenesis in lab animals.

...And even Schardein admits "We are really left at present with the dilemma of not being capable of selecting which animal species are the most predictive of the likely human response." I disagree with his conclusions, and so do many others. This has been argued extensively by Hans Ruesch, Dr. Robert Sharpe, Drs. Ray & Jean Greek, among many others. Yet there is an economic and political bias that prevents most scientists from rocking the boat. Consider that it is rare to question the link between HIV and AIDS, when no research has EVER established that connection. It is just assumed.

Ah, of course, when you don't understand the topic enough to refute, make a sudden switch to the other example rather than finish discussing the first.

Honestly, I don't see how Ha's paper "trumpets the benefits of AZT." It does not even attempt to demonstrate AZT is effective for treatment of anything, and AZT is not used during the first trimester, which is the period studied in the paper. By the time this paper was published, AZT had already "trumpeted" its own benefits across a ten year period by reducing parent-to-infant HIV transfer, and greatly prolonging the life of those with HIV.

It's also somewhat ludicrous that you're saying that the drug is targeted at gays, Africans, and the underprivileged. It's being targeted at those with HIV. In case you weren't aware, in the US, African-Americans account for the highest number of new HIV cases despite being a racial minority. Male-to-male homosexual contact accounts for twice as many cases of HIV as heterosexual intercourse, again, despite being the minority of sexual interactions. See why those demographics seem to be targeted? This is no different than marketing sickle-cell treatments to African-Americans. What's your point? If you want to stop the proliferation of HIV you need to work with the highest risk groups, plain and simple.

I'm not entirely sure how taking a bunch of random quotes from Dr. Ha's paper proves rampant corruption in biomedical research, or how it proves that AZT is somehow a bad thing. You didn't even mention the point of this paper, or discuss the rationale for doing it that was provided by the researcher. So allow me to do this for you:

AZT has been used to prevent transmission of HIV between parent and offspring and slow the spread of HIV virus (impeding the manifestation of full-blown AIDS) in those who are already infected. While AZT has known serious side effects, the risk/benefit ratio is considered acceptable considering that not treating HIV is always fatal.

When used during pregnancy, it is only given during the 2nd and 3rd trimesters because safety concerns exist that have not been well-examined in models where AZT was given during the 1st trimester. Since AZT reduces the rate of transmission from 25% to 8%, it is undeniably effective, but at the time of this publication (1998) it would have been reasonable to assume that AZT could be even more effective if given earlier on in the pregnancy.

To examine the effects of AZT during the first trimester, Dr. Ha selected a strain of primate that showed a very similar biological response to AZT treatment during pregnancy to humans. He confirmed that this species showed similar responses to AZT in many cases, and noted the reasons underlying some of the differences that were observed. He then reported on the outcome using both gross and behavioral observations and a battery of biological measures.

The only conclusions Dr. Ha's study attempted to present were that this primate model seemed appropriate for studying the effects of AZT during pregnancy, and that the preliminary data did not detect any statistically significant effects on the fetus (but a larger trial would be needed to be certain this was the case).


Regarding your quotes:

Many of your early quotes are not about the "beneficial" effects of AZT you are complaining about--rather, they are Ha's observations of the results found in other studies where AZT was given to animals/people.

Your mockery of the benefits of AZT makes little sense considering that AZT has been successfully used to prevent transmission of HIV from parent to child during pregnancy, that this therapy has had few major compliciations in human use, and the majority of people who receive it follow the entire course. AZT has also been used successfully to significantly slow the progression of HIV/AIDS. I'm not sure what planet you're from, but isn't preventing children from contracting a fatal disease, and prolonging the life of those with a fatal disease beneficial?


Regarding anemia and asymptomatic conditions in macaques. Well, let's see. Both were temporary, and the offspring were viable. I'm relatively certain a parent would prefer a temporarily slightly anemic infant to an HIV-infected infant. Next.

"However, another study reported fewer pregnancies, fewer healthy fetuses per mouse, and a greater number of resorptions when mice were treated with AZT at 0.25 mg/ml (47.6 mg/kg/day) beginning 6 weeks before mating (13). The investigators suggested that AZT exposure in early gestation resulted in pregnancy failure rather than fetal malformation."

--As the authors noted, AZT possibly interfered with the initiation of pregnancy. Use of AZT during pregnancy was only approved during the second and third trimester. This very study may be why AZT was not approved for use at the beginning of pregnancy in the first place. The point of Dr. Ha's study was to examine the effects of AZT during ALL periods of pregnancy in an animal where AZT had a known similar metabolic effect to humans. Your quote is nothing but one of the reasons that were used to justify exploring AZT effect in the first trimester.

"Finally, in a study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute, the offspring of pregnant mice exposed to high doses of AZT (close to the maximum dose allowing fetal viability) developed liver, lung, and reproductive organ tumors at rates several-fold higher than those of controls"

--Surprise! They used the dose just shy of that required to kill the fetus, and you're surprised tumors developed? The reason this was brought up was to explain why these tumors aren't seen following AZT treatment in humans. We don't give women doses so high that it almost kills their fetus, so implying the drug is tumorogenic at therapeutic doses would be mistaken based on that study.

"Sixteen pregnancies were carried to term (9 pregnancies in 9 AZT females and 7 pregnancies in 6 control females). In contrast to our preliminary observations (15), the numbers of conceptions achieved and pregnancies brought to term were not statistically different between AZT-treated and control animals (p > .05)."

--Okay, so Ha's research showed no effect of AZT on conception. There a point here?

As for the 4 fetuses that were not carried to term: The control fetus was lost following a surgical repair. One AZT fetus died when the mother died as a result of AZT hepatotoxicity (a well-known and monitored side effect of AZT use in humans), and in the remaining two the fetus was resorbed early on, suggesting AT WORST an effect of AZT in early pregnancy (for which is it not approved for use).

Again, what's your point. How does this make AZT bad for people with HIV or exemplify rampant corruption? This experiment is just a guy checking to see if AZT is dangerous during the first trimester, because he thinks that starting treatment earlier might further reduce the rate of parent-to-child HIV transmission.

If this were an example of corruption, why isn't AZT prescribed during the first trimester, even though Ha's results seem to think it was safe?

As for the numerous quotes on the methods, I'm assuming you're trying to demonstrate brutality to the animals or something? I agree, this was a cruel experiment to do with primates, and while the experiment had a reasonable rationale behind it, I'm not sure it was entirely necessary. I think a better approach would have been to seriously consider why 8 of 100 children born to a mother with HIV ended up with the virus despite treatment, rather than to simply attempt a longer treatment.

So please Bryan, explain to me how an experiment that doesn't demonstrate the effectiveness of AZT, give any data showing it is beneficial, and that did not result in mothers being given AZT during the first trimester, illustrates "the depth of the corruption that exists in the revolving doors of the Pharmaceutical-University complex and the FDA" After this last post I have serious doubts about whether you even comprehend what you're cut-and-pasting.

Finally, AZT was the first drug that was effective in treating HIV, and though it isn't exactly the nicest drug on the block, I can't seem to find any indicator that its use is controversial anywhere other than quack websites that insist that HIV isn't even the cause of AIDs. On what grounds are you criticizing the utility of AZT?

Bryan said, "...And even Schardein admits "We are really left at present with the dilemma of not being capable of selecting which animal species are the most predictive of the likely human response."

--Duh, of course he wrote that in the introduction. That's the reason he conducted the review--because teratogenicity testing is extremely complicated and a review was necessary to see IF it had been helpful, how people should test for it, and how to improve upon it. What was important is that following the review, he concluded that it had been helpful.

Of course the utility of animal models in teratogenicity testing has been attacked by anti-vivisectionists Ray Greek, Han Reusch, and Robert Sharpe. No surprise there. I'd be slightly more impressed if someone who didn't discount the entire body of animal research as pointless offhand laid out criticism. They'd discount the work of Hodgkin and Huxley on giant squid axons which formed our basis for the understanding of signalling in the nervous system given the chance, I'm sure. Good luck finding a person who'd let you repeat those experiments in vivo.

No link between HIV and AIDS? Why am I not surprised that the people pushing that have got wads of cash in their logo and claim the CDC is hiding epidemiological data to protect the HIV theory while saying both that the HIV virus doesn't exist, and that it can't possibly cause AIDS because it doesn't infect enough cells (despite the fact that it doesn't exist)?

Let me guess, you don't believe in chemo or vaccines either?

I've found Ray Greek's take on diabetes particularly unimpressive. How he thinks science could make the leap from the observation of pancreatic cells of unknown function and a pituitary disorder that affected sugar metabolism to realizing that the pancreas had discrete components involved in sugar metabolism and digestion, that the problem with diabetes could be solved using a secretion from the pancreas, and that purifying insulin required inhibition of degradatory proteins residing in the digestive part of the pancreas is beyond me. I believe he also said that the first extract almost killed the patient due to species differences. I think the authors' account concluded it had more to do with using a very impure extract. We can't even haphazardly inject pure blood into random people without consequence, much less random ground up essence of pancreas.

"You claim that thalidomide DID induce birth defects in rats, but this disagrees with a great deal of research (for instance, T. Koppanyi and M.A. Avery, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Vol. 7, 1966, pages 250-270)"

--I find it amusing that you are accusing me of disregarding other research when my entire point in bringing up studies where teratogenicity was found in rats was to demonstrate that YOU disregarded other research when you plagiarized the statement, "Mice and rats were tested and not effected by thalidomide. The White New Zealand rabbit was effected only at a dose of 25 times that given to humans. Monkeys were effected at 10 times the normal dose." from Dr. Greek's essay.

P.S. Have you read the T. Koppanyi paper that requires one to submit a special request to Nature in order to read, or did you just reiterate what Greek or Sharpe said about it? Did you know the only other place that paper is cited is in textbooks on designing good animal models in toxicology? I'm going to take a wild guess you don't know the content.

Irregardless, Schardein's review accounted for strain differences and species differences in determining the utility of teratogenicity testing, and still found them useful. As he said following a review of the literature (in spite of strain differences), "That leaves the mouse and rat most predictive, successfully modeling the human reaction about 70% of the time."

In regard to the alleged testing in pregnant animals and/or recklessness of prescribing the drug for women, McBride himself stated that "all nontoxic drugs before thalidomide's tragedy were assumed to be safe during pregnancy. This pretty much means that there would be no motivation to do testing in pregnant animals even if a drug were marketed to them.

Also, Who said Kelsey depended on the testimony of McBride (who didn't make a report until AFTER not only Kelsey had rejected the thalidomide application, but also until after thalidomide was withdrawn in West Germany)? McBride's account is also supposedly the first report that was published in medical journals. Thalidomide and Congenital Abnormalities (Letter to the Editor). Lancet 1 (16 December 1961): 1358.

And Somers didn't provide any HUMAN data. He was a British researcher who did the safety testing in mice in Britain. He simply expressed concern that their test results could not be used to indicate lack of toxicity. British Journal of Pharmacology 15 (1960): 111-6.

In Kelsey's account she denied the application due to lack of rigorous testing prior to receiving her first report of possible human problems (a neuropathy reported in BMJ in 1961) and testimonial-like clinical reports provided by drug manufacturers. Due to her own experiments using animals that taught her that drugs could cross the placenta (a novel concept at the time) she asked the US drug applicant to examine the effects in pregnant specimens--but before they could do so, McBride's deformity report had come out.

Why exactly am I supposed to consider you an authority of Kelsey and thalidomide if you're telling me mouse researchers are providing human reports and she denied the drugs based on human results that weren't even published for her to see until AFTER she rejected the first round application?

I meant McBride's research when I said that it was based on human studies. Somers did mice testing that found some evidence of teratogenicity, but Chemie Grunenthal rejected it, saying that their results came out differently. Hence, the malleability of animal tests that industries use. When the result is what they want, they tout it. When the result contradicts what they want, they say that animal research has variable results. So even if animal research has some predictive ability (still debatable), it's still part of a highly corrupt system that doesn't use it the way it should be. There are many examples, for instance, AZT.

As for McBride, he sounded the international alarm well before he published his results in the Lancet. His initial testimony had a lot to do with why the drug was withdrawn. So how are we suppposed to look at YOU as an authority?

And even Schardein admits, "While the laboratory rat has been the most frequently used rodent species, the susceptibility of this species to putative teratogens has been variable, and certain teratogens such as cortisone (4,9), thalidomide (5,6), trimethadione (10), and lithium carbonate (11) have elicited a poor teratogenic response."

Anyways, the real issue is that ALL drugs are unhealthy. Isolating a compound from its natural nutritive state makes it less usable by the body, more habit-forming (causing chemical dependency, rather than enhancing the body's healing process), and potentially more dangerous.

Indigenous and folk herbal remedies have been shown to be very beneficial in treating a number of diseases, including cancer (see Hoxsey, Essiac). Both of these therapies reversed thousands of cases of cancer that were pronounced terminal by the medical authorities. Some of the chemical compounds in these mixtures have been isolated, synthesized, and shown to be beneficial in treating cancer, but they are most useful in their natural form.

The real issue is that animal testing is part of a system that suppresses natural cures. The FDA has a mandate to not only prevent drugs that are very dangerous (i.e., cause extreme ADRs that are easily traced back to the drug, rather than chronic illness, as most pharmaceutical compounds do to some extent). And drug companies use the prohibitive cost of the FDA approval process to ensure that only their treatments can be approved (Big Pharma makes more profits than any other industry combined, yet is heavily subsidized by the government in its R&D, and spends more money on advertising anyways).

Simply put, animal testing has not been of appreciable human benefit, because Big Pharma has been of questionable benefit, especially since it suppresses valid alternative treatments. For example, large-scale mass vaccination started in the mid-20th century. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a massive decline in infectious disease mortality came about due to improvements in sanitation, nutrition, and general living standards. Mass vaccination came about at the very end of this decline and had little, if anything, to do with it. Diseases for which there were no vaccines, such as tuberculosis and scarlet fever, were also brought under control well before the introduction of vaccines and antibiotics. This is a historical fact.

We will probably have trouble discussing this, seeing as how our viewpoints are too different. The whole system stinks, it can't be fixed with the same type of thinking that messed it up. In the words of oncologist Glen Warner, M.D., "Their idea of research is to see whether two doses of this poison is better than three doses of that poison."

Oh, and do you have anything to say about my remarks about Ha's obviously worthless AZT research, or do you admit that I'm right about that at least?

Aaand another thing- Specifically, Somers was informed by Chemie Grunenthal that he must have been using a particularly sensitive strain of mouse when he found evidence of possible harm. How convenient!

As for Schardein’s piece, it’s an exercise in rhetoric. For example:


“…past choices by scientists and regulatory officials alike, have often been arbitrary, based solely on past experiences and the availability of the test species.”

‘Past choices’? Don’t we still only evaluate the ‘representative’ animal model ‘based solely on past experiences and the availability of the test species’? Or, ‘arbitrarily’, as he puts it? After all, we can only go by the data we have, and economic conditions certainly drive which animals are chosen.


“With respect to responses of individual species, it appears from this limited list that the ferret, guinea pig, mouse, and rat (in descending order) were the most predictive of the human response. However, in the first two species listed (ferret, guinea pig), testing was limited and may not be representative should more putative human teratogens be put to test in those species. That leaves the mouse and rat most predictive, successfully modeling the human reaction about 70% of the time.”

Um? So, in other words, out of the data we have, ferrets and guinea pigs were the best model, but since we have MORE data on mice and rats (due to the ‘arbitrary’ reason of ‘availability of the test species’), we’re going to ARBITRARILY decide that the mouse and rat are the best model.


“It is considered by many that to be successful, animal models should mimic in the laboratory a similar or precise response to that of the human.”

In other words, the response ‘mimics’ the already established human response—it doesn’t ‘predict’ it. And anyways, inducing symptoms of human diseases only superficially ‘mimics’ the actual nature of human diseases. Macaques DO NOT suffer HIV in ‘the same’ way that humans do, as Dr. Ha claims. And an certain species or strain of an animal may react to a substance in a seemingly similar way to humans, based on what we can quantify, but this is not necessarily indicative of future ability to predict human response. Nor can response be isolated to a single part of the body, or removed from social and environmental factors...

And Dr. McBride went on to warn the world about the dangers of Imipramine (anti-depressant), and Debendox (anti-nausea drug), which both caused birth deformities. As so often happens to whistleblowers, his evidence was rejected and he was accused of scientific fraud.

He accused the N.S.W. Health Department of being a 'Gestapo State' and said 'There's big money behind this', adding 'You know, big business is just as vicious as the CIA. Because I've given evidence for the kids in America... The drug companies have been known to resort to drastic methods to discredit those who appear in court against them'.” (interview, The Sydney Morning Herald Magazine, 15 July 1989.)

This is still true. Look at Andrew Wakefield’s case, with the Lancet study, linking MMR to regressive autism and intestinal bowel disorder. Clinical, epidemiological, and “anecdotal” evidence abounds that this connection is real. Yet the drug companies tout a handful of crooked studies that don’t even compare vaccinated to unvaccinated children to “prove” that there is no link. Corruption is the rule, not the exception, in the pharmaceutical industry.

The patient is now invalidated. Whatever the patient reports is considered "anecdotal" unless it is supported by the APPROVED data from different species, and from clinical trials (which are easily manipulated--for example, extremely short testing periods). The patient's word should be first, but instead, it's last. And the animals aren't allowed to say anything at all.

Hippocrates said, “First do no harm.” He also said, “Let food be your medicine, let medicine be your food.”

The motto of the modern-day medical industry is, “let the ends justify the means.”

The Golden Rule: You reap what you sow...

Schardein et al.: "...it appears from this limited list..."

It is not clear if this list is a representative cross-section of all cases. Nor is it clear if the human epidemiological data on adverse effects are accurate, because ADRs are so under-reported.

Schardein et al.: "the mouse and rat...successfully model...the human reaction about 70% of the time.”

Even assuming this figure can be considered reliable, it still means that 30% of the time, the mouse and rat are a poor model. Not a very good margin of error, especially with the stakes so high.

Bryan,
You assertions regarding McBride are so ridiculous and unfounded that I've almost decided that there's not point in even considering what you say.

You said:

"he sounded the international alarm well before he published his results in the Lancet. His initial testimony had a lot to do with why the drug was withdrawn. So how are we suppposed to look at YOU as an authority?"

Why? Because:

1. No authority is dumb enough to contradict a claim based on cited information without even bothering to find a source.

2. An account reports that McBride's first observation of limb deformation occured in April 1961, after thalidomide's first round application had been shot down by Kelsey.

3. Dr. Lenz (the man who also independently reported thalidomide limb effects in Germany which triggered it's withdrawal there) reported "There are only conflicting reports unsubstantiated by documents on the reaction of his [McBride's] colleagues and the Australian representatives of Distillers Company, producers of the British product Distaval between June and December 16, 1961, when a short letter of McBride was published in the Lancet. As usual, even the "conflicting reports" that may have begun in June happened AFTER Kelsey's rejection. Hardly an "international alarm"

4. An "international alarm" should have been picked up by other doctors who used thalidomide, right? Well, Lenz is 100% explicit about when he realized thalidomide was a teratogen: "I had suspected thalidomide to be the cause of an outbreak of limb and ear malformation in Western Germany for the first time on November 11, 1961, and by November 16, I felt sufficiently certain from continuing investigations to warn Chemie Gruenenthal by a phone call."

So, Mr. Authority, where exactly is any evidence of this "international alarm" being sounded prior to November 1960 by McBride, when Kelsey first rejected thalidomide's application?

Source for #2: http://thornlea.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_119514/File/Library%20Classes%20Documents/Gr.%209%20Science/Pregnancy%20and%20Fetal%20Development/thalidomideandcongenitalabnormalities.pdf

Source for #3 & #4: http://www.thalidomide.ca/history-of-thalidomide/

Source for Kelsey's first rejection: http://leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/351/Lutz.html#fnB74

Good luck.

