As for the COVID vaccine, the whole 'trust the science' ruse was just that, as I understood it. There is no flu virus vaccine that prevents infection. It's not possible. Then they tried saying that it "saved lives." But that can't be proven.
Anecdotally, I was infected with the first variant while traveling in Cambodia and Vietnam in January, 2020. I had "mild symptoms," but none on the lists posted at health clinics and whatnot, mild symptoms that lasted several weeks, but not drastic enough to stay home sick. Cut to after the vaccine, when the worst infection came in December, 2022. Followed by another infection in January, 2023. Those two were worse. Did the vaccine save my life? It probably had zero effect. I already had the antibodies from the first infection, first of all. I already have a strong immune system. How on earth could it be proven that the vaccine tempered the infection? We'll never know.
As for RFK JR, it boggles my mind how misrepresented his interests are when it comes to vaccines. That wasn't a hearing; it was a struggle session. One thing the Democrat Party excels at -- and it isn't much -- is looking like a bunch of corporate-captured harpies. What an ugly group of people.
Two points. One, there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism. There never has been. The Substack article you cite to provides no evidence to support its assertions that aluminum from vaccines causes autism. All the evidence we have shows that autism is a genetic disease.
Two, Bobby Kennedy has made tens of millions of dollars from lawsuits, speeches and books attacking vaccines. He has no science to support his claims, but he makes them anyway. I'm no fan of Tony Fauci or Bill Gates, but I think the claims Bobby Kennedy makes against those men that they killed millions of African children are scurrilous.
Did you watch the Del Bigtree video the author has linked in her post? There may be no direct scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism, I don’t know, but there is also no reputable gold standard scientific evidence that they don’t. As far as I’m aware there have been no scientific studies that included a placebo group that received a true placebo. The so-called placebos included some or all of the actual adjuvants that were in the vaccines themselves (thimerosal, aluminum, etc). Duh, if you’re giving the control group the same potentially harmful ingredients as the non-control, it’s not a huge surprise when there are no statistically significant differences in adverse reactions between the two groups.
If autism is genetic, then there is something very wrong happening in the gene pool. The point RFKJ is making is that it needs to be studied without the conflict of interests that are prevalent in much of the “science” that is being done today. After all, the only reason not to study something is if you’re afraid of the answer, which I suspect is the actual reason they don’t want to go down that path..
Unfortunately, autism is not all we need to worry about given the increases in cancer, autoimmune disease, heart attacks and obesity not only in adults but in children and seemingly healthy young adults,but I’m sure it is all genetic and Pharma can produce drugs for all of these genetic anomalies—Ozempic anyone?
It’s fine if you want to inject potentially harmful metals into your children and, according to the CDC, that should prevent them from getting any of these infectious diseases; however, not all parents wish to take those kinds of unknown risks with their children’s health and they should be able to make that choice as well.
I agree that people should be able to choose whether to get vaccinated. I am against all vaccine mandates, and I agree that in the US we recommend way too many vaccines. The Covid-19 vaccines were grossly oversold and the mandates grossly unethical. The flu vaccine is similar.
But I have to disagree with you about science and vaccines. I've been a scientist for almost 40 years now, and for the last 10 years, I've studied causation in complex adaptive systems, mainly based on the work of computer scientist Judea Pearl. The scientific tool of causal inference that he and others have developed and refined over the last 70 years helps us address questions like whether vaccines cause autism.
Del Bigtree and Bobby Kennedy don't use that tool or even the scientific method in general, so there is not much to say about their opinions. Bobby Kennedy in particular has made tens of millions of dollars from his questioning of vaccines, and that taints his views in my eyes. He seems nothing more than a snake-oil salesman.
Okay, say you are correct and autism is genetic. Do you mean it is being caused by inherited gene mutations that go back to our ancestors for hundreds/thousands of years, or are there genetic mutations potentially much more recent and potentially ongoing. If so, what is causing these mutations. Could it be they are caused by exponentially increased exposure to environmental toxins including, but not limited to lead, mercury, aluminum, plastic, glyphosate, pharmaceuticals (including but not limited to vaccines) etc.
If the answer is yes, everyday exposure to environmental toxins may be leading to gene mutations, or the frequency or impact of these mutations may have been exacerbated by increased environmental exposure which may be causing autism, or obesity due to endocrine disrupting chemicals, or autoimmune disease, or cancer, shouldn’t we demand gold standard science from scientists who are free from conflicts? As I understand it, that is what RFKJ is advocating, along with getting a few hundred of these chemicals out of our food and water.