"Oh, and do you have anything to say about my remarks about Ha's obviously worthless AZT research, or do you admit that I'm right about that at least?"

Uh, yeah. I wrote more than a page on it 8 hours before you wondered this.

Since you've missed new posts occurring above old post before....this isn't the first new post since your last response...keep going up.

You said: "Macaques DO NOT suffer HIV in ‘the same’ way that humans do, as Dr. Ha claims."

--Where did he claim this? The paper you submitted only said that the biological response during pregnancy to AZT is similar to humans. Neither Pubmed nor his C.V. show a single paper where Dr. Ha studied the effect of AZT on treating HIV, nor do they have a single paper where Dr. Ha worked with an HIV or SIV-infected primate. Your initial claim back in your first post that Dr. Ha has done studies showing AZT is effective at treating HIV in primates is completely false, demonstrating once again your absolute lack of reading comprehension. In what study did Dr. Ha use an HIV-infected pregnant monkey? In what study did he show AZT could treat HIV? What are you smoking that makes you think a paper studying toxicity in disease-free is proving a treatment for diseased monkeys?


As for EVERY quote you're using from Schardein regarding teratogenic differences in a single species: Yes, every scientist on the planet has already agreed that no single species can sufficiently indicate teratogenicity. That's why every regulatory agency requires more than one species be used in testing for teratogens. The fact is that Schardein (and others) concluded that when testing was done in more than one species a more reliable outcome is gained. (better than the 70% seen in rats or rabbits alone).

Also, one thing about preclinical animal testing I think you're missing is that such testing is done primarily to protect those involved in the clinical trials. It's also used to determine how rigorous certain aspects of the trial should be. A drug that shows even potential signs of teratogenicity in the animal studies will be extra-closely examined for teratogenic effects in the clinicals. Finally, another valuable aspect of the teratogenicity testing in animals is that we are able to determine HOW the drug caused deformation. That knowledge combined with knowledge of human physiology allows us to determine if the same mechanism exists in humans. If it does, we then also know to design drugs that don't disrupt the associated metabolic pathways.

"Anyways, the real issue is that ALL drugs are unhealthy. Isolating a compound from its natural nutritive state makes it less usable by the body, more habit-forming (causing chemical dependency, rather than enhancing the body's healing process), and potentially more dangerous"

--Soooo, in your view a vegan taking the recommended dose of vitamin B12 (a natural substance which is isolated from its natural source) will become unhealthy and addicted to the vitamin? Good luck with that theory.

The only part of that statement that's even remotely true is the part about usability, and that's only in certain cases (calcium, for one), and in many of those cases, addition of the compound found in the natural source can fix the usability problem. Many synthesized or purified substances are MORE potent than their endogenous analogs (if there even are natural or endogenous analogs), and the majority of therapeutic drugs are not habit-forming.

How many people do you know who are foaming at the mouth unable to get their next penicillin fix? Speaking of which, eating the mold penicillin comes from is less effective at treating bacterial infections than purified penicillin. And I hate to break it to you, but there were thousands of people who died in the wars preceding WWII whose "body's healing process" failed to protect them from fatal wound infections that occurred in non-fatal wounds.

"The real issue is that animal testing is part of a system that suppresses natural cures."

--Not true. Most naturally-occurring substances would fall under the category of "dietary supplements." Dietary supplements do not need to be registered with the FDA before sale, and the FDA is not responsible for demonstrating if it is unsafe until AFTER it's on the market.
http://www.fda.gov/food/dietarysupplements/default.htm

If people wish to claim that a natural remedy is effective, they need only either conduct an experiment to demonstrate it's effect, or convince a medical professional that it's worth examining in humans.

The only thing preventing Big Pharma from promoting natural remedies is that they can't patent them and make profit. Animal testing has absolutely nothing to do with this--especially since safety does not need to be demonstrated in substances that are used as natural remedies.

Ah, I'm not surprised you're in the anti-vaccine boat. Okay, so you think they're useless and environmental factors account for all improvements. Explain to me then why there is only one documented case of an untreated individual surviving rabies (even though 55,000 die annually worldwide), and no one in the US has ever died from rabies if vaccinated promptly following exposure?
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001334.htm

Let me guess, you also think the MMR vaccine causes autism even though it's been shown that Dr. Wakefield altered patient reports to support the link. You probably also didn't note the increased incidence of these diseases in Britain that appeared when many people stopped being vaccinated as a result of Wakefield's publication. In your view, just the people who opted out of vaccination must have had a sudden decline of "sanitation, nutrition, and general living standards."
Clinical Medicine, Journal of the Royal College of Physicians, Volume 7, Number 6, December 2007

You wrote: "‘Past choices’? Don’t we still only evaluate the ‘representative’ animal model ‘based solely on past experiences and the availability of the test species’? Or, ‘arbitrarily’, as he puts it? After all, we can only go by the data we have, and economic conditions certainly drive which animals are chosen."

--Um, no. You still haven't fully read that article have you? I think you're just grabbing any old thing you think supports your point.

You've misinterpreted what he meant by "past experience." Schardein noted that this was previously mentioned immediately following your quote. Here is the initial quote: "As in the case with rats and mice, the selection of this species has been based largely on availability, economy, and long history as a laboratory animal."

In other words, prior to the time of the review, people just grabbed whatever old animal was around, whatever animal they were trained to use, or whatever animal had been used by others studying a certain thing in the past. At the time of the review, animals were chosen based on how well they demonstrated human-relevant teratogenicity across all those studies that occurred between 1961 and the 80s (or by presence of known homologous physiological processes).

You said: "Um? So, in other words, out of the data we have, ferrets and guinea pigs were the best model, but since we have MORE data on mice and rats (due to the ‘arbitrary’ reason of ‘availability of the test species’), we’re going to ARBITRARILY decide that the mouse and rat are the best model."

--Wrong again. What he's saying is that by numbers alone ferrets and guinea pigs had the highest correlation with humans, BUT these animals hadn't been used enough to statistically prove they are better than animals who've been used more (like the mouse and rat). Note that ferrets were technically 100% predictive based on his table. BUT, only three of fifteen teratogens assessed were tested on them. How could he responsibly say they were better if they hadn't been tested with the other twelve? Rats matched humans unequivocally in 10 of 15. So you see, if ferrets failed on five of the twelve remaining drugs, they'd be worse than rats. The only way to see if they are better is to test the other drugs. Only then could he remove his caveat.

So in the end what he basically said was "of the animals in which we have sufficient data, X species have had the best individual results. It's possible that ferrets and guinea pigs are better, but we'll have to test them more to find out."

The only thing arbitrary was the animal used in the previously occurring studies. Making choices based on how successful those results were is limited to species which were studied in the first place, but is no longer "arbitrary" since you're choosing the most indicative of those species. For instance, this review found that the cat only predicted human teratogenicity in a single case, so choosing a cat as a test subject isn't a good idea.

Your mistaken perception here could also apply to your natural treatments. How do you think such things were discovered? In the case of South American medicine men, they initially arbitrarily used whatever was on hand. Over generations, they learned that some things could treat certain conditions. Once the connection was discovered, the choice was no longer arbitrary. In the same way, animal models studying poorly understood phenomena were initially studied in whatever animal was available. After reviewing the results in many species and under many conditions, conclusions were drawn about which animals and conditions should be used based on THAT data at THAT time.


"And anyways, inducing symptoms of human diseases only superficially ‘mimics’ the actual nature of human diseases."

--This depends on whether the theory behind the model is correct. For instance, theoretically some forms of tinnitus are caused by inappropriately large representation of a single frequency in primary auditory cortex. Causing similar changes in rat cortex triggers symptoms similar to tinnitus. If a treatment for the model of tinnitus is successful, and it also works in humans, we then know to further explore how the tinnitus was generated in the animal, and what the treatment did to fix it. This results in learning more about human biology via inference than is possible without harming humans. When a treatment works in animals, but not in humans, we learn that the theory behind the model must be incorrect, and consider other possibilities. Like I've mentioned before, even failures are valuable.

You said: "Clinical, epidemiological, and “anecdotal” evidence abounds that this connection is real. Yet the drug companies tout a handful of crooked studies that don’t even compare vaccinated to unvaccinated children to “prove” that there is no link."

--How much of this literature have you read? Why aren't you complaining about Wakefield's account lacking controls, and relying on unquantifiable things like parent recollection? Why do his accounts in the paper not match the original patient records? Why aren't you complaining that he was simultaneously conducting an undisclosed study to determine if parents who thought MMR can litigate (with him standing to gain financially)?

Have you actually read the clinical, epidemiological, and "anecdotal" data from both sides, or are you just copying from an anti-vaccine website? Doesn't it strike you as odd that despite this "totally obvious" link papers attempting to explain the cause aren't in consensus? What author other than Wakefield has examined clinical data and explicitly stated the link was unequivocal? Why did withdrawal of MMR in Japan increase the number of autistic children? Why do even doctors who think there might be a link between MMR and autism still believe that vaccines are extremely important? Why do you think that just because evidence "abounds" that the conclusion is correct when contrary evidence also "abounds"? Why do you think that anecdotes count for anything. I can find an anecdote demonstrating pretty much anything I want.
http://www.jpands.org/vol9no2/bradstreet.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15877763

The least a person can do is admit when they can't even get their concrete and well-recorded historical accounts right...

I had to step away from this conversation for a few days.

First: I did goof, McBride was the first to send a letter to the Lancet (in 1955, I believe), but it was Lenz's letter to a medical journal that caught Kelsey's eye. Both scientists observations were based on experiences with HUMANS. The "conflicting reports" you mention were probably based on McBride's conflicting data between the clinical experience, which reported limb defects, and his animal research, which was inconclusive.

And, oops, I did somehow miss your comments about HIV. Remarks: yes, HIV virus does exist, in fact, it was probably engineered as a race-specific bioweapon. It resembles a hybrid between Bovine T-cell leukemia virus and Sheep Visna virus, a wasting virus associated with "Mad Cow Disease" (scrapie in sheep). (See: Robert Strecker, MD) There was a DoD appropriation in 1969 I believe, which stated "Within the next 5 to 10 years, it would probably be possible to make a new infective microorganism which... might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease." HIV virus was largely spread through contaminated vaccines--it was even on the news a few years ago that Bayer sold HIV contaminated vaccines.

But anyways, HIV and AIDS are ASSOCIATED, but that HIV is THE cause of AIDS has never been amply demonstrated. But there is certainly a great deal of research in the literature that shows AZT's harmful effects, as well as many personal accounts. And Ha did say that macaques suffered HIV "the same" as humans--in his presentation.

As for your remarks on vaccines, I would ask that YOU take a look at the studies you refer to, instead of drawing your assumptions from shamelessly pro-vaccine sources. I HAVE read some of the studies, from the journal Pediatrics for example, alleged to disprove the autism-MMR connection. They are absolutely pitiful and I'm shocked at how useless the "peer-review" process really is. Like I said, they don't even compare vaccinated populations to unvaccinated controls. And Wakefield's study was very well-conducted, you are basing your ideas on a journalist (Brian Deer) who shouldn't have even had access to the patient records he claims were altered by Wakefield. And other mainstream studies have supported Wakefield's et al's hypothesis. Read a paper called "Response to Dr Ari Brown and the Immunization Action Coalition" for more information. Russell Blaylock MD has also summarized much of this research.

Oh, but I guess thimerosol (found in some vaccines and prescription drugs, etc.), which is virtually identical to methylmercury, a well-established neurotoxin, actually does cause an "improvement in test scores" as one study claimed (I have not actually read it, just seen it referenced on pro-vac sites). Give me a BREAK!! Do you see why I’m so distrustful of the edicts of the medical authorities?

Oh, and vitamins by themselves can be used in disease treatment. Linus Pauling used mega-doses of Vit C to cure cancer and other ailments. Dr. Klenner used the same tactic to cure polio. This is probably not recorded on the NIH website, why would it be?

I will say that animal testing and the rest is useful for preventing large-scale tragedies like Thalidomide (but things like it still happen--Vioxx, for example). But they do not protect against long-term, chronic damage from pharmaceutical drugs, petrochemicals, etc. It is often claimed that degenerative diseases like cancer are going up because "we're living longer"--this is a fallacy. The AGE-ADJUSTED cancer rate is rising--more people in every age group have cancer. Children in America never got cancer, type I diabetes, autoimmune disorders, neurological disease, etc. in the 1950s. Why are they getting it now? It's not "genetic", its environmental. A percentage of the population is more genetically susceptible to the toxins found in products officially declared within "allowable" toxicity ranges. Dr. Leonard Horowitz has termed this "iatrogenocide".

Bryan,
To avoid overloading you with information, I'm sticking to thalidomide until you come up with some kind of valid source to contradict my account or admit you're completely fabricating the history of thalidomide to suit you. Where the heck are you getting your thalidomide history from? Why do you continue to contradict what I'm saying without providing any sources? I've literally used first-hand accounts from Lenz and McBride to show you that your account isn't true. Neither Lenz nor McBride made any reports of any nature until AFTER Kelsey rejected the thalidomide application.

"I did goof, McBride was the first to send a letter to the Lancet (in 1955, I believe)"

--First, let me tell you that when you are arguing about the sequence of events, "I believe" does not cut it when you're contradicting a cited account. The Lancet published McBride's letter in December 1961 (you're six years early!). Lenz himself even says this is when the letter was first published by McBride.

Lancet: Thalidomide and Congenital Abnormalities (Letter to the Editor). Lancet 1 (16 December 1961): 1358
Lenz: http://www.thalidomide.ca/history-of-thalidomide/ (transcript of Lenz' presentation available from many other sources)

"it was Lenz's letter to a medical journal that caught Kelsey's eye"

--Lenz specifically states that he didn't even SUSPECT that thalidomide and deformities were linked until November 1961. How exactly did Kelsey reject the thalidomide application in November 1960 based on an account by Lenz if he didn't even suspect the link until November 1961?

Lenz: same source as previous
Kelsey: http://leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/351/Lutz.html#fnB74

It's not even possible for McBride to have known about the link in 1955, since even after going through patient histories in retrospect the earliest case of a thalidomide defect occurred in December 1956 (ear deformity). Lenz stated that this case wasn't even noticed until AFTER the thalidomide-deformity relationship was already discovered post-1961. The only thing doctors were aware of pre-1961 was an increase in awful birth defects without a known cause.

"The "conflicting reports" you mention were probably based on McBride's conflicting data between the clinical experience, which reported limb defects, and his animal research, which was inconclusive"

--Conflicting data between animals and humans? Really? Carefully read this sentence again:

"There are only conflicting reports unsubstantiated by documents on the reaction of his [McBride's] colleagues and the Australian representatives of Distillers Company"

How do you think this is regarding data? This is referring to the fact that some people testified that McBride notified the drug distributor in Australia about his suspicions before publishing in the Lancet, and that they ignored him. Since there are no documents to prove this, it is only alleged to have occurred. Even so, the earliest "alleged" report was made in June 1961, 7 months AFTER Kelsey rejected the US thalidomide application. So even the earliest "alleged" report of problems was AFTER Kelsey rejected the application.

So please, provide some EVIDENCE that anyone was aware of the thalidomide-deformity link in humans prior to November 1960. Don't just waddle back in here and say they did. Prove it, as I've proven that the people you claimed Kelsey rejected the application based on didn't even know about the link until after she rejected it.

Really, it's beyond ridiculous that you're insisting that the doctors who noticed the deformity link inspired Kelsey, since every single account given of her rejection specifically notes that she had rejected the application multiple times before she got info about the birth deformities. You'd have a better case if you insisted the thalidomide-linked neuritis inspired her initial decision (although that information also came in in December 1960, again AFTER her first rejection).

Why not just admit that she initially rejected it based on insufficient safety testing in both animals and humans? She even specifically asked for more animal tests after the initial application. Birth defects were not a factor even remotely. The birth defects were simply the event that caused Merrell to stop re-submitting the application to her.

Randy-

I think it would be fair to say that “inadequate testing” was the main reason for Kelsey’s initial reluctance to approve Thalidomide. But “inadequate testing” is still a problem in many cases today. For example, in 1992 the “Urabe” MMR vaccine was withdrawn under the direction of Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson (A Frances Kelsey figure). After four years on the market, it was linked to childhood inflammation of the brain lining, leading to seizure disorders, behavioral problems, and mental disability. But I’m sure this has NOTHING to do with Wakefield et al.’s case…

I don’t doubt that drug regulation has become more sophisticated to a degree, but serious reactions to “approved” substances under “directed” usage are still a large problem. Acute reactions are rare, chronic conditions are more common, but harder to trace back to the source(s). So different “strains” of humans, just like different “strains” of rats, react differently to a drug. A small percentage have very severe reactions, but drug companies do everything they can to confuse, misdirect, and deny. Iatrogenocide.

But I do want to thank you. Your experience with toxicological research is far more indepth than mine. I’ve learned a lot about the intricacies, and I appreciate it. The reason is because I do not believe that humans have a moral right, duty, or privilege to perform “experiments” on other animals that we would consider ethically wrong to conduct on humans. I am committed to ending this practice and finding alternatives. So I want to know as much as I can. I’m still learning; we all are.

There are many different ways to think and to approach problems. Just because one way is widely practiced and shown to be reliable under certain parameters, does not mean that it is the necessary, only, or best way.

Certain pharmaceutical products are highly effective, especially under extreme conditions. But many drugs simply react to and attack bodily symptoms, rather than promoting the healing process. For instance, cancer chemotherapies cause tumors to shrink (they kill all rapidly-dividing cells in the body, such as the intestinal lining, or hair cells), but tumors are merely a manifestation of the disease process, not the underlying CAUSE of cancer.

Herbal concoctions along the lines of Essiac and Hoxsey have been shown to provide great benefits in palliating the pain associated with cancer, arresting tumor development, and causing regression of tumors. The reasons include detoxification effects, particularly of the bloodstream and liver, and providing extremely dense sources of many nutrients. For these reasons, the treatments have shown to be beneficial in a wide variety of ailments. If you wish to know more, consult a wide variety of sources before making up your mind.

Hoxsey was discovered when a horse developed cancer and was put out to pasture to die peacefully. Harry Hoxsey observed that the horse ate certain unusual “weeds”, and that over time the tumor dissipated. Essiac is believed to be derived, at least in part, from an indigenous remedy. Natives to the Americas and elsewhere learned how to exploit nature in a way that works along with natural processes by intense observation of the habits and habitats of animals, but furthermore, through a code of honor that respected the “personhood” of other beings. In fact, many pharmaceutical agents are derived from the “active compounds” of pirated (er, “shared”) indigenous remedies.

Now, I’m not saying that penicillin f’rinstance has NO clinical value. It is certainly valuable for treating a wide variety of infectious diseases, if nothing else is available. But Robert Becker, MD, and Kaali & Lyman, separately, discovered that very mild electrical currents, along a limited frequency range, could inactivate a wide variety of infectious bacteria, viruses, and fugal pathogens in vivo. Becker also found that electrical currents, especially when administered in vivo through silver wire, could stimulate damaged cells to revert back to stem cells and then into healthy tissue. In this way he greatly improved the speed of healing broken bones, treating burns, and even reversing cancer cells back to normal! His funding was mysteriously pulled by the NIH.

You mentioned vitamin B12. First, it is a common misconception that this only comes from animal sources. Perhaps this is related to the mistaken idea that the bacteria associated with this vitamin only reside in the stomachs of cows—in reality, such bacteria are common in healthy soils. What is more accurate is to say that B12 is difficult for ANYONE to get under the system of corporatized industrial agriculture. Intensive monoculture farming, pesticide use, and mechanized tilling have led to heavy erosion and loss of soil microbes. Another important factor is B12 absorption. If you buy vegetables from local or truly “organic” sources, vitamin B12 should not be a deficiency issue at all. You can get it from animal products in this way too, but, well, they probably just got it from the plants they ate.

By the way, a little-known member of the B-complex vitamins is B17. It was found by Dr Kanematsu Sugiura (a longtime and distinguished Cancer Research Scientist at Sloan Memorial Kettering Cancer Research Center), as well as others, to effectively reduce and eliminate cancer. However, subsequent studies performed by other “researchers” administered amounts too small, or used a poorly-made synthetic version of the nutrient, and in this way it was discredited. If you look it up you will probably hear that it’s “toxic” because it contains cyanide. Well oh darn, I guess B12 is toxic too, because it also has the cyanide molecule, locked up and chemically inactive as such. Healthy cells do not have enzymes to lyse cyanide from the molecule, whereas cancer cells do. The most likely mechanism for B12’s effectiveness is that it releases cyanide into cancer cells, along with other toxins that healthy cells are capable of detoxifying, and this results in a selective poisoning effect. Successful cancer treatment.

Megadoses of good-quality vitamins have been demonstrated to be effective in reversing many illnesses. I mentioned cancer and polio. Cancer is closely related to the acidity of the body. Body cells tend to be aerobic, whereas cancer cells are anaerobic, related to the process of fermentation. This process can occur healthily in the body--for example, lactic acid formation during a heavy workout when the muscles are starved for oxygen. But an excessive, chronic over-acidification of the body is directly responsible for the takeover of cancer. Eating excessive protein, refined sugars, and processed carbs leads to this condition. Food also contains toxins and radiation, which also wastes the nutritional content. Meat is particularly high in carcinogens, due to the principle of bio-accumulation up the food chain. Plus animals are given growth hormones (which cause uncontrolled cell growth? I never would have imagined!) and arsenic in the case of chickens (a poison to humans, which speeds the growth of chickens).

Environmental conditions, such as nutrition and toxic exposure, have always been the strongest determinants of health or sickness—not modern medicine. AIDS, a “syndrome”, is related to a variety of immune depressing conditions including malnutrition and heavy drug use. Kary Mullis, who discovered the polymerase chain reaction test used to identify HIV virus, has pointed out that there is little evidence behind the HIV-AIDS hypothesis, just a lot of money behind it. Peter Duesberg, the distinguished researcher who first isolated ‘oncogenes’, has documented extensively the lack of evidence for this connection, as well as the harmful effects of AZT.

In the words of Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, “When you're one step ahead of the crowd you're a genius. When you're two steps ahead, you're a crackpot.”

(And no, I have not read the majority of the literature Duesberg cites. Have you read most of the literature referenced in the Scardein paper, on which you base your opinion? No? Then, with all due respect, shaddup.)

In short, there is no good reason to expose “HIV+” individuals to this highly dangerous drug! It kills HIV because it disrupts the DNA replication cycle and is highly toxic to all life! Can’t you think outside the box to see how insane the things you’re defending are? You remind me of this quote by Sir Winston Churchill: “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”

VACCINES

"I HAVE read some of the studies, from the journal Pediatrics for example, alleged to disprove the autism-MMR connection...Like I said, they don't even compare vaccinated populations to unvaccinated controls."

--Ah, so you're judging the quality based on the anti-vaccine movement's criticism of lack of controls while accusing me of only looking at pro-vaccine research. Let me refer you to what you said about Dr. Wakefield's study:

"Wakefield's study was very well-conducted"

Let's look at Wakefield's study:

First, did you happen to notice it had no controls? This is, after all, the only criterion you used to trash non-specific pro-MMR papers.

Second, let's examine the flaws in this "very well-conducted study"

1. "We investigated a consecutive series of children with chronic enterocolitis and regressive developmental disorder."

--The "consecutive series" claim was one of the major factors that led to the retraction of Wakefield's paper. He pre-selected a set of children for both their symptoms, and their parents' belief about the cause of their symptoms. This is not permitted in clinical studies.

2. "Onset of behavioural symptoms was associated, by the parents, with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination in eight of the 12 children"

--Parental association is not a variable acceptable for use in a "very well-conducted study." This introduces bias into the experiment--especially when months to years have passed between the interview and the vaccine.

3. "We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described"

--So the "very well-conducted study" that you say is "linking MMR to regressive autism and intestinal bowel disorder" flat-out concludes that it has not proven a link.

Either Wakefield or his peer-reviewers recognized the shortcomings of his method of association, and everyone else would do well to recognize this as well. He even referred to the available epidemiological evidence at the time as well: "If there is a causal link between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and this syndrome, a rising incidence might be anticipated after the introduction of this vaccine in the UK in 1988. Published evidence is inadequate to show whether there is a change in incidence or a link with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine"

You know what this paper proved regarding the link between MMR and autism? That people who thought the problem started after MMR still thought it started after MMR when they had testing done. The only thing this paper did do was show a population of children with developmental regression that coincided with bowel problems.

In addition, I don't care about bad papers that fail to link autism and MMR. I want to see the supposedly many good papers demonstrating a definitive link. Wakefield's paper was no better than the bad papers you're talking about (I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually worse).

IOM's recent review of vaccine ADRs concluded that the evidence is strongly against an MMR-autism link--even after excluding all studies with no controls and other poor methodologies.

http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Adverse-Effects-of-Vaccines-Evidence-and-Causality.aspx

Wakefield's study was not intended to be conclusive. It's flaws were acknowledged. It was an exploratory study, largely in response to the utter lack of safety testing with regards to multivalent vaccines. Like Kelsey, he thought more testing was needed, and did the best he could with limited resources. Kelsey was villified too.

Parents who observe their child developing normally, then noticably regress with extreme symptoms shortly after a vaccine, have understandable concerns that Wakefield was addressing. I think these parents are more trustworthy authorities than epidemiologists that have never even looked at an autistic child. A great deal of research in mainstream journals vindicates Wakefield, it's just buried. Wakefield's and Blaylock's papers reference some of it, seek it out if you're at all interested in the truth.

Another good resource:

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/wakefield%e2%80%99s-lancet%c2%a0paper%c2%a0vindicated/

MISC

"By the way, a little-known member of the B-complex vitamins is B17. It was found by Dr Kanematsu Sugiura (a longtime and distinguished Cancer Research Scientist at Sloan Memorial Kettering Cancer Research Center), as well as others, to effectively reduce and eliminate cancer."

--Thanks for the laugh. Sugiura did this in animal models ONLY (wait, don't you say such tests are pointless anyhow?). Inefficacy claims weren't the result of the factors you mentioned. It was the result of him being unable to get the same results when he repeated the study blinded. Plus the tests in 14 other animal models where it was also ineffective.

In case you can't accept that interpretation, here's Sugiura's own statement regarding B17. It "is not a cure for cancer, but is a palliative agent." (Science 23 December 1977:Vol. 198 no. 4323 pp. 1231-1234 )

...or in layman's terms. You feel better as you die.


"But Robert Becker, MD, and Kaali & Lyman, separately, discovered that very mild electrical currents, along a limited frequency range, could inactivate a wide variety of infectious bacteria, viruses, and fugal pathogens in vivo."

--*FACEPALM*

Why? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the only evidence of K&L's work is in their patent (which doesn't require the patented item to actually work).

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that their treatment required re-implantation more than once per year. A very invasive process!

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they supposedly cured an AIDS patient, but there's no record of it other than on random websites.


Maybe it has something do with claims that it works on all varieties of pathogens.

Maybe it has something to do with Becker (the only one who actually published anything) using colloidal silver as the anti-bacterial agent (not electrical currents), and that this was only usable when the silver could come into contact with pathogens.

Maybe it has something to do with the really whacky (and inconsistent) theories about how this works. My favorite being the part where one of the blood electrification pioneers doesn't recommend Beck's AC stimulation because "negative stimulation is bad, only positive is good."

...which totally disregards that you can't even generate a voltage without both a positive and negative pole.

BTW, I work with neurostimulators, so the mumbo-jumbo amongst the jargon is like instantly recognizable.

Also, electrotherapy is widely studied. Conspiracies stating that his funding was mysteriously pulled are unlikely to be true considering I work with a research group that works almost entirely on projects using electrical stimulation, and we have no funding issues, and have successfully transplanted some treatements into clinical trials already. Some of the research is good, and some is bunk. Implantable devices are HUUUUGE profit-makers.



"HIV virus was largely spread through contaminated vaccines--it was even on the news a few years ago that Bayer sold HIV contaminated vaccines."

--No, it wasn't. You're actually confusing two different events. The first was a THEORY that the origin of HIV was the result of making polio vaccine using primate kidney cells that may have been naturally infected with SIV back in the 50s before there were tests for that type of virus (which most have decided is extremely unlikely). The second was the discovery that Bayer sold a product that wasn't heat-treated to kill HIV in foreign countries after the US banned sales. The product was made from human blood, and was for stopping bleeding in hemophiliacs. Without heat treatment, there was a risk that a donor may have had HIV and contaminated the product. This doesn't account for HIV transmission outside of hemophiliacs.



"Oh, and vitamins by themselves can be used in disease treatment. Linus Pauling used mega-doses of Vit C to cure cancer and other ailments. Dr. Klenner used the same tactic to cure polio. This is probably not recorded on the NIH website, why would it be?"

--You totally missed the point. You previously stated that, in general, natural substances that were isolated from their sources were less effective, potentially dangerous, etc. Your current example just further demonstrates that your initial statement was not correct. To justify your original statement you'd have to say that Pauling found an effect when patients ate tons of oranges, but isolated vitamin C did not work.

As for recording the use of vitamin C...well if you hit the lit of the time, Pauling's studies were actually popular. So popular in fact that the Mayo Clinic ran their own vitamin C cancer trial (which failed). It's no longer considered a valid treatment due to a re-analysis that found the original study was flawed, along with other clinical trials that failed to replicate the results. Also, you should note that Pauling didn't CURE cancer. He extended the life of terminal patients.



"...a well-established neurotoxin, actually does cause an "improvement in test scores" as one study claimed"

--First, remember these aren't like math scores. These are tests for developmental impairments. It was more than one study (12 actually) and the effect was very small. On the contrary, another group of studies (7) found a similarly small decrease in the scores. None of the studies "claimed" thimerosal increased or decreased test scores. The statistical analyses simply suggested there may be a relation. Merck wasn't running around claiming thimerosal made kids smarter, like you're making it seem. CDC review concluded that there was no effect after taking all these studies into account.



"But there is certainly a great deal of research in the literature that shows AZT's harmful effects"

--And there's a great deal of data showing that AZT has extended the lives of HIV patients. For patients who develop ADRs, it's up to them. Live a short, normal life until you get AIDs and die, or live a much longer, but potentially uncomfortable life. It's simply a matter of preference. Contrary to what you may believe, it's not in a drug company's interest to poison patients. A dead, or non-compliant, patient does not buy more drugs. It would make more sense to sell placebos if efficacy wasn't required.

"But they do not protect against long-term, chronic damage from pharmaceutical drugs..."

--No variety of testing can protect from this. Once the short-term safety is determined, post-approval monitoring is supposed to occur in the general population to examine long-term effects. It's extremely difficult though, as there are thousands of other factors at play in the general population, so unless the effect is relatively large, it'll never be picked up.

"I’m still learning; we all are."
--Smartest thing you've said to date."



"AIDS, a “syndrome”, is related to a variety of immune depressing conditions including malnutrition and heavy drug use."

--Oh, so the vast majority of untreated individuals who contracted HIV via intimate contact or tainted blood and died in under a decade of AIDS all became heavy drug users or malnourished, but those who received treatments did not? Yarp, that conclusion doesn't make a lick of sense. Of course, this neglects to mention all the Africans that died following Duesberg convincing their leaders of the HIV-AIDS myth.

"Kary Mullis...has pointed out that there is little evidence behind the HIV-AIDS hypothesis, just a lot of money behind it."

--He's also pointed out that ozone depletion is a myth, as well as human-induced climate change. Note: he hasn't done research in ANY of these areas, and as such, is technically not an expert. One thing I find particularly amusing about such claims is that they usually reference some HIV-negative people dying of the same opportunistic diseases in the end. Implying that this proves HIV doesn't cause AIDS is unfounded since HIV is not the only thing that can cause a person to become severely immunosuppresed. It's like saying that strenuous exercising doesn't cause muscle ache because getting hit by a car causes muscle ache.


I really have a hard time taking you seriously since your position is infallibly anti-pharmaceutical, pro-conspiracy. I work in developing human treatments for neurological disorders, and I'm not sitting here plotting how to make money by poisoning people, or making them think they're being cured while committing iatrogenocide, or inventing treatments that have no point just to rake is some ca$h.

It's true, sometimes pharma companies engage in unethical behavior, but that isn't ALWAYS the case. Many of your arguments boil down to the, "We're right because we're the good guy being persecuted by the majority" defense, which is totally ad hominem. Instead of admitting your studies may be wrong, you infallibly conclude that everyone else's studies are wrong (even when you don't understand your own studies--Sugiura's mouse studies for instance).

"Another good resource:"

--Out of all the "buried" research demonstrating a link between vaccines and autism you went and picked that!?

1. The whole page only attempts to link autism and GI disorders. It says nothing about vaccines (except for the supposedly incriminating email).

2. The email links encephalopathy, NOT autism. Encephalopathy as an ADR was acknowledged by the IOM in the same report where they agreed MMR does not cause autism.

Again, a case where you don't seem to understand what you're reading.

"Kelsey was villified too."

--By Merrell, the drug distributor, not the scientific community. She was the one sitting there going, "Merrell, your studies suck. Do them right." Her position is closer to that of the GMC who did basically the same thing to Wakefield.

Ugh. I don't have the patience to correct everything you said wrong, or to explain myself better. I've provided you some resources, I don't care how you interpret them.

"Ugh. I don't have the patience to correct everything you said wrong"

--More like you don't have the patience (or any supportive sources) to correct ANYTHING I said wrong. Not that you provided any evidence that the majority of your new claims were true in the first place. (I'm looking right at you bringing up Sugiura's B17 in mice experiments despite the fact that you have previously tried to prove that animal models are irrelevant). Admit it, you thought he cured cancer in humans, didn't you?

Don't complain if you make a discussion overly complex by introducing tons of marginally-relevant sub-topics. Don't introduce new topics unless you "have the patience" to explain them well and respond.

"I've provided you some resources,"

--Quite the cop-out there. You provided resources? More like you provided a link to a single anti-vaccine website that mistakenly tried to equate encephalopathy with autism, and mentioned a couple of authors who "vindicate Wakefield" (one of which was Wakefield!). You didn't even bother to cite sources for your initial information.

Oh, and mind you. Blaylock's published papers do not "vindicate" Wakefield's. Wakefield specifically tried to link MMR given as a single vaccine to autism, but Blaylock, who cites ONLY Wakefield's paper during the two times he mentions MMR in his published papers, tried to prove that it was the sheer number of vaccines that caused problems--not the actual MMR vaccine. Don't let the abundance of technical jargon in Blaylock's paper fool you into making conclusions that aren't there to make.

OK, here's the human clinical research of Ernesto Rodriguez on Laetrile:

http://www.worldwithoutcancer.org.uk/analysisindex.html

I was using Sugiura as an example. The fact that he was using animal research does not validate the use of these methods, they were the just the standard way of doing things. The results (eliminating or regressing tumor growth, not just palliation) could have been found in other ways, and have been found by others. Ernst Krebs, Jr., for instance. His positive results were covered up. Ralph Moss explains:

“Of the nine members of the Hospital's [Sloan-Kettering's] powerful Institutional Policy Committee, seven had ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The Hospital itself invested in the stock of these same drug companies. Directors of the biggest tobacco companies in the U.S., Phillip Morris and RJR Nabisco, held places of honor on the Board. Six Board Directors also served on the Boards of The New York Times, CBS, Warner Communications, Readers Digest, and other media giants."

And it's still that way. According to sourcewatch.org:

"James Robinson III, Chairman of the MSKCC Board of Overseers and Managers, is also the director of Bristol-Myers Squibb, the world's largest producer of Chemotherapy drugs. Paul Marks, MD, MSKCC's President and CEO, is the director of Pfizer. Another board member, Richard Furlaud recently retired as Bristol Myers' president. The late Richard Gelb was Vice-Chairman of the MSKCC board as well as CEO of Bristol-Myers. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency in the U.S. government conducting and funding medical research. MSKCC Director Thomas Kelly, M.D., Ph.D. serves on the both the NIH Advisory Committee and Scientific Management Review Board. Furthermore, expensive laboratories and diagnostic equipment have already been paid for by large corporations."

There are other controls for cancer—Tullio Simoncini healed many with IV baking soda (YES, he did). The Kangen water alkalization/microclustering process also shows great promise in curing chronic diseases (see Hiromi Shinya, MD, for example).

Linus Pauling's vit-C treatment recieved a lot of publicity, just like Laetrile. You say subsequent studies disproved it. Well, when the tobacco-lung cancer connection was found, studies came out that found no connection--mainly animal studies. This always happens anytime a new discovery threatens the economic basis of major industries. There is an entire INDUSTRY devoted to creating disinformation like the kind that you are relying on. You accuse me of being biased, but why did you automatically assume that Paulin

When I said chemicals were higher quality, more easily absorbed, and safer in their natural state, I meant IN GENERAL. I also neglected to mention that though this applies to vital nutrients, megadoses (like Pauling’s… another highly distinguished scientist) have been proven to be far superior than any pharmaceutical drug in treating major illnesses. You can get sick or die from a vitamin c deficiency, especially since humans can’t synthesize v-C (incidentally, most lab animals can, ‘cept guinea pigs). Africans aren’t dying from AZT deficiency or vaccine deficiency. Chronic malnutrition and polluted water lead to immune suppression and wasting disease. I wonder, how are malnourished people supposed to mount an immune response to the pathogens in vaccines? How are babies supposed to mount an immune response to Hep B vaccine, given at birth to all (most babies are not even at risk), when the immune system is not fully developed until 6 months of age? Questions.

There is a huge amount of controversy as to the toxicity, or necessity, of a wide variety of industrial chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs. Wakefield is one example, his hypothesis rests on a link between autism, vaccines, AND intestinal bowel disorder. I showed you that link to show you some research that supported various aspects of his findings. There are other indepth articles that point to other research findings too. Or look to the REFERENCES of Wakefield et al’s paper. However, I would recommend reading Wakefield’s paper I shared with you, it addresses some of the common, juvenile criticisms of his hypothesis which you seem to subscribe to.


The point made by him, Blaylock and many other researchers is that vaccines, especially when administered simultaneously or in quick succession, are related to iatrogenic disorders.

The bottom line about the Thalidomide tragedy is that, even though testing was sub-par (pharma companies take every opportunity to cut corners, even today), the fact remains that, even after the human effects were known, it was quite difficult to find evidence of teratogenicity in any animal model. It was found in a few obscure or inbred strains of rabbit and rats, at doses far higher than they were observed in humans (and I’m aware toxicology testing often uses higher relative doses than what ultimately becomes declared “safe”). Even if these two species were used, it’s difficult to say that the right strain would have been identified, or teratogenicity considered a risk at such extreme doses. Anyways, the variability of responses in different strains of other animals only shows that drug adverse effects will also vary between humans with different genetics. Iatrogenocide!


Sharing information is one thing, but you only seem interested in seeing what you want to see. The evidence is out there, if you put effort into finding it. I have no wish to make the effort if you aren’t going to take a fair look.

{EDIT)...automatically assume that Pauling was wrong, not vice versa? Pauling is yet another distinguished world-class scientist.