I read the JB Handley blog post you cited (and I have read some of his blog posts and one of his books in the past). And I have now read the article by Christopher Exley that you cited. That article says that they analyzed spectrographically fragments of the brains of five now dead people who had autism and found that they had what seemed to be high levels of aluminum. They did not compare the brains of the people with autism to brains of people without autism. Nor did they draw any conclusions as to whether the levels of aluminum came from vaccines or had anything to do with the fact that the person became autistic.
I am very intellectually curious and am far from self-satisfied. I am just following the scientific method and seeing where the data takes me. People who know nothing about science I pay little attention to.
To follow up on the Bradford Hill criteria you cited, note that they apply only when an association (sometimes coorelation) is observed in the data. No one has observed any association between vaccination and autism. And I can assure you, people have looked for one.
Of course I may have missed a study that showed an association, so if you know of such a study, please let me know.
IL-4 mediates the delayed neurobehavioral impairments induced by neonatal hepatitis B vaccination that involves the down-regulation of the IL-4 receptor in the hippocampus
When I looked at your comment before, there was the same link to the Mawson study under all of the titles. Now there are the proper links under each title. Was that just a glitch in the system, or did you see the problem and correct it?
Cassidy is a self inflated pompous fool. He is a talking head for Big Pharma. Check his campaign treasure. Over $1M from the "science" people. Everyone has a price. I would not let him treat a dying lab rat. His incompetence is reflected in his campaign treasure.
I am in my eighth decade . Child of the 50's.
Marine Vietnam veteran. Agent Orange challenges. Pacemaker Defibrillator implant in 2018. Discussion with several physicians when the Fauci miscreants released the man made bioweapon from Wuhan. We don't know enough about it. Emergency Use Authorization is not a testament to validity. Suggest you exercise caution. I did. Remain free.
Think for yourself people. Otherwise, you become a Cassidy.
Here I am, danger to the community, because I question medical "authority". In light of the falsified studies, false claims and deadly wrong doing, I will keep questioning. Great article.
While the issue of vaccines may be somewhat unique because it involves and relates to health issues, the health/science belief debate is more about the role of experts in society. This is not a new issue and goes back at least as far as the progressives of the early twentieth century who sought to make the US better by giving more power to "experts." Many of those experts of yesteryear were true and strong believers in eugenics. Among those was a woman named Margaret Sanger ( now best known as one of the prime proponents for abortion using the " logic" and "science " of eugenic thought, leading to what is now Planned Parenthood ( a rather humorous name given the history of Maggie and her acolytes)). All of this begs questions such as (1)what someone an expert ( a term cavalierly thrown around but never really explored or defined: it ain't based upon having a PHD or MD as we have recently learned especially given how universities are being run), (2) exactly how much power should be ceded to so called self anointed experts in what is supposed to be a free democratic society, and (3) how are those we are told are experts to be held accountable when their expertise produces results that were not expected, not efficacious or downright harmful? In a free society all ideas and all people should and must be questioned especially if they possess power that affects the lives of others. This is true in matters and pretty much all other areas where we are told an expert has given his or her "opinion."
Good point about experts. Brilliant physicist Richard Feynman said "science is the belief in the ignorance of experts". He meant by that that we should always rely on data rather than expert opinion. If someone tells us something we should not be afraid to ask for the data.
So whether it is Tony Fauci or Bobby Kennedy, demand their data.
Bobby Kennedy has been trying for years to get people in positions of influence to look at the data he has from many people doing science and research into vaccines, their safety, and autism, so I'm wondering why you're so certain he has none to support it.
Also, I reject the idea that if someone makes a successful income litigating for medical freedom and damages from injury, it's evidence they're a snake oil salesman, a con artist, untrustworthy.
Before he entered the ring on behalf of vaccine injured children, RFK had spent decades building an extremely successful career as an environmental lawyer and he enjoyed all the prestige, connections, and influence of his family name; he was the star of the Kennedy clan and widely admired and celebrated in the Democrat party. He sacrificed *every last ounce* of that political capital to pursue the verboten subject of vaccine safety. All the doors in Washington that had been open to him closed when he took on that advocacy. His good standing and reputation within political circles dried up and even close family members distanced themselves, but he refused to abandon these kids and parents who have been dismissed and ridiculed by the medical establishment—who *followed its advice and vaccinated* and paid an egregious price. If Bobby was out for self-aggrandizement and financial enrichment he already had it all; he had no reason to torch his stellar reputation and turned himself into a pariah among his people. Logically, snake-oil salesmen don't sacrifice their beautiful lives and reputations to help the helpless.
Your article is well written and persuasive, as your writing always is. But I disagree strongly with what you say about anti-vaccine activists. Here's why.