Every major discovery has been met with bitter skepticism and resistance. Sometimes it is short, other times it can last for decades or more. Just because certain discoveries are maligned and little-understood by many of the "experts" does not mean that they are invalid.

...When I mention researchers who used animal testing, such as Robert Becker, I don't intend to support vivisection. However, I will acknowledge valuable discoveries, even if I disagree with some of the methods that were used. The fact that these and other discoveries have not been developed to their potential, even though it could have ended a great deal of human suffering and animal testing, leads me to conclude that the pharmaceutical-petrochemical-industrial industry never intended to uplift... but to dominate.

"However, I would recommend reading Wakefield’s paper I shared with you, it addresses some of the common, juvenile criticisms of his hypothesis which you seem to subscribe to"

--I did read a chunk of the Wakefield paper. For simplicity's sake I chose to look into one of Wakefield's counters to Dr. Brown (The Japanese MMR withdrawal data). Shall we analyze it for accuracy?

Wakefield said:

1. "the Japanese data show an initial increase in autism incidence in the first recipients of MMR"
--The study did not include ANY data prior to the first children who received MMR, so it's impossible to say there was an increase. This statement is unfounded.

2. "...followed by a declining incidence when MMR was abandoned due to complications"
--See Figure 3 in the paper. Decrease in MMR vaccinations did not coincide with a decrease in autism. In fact, in the 1988 group, when vaccination was the highest, autism had the lowest incidence of all the years in the study. There is no basis for Wakefield's conclusion.

3. "a new policy was eventually formulated, and children received measles and rubella on the same day, followed by mumps vaccine around four weeks later."
--This is also incorrect. Four week separation was recommended between all vaccines. It was not recommended that measles and rubella be given on the same day. Furthermore, mumps vaccination was made voluntary.

4. "This, in effect, gives overlapping exposures tantamount to the combined MMR vaccine, since the live viruses remain and reproduce within the child during a short period."
--Considering point 3, this assumption can no longer be made. First, because mumps vaccine was no longer mandated. Second, because the "same day" exposure for measles and rubella was not the case.

5. "This policy was never tested for safety, and autism incidence went on to triple from 55/10 for those born in 1991 to 161/10."
--Wakefield cherry-picked the year with the highest incidence rate in the entire study for the sake of comparison. On none of the other years following implementation of separate vaccinations was incidence "tripled"

Let's use Wakefield's own method to "prove" that decreasing vaccinations increases autism incidence:
Autism incidence nearly doubled (from 47.6/10k to 85.9/10k) between the years of 1988 and 1990 even though the percentage of vaccinated children dropped from 70% to 35%.

See what cherry-picking inappropriately can do? The data isn't meant to be interpreted that way.

So, how exactly is this seeing only "what I want to see." All I've done is demonstrate that Wakefield misread the paper. If YOU aren't the one guilty of seeing ONLY what you want to see, feel free to either counter my interpretation or concur that Wakefield's rebuttal on this issue is entirely unsupported.

Japan Paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01425.x/abstract;jsessionid=6B3BA4B94FBFE71A41BC22516C03D02E.d01t01


THE REST...
efficacy of B-17 "...have been found by others. Ernst Krebs, Jr., for instance"

--Where did Krebs ever demonstrate this effectiveness? I can't find an example of him ever doing an efficacy experiment in dish, mouse, or man. Botched the history again?

"You accuse me of being biased, but why did you automatically assume that Pauling was wrong?"

--I didn't automatically assume it was invalid. I automatically assumed you misrepresented it. I'm primarily after you for saying Pauling "cured" cancer. He NEVER cured cancer using vitamin C. His clinical trial was only conducted on terminal patients, and his results sought to demonstrate that vit-c treated individuals died later than untreated. Read for yourself--nowhere in his paper does he claim to cure or reverse cancer. Your insistence that he ever cured cancer shows a "juvenile" misunderstanding of his paper. His patients may have simply lived longer via the effect of vit-C on things totally unrelated to the cancer. As usual, did you even read his paper--or are you just repeating what you heard about it because that's what YOU want to believe. If I'm wrong, explain to me how his paper shows that he "cured" cancer.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC431183/?page=1

In addition, considering that his entire analysis is based on survival times, a criticism which demonstrates that he determined treated subjects to be terminal earlier than untreated is worth examining.

"Every major discovery has been met with bitter skepticism and resistance"
--Nice ad hominem, btw.

PS - Wakefield's study was intended to find a statistically significant correlation between certain genetic susceptibilities, particularly mitochondrial dysfunction, and MMR-induced autism. It was intended as an exploratory study, not conclusive, but that was the reason why it was set up as it was. He wanted to see if certain children were contraindicated to the vaccine, based on existing evidence that they might be. He didn't "create" the scare, it had always existed, because there was always compelling evidence for it. Perhaps you would be more satisfied with this page-

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/vaccination-causes-autism-%e2%80%93-say-us-government-merck%e2%80%99s-director-of%c2%a0vaccines/

etc.

PPS - Here's some information about colloidal (ionic) silver.

http://www.silvergen.com/argyria1.htm

Speaking of Kaali & Lyman, Bob Beck (not Becker) has improved their discovery by making it non-invasive. The plans for this blood electrifier/purifier are available online, so anyone can build one.

Do not answer this until after responding to the criticism of Wakefield's response to Dr. Ari.

What was the point of the silver page? Demonstrating the lack of toxicity of colloidal silver adds what to this debate? I only mentioned that silver was used because you were trying to say Becker's treatment was mediated by electrotherapy. The electrical component of his experiment was simply what produced the silver particles.

My original criticism of your examples of the success of Lyman's electrotherapy for treating disease stands. You provided 0 papers on the subject. The only mention of efficacy is in a patent.

Furthermore, the science isn't sound at all for the external stimulator. The "theory" is that you need to produce the proper currents in the blood stream to inactivate passing pathogens. However, when using an external device outside the skin, there's no way to know what the intensity is in the blood. You need to account for the amount and type of tissue between the skin and the target, which is not done here.

Look at TENS as an example. Stimulus parameters are almost invariably based on either sensory perception or muscle activation since this is the only way one can tell how strong the stimulation is at the desired target.

"PS - Wakefield's study was intended to find a statistically significant correlation between certain genetic susceptibilities, particularly mitochondrial dysfunction, and MMR-induced autism"

--I'm sorry. Which study was this? Wakefield's retracted study only examined a link between bowel disorders and regressive autism. The term mitochondria does not appear in the link even once. No genetic analysis was conducted.

I really hate it when people back down from point-by-points right after accusing someone of blindly accepting things.

Come on, boss. Show me how Wakefield's contrarian interpretation of the Japanese paper was even remotely supported by their data.

You said:


“Wakefield specifically tried to link MMR given as a SINGLE VACCINE to autism, but Blaylock… tried to prove that it was the sheer number of vaccines that caused problems--not the actual MMR vaccine. Don't let the abundance of technical jargon in Blaylock's paper fool you into making conclusions that aren't there to make. ” (emphasis mine)

I like how you continually insult my reading comprehension ability, yet you don’t even seem to know what you’re talking about. MMR = Measles-mumps-rubella. MMR is NOT a single vaccine, it’s THREE VACCINES given at once (because it’s cheaper and more convenient for vaccine manufacturers—not due to efficacy or safety). Wakefield has specifically said that the issue is the MMR triple-jab given all at the same time, and that all of the vaccines given individually would be substantially safer (but still dangerous, for reasons I’ll explain below).


Firgure 1 from the Japan study you reference shows a 25% decline in autism between 1990 and 1991. This was when the MMR (triple antigen) vaccine first was withdrawn from the market and three separate jabs were introduced. So these data show that, when multiple vaccines are not given at once, the autism rate declines—just as Wakefield et al would have predicted.


Clifford G. Miller continues:

“The Honda/Rutter paper claimed that new cases of autism in Japan fell for children born in 1991-92 (as the confidence of Japanese parents fell in the dangerous Japanese MMR vaccine withdrawn on safety grounds in 1992) but then rose sharply again and especially for children who were born in 1993-94…
The authors wrongly claimed this meant it was unlikely MMR vaccine caused autism spectrum disorders.


“However, what the authors failed to do and what any scientist would have done would have been to ask "why?". Why did autism rapidly increase for children born in 1993-94? The authors were duty bound to consider this before going into print. This is particularly notable because their data shows they were clearly on notice that withdrawing the dangerous Japanese MMR vaccine was associated with a marked drop in new cases of autism. Anyone can see that from their graphs. Autism cases fell for those born in 1991-92 as uptake of the Japanese MMR vaccine fell and was withdrawn in 1992.


“What the authors failed to do was to look to a peer refereed paper published only three years earlier in 2002 which set out the Japanese vaccination data: Development of Vaccination Policy in Japan: Current Issues and Policy Directions, Hiroki Nakatani,Tadashi Sanoand Tsutomu Iuchi Jpn J Infect Dis 55 101-111 2002. That paper showed that in 1995 there was a sharp rise (150%) in single measles and single rubella vaccinations. Many of the children getting those vaccines in 1995 would have been those born in 1993-4. This rise was also coupled with a sharp rise in Japanese Encephalitis vaccinations (200%) between 1993 and 1995. Japanese Encephalitis vaccine was given in three separate vaccinations and each one contained the poisonous mercury-based neurotoxin thimerosal. So JE vaccine is just like DTP given to children in the USA and UK up until very recently in that it contained that neurotoxin and was given in three jabs to infants or toddlers.


“Professor Rutter has many close associations with the drug industry and particularly with GlaxoSmithKline, having been a paid expert witness on their behalf in the UK MMR vaccine damage litigation. That was not declared in the Honda/Rutter paper nor were any other potential conflicts of interest or statements of funding (about which see more below). Professor Rutter is also one of the main prosecution witnesses in the witchhunt in the British General Medical Council against medical doctors Andrew Wakefield, Simon Murch and Professor Walker-Smith.”

http://www.whale.to/vaccine/miller40.html


Anyways, since you seem to not know very much about what vaccines actually are, I’ll explain some of the ingredients that are harmful, such as mercury and aluminum. The neurotoxicity of Thimerosal is very well established in the literature. Tobacco Science and the Thimerosal Scandal by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr references some of these papers. Here are some more recent ones:

“Major databases (PubMed and Web-of-science) were searched for in vitro and in vivo experimental studies that addressed the effects of low-dose Thimerosal (or ethylmercury) on neural tissues and animal behaviour. Information extracted from studies indicates that: (a) activity of low doses of Thimerosal against isolated human and animal brain cells was found in all studies and is consistent with Hg neurotoxicity; (b) the neurotoxic effect of ethylmercury has not been studied with co-occurring adjuvant-Al in TCVs; (c) animal studies have shown that exposure to Thimerosal-Hg can lead to accumulation of inorganic Hg in brain, and that (d) doses relevant to TCV [thimerosal-containing vaccine] exposure possess the potential to affect human neuro-development. Thimerosal at concentrations relevant for infants’ exposure (in vaccines) is toxic to cultured human-brain cells and to laboratory animals.”

Integrating Experimental (In Vitro and In Vivo) Neurotoxicity Studies of Low-dose Thimerosal Relevant to Vaccines
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21350943


“Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds for autism diagnosis associated with neonatal hepatitis B vaccination among boys age 3-17 years, born before 1999, adjusted for race, maternal education, and two-parent household. Boys vaccinated as neonates had threefold greater odds for autism diagnosis compared to boys never vaccinated or vaccinated after the first month of life. Non-Hispanic white boys were 64% less likely to have autism diagnosis relative to nonwhite boys. Findings suggest that U.S. male neonates vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine prior to 1999 (from vaccination record) had a threefold higher risk for parental report of autism diagnosis compared to boys not vaccinated as neonates during that same time period. Nonwhite boys bore a greater risk.”
Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058170

More studies:
http://www.14studies.org/ourstudies.html

Vaccine recipients register positive on antibody tests because the vaccines contain adjuvants, which generate concentrated, unremitting immune responses over long periods of time.

“Aluminum is an experimentally demonstrated neurotoxin and the most commonly used vaccine adjuvant. Despite almost 90 years of widespread use of aluminum adjuvants, medical science’s understanding about their mechanisms of action is still remarkably poor. There is also a concerning scarcity of data on toxicology and pharmacokinetics of these compounds. In spite of this, the notion that aluminum in vaccines is safe appears to be widely accepted. Experimental research, however, clearly shows that aluminum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and may thus have profound and widespread adverse health consequences. In our opinion, the possibility that vaccine benefits may have been overrated and the risk of potential adverse effects underestimated, has not been rigorously evaluated in the medical and scientific community.”
[L. Tomljenovic, and C.A. Shaw, Aluminum Vaccine Adjuvants: Are they Safe? Current Medicinal Chemistry, 2011]

“Aluminium has been proven to kill nerve cells, which we now see in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s.”

Dr. Alex Schauss

Aluminium has been documented since the article in Lancet 14 Jan 1989 to be associated with Alzheimer’s Disease, as well as blocking absorption of essential minerals like calcium, iron, and fluoride.

“The finding of a geographical correlation between death rates from dementia and water aluminium concentrations in Norway has since been replicated in several other surveys.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1490429

“Neuro-toxic effects of aluminium, with disorders mainly in motor coordination, have been proved in epidemiological studies of subjects professionally exposed to aluminium.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9863396

According to Dr. David Ayoub, “In spite of known toxicity of aluminum for over 100 years, no human or animal safety studies have been performed that attempted to categorize the range and potential adverse reactions or defining exposure limits from immunizations during infancy and early childhood.” [Ayoub D. Aluminum-containing vaccine adjuvants: toxicokinetics, neuropathology, and potential link to autism. 2008.]


According to Wakefield et al:
“Aluminum-containing vaccines include Hepatitis A and B, DTaP, HiB, pneumococcal, and several combination vaccines. The ‘trace amount’ of aluminum in the vaccines is included precisely because it is highly biologically active, boosting the antibody response to the vaccine. Indeed, it is likely that the vaccine formulations that contain such aluminum adjuvants would be ineffective in the absence of the aluminum. The FDA’s per-shot aluminum limits for aluminum adjuvants… take no account of cumulative or simultaneous vaccine exposures, are unadjusted for body weight in contrast with most permissible toxic exposure levels, and are based on efficacy and not on safety conditions.”

According to Meryl Nass, M.D., an authority on the anthrax vaccine,
"A novel feature of the two H1N1 vaccines being developed by companies Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline is the addition of squalene-containing adjuvants to boost immunogenicity and dramatically reduce the amount of viral antigen needed. This translates to much faster production of desired vaccine quantities."

“Squalene is a cholesterol precursor, which stimulates the immune system nonspecifically. We demonstrate that one intradermal injection of this adjuvant lipid can induce [chronic, immune-mediated] joint-specific inflammation in arthritis-prone DA rats.”
[The American Journal of Pathology, The Endogenous Adjuvant Squalene Can Induce a Chronic T-Cell-Mediated Arthritis in Rats, 2000]

So, then, by extension, would it be fair to conclude that squalene can cause rheumatoid arthritis in “arthritis-prone” humans?

Pauling’s paper said:
“Analysis of the survival-time curves indicates that deaths occur for about 90% of the ascorbate-treated patients at one-third the rate for the controls and that the other 10% have a much greater survival time, averaging more than 20 times that for the controls.”

These results clearly show dramatic improvement in TERMINAL cases that conventional treatment could do NOTHING WITH. So we are already dealing with the WORST case scenarios, yet the results are still pretty impressive.

Also note, for instance: “Similarly, all of the seven bladder-cancer patients in the ascorbate-treated group, with one exception because of her frailty, had received megavoltage irradiation and several had had a partial cystectomy (one total) before ascorbate treatment was commenced when it seemed that these standard procedures had failed.”

A more indepth analysis would examine the damage caused by these and other types of invasive conventional treatment methods. Yet the patients still lived much longer! Your criticism is that the patients died… I never said vit-c makes people immortal! At least admit that this treatment has value… maybe not a “cure”, but benefit. Also note that, as I said, vitamins on their own are not as valuable as when they are contained in whole foods.

Speaking of nutrition, minerals are essential co-enzymes, and a proper mineral balance in the body is essential to good health. Due to industrial agriculture, our food and water no longer contains the mineral balance we need. And pollutants leave us with higher concentrations of harmful compounds like cadmium and lead. Yet it's likely that balancing nutrition could solve many health problems. For example, lithium you know prevents antisocial behavior; this is because it balances manganese, which can lead to violence if it is in excess in the body. Something as simple as proper mineral balance can reverse many illnesses, neurological disorders and social problems.

I have taken the time to respond because I want to show you that it’s POSSIBLE that there is substantial corruption in medical testing, that the authorities are highly deceitful and reckless with human lives, and—most importantly to this discussion—that animal testing is not necessary for human health, but is actually part of a system that sells dangerous products and prevents people from having control over their own physical and emotional well-being.

Regarding Vitamin B17. According to G. Edward Griffin (World without Cancer):

“Dr. Ernst T. Krebs, Jr. fully explored how laetrile (B17) works. Kreb's focused on the vitamin factor--the use of B17 or laetrile. Ernst Krebs, Jr. had already discovered another vitamin, B15. He extracted laetrile or B17 from apricot pits. As a result of his research, by 1952 Dr. Krebs put forth the theory that cancer was a nutritional deficiency disease-like scurvy (deficiency of vitamin C) or pellagra (deficiency of niacin, a B vitamin).

“Laetrile contains two toxic elements--cyanide and benzaldehyde. A protective enzyme, rhodanese, neutralizes these toxins in healthy tissue by converting them to healthy by-products. If the tissue is cancerous, however, there is an excess of the enzyme beta-glucosidase. Rather than protect the tissue, this enzyme unlocks or frees both the toxic elements.

“Combined cyanide and benzaldehyde are far more toxic. Cancerous cells lack rhodanese so the protective enzyme is not present-the combination of cyanide and benzaldehyde are released to attack the cancerous tissue. Laetrile, therefore, has the unique ability to nourish normal cells yet destroy cancer cells! One official within the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Dr. Dean Burk, was brave enough in 1971 to speak out and confirm that Kreb's research on the effectiveness of laetrile was indeed true.”

In his paper, "The Nitrilosides ( Vitamin B-17 ) - Their Nature, Occurence and Metabolic Significance (Antineoplastic Vitamin B-17)" Ernst T. Krebs, Jr. writes:

“Vitamin B-17 (nitriloside) is a designation proposed to include a large group of water-soluble, essentially non-toxic, sugary, compounds found in over 800 plants, many of which are edible. These factors are collectively known as Beta-cyanophoric glycosides. They comprise molecules made of sugar, hydrogen cyanide, a benzene ring or an acetone. Though the intact molecule is for all practical purposes completely non-toxic, it may be hydrolyzed by Beta-glycosidase to a sugar*, free hydrogen cyanide, benzaldehyde or acetone.

[*cancer cells crave pure sugar, being anaerobic and highly inefficient, as described by Otto Warburg. This draws them to the B17 molecule. Resveratrol, an antioxidant found in the skin and seeds of grapes with anti-cancer properties, is associated with B17]

“One of the most common nitrilosides is amygdalin. This nitriloside occurs in the kernels of seeds of practically all fruits. The seeds of apples, apricots, cherries, peaches, plums, nectarines, and the like carry this factor; often in the extraordinary concentration of 2 to 3 per cent. Since the seeds of fruits are possibly edible, it may be proper to designate the non-toxic water soluble accessory food factor or nitriloside that they contain as vitamin B-17.

“The presence of nitriloside in the diet produces specific physiologic effects and leaves as metabolites specific chemical compounds of a physiologically active nature. The production by a non-toxic, water-soluble accessory food factor of specific physiological effects as well as identifiable metabolites suggests the vitamin nature of the compound.

“The ubiquity of the compound or its metabolites in plant and animal foods further corroborates its vitamin status. And the development of specific deficiency states as a result of its deficiency in or absence from the diet, and the correction of such pathologic deficiency states by supplying the factor confirm its vitamin status...”

This is apparently from the Journal of Applied Nutrition (Volume 22, Numbers 3 and 4, 1970). I didn’t seem to have any trouble finding it.

Bryan,

I asked YOU to read the paper and see for yourself. I didn't ask you to copy what a website said about the Japan results (based on a fabricated graph that isn't even in the paper, by the way). I didn't ask for Clifford's take either. Why? Because NONE of what they say is supported by the paper, and if you were to actually look at it, and think about it, you'd actually see this.

"Firgure 1 from the Japan study you reference shows a 25% decline in autism between 1990 and 1991. This was when the MMR (triple antigen) vaccine first was withdrawn from the market and three separate jabs were introduced"

--No, MMR was withdrawn in 1993. You wonder why I mock your reading comprehension? It specifically states in the second paragraph of the introduction that the combined vaccine was begun in 1989 and terminated in 1993. Furthermore, you ignored Figure 3 which shows the MMR vaccination rates for each year, and that it clearly shows that 20-30% of the population born in 1991 was receiving MMR. I guess I shouldn't blame you since you're pretty much just copying someone else's interpretation of a graph that claims to be from the Japan paper.

So, you made up your own withdrawal year and ignored the graphical presentation of vaccination rates superimposed over autism rates to make a complete fallacious argument?

LOOK at Figure 3. Pay attention to the five years accross which MMR was given. Notice how autism only decreased on 1 of 5 of those years even though the vaccination rates fell greatly every year? Autism should decrease along with vaccination rates if they were correlated. Saying it decreased ONCE during the entire period in no way supports your conclusion. Think about it this way. If someone thought spaghetti consumption correlated with violent crime, and across five years spaghetti consumption rapidly decreased, would this be a valid conclusion if violent crime only decreased on 1/5 of those years? You see how stupid saying something like this is? It's completely illogical.

Use your own eyes to see that vaccination fell for five years, but autism increased in 4/5 of them. It should be easy to see that decreasing MMR did not decrease autism. The single jabs didn't begin until the 1993 birth year, so 1988-1992 is ONLY MMR.

"The Honda/Rutter paper claimed that new cases of autism in Japan fell for children born in 1991-92"

--The authors made no such claim verbally or in graphs. Also for those birth years autism INCREASED slightly even though vaccination rates dropped from ~25% to nearly 0%. Quite the opposite of what Mr. Clifford asserts.

This fellow, like you, just made something up that's not even suggested in the data.

“However, what the authors failed to do and what any scientist would have done would have been to ask "why?". Why did autism rapidly increase for children born in 1993-94? The authors were duty bound to consider this before going into print."

--No one is "duty bound" to find out "why" something happens in an epidemiological study. It could have been excessive contamination of potatoes from an industrial mercury spill for all we know that caused the increase between 1993-1994. All authors are bound to do is determine if the factor of interest correlates with the examined outcomes. Considering that autism did not decrease as MMR was withdrawn, it can be safely assumed that MMR did not likely contribute to autism. What the data DOES show, is that someone should look into the correlation of the NEW vaccines with autism. As it were though, the combined MMR in no way showed any correlation with autism.

“What the authors failed to do was to look to a peer refereed paper published only three years earlier in 2002..."
--This whole paragraph is ridiculous. Honda was examining if the combined MMR vaccine correlated with autism. Not the new single measles, rubella, or Japanese encephalitis vaccines. This is like saying that my caloric analysis of a pepperoni pizza is wrong because I didn't include the calories of sausage, pineapple, and ham.

"Professor Rutter has many close associations with the drug industry and particularly with GlaxoSmithKline"
--Oh hooray, it's the good 'ol, "this data must be bad because one of the authors has industry ties" ad hominem you love so much. He couldn't possibly been asked to consult on Honda's paper because he has decades of experience with autism and epidemiological studies (sarcasm). As long as the data is true, the conclusion stands. If the data ISN'T true, then why is everyone so eager to misinterpret it when they could just call him a liar? Pick your approach, you can't have it both ways unless he's a pathetically horrible liar.

Of course, this criticism is coming from Clifford G. Miller, who is WHO exactlY? The man can't even read a graph properly.

"I like how you continually insult my reading comprehension ability, yet you don’t even seem to know what you’re talking about...Measles-mumps-rubella. MMR is NOT a single vaccine
"
--No, MMR IS a SINGLE vaccine that includes three antigens (You quoted this yourself in your last post, yet somehow failed to notice?). Of course, you should realize I'm already fully aware of what MMR is since I just wrote about how Japan dropped MMR and replaced it with separate measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines. Of course, I could continue to make fun of you by pointing out that neither the source you copied, the Japan paper, or Clifford said MMR was withdrawn in 1991.

"Anyways, since you seem to not know very much about what vaccines actually are..."
--Don't make me laugh, Mr. "I-didn't-know-that-a-single-vaccine-could-give-immunity-to-multiple-virii." There's a reason why they call it an "MMR vaccine" and not "MMR vaccines" after all.

"At least admit that this treatment has value… maybe not a “cure”, but benefit. Also note that, as I said, vitamins on their own are not as valuable as when they are contained in whole foods."

--Huh? I never said Pauling's data wasn't impressive when taken at face value. As I clearly stated, he did not CURE cancer in anyone. Everyone died relatively quickly--some just less quick than others. This could simply be due to the effect of vitamin C on something other than cancer (like general health). But more importantly, an expert basically concluded that the group used for comparison (which were just cancer patient records from previous years) were not comparable to the vit-c group. His criticisms are valid, but there's no way for me to check the validity since the patient records are not publicly available (even the original article is no longer available). Because of that, the vit-c issue is pretty much a dead end unless someone new thinks it's worth studying IV vit-c with valid controls.

Criticism here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GCU/is_1_17/ai_59318832/?tag=content;col1

Also, you mentioning the natural state again is pretty funny, because one of Pauling's criticisms of other trials was that they used ORAL forms of vit-c, and that's why they were unsuccessful. Pauling basically said only IV would work, and I'm pretty certain there are no natural liquid forms of vit-c you can directly inject into veins without killing people.

"The neurotoxicity of Thimerosal..."
--Oh, you didn't think I knew about thimerosal even though I've mentioned it in previous posts? Let's not start another line of argument until MMR is addressed--and considering that MMR never contained thimerosal, this is completely irrelevant.

So Bryan, again--I want YOU to read the Japan paper and come up with YOUR own conclusion about what the data means. Go back, and see if the vaccine was withdrawn in 1993 as I stated. Also, see if decreasing MMR vaccine showed decreasing autism in Figure 3.

I'm not even going to read the rest. Bringing up all sorts of new and random information isn't going to get you anywhere. Stick with one topic till resolved. What I'd also really like, is for you to go back and tell me whether my criticisms of Wakefield's interpretation of the paper are correct.

"I have taken the time to respond because I want to show you that it’s POSSIBLE that there is substantial corruption in medical testing"
--Dude, there's corruption present in everything. It's just that YOU are assuming that everyone who disagrees with your stance is part of the corruption.

You said: "The results (eliminating or regressing tumor growth, not just palliation) could have been found in other ways, and have been found by others. Ernst Krebs, Jr., for instance. His positive results were covered up"

Then I said: "Where did Krebs ever demonstrate this effectiveness? I can't find an example of him ever doing an efficacy experiment in dish, mouse, or man. Botched the history again?"

Then you countered with an ENTIRE POST that mentioned nothing but theory that failed to mention even a SINGLE experiment Krebs has ever done using B17 and any form of cancer cells.

So yeah, again, where exactly is there any evidence he's every actually confirmed this theory himself?

"This is apparently from the Journal of Applied Nutrition (Volume 22, Numbers 3 and 4, 1970). I didn’t seem to have any trouble finding it."

--Another miserably failed dig.
Why?
1. I read that article.
2. It has NOT A SINGLE example of Krebs doing anything with cancer cells and B17.

I attended this symposium and sat in the row right next to the mic where Morgan spoke from.

Morgan was indeed causing a disturbance at the event, she asked her questions and Dr. Ha was politely answering a majority of them, it's true he did not discuss the one primate who died in captivity but he addressed the issue of unapproved surgeries quite well, in fact Morgan agreed with him that those surgeries must have been necessary.

When Morgan had taken up more than 8 min of the q & a session there were still other people who wanted to ask questions so she was asked to walk away from the mike. She did not and instead started advertising her own event, something you're not supposed to do in a q&a. Noonan had her mike cut off so they could proceed to questions from people on the other side of the room. Instead of returning to her seat Morgan began raising her voice and continued her rant. Two public safety officers approached her and asked her to take her seat, when she refused one placed his hand on her arm and instantly there was chaos. She was twisting and pulling and screaming as they escorted her out of the room, and she was clearly resisting. Once she and most of her group were gone, the room quieted, questions continued and a lot of valuable information was learned.

I later saw Morgan and a group of her activists down by the public safety office, she did not appear injured to me, given the nature of the 'injuries' I may be mistaken however. I'd like to think they are valid and are not being exaggerated for press attention, but I've seen instances of the opposite in the past.

Dr. Ha is a very polite, nice man and he and Dr. Noonan don't deserve to be treated with such abuse, especially when it's one-sided. Dr. Ha was very kind to do the event but he almost didn't because of people like Morgan who go in with the (perhaps subconscious) intent of bringing chaos.

I do not approve of how Public Safety handled it but I do believe Morgan needed to be removed from the site because she was disrupting the event.

An impasse of this type is only possible to resolve using the now completely verified(undeniable and undenied)facts posted at:

http://www.alligator.org/users/profile/driedbrainwash/

The poster had to use a nom-de-plume for obvious reasons.

Well, Bryan fled from the point-by-point on the Japan study as expected, and also failed to admit that his thalidomide timeline had no basis in reality (and thus his conclusions regarding its disapproval are 100% impossible).

...and DJ? Huh? What fantasy is this about animal researchers being Satanist, serial-killing, wife-beaters? You call that a "verified" fact? LOL. I'm dumbfounded over the logic of how one can quantify that all researchers are "undiscovered serial killers," since such an assumption require that their perversion be discovered.

Although `Randy` thinks holocausts and abuses are `fantasy`,the DB postings explain that`Dr Camster was Nobel-nominated for the linked details:

http://drbsmith.wordpress.com/world-first-exclusive-most-and-fastest-produced-nobel-nominations-all-mentioning-paul-camsters-apocalypse/

The main subject of this current forum here seems to have started out as the assault on the completely innocent Ms M Dunbar which could live in infamy as a world-class abuse,and speaks for itself.

The `assumption` about serial killers derives from the HSUS work showing
that actual convicted serial killers almost all started out as animal
abusers and could probably have been stopped at that stage.It was known as `First Strike`.Maybe it would have saved Ms Dunbar from assault,who knows? If so,wouldn`t it have been worth it?

Let's watch those ad hominems DJ. What I said was that the "fantasy" is that it's possible to know that the majority of animal researchers are "undiscovered serial killers."

The assumption about serial killers based on HSUS "research" does absolutely nothing to prove your point. How many serial killers did HSUS discover were animal researchers? How many animal researchers get off on causing animals pain? I assure you, the motivation for most researchers is knowledge, not sadism.

Even if you consider a scientist an "animal abuser" the argument still doesn't hold up. It's like saying "Fire ants are red, therefore ALL ants are red."

Quite the logical jump you're taking there.

The validation of Camden's work is cute as well. Oh lookie, ONE guy wrote six emails asking that he get nominated in EVERY category. I guess that means if I nominate myself six times in one hour then I will become the "world-first-exclusive-most-and-fastest-produced-nobel-nominations" award winner!

I wonder how much better your life would be if you weren't driven mad by the conspiracy monster that seems to be your main focus.

Actually it is `Randy` who uses the words` serial-killing,wife-beaters` and `perversion` for animaltest cults in his posting.Neither DB,myself nor Dr Camster use those words,however apt they may be.Neither do we spell satanism with a capital S- out of respect(?)

The `science` content of those is of course near zero.

Reformed animaltest cult member DB says that some of Dr Camster`s Nobel sponsors were told that their families will `die in their sickbeds`if they don`t withdraw the nomination.No apologies for that from Randy?

Whether or not Randy thinks that`s an ethical route to go down,there is always
the option of reviewing Dr Camster`s book(s)unfavorably if the details mentioned in them are not accurate,but so far no-one has done that-not even Dr Ha.

In fact,DrBSmith`s blog based closely on the same details has rave reviews by the hundreds if not thousands:


http://drbsmith.wordpress.com/rave-reviews/


http://drbsmith.wordpress.com/new-rave-reviews/

The extreme Islamists who tried to impose an animaltest cult medical monopoly and destroy free speech and democracy by burning hundreds of women alive in the
London carbombing were actually convicted of conspiracy which is not a `theory` in that instance.The hate-crime aspect against women fit the pattern of that against Ms Dunbar in motive.

If Randy knows the `science` content of assaulting Ms Dunbar in front of her mother to destroy freedom of speech and democracy & as an atrocity against the norms of any civilized form of behavior,maybe he`ll be kind enough let us know

"Actually it is `Randy` who uses the words` serial-killing,wife-beaters` and `perversion` for animaltest cults in his posting.Neither DB,myself nor Dr Camster use those words"

--I'm pretty sure that, "are usually child&women abusers and undiscovered serial killers" (DB's words) encompasses that sentiment.

"some of Dr Camster`s Nobel sponsors were told that their families will `die in their sickbeds`if they don`t withdraw the nomination.No apologies for that from Randy?"

--Eh? What Nobel sponsors? The only sponsor that's even referenced is Dr. B. Who told them this? Their delusions of persecution? If someone actually did tell someone such a thing than they are in the wrong.

"there is always the option of reviewing Dr Camster`s book(s)unfavorably if the details mentioned in them are not accurate,but so far no-one has done that-not even Dr Ha."

--No one's even bothered to post a positive review on any major site, and what little discussion there is, is either Dr. B ranting, or random people mocking the "book" after Dr. B. spurts out infomercial-like blather on various web forums. I'm not shelling out a buck for some self-published drivel being peddled by someone who thinks that "animaltest" is a word.

"In fact,DrBSmith`s blog based closely on the same details has rave reviews by the hundreds if not thousands:"

--I'm LOLing at you once more. 699 rave reviews composed primarily of those like the following examples:

"How to watch free movies online http://howtowatchfreemoviesonline.webs.com/"

"I saw a writer talking about this on Tumblr and it linked to…
cheap auto insurance
http://cheapinsurance7.yolasite.com/"

"I am regularly saying that its difficult to find good help, but here is…

dental internet marketing
http://dentalinternetmarketing.yolasite.com/"

AWESOME REVIEWS, DUDE! Hundreds of your "rave reviews" are SPAM. Try again.

"If Randy knows the `science` content of assaulting Ms Dunbar in front of her mother to destroy freedom of speech"

--The "science content" is being reasonable enough to know that Ms. Dunbar and Canisius are both equally likely to give one-sided accounts of what happened. Assuming that Ms. Dunbar's account is the absolute truth based on it fitting in with your juvenile conspiracy theory (that now says Muslim extremists support the "animaltest cult" and murder women) without knowing more details is irresponsible. It's more likely that Ms. Dunbar, in her passion for advocacy probably went a bit overboard in pushing her perspective at the expense of others present at the forum. Go look at her Facebook page...she invests quite a bit of effort bashing Dr. Noonan personally.

Good to see Randy back-usually a microsecond`s hesitation in defending the
cult`s crimes requires the offender to fall on his lethal syringe-which is the fate of millions of us non-cult members in their sickbeds.

OK,so Randy`s speaking for DrHa in declining to critically review Camster in case it costs 99c(probably free in a library)?

A review by Randy might not carry as much weight if it seems to say that Ms Dunbar deserves the worst type of assault if it aims to destroy her(and our) freedom of speech and democracy.

The London carbomb conspiracy is at

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/terror-plot-hatched-in-british-hospitals-455630.html

The targets were all girls-is that really spam written by Camster?

Not quite sure whether Randy is familiar with or would like to apologize for
animaltest cult members doing what they were invented for at:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/11/justice/georiga-cdc-arrest/

Whether stopping the cult before it inevitably progressed beyond mouse abuse
would have saved the other victims has to be worth asking.Doesn`t Randy think the victims might have deserved that?

On the question of `science`-normally anyone with doubts about a theory for some sound reason is free to indicate that,as Dr Ha(maybe even Randy) is free to,& Dr Camster indicates that he welcomes any factual critique of that type,but simply assaulting a woman in front of her mother to terrorize others seems to lack that quality.Abusing DrC doesn`t automatically make him wrong and DrHa right.Does DrHA approve of that method in getting `science` to progress?


It may not be too late for Randy to quit the cult if he turns State`s evidence and reveals all of the depravities we can only guess at in our wildest nightmares,aided by DrC`s discoveries of course.No compensation is too great for innocent victims like Ms Dunbar,one of millions abused down the centuries.

"OK,so Randy`s speaking for DrHa in declining to critically review Camster in case it costs 99c(probably free in a library)?"

--Dude, you're hilarious. Dr. Ha probably doesn't even know this "book" exists. And no, it's not free in a library since it is self-published in an ebook format only. No one needs to rebut it if it's as dumb as the crap your spouting. You aren't even making coherent points.

"A review by Randy might not carry as much weight if it seems to say that Ms Dunbar deserves the worst type of assault"

--Can you even read? I never said Dunbar should be assaulted at all...much less "the worst type of assault". You're just assuming I say this because that's what you think members of the "cult" would say.

"The targets were all girls-is that really spam written by Camster?"

--No that's just a fantasy you made up yourself apparently. Your link says the doctors tried to blow up a TigerTiger Bar. You know what a TigerTiger Bar is? A UNISEX bar. Had the bombs gone off, males and females would have been hurt. All the previous attacks mentioned also targeted UNISEX facilities (shopping centers, subways, etc.)

Of course that's just disregarding the fact that NONE of these people are even animal researchers, which makes your assumption that animal researchers are woman killers even more retarded.

Furthermore, what the heck would that have to do with the reviews anyhow? You said there are 100s to 1000s of positive reviews at your link. Most of them were spam linking to phishing sites. Even if the terrorists did target women, that wouldn't change the fact that there ARE NOT 100s of positive reviews on Dr. B's blog. (much less Camster's work). This is called an ad hominem argument. Learn to avoid them lest you look like an idiot.

"Not quite sure whether Randy is familiar with or would like to apologize for animaltest cult members doing what they were invented for at"

--Are you really this stupid? One CDC employee gets arrested and you think ALL researchers are born like that? Find one profession where no individual has ever been arrested for a perverse crime and I'll give you a cookie. A cable guy was a serial killer, therefore are ALL cable guys serial killers? Obviously not, but apparently you are too dense to understand the concept that the actions of the "bad apples" don't represent any group as a whole. Should cable guys apologize for that one guy? Why should I apologize because some crazy woman molested children? I don't molest children, nor do most animal researchers. You know who does molest children? Child molesters. Child molesters should apologize to people--NOT innocent people who you insult by assuming they are child molesters.

And for the love of God..."animaltest" is not a word!

Let's put it this way DJ. You're the one sitting here persecuting an entire group. Your behavior is little different than that of the racists of old. You don't like animal research, so you've dreamed up this fascinating theory that makes all animal researchers evil bastards so it's easy for you to irrationally hate the people who do it. You are the one who engages in stereotyping, because you can't differentiate between individual behavior and group behavior. And to top it all off, you can't even present facts. WHERE in your linked article is it implied that targets/victims were all women? Why are you saying that the behavior of MDs represents animal researchers? (Because you think they're in the same "cult"?).