In deciding what is true about our natural world logic and reason go only so far. To determine what is true and what is false we instead use the scientific method. You are right that many experts like Tony Fauci abuse the term "the science" to mean their own opinions, but their unjustified arrogance does not mean that the scientific method should be abandoned and your logic and reason substituted instead. Science is still the only way, the only way, to determine the truth about our natural world.
In science, logic and reason don't matter much because they are too abstract and too simple, while the natural world is concrete and complex. What matters in science is data from the real world -- evidence derived from experiment -- not simplistic conclusions derived from reasoning. Anyone, whether the most expert scientist or an untrained amateur, is judged not based on their qualifications but on the data they can provide to support their hypothesis. As one of the most brilliant scientists (Richard Feynmann) said, "science is the belief in the ignorance of experts", and he emphasized experimental results instead.
So let's apply science to vaccines and look at data. The first vaccine used in people was in 1796 by Edward Jenner. He (and others) had discovered that milkmaids who got cowpox from infected cows became immune from smallpox. Edward Jenner experimented with the vaccine, infecting first one young man and then when that was effective, trying the technique on others.
Edward Jenner's success in England led to vaccination quickly spreading around the world. In the United States, newly elected president Thomas Jefferson obtained some cowpox vaccine in 1801 and because his doctor was too busy to do it, vaccinated all his family and slaves at Monticello as well as all the neighbors who wanted it. The results were stunning. Smallpox epidemics could be stopped or prevented by vaccination instead of the more brutal inoculation that had previously been used. The data was there for all to see.
That didn't matter to some -- there were antivaxxers even back then. Some were religious, claiming that only God could decide who lived and died. Others claimed that the authorities were using vaccines in a nefarious way to kill off or harm the poor. But that was all just opinion and belief, and the data showed otherwise. In the real world, vaccines worked against smallpox, and eventually led to the smallpox virus's disappearance from the face of the earth.
Since cowpox was a mild disease, and infecting people with cowpox immunized people against the severe toll of smallpox, the vaccine was shown to be safe and effective. Other vaccines have been developed over the years and they were also both tested before widespread use and then carefully followed as they were used. Rigorous standards were developed to show that these vaccines, like all new drugs, were safe and effective. Those standards remain in place today, with Phase I, II and III testing for safety and efficacy.
There are risks with vaccines, and we should always be trying to find practical ways to make vaccines more safe and more effective. And during the Covid-19 pandemic vaccines were grossly oversold and their use was wrongly mandated. There is too much pro-vaccine opinion being presented, unfairly, as supported by science.
That doesn't excuse people claiming as you do, and as Bobby Kennedy and Del Bigtree do, that vaccines are harmful and ineffective and that the facts about that have been covered up. There's just no scientific evidence to support that argument. And science demands data to support any assertion that is made.
I didn't advocate to abandon the scientific method. In fact, the scientific method itself would be worth nothing if logic and reason weren't applied in using it. But you and I both know that science can be gamed, even by those who claim to rely on the scientific method. I would say Exhibit A is Fauci, Exhibit B is the tobacco "science" funded by the tobacco lobby and Exhibit C is the vaccine "science" funded by the Pharma lobby, who took the tobacco lobby's playbook and perfected it. Based on this one paragraph that you wrote...
"Since cowpox was a mild disease, and infecting people with cowpox immunized people against the severe toll of smallpox, the vaccine was shown to be safe and effective. Other vaccines have been developed over the years and they were also both tested before widespread use and then carefully followed as they were used. Rigorous standards were developed to show that these vaccines, like all new drugs, were safe and effective. Those standards remain in place today, with Phase I, II and III testing for safety and efficacy."
...I would say that it doesn't sound like you are familiar with the actual history and process of creating and testing vaccines. It does sound like you have learned, and accepted as fact, what the Pharma companies and their medical establishment cronies purport to be true—ie. their propaganda. There is a mountain of information and evidence out there exposing the lie if you're willing to look. Watching this might give you some points of reference (the vaccine testimony begins at the 7 minute mark):
You say, "In science, logic and reason don't matter much because they are too abstract and too simple, while the natural world is concrete and complex."
But with all that complexity, you still declare with certainty that vaccines don't cause autism?
I guess when you downgrade the importance of logic and reason in science, you can say pretty much anything you want.
What I am saying is that any conclusion reached through logic and reason needs to be tested against real-world data. Logic and reason are no replacement for experiment.
For example, when a carmaker designs a car, they use logic and reason to create a design. But the only way to know if that design really works is to test it out in the real world. Whether a design looks good on paper doesn't matter. What does matter is how the design works in the real world.
It's the difference between theory and practice. It's great to have a theory, but you never know if your theory works unless you can put it into practice. And a theory that makes sense according to logic and reason is worthless if it doesn't work in practice. On the other hand, if something works in practice it doesn't matter if it seems illogical or unreasonable. It works, and that proves it is correct.
You asked why I can declare with certainty that vaccines don't cause autism. That's because, using the scientific tool of causal inference on the data we have on vaccine use and autism diagnosis, we can find no correlation between the two. Lack of correlation means lack of causation. That's basic science.
In your other comment you referred to the "Hill criteria". Those criteria, developed by AB Hill after he and Richard Doll showed the causal link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, were a primitive precursor of the more modern tool of causal inference. That important tool is a little hard to explain to someone with no background in statistics or the scientific method, so I won't go into detail. But it is clear from using it that vaccines don't cause autism.
No, I'm not joking. The Danish health records are the best in the world, going back generations. Studies using those records found no correlation (technically, I should say association) between vaccines and autism. There are associations between autism and other factors, all of which point to genetics as the cause of autism.
Danish children do not follow the CDC schedule, so relying on their data to make generalizations about vaccines and autism and American children is poor science. Notably, none of them receive a shot with a dose of neurotoxic aluminum on the first day of life.
Also, it is notable that the studies "debunking" a connection between vaccines and autism are centered on the MMR vaccine and the preservative thimerisol. Yet very many parent reports indicate that normally developing babies regressed into autism well before their first MMR shot. It is notable that the CDC, upon being legally mandated, could not present ANY research looking at any of the vaccines given in the first year to uphold their claim that "vaccines don't cause autism." From the link below:
*************
In the summer of 2019, ICAN submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the CDC for “All studies relied upon by CDC to claim that the DTaP vaccine does not cause autism.”
ICAN also submitted this same request for HepB, Hib, PCV13 and IPV vaccines, and additionally requested that the CDC provide studies to support its claim that the cumulative exposure to these vaccines during the first six months of life do not cause autism.
Despite months of demands, the CDC failed to produce a single study in response to these FOIA requests.
Logic tells me that if they are making a claim they cannot support with science, it is at best unproven, worse false, and worst fraudulent. In any case, it would be illogical to believe they have "the data."
You make some interesting points, but I think you misunderstand how science works. In particular, you seem not to know how causal inference works. Most people don’t, but causal inference is a very powerful scientific tool that applies logic and reasoning to statistics.
To show how causal inference works in your case, let me ask you a question. If the DTaP vaccine causes autism, why do so few children who receive the DTaP vaccine become autistic?
I have no predetermined conclusion. I'd be happy to discuss the so-called Bradford Hill criteria or the application of causal inference to the question of whether vaccines cause autism. I'm a computer scientist and my research for the past 10 years or so has been on the subject of causation in complex adaptive systems, which means that question falls in my wheelhouse. Do you know enough about the analysis of statistical data to have a discussion?
The “I'm more qualified than you to have an opinion on this” argument is irrelevant. You are making extreme statements such as “no one has ever found an association” that you expect to be taken at face value.
Statistically, how often does this argument from (supposed) authority work for you?
One can certainly question whether vaccines are safe and effective, and one should not blindly trust experts. But one should rely on data, snd there is lots of data about vaccines. That data shows that vaccines do more good than harm.
For the Covid-19 vaccines, for example, billions of doses have been given, and the data shows very few, if any, deaths due to vaccines and many lives saved. That data is there for anyone to analyze.
Statistical analysis is hard for people who are not familiar with the principles of causal inference. But that is no excuse for people to claim harms that cannot be demonstrated.
Del BigTree and Bobby Kennedy do not have any data to support their belief that vaccines are unsafe and ineffective. They don't know how to use scientific tools like causal inference. They flout the scientific method.
Anti-vaccination beliefs are anti-science, unsupported by data. They are based on emotion, not fact. That's why people who do know how to do science object to those beliefs.
Nope. John S. None of what you are saying is true. And that's easy to show. But you need to do this work for yourself or you won't change what you think. There's plenty of info and data out there to refute what you "believe." And it comes from well credentialed people.
I've studied the science of causation in complex adaptive systems for decades now, especially in nutrition and climate science. The best work on that comes (in my opinion) from Judea Pearl, a Turing prize winning computer scientist. His book for general audiences is called The Book of Why. I recommend it for people who don't know how science works.
I have done the work of causal inference for the question of whether vaccines are safe and effective. Of course the data is never complete, but many billions of doses of vaccines have been given and that gives us plenty of data to work with.
If you think there are well-credentialed people who have analyzed the data and shown using causal inference that vaccines cause more harm than good, please point me to their work. I'd like to see it.