Randy-

I didn’t “flee” our conversation. And yes, I’ve made a few minor errors. You have made much graver mistakes, which I will point out:

What you must first realize is that all vaccines can lead to neurodevelopmental disorders, not just the MMR. This was argued in the Blaylock paper for instance, which you saw fit to totally ignore for some reason. I just used Wakefield as an example simply to show what happens to whistleblowers. Focusing on just the MMR is a red herring, however it IS particularly dangerous due to the (live) viral combination and the fact that it contains MERCURY (which is one of the most toxic substances known, at 1 part per BILLION… but enough with the ‘ad hominems’, eh?)

In fact, the MMR vaccine was pulled in Japan (as well as the Urabe MMR from Britain and other places…) long before Wakefield’s study. The reason was due to aseptic meningitis, which begins with an acute inflammation of the brain lining, but can degenerate into more serious conditions, including autism-like disorders. Indeed, the MMR was KNOWN to be dangerous long before the Wakefield “scare”.

The Japanese, British and American governments have paid damages to a number of people. (Vaccine manufacturers have lobbied for legal exemption from paying damages, so the taxpayer must pay instead, even though their product was found to have caused the injury) For example, Hannah Poling in the U.S.

In Japan, according to Yomiuri Shimbun, “The government has recognized 1,065 people as eligible for financial help as a result of side-effects they experienced after being given the MMR vaccine … According to Thursday's ruling at the Osaka District Court, Daisuke Kinoshita, the eldest son of Masami and Kayoko Kinoshita of Suita, suffered from a high fever two days after receiving the MMR vaccine in June 1991. He was diagnosed with serious brain damage and died about 14 months later at the age of 2 years, 11 months.”


“Hana Ueno, 13, of Iwate Prefecture, displayed similar symptoms two weeks after being vaccinated in April 1991. She also suffered brain damage and remains severely disabled. Judge Shinichi Yoshikawa said it was reasonable to surmise, based on the evidence, that the children's problems had been caused by the MMR vaccine.”

Lucy Johnston reported in 2002 that there were 300 legal actions against Pluserix brought by parents whose children were seriously damaged by vaccine induced aseptic meningitis; for example: “In 1995 the Government's vaccine damage tribunal paid £30,000 compensation to James Smith, of Gateshead, for brain damage after he was given MMR at the age of four. James died nine years later aged 13.”

I did read the ridiculous “No Effect of MMR Withdrawal” ‘study’. Did you read “Development of Vaccination Policy in Japan” (2002) study, which pointed out that the TOTAL vaccination rate increased after the MMR was withdrawn?

As Dr Blaylock explains (because you didn’t seem to be able to ‘get it’ the first time): “peripheral immune stimulation readily activates the brain’s immune system. In most instances this is short-lived, and neuron damage is minimal. Chronic activation of microglia, however, can lead to substantial disruption of neuronal function and even neurodegeneration.

“Two basic processes seem to be responsible for the chronic stimulation of brain immunity: repeated, closely spaced inoculation without allowing brain recovery, and inoculation with live viruses or contaminant organisms that persist in the brain. Gulf War veterans were given some 17 inoculations very close together. Children are often given as many as five to seven inoculations during one visit to the pediatrician’s office, several as combined vaccines, such as measles-mumps-rubella (MMR).”

As I have abundantly proven, vaccine ingredients such as thimerosal and aluminum are neurotoxins. Although measles and rubella vaccines in Japan were supposed to be given four weeks apart after 1993, in practice children would often receive them in one doctor’s visit—it saves money and time. And, despite the PR campaign that included making mumps vaccination voluntary, rates of mercury exposure actually increased due to the new Japanese Encephalitis vaccine.

The condition “encephalitis” has many similarities to aseptic meningitis. The JE virus is also associated with aseptic meningitis (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15757569). Note the JE virus, like HIV, is not necessarily THE primary cause of the disease it is associated with; it could be a subsidiary co-factor, it could be a harmless marker. Not everyone who carries a virus will be infected by it; viruses are dormant if the environment is not suitable. The toxo-immunological overload to receiving several vaccines throughout one’s early development appears to help foster the environment necessary for pathogens to thrive.

The point being, according to most of the available evidence, vaccines were a main cause of Encephalitis, yet ironically a new vaccine was introduced “against” this very condition! And the total rate of vaccine uptake increased in step with the autism rate… period. So even though research that finds vaccines to be harmful is often accused of sample bias, both you and the silly paper you point to have refused to look at any other factor besides the MMR vaccine.

Indeed, vaccine “safety” studies only test individual vaccines, and there is hardly any review of the effects of multiple vaccinations. This is a problem with toxicity testing in general; there is little attention paid to the combined effects of multiple different chemicals, which is what people actually experience.

This is related to the point I made earlier: “As long as the establishment commits the basic mistake of corrupting life-chemistry, it will continue to administer deceptive and ultimately destructive unnatural compounds into the incredibly complex and sensitive biochemistry of the body.

“Even the synthetic, exact duplicates of what is described as the ‘active’ ingredient of natural herbs, moulds, hormones or enzymes are often, in practical application, not as effective as the original and usually are accompanied by dangerous side-effects.

“The reason for this is self-evident. A specific compound isolated from its natural environment in the structure of a plant, for example, may lose some synergistic*, buffering or even antagonistic action or balance that is present when ingested in its natural form.

“Although the pharmaceutical companies usually claim that the artificially created product provides a more dependable consistency, better control of the dose and other sometimes questionable claims, it is rarely the real truth. The ability to obtain a patent is always the prime concern.” Robert Willner, MD, PhD

Furthermore, with regards to the Thalidomide tragedy and modern toxicological testing, investigative reporter William Crist remarks: "We emphasize that if thalidomide had happened to cause a type of birth defect that was already common, e.g., cleft palate or severe mental retardation, we would still not know about the harm, and pregnant women would have kept on taking it for its undoubted benefits.

“The fractional addition to [birth defect] figures that were already relatively large would not have been statistically significant. But as it turned out, the damage noticed was of a kind that most doctors never see in a whole career—drastic malformations of the arms and legs—so although the numbers were not huge, these cases were picked up.

"[If it] had caused the same numbers of a common illness instead, say asthma, we would still not know about it. Or if it had caused delayed harm, such as cancer twenty to thirty years later, or senile dementia in some whose mothers had taken it early in pregnancy, there would have been no way to attribute the harm to the cause."

Some more quotes, simply to articulate the point I’m making… although it appears to be above your head…

"The thing that bugs me is that the people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn’t. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it’s doing are as different as night and day." —Dr Herbert Ley, former Commissioner of the FDA

What the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is really doing:

"1.) It is providing a means whereby key individuals on its payroll are able to obtain both power and wealth through granting special favors to certain politically influential groups that are subject to its regulations. This activity is similar to the "protection racket" of organized crime: for a price, one can induce FDA administrators to provide "protection" from the FDA itself.

2). As a result of this political favoritism, the FDA has become a primary factor in that formula whereby cartel-orientated companies in the food and drug industry are able to use the police powers of government to harass or destroy their free-market competition.

3). And thirdly, the FDA occasionally does some genuine public good with whatever energies it has left over after serving the vested political and commercial interest of its first two activities."

—G. Edward Griffin, “World Without Cancer”

"I didn’t “flee” our conversation"

--I didn't say that. I said you fled addressing the point-by-point on the Japan study. Naturally, even in this newest post, you haven't addressed the point-by-point, which is the SINGLE thing I asked you to do. Rather than determining the validity of the existing arguments you are continuing to bring in more random points. Here I am telling you one more time: if you do not address the point-by-points I am going to ignore everything else you bring up from here on out. I want you to demonstrate that you are capable of critical analysis. If you can't address my rebuttals to concrete points you brought up, then you couldn't possibly be capable of debating the validity of information contained in studies. I don't have time to look into the 10-20 new things you bring in every time you post that frequently not only fail to support your previous points, but also contradict them (and sometimes even ignore rebuttals I've already made).

"And yes, I’ve made a few minor errors. You have made much graver mistakes..."

--But these "minor" errors are drastic. Failing to comprehend non-technical articles should really call into question whether you're capable of analyzing technical information. You repeatedly say people have done things they haven't. You made up your own timelines to support you arguments. You repeatedly present facts without citations, and frequently make conclusions about what you do cite that aren't supported by your source. You also frequently present random websites as evidence (who themselves cite no sources), and clearly haven't read many of the things you cite. Finally, you present the opinions of others as fact, and refuse to check (or even think) about whether they are logical.

"Indeed, the MMR was KNOWN to be dangerous long before the Wakefield “scare”."

--Actually Bryan, bringing up the mercury, live vaccine, and aseptic meningitis is the ad hominem argument. Your original argument was that MMR (a single vaccine) caused autism, and that this connection was indubitable based on Wakefield's paper. In fact, this example actually blows a hole in most of your arguments.

1. MMR using strains other than Urabe don't commonly produce aseptic meningitis. So adverse reactions to the Urabe strain say absolutely nothing about vaccines that don't contain it. We found that Urabe strain was dangerous, and it was discontinued. It's kind of odd that you seem to think that showing that one strain was bad makes ALL vaccines bad, or supports the theory that multiple vaccines are bad (which is what you're currently peddling).

2. You claim that whistleblowers are downtrodden when they try to report their results--yet for some reason Urabe MMR was withdrawn and most studies found a link between Urabe MMR and aseptic meningitis--unlike autism. In addition, most countries recognize the VERY RARE, but detectable link between MMR and some encephalopathies. Why aren't they covering that up as well? It's really simple. Studies agreed there was a clear link. Your logic just doesn't make sense. If the vaccine establishment can fabricate studies to prove there is no link between autism and vaccines, then why didn't they do the same thing for encephalopathy (which is extremely rare, and hence probably easy to cover up) and meningitis?

"Focusing on just the MMR is a red herring, however it IS particularly dangerous due to the (live) viral combination and the fact that it contains MERCURY"

--Except for MMR has never contained mercury (for certain in the US at minimum). I told you this already. And no, it's not the red herring. YOU are the one who opted to lay sole blame for autism on that originally. The red herring was trying to defend Wakefield with Blaylock's theory, which doesn't support Wakefield's beliefs. Thimerosal was also a red herring as it isn't even in MMR. It's hard to believe that you started out believing that Blaylock's theory was the true theory, because if you actually understood it, you would have known that saying the link between a single vaccine and autism is proven is untrue.

"I did read the ridiculous “No Effect of MMR Withdrawal” ‘study’."

--I think it's hilarious that despite you claiming the study is ridiculous, that all you could do was cut and paste Wakefield's criticisms--and when I pointed out that his criticisms weren't even valid you failed to rebut. You do realize that something isn't ridiculous simply because you disagree with it, right? So yeah, quit running away from the point-by-point on that paper. Why are Wakefield's criticisms valid in light of what I pointed out previously?

"Did you read “Development of Vaccination Policy in Japan” (2002) study, which pointed out that the TOTAL vaccination rate increased after the MMR was withdrawn?"

--Yeah, I looked through that one. I may be wrong since you haven't bothered to point to anything specific in the paper, but I'm assuming by "total vaccination rate" you are referring to "coverage" as shown in Fig. 2. Of course, in regards to MMR this is completely irrelevant as the "ridiculous" paper clearly showed that MMR alone did not correlate with autism at all. Even if the increased coverage correlated with the increase in autism, it still wouldn't change the fact that MMR alone (or the interactions of M, M, AND R separately) is not what causes autism (which is what Wakefield believes). Nor does this data support the theory that more vaccines per child equals more autism (as the adoption of MMR actually decreased the total vaccines by combining individual vaccines given per child without causing any change in autism occurence).

Furthermore, you can't even use the Nakatani paper alongside the Honda paper, as Nakatani is reporting NATIONAL coverage while Honda is reporting autism occuring in a major urban city (which may have different coverage than the nation as a whole). For all you know the increased coverage may have come from making sure that vaccines were given in rural Japan which would not account for increased autism in Yokohama.

Finally, the magnitude of effect does not match well with the increased coverage. It's unlikely that extending coverage to ~20% more of Yokohama's population would more than DOUBLE autism incidence unless the previously unvaccinated population in Yokohama was unique and more susceptible to vaccine-triggered autism than the rest of Yokohama's citizens. What Figure 2 does show, is that it might be worth it to take a look at the relationship between Japanese encephalitis vaccination and autism, as that vaccine did double it's coverage during the period of interest.

There's nothing here that suggests that coverage alone across all vaccines, MMR, or M M and R, is related to autism.

Feel free to share whatever theory you think supports your notion that this paper somehow proves or strongly suggests vaccination is related to autism.


"As Dr Blaylock explains (because you didn’t seem to be able to ‘get it’ the first time): “peripheral immune stimulation readily activates the brain’s immune system."

--I completely understand his theory (remember I'm a neuroscientist). It's an interesting theory, but nothing you have provided thus far actually studies HIS theory. Nor do any of the other points you bring up support HIS theory. Both Wakefield's MMR theory and the simple thimerosal theory are incompatible with Blaylock's theory as Blaylock's theory blames repeated administration of any immune stimulator as the cause. I ignored this line of debate for the reason I've previously stated--rather than actually debate the points you have already made, you just keeping adding more while broadening your argument since you can't defend specific points. I'm not going to rebut every little theory you peddle until the previous ones are dealt with. Remember, YOU are the one who started this line of debate by saying that the connection between MMR and autism/intestinal bowel disorder is PROVEN--which you have failed miserably to support. If you had to resort to incorporating thiomersal (which isn't in MMR) and general vaccination coverage to support ANY vaccine-autism link, then clearly this isn't as proven as you think it is.

"As I have abundantly proven, vaccine ingredients such as thiomersal and aluminum are neurotoxins"

--It's true these are neurotoxins. However, YOU haven't done anything to prove this since it was never even under debate. More importantly, you haven't proven that the amount present in vaccines is sufficient to be dangerous--which is the only thing that actually matters. The fact that big pharma has decided to switch to other preservatives in many vaccines despite any conclusive studies shows that they are potentially more interested in keeping consumers content than poisoning them. Also keep in mind that any formulation change is risky. If they think thiomersal is safe, would it make sense for them to switch to some other untested preservative? Back when the food industry found out that saturated fats were bad they invented trans fats to replace them due to consumer demand. The solution that made consumers feel safer was even worse than the problem!

"Although measles and rubella vaccines in Japan were supposed to be given four weeks apart after 1993, in practice children would often receive them in one doctor’s visit"

--I'm getting tired of needing to constantly remind you, but....SOURCE? Who exactly studied general Japanese off-label vaccination habits? Let me guess--a random website trying to prove vaccines are bad that didn't cite the info?

"And, despite the PR campaign that included making mumps vaccination voluntary, rates of mercury exposure actually increased due to the new Japanese Encephalitis vaccine"

--SOURCE? Who totaled thiomersal exposure pre and post JE vaccine?


"The point being, according to most of the available evidence, vaccines were a main cause of Encephalitis"

--Do you enjoy just randomly making stuff up? "Encephalitis caused by the herpes simplex virus is the leading cause of more severe cases in all ages, including newborns." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002388/). Vaccine-induced encephalitis (which is not a primary cause of encephalitis) is linked primarily via ALLERGIC reactions to vaccines--not immune overload. Keep in mind that encephalitis is a relatively COMMON complication of many diseases that are vaccinated against. A measles infection has a 1 in 1000 chance of triggering encephalitis, yet a measles vaccination is at MOST 1 in 3 million (but has yet to be definitively proven). (http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/QuestionsaboutVaccines/ucm070425.htm). JE causes encephalitis in 1 of 300 cases, but are at or under 1 in 2.3 million for the vaccine. (http://depts.washington.edu/druginfo/Vaccine/HealthDept/JEVax.html)

"Not everyone who carries a virus will be infected by it; viruses are dormant if the environment is not suitable"

--It's pretty hard to carry a virus without being infected since a virus can't reproduce without infecting. I think what you mean to say is that symptoms don't always develop. Furthermore, humans are not carriers of "dormant" JE virus. We kill it (typically in a matter of days), or it infects the nervous system (also within a matter of days) producing neurological symptoms. It doesn't just sit there for eons without causing damage. It's already known that JE infects and damages a number of other tissues during the days preceding the infection of the CNS. (http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/233802-overview#a0104). This is just another example of you misunderstanding basic concepts (remember thinking MMR was three vaccines?) that suggests that even if you did read a technical paper, that you lack the knowledge required to understand it correctly.

"yet ironically a new vaccine was introduced “against” this very condition" (encephalitis)

--What kind of point is this? They weren't immunizing against encephalitis in general. They were immunizing against a disease that just happens to almost always end in encephalitis if the immune system fails to destroy it. Put it this way. Right now 30-50,000 cases cases of JEV-induced encephalitis are reported annually (10,000 die, 33-50% have chronic neuropathologies). This means that approximately 9-15 million of the 3 billion people who live in regions where JE exists are infected annually. By vaccinating this population (which is largely unvaccinated), even using the the minimum efficacy of the vaccine (76% effective), the number of JEV infections should drop to 2.25-3.75 million and yield only 7,500-12,500 cases of encephalitis. Add in the encephalitis associated with vaccinating 9-15 million people and you'd get 4-7 cases of encephalitis. This would yield a maximum of 12,507 cases of encephalitis...down from 30-50,000. That's still an improvement. I'll be generous. Even if we just threw in all the expected vaccine-triggered encephalitis cases from the 3 billion people in endemic areas, we'd end up with a grand total of 1304 total cases. So even with a gross overestimate on all fronts, we still end up with just 13,304 cases of encephalitis which is much better than 30,000 to 50,000.

Also, note that in Japan, upon start of the JE vaccine, cases dropped from 1000s to 10s. (http://idsc.nih.go.jp/iasr/24/281/tpc281.html) Add in the estimated 51 vaccine-triggered encephalopathy cases maximum that may result from vaccination of the ENTIRE population of Japan and you still have over 900 fewer cases than pre-vaccination.

I think what you're failing to understand is that goverments actually sit down and weigh cost vs. benefit when deciding whether to use a vaccine or not. For instance, if corporate greed motivated vaccination, then why doesn't the US government recommend travelers to Asia get the JE vaccine? That's easy money after all. Vaccines are given as long as the damage they cause is much less than that caused by the diseases they prevent. In cases like the Urabe strain, the adverse effects affected more people than the disease would have, so naturally it was discontinued.

You act like adverse events are something that are always hidden, but in fact, some are so well known, that even though they are rare, scientists are working to make vaccines that don't cause them. For instance, the JE vaccine is traditionally produced in mouse brain, which is thought to be the reason why JE sometimes triggers a neural auto-immune response. Because of that, scientists are working on vaccines that aren't produced in animals. Don't act like no one cares about the safety of the population.


"The toxo-immunological overload to receiving several vaccines throughout one’s early development appears to help foster the environment necessary for pathogens to thrive"

--I suppose you've got a paper demonstrating this somehow, correct? It appears this way based on what exactly?

"As long as the establishment commits the basic mistake of corrupting life-chemistry, it will continue to administer deceptive and ultimately destructive unnatural compounds into the incredibly complex and sensitive biochemistry of the body"

--I really hate this conspiracy drivel. You act like we examine individual vaccines because we're trying to hide something. Guess what. You're wrong. IF vaccines and autism are actually linked, there are soooooo many possible aspects of the vaccine that could cause it. Individual vaccine analysis is just the simplest thing to look at. For instance, by linking any single vaccine to an adverse outcome and comparing it to vaccines that are not linked, we'd get an idea of what part of a given vaccine is detrimental. For instance, if thiomersal-containing vaccines were linked to autism, but others were not, then we'd have some reason to believe thiomersal was dangerous. What you think is a conspiracy is just a systematic approach to examining a theoretical problem.