During the pandemic vaccines were grossly oversold and mandates were foolishly imposed. I can see why people mistrust scientists and experts like Tony Fauci.
But that's no excuse for abandoning science in favor of snake oil salesmen like Bobby Kennedy.
You speak as if "the data" on Covid and the covid shot and vaccines all offer a single inescapable conclusion for anyone who looks at it. Yet Bret Weinstein and his wife, Heather Heying, are two PhD evolutionary biologists who have spent decades doing field work and teaching about how to collect and read data and think about complex systems, and they haven't come to your conclusions. In fact, once upon a time they were huge advocates of vaccines but their examination of the evidence on Covid and the mRNA shots opened their eyes to a closer review of vaccine research and their minds were changed. Bret recently tweeted: "I’m a biologist. My wife is too. We believe strongly in the potential value of vaccines. Our kids are 18 and 20 and “fully vaccinated.” But if they were born today—now that we understand how modern vaccines work, how manufacturing is done, how their safety and efficacy is tested, how adverse reactions are tracked, and how the injured are treated—We wouldn’t give them any. Not one. It’s not even close."
Dissolving Illusions and Turtles All the Way Down are two books that examine vaccine and public health data and don't come to your conclusions.
Speaking of vaccines, I just read most of this long investigation into the correlation between vaccines and autism:
International scientists have found autism's cause. What will Americans do?
Five clear, replicable, and related discoveries explaining how autism is triggered have formed an undeniably clear picture of autism’s causation.
J.B. Handley
Sep 02, 2024
https://open.substack.com/pub/jbhandley/p/international-scientists-have-found?r=eo3qf&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
As for the COVID vaccine, the whole 'trust the science' ruse was just that, as I understood it. There is no flu virus vaccine that prevents infection. It's not possible. Then they tried saying that it "saved lives." But that can't be proven.
Anecdotally, I was infected with the first variant while traveling in Cambodia and Vietnam in January, 2020. I had "mild symptoms," but none on the lists posted at health clinics and whatnot, mild symptoms that lasted several weeks, but not drastic enough to stay home sick. Cut to after the vaccine, when the worst infection came in December, 2022. Followed by another infection in January, 2023. Those two were worse. Did the vaccine save my life? It probably had zero effect. I already had the antibodies from the first infection, first of all. I already have a strong immune system. How on earth could it be proven that the vaccine tempered the infection? We'll never know.
As for RFK JR, it boggles my mind how misrepresented his interests are when it comes to vaccines. That wasn't a hearing; it was a struggle session. One thing the Democrat Party excels at -- and it isn't much -- is looking like a bunch of corporate-captured harpies. What an ugly group of people.
Two points. One, there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism. There never has been. The Substack article you cite to provides no evidence to support its assertions that aluminum from vaccines causes autism. All the evidence we have shows that autism is a genetic disease.
Two, Bobby Kennedy has made tens of millions of dollars from lawsuits, speeches and books attacking vaccines. He has no science to support his claims, but he makes them anyway. I'm no fan of Tony Fauci or Bill Gates, but I think the claims Bobby Kennedy makes against those men that they killed millions of African children are scurrilous.
Did you watch the Del Bigtree video the author has linked in her post? There may be no direct scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism, I don’t know, but there is also no reputable gold standard scientific evidence that they don’t. As far as I’m aware there have been no scientific studies that included a placebo group that received a true placebo. The so-called placebos included some or all of the actual adjuvants that were in the vaccines themselves (thimerosal, aluminum, etc). Duh, if you’re giving the control group the same potentially harmful ingredients as the non-control, it’s not a huge surprise when there are no statistically significant differences in adverse reactions between the two groups.
If autism is genetic, then there is something very wrong happening in the gene pool. The point RFKJ is making is that it needs to be studied without the conflict of interests that are prevalent in much of the “science” that is being done today. After all, the only reason not to study something is if you’re afraid of the answer, which I suspect is the actual reason they don’t want to go down that path..
Unfortunately, autism is not all we need to worry about given the increases in cancer, autoimmune disease, heart attacks and obesity not only in adults but in children and seemingly healthy young adults,but I’m sure it is all genetic and Pharma can produce drugs for all of these genetic anomalies—Ozempic anyone?
It’s fine if you want to inject potentially harmful metals into your children and, according to the CDC, that should prevent them from getting any of these infectious diseases; however, not all parents wish to take those kinds of unknown risks with their children’s health and they should be able to make that choice as well.
I agree that people should be able to choose whether to get vaccinated. I am against all vaccine mandates, and I agree that in the US we recommend way too many vaccines. The Covid-19 vaccines were grossly oversold and the mandates grossly unethical. The flu vaccine is similar.
But I have to disagree with you about science and vaccines. I've been a scientist for almost 40 years now, and for the last 10 years, I've studied causation in complex adaptive systems, mainly based on the work of computer scientist Judea Pearl. The scientific tool of causal inference that he and others have developed and refined over the last 70 years helps us address questions like whether vaccines cause autism.
Del Bigtree and Bobby Kennedy don't use that tool or even the scientific method in general, so there is not much to say about their opinions. Bobby Kennedy in particular has made tens of millions of dollars from his questioning of vaccines, and that taints his views in my eyes. He seems nothing more than a snake-oil salesman.
Okay, say you are correct and autism is genetic. Do you mean it is being caused by inherited gene mutations that go back to our ancestors for hundreds/thousands of years, or are there genetic mutations potentially much more recent and potentially ongoing. If so, what is causing these mutations. Could it be they are caused by exponentially increased exposure to environmental toxins including, but not limited to lead, mercury, aluminum, plastic, glyphosate, pharmaceuticals (including but not limited to vaccines) etc.
If the answer is yes, everyday exposure to environmental toxins may be leading to gene mutations, or the frequency or impact of these mutations may have been exacerbated by increased environmental exposure which may be causing autism, or obesity due to endocrine disrupting chemicals, or autoimmune disease, or cancer, shouldn’t we demand gold standard science from scientists who are free from conflicts? As I understand it, that is what RFKJ is advocating, along with getting a few hundred of these chemicals out of our food and water.
You couldn't possibly have read the article. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0946672X17308763?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=90bba5de0ad17d05
I've heard what RFK J said about the African children. It's more complex than what you say.
This seems to be a battle between the intellectually curious, and the self-satisfied.
I read the JB Handley blog post you cited (and I have read some of his blog posts and one of his books in the past). And I have now read the article by Christopher Exley that you cited. That article says that they analyzed spectrographically fragments of the brains of five now dead people who had autism and found that they had what seemed to be high levels of aluminum. They did not compare the brains of the people with autism to brains of people without autism. Nor did they draw any conclusions as to whether the levels of aluminum came from vaccines or had anything to do with the fact that the person became autistic.
I am very intellectually curious and am far from self-satisfied. I am just following the scientific method and seeing where the data takes me. People who know nothing about science I pay little attention to.
If science is your focus, then what would be your analysis of this chart?
https://icandecide.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/no-placebo-101823.pdf
The “clinical trials” done for vaccines are severely lacking.
And I mean, if you can’t be held liable for adverse outcomes, why bother doing solid studies?
We would never accept such shoddy science for any other pharmaceutical.
How can you say, "The Substack article you cite to provides no evidence to support its assertions that aluminum from vaccines causes autism"?
There are plenty of supporting references therein. Did you look at any of them?
What about HILL’S CRITERIA?
Guidelines for judging whether an observed association is causal:
1. Temporal relationship
2. Strength of the association
3. Dose – response relationship/ Biological gradient
4. Replication of the findings
5. Biologic plausibility
6. Consideration of alternate explanations
7. Cessation of exposure
8. Consistency with other knowledge
9. Specificity of the association
10. Analogy
To follow up on the Bradford Hill criteria you cited, note that they apply only when an association (sometimes coorelation) is observed in the data. No one has observed any association between vaccination and autism. And I can assure you, people have looked for one.
Of course I may have missed a study that showed an association, so if you know of such a study, please let me know.
You can't get away with making an easily refutable statement like this:
“No one has observed any association between vaccination and autism. And I can assure you, people have looked for one.”
Just a few of the many studies about the association between vaccines and autism:
Vaccination and Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Study of Nine-Year-Old Children Enrolled in Medicaid
https://publichealthpolicyjournal.com/vaccination-and-neurodevelopmental-disorders-a-study-of-nine-year-old-children-enrolled-in-medicaid/
Reviewing the association between aluminum adjuvants in the vaccines and autism spectrum disorder
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0946672X21000547?via%3Dihub
Post-vaccination inflammatory syndrome: a new syndrome
https://www.oatext.com/pdf/CCRR-5-454.pdf
IL-4 mediates the delayed neurobehavioral impairments induced by neonatal hepatitis B vaccination that involves the down-regulation of the IL-4 receptor in the hippocampus
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29751176
Preterm birth, vaccination and neurodevelopmental disorders: a cross-sectional study of 6- to 12-year-old vaccinated and unvaccinated children
https://www.oatext.com/Preterm-birth-vaccination-and-neurodevelopmental-disorders-a-cross-sectional-study-of-6-to-12-year-old-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-children.php#Article
Pilot comparative study on the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated 6-to 12-year-old U.S. children
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317086531_Pilot_comparative_study_on_the_health_of_vaccinated_and_unvaccinated_6-to_12-year-old_US_children
When I looked at your comment before, there was the same link to the Mawson study under all of the titles. Now there are the proper links under each title. Was that just a glitch in the system, or did you see the problem and correct it?