The thalidomide stuff is pretty funny and not quite true. It would be harder to recognize, but if thalidomide had even a 1% chance of producing a random "normal" deformity, then it would be easy to prove that there was a significant increase amongst women who took thalidomide during pregnancy. Of course, one must admit that it's a bit unfair to decry safety testing because it might miss effects that don't occur as often as similar effects caused by the simple act of existing. Delayed effects do make connecting the dots difficult, but people exploring the associated problem would make a point of collecting the backgrounds of anyone effected by a given condition to look for common factors. This isn't something that's restricted to products of the pharmaceutical industry either. Even eating (or failing to eat) certain vegetables too often over a number of years can cause diseases in people.

Another funny thing is your absolute insistence that unaltered natural substances in their natural source are always the best. Did you know that cassava, the primary staple in Africa is toxic unless cooked properly to prevent cyanide poisoning in those who eat it? Did you know that when polenta was brought to Europe, the peasants who ate it as their primary food source became malnourished and died while the Native Americans who invented it did not? Have any clue why? Because the Europeans didn't treat the corn with lime, which left an essential nutrient inaccessble to the human body. Get that? Sometimes natural foods actually STOP you from getting vital nutrients.

Point is, is that in reality, some things are best gotten in their natural state, and some things are not.

"The thing that bugs me is that the people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn’t. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it’s doing are as different as night and day." —Dr Herbert Ley, former Commissioner of the FDA"

--Not surprising that someone who was present during the first few years where efficacy testing was made required would say that. We already know that the drug companies were working hard to avoid the recently established regulation in the first place. Of course, it's kind of hard to guess exactly what the problem was considering there's no context.

And yes, I'm laughing at you now telling me that the FDA is a racket based on the testimony of a conspiracy film producer and poli-sci lecturer who thinks he found Noah's Ark. Clearly a man who is privvy to the internal workings of the FDA. Also not surprising considering he's an laetrile adherent. Not to mention he said that way back in '74.

Now, for the umpteenth time. The point-by-point, por favor.

As Randy is clearly busy with another critic,this will just answer his point
about bombings to force medical monopoly extremism(which was the animaltest cult objective in William Harvey`s day and still is but as Camster says that,Randy will say it is `drivel&spam`).

The link which shows that the bomb was timed for `Ladies Night` is at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/car-bomb-defused-outside-london-nightclub-455220.html

It says:"The Tiger Tiger club has a capacity of 1,700 with five bars over four
floors. Last night was billed as "Ladies Night"."The reason for not posting this before is because,as world news in which the women victims were shown on TV for weeks,even Randy might have known it.

The reason why this is important along with the pedophile ring(s) in the animaltest cult is that this forum is about the attack on Ms Dunbar which may have had both those motives in addition to the denial of freedom of speech one.

The reason it has to be assumed that such depraved attacks are the tip of the iceberg is that every time one is reported,it is dismissed as `spam&drivel`purely invented by Dr Camster,who probably believes
the world is round & so that would automatically become `spam&drivel`if he
was unwise enough to write it down.As the offending cult is funded by the ruin of ordinary taxpayers it is everyone`s business.

Randy-

If you look at the vaccine schedule, increasing vaccination is correlated with an increase in autism rates. In the United States, the vaccines started to get piled on in the mid to late 80s, and autism rates have increased steadily. Are you an autism "denialist" who believes that the increase is due to improved diagnosis? If so, where are all the 30-year old autistics?

Since the Japan study refused to look at the effects of all vaccines, just the MMR, we can't conclude anything from it; however, according to the best information we have, the total vaccine load probably increased at the time when the autism rate raised. SO we have a correlation (while we do not have a correlation between, say, mass immunization and a total drop in infectious disease- as I already mentioned, diseases declined in this country almost completely before ANY vaccines were used on a large scale. And infectious disease rates were practically inconsequential in the late '80s, when kids started getting more shots. So where was the risk/benefit analysis there? But perhaps you would say "correlation /= causation" in these cases, as is the typical weasel response)

And yes, the Urabe MMR was PARTICULARLY dangerous; Jeryl Lynn is LESS dangerous, although children have clearly been damaged by this version of MMR. Wakefield's study not only relied on the testimony of parents, but of their doctors and other experts to conclude that their damage followed the vaccine.

Anyways, I have repeatedly said that the connection is NOT proven, it's only strong. If the "establishment" actually sat down to do a well-conducted study, instead of just cherry-picking one region that appears to support the conclusion that MMR and autism are not linked, there probably would be the "proof" you require.

In reality, a handful of studies that have purported to disprove the link have been broadcast worldwide, while other studies that HAVE demonstrated a link (such as many I've shared) are buried. Thus, the suppression of the (likely) association is self-evident; it's not some hare-brained conspiracy theory.

"It's hard to believe that you started out believing that Blaylock's theory was the true theory, because if you actually understood it, you would have known that saying the link between a single vaccine and autism is proven is untrue."

When is the MMR given as a "single" vaccine? This point is irrelevant, because most if not all children are going to receive the MMR along with other vaccines, either at the same doctor visit, or spaced a few months apart. And if a parent repeatedly notices their child's condition worsening immediately after vaccination, particularly after the MMR, then they have cause for concern! THIS is where the concern is coming from!! THIS is why Wakefield and others have come to study this problem.

How am I supposed to talk to you when you make nonsensical points like this? When in real life do children only receive the MMR, and no other vaccines? How, then, is Blaylock's research unrelated? You still fail to grasp the big picture.

"Since the Japan study refused to look at the effects of all vaccines, just the MMR, we can't conclude anything from it"

Still can't handle the point-by-point and are sticking with a wholesale dismissal of the paper? You CAN conclude something from this study--which is that the MMR vaccine ALONE does not underlie autism. This is the only conclusion this paper makes. It doesn't look at the effect of anything other than MMR.

You're the one who provided sources that attempted to prove that MMR ALONE correlated with autism. Wakefield's paper tried to prove this. His criticism of the Japan paper also tried to prove this. You gave me both of those sources, yet refuse to acknowledge that these sources believe that MMR can cause autism all by itself.

"however, according to the best information we have, the total vaccine load probably increased at the time when the autism rate raised"

--The best information that you aren't citing as usual. Especially amusing is that the "best information" only "probably" suggests vaccine load increased at the same time. You know how I read that? "I have no way to prove it, but I have a gut feeling vaccine load increased with autism." I guess we just need to believe you. Ironically vaccine LOAD didn't increase with the autism increase in Japan based on Nakatani's coverage data and Honda's autism data. As previously noted, COVERAGE did.

"SO we have a correlation (while we do not have a correlation between, say, mass immunization and a total drop in infectious disease..."

--I guess you missed all the previously cited articles where vaccine coverage drops corresponded with disease outbreaks, and the one from my last post where JE incidence dropped by 99% shortly after the introduction of the JE vaccine.

"Wakefield's study not only relied on the testimony of parents, but of their doctors and other experts to conclude that their damage followed the vaccine"

--Make up your mind. Does MMR cause autism all by itself or not?--because that's what Wakefield and his parents said happened. Mind you that not even the dangerous Urabe strain caused an increase in autism (despite your earlier attempt to link meningitis/encephalitis to autism).

"If the "establishment" actually sat down to do a well-conducted study, instead of just cherry-picking one region that appears to support the conclusion that MMR and autism are not linked"

--Site wasn't cherry-picked, genius. It just happened to be the only place where MMR was dropped and replaced over the course of a few years thanks to Urabe's ADRs. No one's going to arbitrarily phase out something that multiple studies have shown to be safe and replace it with something else. Like I said, if analysis suggests that a vaccine is safe, governments aren't going to try and swap in new ones for fear of actually creating a problem. No matter how many times you say the link is strong, it isn't. To prove your point, you've cited exactly how many empirical studies showing an MMR-autism link(one?). Mind you, theoretical papers (like Blaylock's) don't count as they are only guessing at what a hypothetical link might be.

"while other studies that HAVE demonstrated a link (such as many I've shared) are buried"
--Where are these many papers? Mostly all I've seen are the Wakefield paper, the Blaylock paper, and a bunch of amateur website propaganda. Why not compile a nice list for me here of all these articles demonstrating clear links?

"When is the MMR given as a "single" vaccine? This point is irrelevant, because most if not all children are going to receive the MMR along with other vaccines, either at the same doctor visit, or spaced a few months apart."

--Are you trying to make fun of me again? How quaint. It's not irrelevant. Wakefield insisted that autism followed MMR according to parental and doctor accounts. They didn't associate it with the other vaccines given around then, so apparently the spacing was clear enough to discern. If these vaccines were all lumped so close together then why didn't Wakefield mention that the OTHER vaccines might be related? He obviously believes that the MMR itself is problematic all by itself. He even suggested giving the M, M, and R components separately--yet when autism failed to drop in Japan upon reverting to the single jabs, he resorted to the same argument you did (that they were given on the same day) which contradicted the schedule described in the paper. Odd that neither you nor Wakefield find it appropriate to actually reference something showing that the single jabs were not separated by the four weeks set forth by the government.

"How am I supposed to talk to you when you make nonsensical points like this?"

--I'm not making that point. Wakefield did (as did you initially) state that MMR and autism are linked. You did not say that vaccine load and autism were linked. You did not provide papers showing correlation between vaccine load and autism (you still haven't by the way). Plus, it's stupid of you to think that just because multiple vaccines are given, that a single one can't be problematic. Urabe didn't cause encephalitis as a result a series of vaccinations--it caused encephalitis all by itself.

My only "nonsensical" point was that I found it odd that you claim to be an adherent to the vaccine load theory, yet find Wakefield's study looking at ONLY the MMR and concluding that MMR itself caused autism "well-designed". I also find it hilarious that you criticize studies for not having controls and focusing on single vaccines, when Wakefield's study had no controls and focused on a single vaccine. Double-standard much?

Just admit it. Wakefield specifically believed he was linking combined MMR to autism, and the Japan data contradicted that assumption. Neither of these studies made any contributions to learning about the effect of vaccine LOAD on autism.

Fail to grasp the big picture? Funny considering I'm the only one who shows ANY moderate interpretation of data here. You miss when I said the Japan data merited further exploration of a link between JEV and autism? I haven't said anything about load, because you haven't presented anything demonstrating load and autism are linked.

...but yeah, for the umpteenth+1 time....how bout the point-by-point.

DJ,

"Ladies night" doesn't mean that only women are in the bar. It means they pay less for admission or drinks. The bars try to attract female customers because that brings in more male customers looking for "love".

Care to admit that none of the targets were chosen because of females yet?

Not only did world-wide TV reports at the time show&interview the overwhelmingly female target group,but the offenders in the later trial details indicated they had chosen the target specifically because they disapproved of the victims` `immodest` dress style disapproved of in blood ritual animal sacrificial cult Sharia Law etc etc .The timing of the bomb was for maximum carnage of women.
Any apology should go to the victims-we won`t hold our breaths(lol).

None of that would matter so much if this forum were not about the motives for
assaulting Ms Dunbar and the bringing to justice of the offender(s).

Randy-

Yeah, nice study of Japanese Encephalitis, if anything it proves my point that disease reduction occurred due to improvements in living standards and environments. Read:

“Although more than 100 JE cases occurred each year until the early 1970s, JE cases between 1992 and 1998 were 4 or less per year. There are three major reasons for this: (1) most children acquired protective immunity to JEV as a result of vaccination; (2) the population of Culex tritaeniorhynchus [mosquito, the vector of JE virus] has dropped due to a decrease of paddy fields where it propagates, and because of changes in the methods of rice production (Kamimura, Med. Entomol. Zool., Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 181-185, 1998); and (3) the environment of pig farms has changed: pigs are being raised far from residential areas. Therefore, C. tritaeniorhynchus around pig farms are less likely to reach residential areas and to transmit JEV from pigs to people.’

Even though the authors are quick to pat the vaccine on the back (as usual), this paper provides no evidence whatsoever that the vaccine actually CAUSED the fall in JE cases. It’s very likely that changes in sanitary conditions led to reduced infectivity, perhaps even in spite of the vaccine. Continuing:

“Information on the vaccination history and prognosis of patients were not available because the individual case card reporting system for confirmation of patients notified in accordance with the old law (the Communicable Diseases Prevention Law) was abolished when the Infectious Diseases Control Law was enforced.”

Interestingly, the new law rendered it impossible for anyone to actually concretely show whether the vaccine caused disease rates to decline. You are presenting as fact what is theoretical, at best.

As far as the link between vaccines and autism, let me try to put this in as simplistic terms as possible: the observation that MMR is particularly strongly associated with regressive autism in no way invalidates the hypothesis that ALL vaccines contribute to the development of this disorder. In fact, it is likely that if just the MMR were administered, without any other vaccines over the course of childhood, the autism rate would be much lower. The available evidence indicates that ALL vaccines increase autism risk. I’m just going by what the data actually says. You should try it sometime.

Here is SOME of the research that supports the autism-vaccine hypothesis. Note that very few well-conducted studies actually exist, but this is a start:

-
National Autism Prevalence Trends From United States Special Education Data.
Pediatrics, March 2005.
Craig J. Newschaffer, PhD [Johns Hopkins University].

“Reports of large increases in autism prevalence have been a matter of great concern to clinicians, educators, and parents… Cohort curves suggest that autism prevalence has been increasing with time, as evidenced by higher prevalences among younger birth cohorts... The increases were greatest for annual cohorts born from 1987 to 1992. For cohorts born after 1992, the prevalence increased with each successive year but the increases did not appear to be as great…”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15741352

-

Large Brains in Autism: The Challenge of Pervasive Abnormality.
The Neuroscientist, Volume 11, Number 5, 2005.
Martha Herbert, MD, PhD [Harvard University].

"Oxidative stress, brain inflammation, and microgliosis have been much documented in association with toxic exposures including various heavy metals...the awareness that the brain as well as medical conditions of children with autism may be conditioned by chronic biomedical abnormalities such as inflammation opens the possibility that meaningful biomedical interventions may be possible well past the window of maximal neuroplasticity in early childhood because the basis for assuming that all deficits can be attributed to fixed early developmental alterations in neural architecture has now been undermined."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16151044

-

Evidence of Toxicity, Oxidative Stress, and Neuronal Insult in Autism
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Nov-Dec 2006.
Janet Kern, Anne Jones

"This article discusses the evidence for the case that some children with autism may become autistic from neuronal cell death or brain damage sometime after birth as result of insult; and addresses the hypotheses that toxicity and oxidative stress may be a cause of neuronal insult in autism...the article discusses what may be happening over the course of development and the multiple factors that may interplay and make these children more vulnerable to toxicity, oxidative stress, and neuronal insult."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17090484

-

Detection and Sequencing of Measles Virus from Peripheral Mononuclear Cells from Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Autism
Digestive Diseases and Sciences, 2000
Hisashi Kawashima, Takayuki Mori, Yasuyo Kashiwagi, Kouji Takekuma

"Additionally, a new syndrome has been reported in children with autism who exhibited developmental regression and gastrointestinal symptoms (autistic enterocolitis), in some cases soon after MMR vaccine. It is not known whether the virus, if confirmed to be present in these patients, derives from either wild strains or vaccine strains. ...The sequences obtained from the patients with ulcerative colitis and children with autism were consistent with being vaccine strains. The results were concordant with the exposure history of the patients. Persistence of measles virus was confirmed in PBMC in some patients with chronic intestinal inflammation."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10759242

-

Hepatitis B triple series vaccine and developmental disability in US children aged 1-9 years
Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry, September 2008
Carolyn Gallagher* and Melody Goodman

"The odds of receiving EIS [special education services] were approximately nine times as great for vaccinated boys (n¼46) as for unvaccinated boys (n¼7), after adjustment for confounders. This study found statistically significant evidence to suggest that boys in United States who were vaccinated with the triple series Hepatitis B vaccine, during the time period in which vaccines were manufactured with thimerosal, were more susceptible to developmental disability than were unvaccinated boys."

-

A Case Series of Children with Apparent Mercury Toxic Encephalopathies Manifesting with Clinical Symptoms of Regressive Autistic Disorder
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, 2007
David A. Geier, Mark R. Geier

"Based upon differential diagnoses, 8 of 9 patients examined were exposed to significant mercury from Thimerosal-containing biologic/vaccine preparations during their fetal/infant developmental periods, and subsequently, between 12 and 24 mo of age, these previously normally developing children suffered mercury toxic encephalopathies that manifested with clinical symptoms consistent with regressive ASDs. Evidence for mercury intoxication should be considered in the differential diagnosis as contributing to some regressive ASDs."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17454560

-

Mercury and autism: Accelerating Evidence?
Neuroendocrinology Letters, Oct 2005.
Joachim Mutter, M.D. [Freiburg University, Germany].

"The causes of autism and neurodevelopmental disorders are unknown. Genetic and environmental risk factors seem to be involved...Repetitive doses of thimerosal leads to neurobehavioral deteriorations in autoimmune susceptible mice, increased oxidative stress and decreased intracellular levels of glutathione in vitro. Subsequently, autistic children have significantly decreased level of reduced glutathione. Promising treatments of autism involve detoxification of mercury, and supplementation of deficient metabolites."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16264412

-

Aluminum adjuvant linked to gulf war illness induces motor neuron death in mice
Neuromolecular Medicine, 2007
Christopher Shaw, Ph.D. [Department of Ophthalmology and Program in Neuroscience, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada]

"testing showed motor deficits in the aluminum treatment group that expressed as a progressive decrease in strength measured...Significant cognitive deficits in water-maze learning were observed in the combined aluminum and squalene group...Apoptotic neurons were identified in aluminum-injected animals that showed significantly increased activated caspase-3 labeling in lumbar spinal cord (255%) and primary motor cortex (192%) compared with the controls. Aluminum-treated groups also showed significant motor neuron loss (35%) and increased numbers of astrocytes (350%) in the lumbar spinal cord."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17114826

-

Neurotoxic Effects of Postnatal Thimerosal are Mouse Strain Dependent.
Molecular Psychiatry, Sep 2004.
Mady Hornig, MD [Columbia University].

"The premise of our research is that if mercury in vaccines creates risk for neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, genetic differences are likely to contribute to that risk. Earlier studies, however, did not use the form of mercury present in vaccines, known as thimerosal, and did not consider whether intramuscular, repetitive administration during early postnatal development, when the brain and immune systems are still maturing, might intensify toxicity. Our predictions were confirmed. Using thimerosal dosages and timing that approximated the childhood immunization schedule, our model of postnatal thimerosal neurotoxicity demonstrated that the genes in mice that predict mercury-related immunotoxicity also predicted nuerodevelopmental damage. Features reminiscent of those observed in autism occurred in the mice of the genetically sensitive strain."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15184908

-

Autism: A Novel Form of Mercury Poisoning.
Medical Hypothesis, 2001.
Sallie Bernard, Albert Enyati, Lynn Redwood, RN, Teresa Binstock, PhD.

"Due to the extensive parallels between autism and mercury poisoning, the likelihood of a causal relationship is great. Given that possibility, Thimerosal should be removed from all childhood vaccines and the mechanisms of mercury toxicity in autism should be thoroughly investigated."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11339848

-

Two studies by the Committee on Government Reform of the U.S. Congress:

Mercury in Medicine - Taking Unnecessary Risks
Congressional Record - Extensions of Remarks
Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN), Committee on Government Reform
May 21, 2003

"Mercury is hazardous to humans. Its use in medicinal products is undesirable, unnecessary and should be minimized or eliminated entirely. Manufacturers of vaccines and thimerosal, (an ethlymercury compound used in vaccines), have never conducted adequate testing on the safety of thimerosal. The FDA has never required manufacturers to conduct adequate safety testing on thimerosal and ethlymercury compounds...Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is likely related to the autism epidemic. This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding injected thimerosal and the sharp rise of infant exposure to this known neurotoxin. Our public health agencies' failure to act is indicative of institutional malfeasance for self-protection and misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry."