Cassidy is a self inflated pompous fool. He is a talking head for Big Pharma. Check his campaign treasure. Over $1M from the "science" people. Everyone has a price. I would not let him treat a dying lab rat. His incompetence is reflected in his campaign treasure.
I am in my eighth decade . Child of the 50's.
Marine Vietnam veteran. Agent Orange challenges. Pacemaker Defibrillator implant in 2018. Discussion with several physicians when the Fauci miscreants released the man made bioweapon from Wuhan. We don't know enough about it. Emergency Use Authorization is not a testament to validity. Suggest you exercise caution. I did. Remain free.
Think for yourself people. Otherwise, you become a Cassidy.
Here I am, danger to the community, because I question medical "authority". In light of the falsified studies, false claims and deadly wrong doing, I will keep questioning. Great article.
Boom. 💥 🎤 💥
While the issue of vaccines may be somewhat unique because it involves and relates to health issues, the health/science belief debate is more about the role of experts in society. This is not a new issue and goes back at least as far as the progressives of the early twentieth century who sought to make the US better by giving more power to "experts." Many of those experts of yesteryear were true and strong believers in eugenics. Among those was a woman named Margaret Sanger ( now best known as one of the prime proponents for abortion using the " logic" and "science " of eugenic thought, leading to what is now Planned Parenthood ( a rather humorous name given the history of Maggie and her acolytes)). All of this begs questions such as (1)what someone an expert ( a term cavalierly thrown around but never really explored or defined: it ain't based upon having a PHD or MD as we have recently learned especially given how universities are being run), (2) exactly how much power should be ceded to so called self anointed experts in what is supposed to be a free democratic society, and (3) how are those we are told are experts to be held accountable when their expertise produces results that were not expected, not efficacious or downright harmful? In a free society all ideas and all people should and must be questioned especially if they possess power that affects the lives of others. This is true in matters and pretty much all other areas where we are told an expert has given his or her "opinion."
Good point about experts. Brilliant physicist Richard Feynman said "science is the belief in the ignorance of experts". He meant by that that we should always rely on data rather than expert opinion. If someone tells us something we should not be afraid to ask for the data.
So whether it is Tony Fauci or Bobby Kennedy, demand their data.
Bobby Kennedy has been trying for years to get people in positions of influence to look at the data he has from many people doing science and research into vaccines, their safety, and autism, so I'm wondering why you're so certain he has none to support it.
Also, I reject the idea that if someone makes a successful income litigating for medical freedom and damages from injury, it's evidence they're a snake oil salesman, a con artist, untrustworthy.
Before he entered the ring on behalf of vaccine injured children, RFK had spent decades building an extremely successful career as an environmental lawyer and he enjoyed all the prestige, connections, and influence of his family name; he was the star of the Kennedy clan and widely admired and celebrated in the Democrat party. He sacrificed *every last ounce* of that political capital to pursue the verboten subject of vaccine safety. All the doors in Washington that had been open to him closed when he took on that advocacy. His good standing and reputation within political circles dried up and even close family members distanced themselves, but he refused to abandon these kids and parents who have been dismissed and ridiculed by the medical establishment—who *followed its advice and vaccinated* and paid an egregious price. If Bobby was out for self-aggrandizement and financial enrichment he already had it all; he had no reason to torch his stellar reputation and turned himself into a pariah among his people. Logically, snake-oil salesmen don't sacrifice their beautiful lives and reputations to help the helpless.
The book Follow the $cience by Sharyl Atkisson is a great resource on this topic.
https://substack.com/@sharylattkisson/note/c-90847269
Your article is well written and persuasive, as your writing always is. But I disagree strongly with what you say about anti-vaccine activists. Here's why.
In deciding what is true about our natural world logic and reason go only so far. To determine what is true and what is false we instead use the scientific method. You are right that many experts like Tony Fauci abuse the term "the science" to mean their own opinions, but their unjustified arrogance does not mean that the scientific method should be abandoned and your logic and reason substituted instead. Science is still the only way, the only way, to determine the truth about our natural world.