-

Conflicts of Interest in Vaccine Policy Making
Majority Staff Report, Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives
June 15, 2000

"Members of the advisory committees are required to disclose any financial conflicts of interest and recuse themselves from participating in decisions in which they have an interest. The Committee’s investigation has determined that conflict of interest rules employed by the FDA and the CDC have been weak, enforcement has been lax, and committee members with substantial ties to pharmaceutical companies have been given waivers to participate in committee proceedings."
-
“The cost of full FDA approval is estimated to now be in the hundreds of millions of dollars and is out of the question unless the method is patentable and the investment therefore recoverable. This is the reason the pharmaceutical industry has pushed for such expensive requirements. This may seem contradictory, but it is not. It is an extremely effective way of eliminating competition from hundreds of smaller companies. Why not spend hundreds of millions in order to make billions!

“It is not, as some might have you believe, only an interest in safety, efficacy and the public good. The extreme power of the FDA, though at first fought by the pharmaceutical industry, is now welcomed by the giant corporations as the best means of eliminating competition ever devised. Their influence over the FDA still remains and is obvious.”

Robert E. Willner M.D., Ph.D.

Gosh, if you're going to cut-and-paste a slew of studies, the least you could do is quote passages that are more relevant to the argument. It's cute that you went and copied everything (including passages) from general purpose anti-vaccine pages. I suppose this is all I should expect from "he-who-is-still-continuing-to-disregard-the-point-by-point".

"Even though the authors are quick to pat the vaccine on the back (as usual)"

--That's funny, didn't you just quote the authors who also stated that there are two other factors that affect the incidence of JE? They attributed the decline to primarily the vaccine, and also to changes in rice farming. I'd be willing to wager that they give credence to the vaccine based on Fig. 1. where it looks pretty obvious that the start of vaccination coincided with a massive drop in JE cases.

What's also funny is that you are concluding the farming changes caused this rapid, massive decline when there is nothing in the report showing the span of time across which new farming systems were adopted. If there were a graph similar to Fig 1. showing the time across which modern farming practices were implented, then you'd have a leg to stand on. At no point did the authors correlate the initial drop with farming--they only mentioned that it played a role in producing the current outcome.

I also can't get over all your bashing of government disease control institutions considering they're doing these studies that overtly recognize that disease control entails far more than just vaccinating everyone. Vaccines have even been removed from the market once surveillance suggests that they are no longer necessary. Yet you consistently take the view that regulatory agencies are only interested in lining their own pockets by taking substances orally from the flesh-syringe of big pharma three times daily after meals.

"Interestingly, the new law rendered it impossible for anyone to actually concretely show whether the vaccine caused disease rates to decline"

Actually, you've misunderstood like usual. Vaccination status and prognosis are or were avialable for cases preceding 1999. The IASR has a number of other studies accessible from that report where vaccination status of individuals affected with JE was reported prior to 1999.

For instance, between 1991 and 1998 there were 30 cases of JE, and vaccination records were available for 12 cases. 10 of 12 patients were not vaccinated. The remaining two had not had the recommended boosters. 83% of cases were in individuals over 60 years of age. Why does their age matter? Because JE typically infects children and the elderly, and the elderly had much poorer JEV coverage in the 90s than the children born during the period of mass vaccination. This again implies that the vaccination plays a role in preventing the disease since the disease manifested primarily in a population that did not receive mass vaccination during childhood.

"National Autism Prevalence Trends From United States Special Education Data."

--This paper does not indicate a vaccine/autism link. It simply concludes that at least a portion of the increase occurring across a nine year period is due to something other than changes in diagnostic criteria. It specifically recognized that diagnostic criteria did have a detectable effect on prevalence.

"Evidence of Toxicity, Oxidative Stress, and Neuronal Insult in Autism"

--This paper also provides no empirical data showing a link between vaccines and autism. The closest it comes is mentioning that there is a THEORY that chronic subclinical or subsequent insults could underly autism. The author does not conclude these things DO lead to autism, nor does she state that others' results provide a link. Author concludes simply that more research is necessary to determine causative factors. Furthermore, your chosen quote simply states something that everyone agrees on--that autism is affected by an environmental component.

"Evidence of Toxicity, Oxidative Stress, and Neuronal Insult in Autism"

--Again, this study did not link vaccination with autism. It did attempt to demonstrate that heavy metals were linked, but did not suggest that vaccination was the cause in any of the associated cases. In the only study they cited that was related to vaccines, the effect of vaccination itself was only considered as part of total Hg exposure. The authors specifically concluded that the environmental causes for autism are probably many, and the population which is affected is probably susceptible in different ways.

"Detection and Sequencing of Measles Virus from Peripheral Mononuclear Cells from Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Autism"

--This paper weakly supports the notion that measles vaccination is related to one form of autism. Of the small set of nine children examined, only 3 had any evidence of persistence of measles RNA that appeared to be more like the vaccination strain than any known wild-type. It specifically stated that it was not known whether measles was a causative factor of the disorder. If this data existed in a vacuum, it would merit further examination of relation of measles to autism.

Furthermore, other studies have repeated this with a larger number of subjects and not obtained the same outcome.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0003140#pone.0003140-Uhlmann1

"A Case Series of Children with Apparent Mercury Toxic Encephalopathies Manifesting with Clinical Symptoms of Regressive Autistic Disorder"

--It may be an ad hominem, but I'm not sure how much credence I should give a man who thinks it's okay to make an IRB that consists of himself, his family, and a anti-vaccine lawyer that is based in his own business, and calculates total thimerosal exposure based on papers that don't contain any information about thimerosal (he cited a paper claiming it had the amounts of thimerosal in different batches of vaccines--yet when reviewed, the paper contained no such data, making it impossible for him to calculate exposure).

Just looking at this paper at face value...the author wrongly concludes that thimerosal from vaccines is the only source of mercury which the children may have been exposed to based on simple polls of fish consumption and amalgam fillings (there are faaaaaaaar more potential sources of exposure than just these things). Even his analysis of fish consumption was pathetic. He did not check to see if they ate any blacklisted fish, nor did he ascertain what fish was eaten. There are a number of fish that would be considered to be dangerous to eat once per week as the author allowed. Also, this allows for a mother to easily be exposed to more mercury per week than they'd be exposed to from a vaccine. This study has also been widely criticised by professional organizations

In all, it's really short-sighted, and not surprising considering these two sell a very expensive treatment that attempts to "cure" autism using a chemical that is usually used to castrate sex offenders.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-autism-lupron-may21,0,242705.story

"Mercury and autism: Accelerating Evidence?"

I'll just say it was very appropriate to make that title a question, and it's never a good sign when a scientific paper alleges a conspiracy during the introduction. Citing Geier repeatedly also does little to support the credibility of the writer as they clearly did not evaluate the strength of their sources. They really make the same fundamental flaw that you do: blindly accepting anything that agrees with them while broadly panning everything that doesn't--usually accompanied by crucifixion of a pro-vaccine paper as evidence that they're all worse than anti-vaccine papers.

"Aluminum adjuvant linked to gulf war illness induces motor neuron death in mice"

--Oh, look. Now we've got an animal study (remember back when you were insisting they're totally not predictive of human outcomes?) showing a theoretical link between a military vaccine adjuvant and a disease totally unrelated to autism.

"Neurotoxic Effects of Postnatal Thimerosal are Mouse Strain Dependent."

--Finally, a paper that's actually good. It only supports a theoretical link between thimerosal and disruption of neural development a completely abnormal strain of mice though. Now, tell me how well does this strain (whose genetic problems are not limited to auto-immunity) represent human auto-immune susceptibility. The study definitely suggests a link may exist and warrants further examination--but even the authors note that this isn't conclusively demonstrated by this paper.

Also note that the authors conclude that epidemiological evidence regarding the link between thimerosal and autism is inconclusive.

Also note that they reiterate that thimerosal has largely been removed from vaccines, suggesting that even if their theory is correct, it was only applicable under old vaccination schedules.

"Autism: A Novel Form of Mercury Poisoning."

--This doesn't link vaccines and autism. It attempts to equate autism with mercury poisoning. At best, even if this assumption is correct, it still only suggests a possible theoretical mechanisms by with thalidomide may trigger autism.

"Mercury in Medicine - Taking Unnecessary Risks "

--Ironically, this is exactly how I'd describe the situation. It appears that the "evil" FDA and pharmaceutical industries are coming around to this way of thinking as well considering thimerosal has mostly been phased out. In fact, we should know if this is the cause of the autism increase relatively soon, shouldn't we?

Of course, setting aside that none of your articles actually directly link vaccination to increased autism, most of the hypothetical factors presented by them are proposed to function in a manner that disagrees with Blaylock's theory of repeated immune stimulation which you currently ascribe to. Some papers claimed heavy metal toxicity (which is not equivalent to repeated immune stimulation). Others claimed measles persistence (which results from a single exposure to measeles). Others weren't even about autism at all.

Ready to get back to the point-by-point? I mean, it really does look like you're doing your darndest to avoid it.

Randy:

I have put together a response to your comments, but it looks like it is too long for Artvoice.com to post as a comment. Please go to http://bitterbonker.livejournal.com/91876.html to view my reply.

Thenk yew.

-B

It's aweful how Morgan Dunbar was treated. The issue of animal rights and safety in the medical and pharmaceutical industry is huge!

Thankfully, many pharma companies are waking up, and at least, chimpanzees will no longer be used in the U.S. by and large.

Some biotechnology companies have been animal friendly from their inception and any/all research conducted has been animal free. One such company is polyDNA. One can learn more about them at http://www.gene-eden.com. (gene-eden DOT COM )

Randy, did you ever intend to respond to me? You're probably the only person I've debated online regarding this issue that I actually respect (even though I disagree with you). Surely you must have SOMETHING to say. Anywho, I'm the dork who overcomplicated the discussion... though you must admit that some of the digressions were needed to make my point. For the benefit of the original topic, the pseudoscience of animal testing, here is the excerpt of my response.

http://bitterbonker.livejournal.com/91876.html

Randy said:

“Oh, look. Now we've got an animal study (remember back when you were insisting they're totally not predictive of human outcomes?) showing a theoretical link between a military vaccine adjuvant and a disease totally unrelated to autism [Aluminum adjuvant linked to gulf war illness induces motor neuron death in mice -
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17114826].”

Well, well, well. Randy, the man who absolutely refuses to debate fairly. Since you seem to be so keen on putting words into my mouth, let me clarify that I never said that animal tests are “totally not predictive of human outcomes”. The truth is more subtle than that… although it is true that in many cases animal tests hopelessly confuse the issue of drug/chemical safety.

In some cases, they can be quite accurate. For example, I don’t know of a SINGLE animal test, or biological test such as in vitro tissue culture, that shows that Thimerosal is not harmful. The crap seems to be universally dangerous to all living things (except for pathogenic bacteria, ironically—it has been shown to be a poor vaccine preservative). Please refer to RFK jr’s “Tobacco Science and the Thimerosal Scandal” [http://www.robertfkennedyjr.com/docs/ThimerosalScandalFINAL.PDF] for references to animal tests that have shown the neurotoxicity of Thimerosal, and evidence that Thimerosal doesn’t even effectively sterilize vaccine mixtures.

If it were up to me, we wouldn’t have to do animal tests to show that substances like mercury and aluminum compounds (which are in many vaccines, not just “military” vaccines) should not be injected into young children. But you would likely counter that this is an emotional, not scientific point of view. So I provide animal tests, which is presumably what you wanted to see. The study has already been done, it doesn’t make a difference for the victims whether I use it here or not.

Yet you still shoot it down. Funny thing is, this is what I predicted. I said that animal tests tended to be ignored when they provided unfavorable outcomes, and promoted when they showed the desired outcome. Your arguments support this contention, because you are doing this yourself. So I guess we can end this debate now! You seem to concede (a) that animal tests are not a reliable predictor of human outcomes—comparable results can only be verified after knowing the effects in humans.

You said, earlier in this discussion:

“As for your quote ‘More than 800 chemicals have been defined as teratogens in laboratory animals, but only a few of these, approximately 20, have been shown to be teratogenic in humans. This discrepancy can be attributed to differences in metabolism, sensitivity and exposure time.’ (Dr Beat Schmid, Trends in Pharmacological Sciences; 8:133, 1987)

“--This is hardly surprising. This exact notion was also examined by Schardein. First, this does not mean 780 chemicals were teratogenic in animals, but not in man. Only one substance known to be teratogenic in humans had not been found to be teratogenic in animals as of 1985.

“Consider:
1. Most of these compounds aren't drugs, so they have never been systematically administered to humans. They are typically things found in occupational settings, in the environment, in food, etc.

“2. Schardein notes that human epidemiological data outside of the clinical setting is not reliable, and has only ever discovered 3 teratogens. Thus, for most of these 780 substances, there is no means to confirm human teratogenicity.

“3. The only way to prove that these substances are not human teratogens would be to conduct a clinically controlled trial. (Good luck convincing expectant mothers to eat pesticide to see if their babies become deformed).”

Fascinating testimony. Since “this does not mean 780 chemicals were teratogenic in animals, but not in man”, and since you *insist* that animal tests are generally predictive of human outcomes, even if more than one species needs to be cross-referenced, wouldn’t the logical conclusion be that a good proportion of the chemicals on the market ARE teratogenic? Even if the animal tests provide little insight into precisely which ones? So you concede (b) that animal outcomes “can be deemed inapplicable when necessary, ignored when convenient”, in the words of Dr Robert Sharpe.

By the way, it isn’t a given that GWS is “totally unrelated to autism”, as you say. For example, please reference the paper Chronic Mycoplasmal Infections in Gulf War Veterans’ Children and Autism Patients
(http://www.gulfwarvets.com/chronic_infections.htm):

“Autism patients have systemic bacterial, viral and fungal infections that may play an important part in their illnesses. We found that immediate family members of veterans diagnosed with Gulf War Illnesses (GWI) often complain of fatigue and other problems, and upon analysis they report similar signs and symptoms as their veteran family members, except that their children are often diagnosed with Autism.”

Dr. Blaylock explains, “Most neurological disorders, both acute and chronic, have a common set of pathological events despite their varying clinical presentations.” Indeed, we are dealing with autistic SPECTRUM disorders. So, despite the bewildering variety of disorders with confusing names and huge wealthy charities seeking “cures” that will never be found, perhaps the truth is that research into the alleged “genetic” basis of these disorders only serves to hopelessly overcomplicate the issue and distract from real solutions.

Here’s an interesting example (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/08/11/peds.2010-0887.abstract):

“Dravet syndrome is a rare epileptic encephalopathy linked to mutations in SCN1A (neuronal sodium channel α1 subunit) and characterized by an onset in infancy with polymorphous seizure types and developmental decline. It was reported recently that a proportion of patients previously diagnosed with alleged vaccine encephalopathy might possess SCN1A mutations and clinical histories that enabled a diagnosis of Dravet syndrome, but these results have not been replicated.

“We present here the cases of 5 children who presented for epilepsy care with presumed parental diagnoses of alleged vaccine encephalopathy caused by pertussis vaccinations in infancy. Their conditions were all rediagnosed years later, with the support of genetic testing, as Dravet syndrome. We hope that these cases will raise awareness of Dravet syndrome among health care providers who care for children and adolescents and aid in earlier recognition and diagnosis.”

How convenient that we can always make up new “genetic” diseases to avoid the diagnosis of vaccine complications. However, according to Dr. Michael Godfrey, "It is impossible to have a sudden epidemic of a genetic disease. The genetic factor or other predisposing weakening factor is there but it needed the environmental trigger to make it surface. That's why we think the genetic inability to excrete mercury e.g. Apo-E4 and/or a metallothionine abnormality underlies those that crash after being exposed to mercury injections."

Note that autism has overlapping symptoms with “Dravet syndrome” as well as epilepsy:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21620773

You said:

"Finally, a paper that's actually good [Neurotoxic Effects of Postnatal Thimerosal are Mouse Strain Dependent -
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15184908]. It only supports a theoretical link between thimerosal and disruption of neural development a completely abnormal strain of mice though. Now, tell me how well does this strain (whose genetic problems are not limited to auto-immunity) represent human auto-immune susceptibility. The study definitely suggests a link may exist and warrants further examination--but even the authors note that this isn't conclusively demonstrated by this paper.”

Well, see, once more, you’ve called attention to the questionable benefits of animal testing. You ask how this strain of mouse represents human auto-immune susceptibility. Then how does any strain? Why even do the tests at all?

Do you remember when I pointed out that Dr. Somers’ studies that found thalidomide teratogenicity in mice were dismissed by Chemie Grunenthal on the grounds that he must have been using a “particularly sensitive strain of mouse”? History is repeating itself.

This is what IOM panelist Steven Goodman, MD, MHS, PhD, an associate professor of oncology and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, told Medscape: "This type of study, while certainly interesting, in no way substitutes for actual human evidence. We don't have an animal model for autism” [it’s highly debatable that we have an animal model for ANY human disorder] “and we don't understand exactly what causes autism or what its exact pathophysiology is in humans.” [and how is animal testing supposed to lead us to this?] “So we don't understand it completely in either system at the moment, and we certainly don't understand to what extent one is a model for the other."

Here is what the author of this study, Associate Professor Dr. Mady Hornig, said: “The same immune response genes in mice that predict mercury-related immunotoxicity also predict neurodevelopmental damage in our model and are associated with the development of features reminiscent of those observed in autism. These include generalised impoverishment of behavioural responses and abnormal reactions to novel environments, brain enlargement, correlated closely with the observed behavioural abnormalities in exploration and anxiety, increased cell packing in the hippocampus, and disturbances in glutamate receptors and transporters.”

This is all very interesting, but the bottom line is that both you and this Medscape article are beautifully demonstrating my point that animal tests are open to interpretation, and this is abused for political-economic purposes.

The article continues: ‘"We didn't say that investigations shouldn't continue in the lab on the effects of mercury, on the effects of thimerosal, and on the causes and profiles of autism," Dr. Goodman said. "Where the committee thought that research dollars probably shouldn't go, at least for the moment, are these large-scale epidemiologic studies linking autism and thimerosal exposure."

‘But Dr. Hornig countered that the design of published epidemiologic studies may have been inadequate to appropriately estimate risk. Although MHC and non-MHC genes, age, sex, nutrition, route and frequency of administration, and maturity of the metabolic, immune, and nervous systems are known to affect mercury toxicokinetics, previous studies have not evaluated such factors.

‘"The pronouncement that research funds are better applied elsewhere effectively forecloses any possibility of federal funding for an entire field of research," she said. "The timing is particularly unfortunate given that we are only just beginning to define the mechanisms by which environmental factors such as thimerosal interact with immune response genes during early development."’

VERRRRY interesting. One of the most important things that you and this article (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/480683) indicate is that all animals, including humans, differ substantially in their genetics even within the same species, meaning that even if the majority are relatively unharmed, there can still be severe adverse reactions in a small percentage of the population.

"Even without knowledge of a specific gene association, we can consider the impact of gene prevalence on our statistical capacity to demonstrate effects of potential toxins in a population, should they exist," Dr. Hornig said. Note that there hasn’t been any effort to determine if a small percentage of (human) children are genetically susceptible to being harmed by ‘one size fits all’ mass vaccination policies.

----

Do I need to throw more of your own words back at you? How about, "I really hate it when people back down from point-by-points right after accusing someone of blindly accepting things."