In science, logic and reason don't matter much because they are too abstract and too simple, while the natural world is concrete and complex. What matters in science is data from the real world -- evidence derived from experiment -- not simplistic conclusions derived from reasoning. Anyone, whether the most expert scientist or an untrained amateur, is judged not based on their qualifications but on the data they can provide to support their hypothesis. As one of the most brilliant scientists (Richard Feynmann) said, "science is the belief in the ignorance of experts", and he emphasized experimental results instead.
So let's apply science to vaccines and look at data. The first vaccine used in people was in 1796 by Edward Jenner. He (and others) had discovered that milkmaids who got cowpox from infected cows became immune from smallpox. Edward Jenner experimented with the vaccine, infecting first one young man and then when that was effective, trying the technique on others.
Edward Jenner's success in England led to vaccination quickly spreading around the world. In the United States, newly elected president Thomas Jefferson obtained some cowpox vaccine in 1801 and because his doctor was too busy to do it, vaccinated all his family and slaves at Monticello as well as all the neighbors who wanted it. The results were stunning. Smallpox epidemics could be stopped or prevented by vaccination instead of the more brutal inoculation that had previously been used. The data was there for all to see.
That didn't matter to some -- there were antivaxxers even back then. Some were religious, claiming that only God could decide who lived and died. Others claimed that the authorities were using vaccines in a nefarious way to kill off or harm the poor. But that was all just opinion and belief, and the data showed otherwise. In the real world, vaccines worked against smallpox, and eventually led to the smallpox virus's disappearance from the face of the earth.
Since cowpox was a mild disease, and infecting people with cowpox immunized people against the severe toll of smallpox, the vaccine was shown to be safe and effective. Other vaccines have been developed over the years and they were also both tested before widespread use and then carefully followed as they were used. Rigorous standards were developed to show that these vaccines, like all new drugs, were safe and effective. Those standards remain in place today, with Phase I, II and III testing for safety and efficacy.
There are risks with vaccines, and we should always be trying to find practical ways to make vaccines more safe and more effective. And during the Covid-19 pandemic vaccines were grossly oversold and their use was wrongly mandated. There is too much pro-vaccine opinion being presented, unfairly, as supported by science.
That doesn't excuse people claiming as you do, and as Bobby Kennedy and Del Bigtree do, that vaccines are harmful and ineffective and that the facts about that have been covered up. There's just no scientific evidence to support that argument. And science demands data to support any assertion that is made.
I didn't advocate to abandon the scientific method. In fact, the scientific method itself would be worth nothing if logic and reason weren't applied in using it. But you and I both know that science can be gamed, even by those who claim to rely on the scientific method. I would say Exhibit A is Fauci, Exhibit B is the tobacco "science" funded by the tobacco lobby and Exhibit C is the vaccine "science" funded by the Pharma lobby, who took the tobacco lobby's playbook and perfected it. Based on this one paragraph that you wrote...
"Since cowpox was a mild disease, and infecting people with cowpox immunized people against the severe toll of smallpox, the vaccine was shown to be safe and effective. Other vaccines have been developed over the years and they were also both tested before widespread use and then carefully followed as they were used. Rigorous standards were developed to show that these vaccines, like all new drugs, were safe and effective. Those standards remain in place today, with Phase I, II and III testing for safety and efficacy."
...I would say that it doesn't sound like you are familiar with the actual history and process of creating and testing vaccines. It does sound like you have learned, and accepted as fact, what the Pharma companies and their medical establishment cronies purport to be true—ie. their propaganda. There is a mountain of information and evidence out there exposing the lie if you're willing to look. Watching this might give you some points of reference (the vaccine testimony begins at the 7 minute mark):
https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/aaron-siri-gives-testimony-on-the-floor-of-arizona-state-senate/
You say, "In science, logic and reason don't matter much because they are too abstract and too simple, while the natural world is concrete and complex."
But with all that complexity, you still declare with certainty that vaccines don't cause autism?
I guess when you downgrade the importance of logic and reason in science, you can say pretty much anything you want.
What I am saying is that any conclusion reached through logic and reason needs to be tested against real-world data. Logic and reason are no replacement for experiment.
For example, when a carmaker designs a car, they use logic and reason to create a design. But the only way to know if that design really works is to test it out in the real world. Whether a design looks good on paper doesn't matter. What does matter is how the design works in the real world.
It's the difference between theory and practice. It's great to have a theory, but you never know if your theory works unless you can put it into practice. And a theory that makes sense according to logic and reason is worthless if it doesn't work in practice. On the other hand, if something works in practice it doesn't matter if it seems illogical or unreasonable. It works, and that proves it is correct.
You asked why I can declare with certainty that vaccines don't cause autism. That's because, using the scientific tool of causal inference on the data we have on vaccine use and autism diagnosis, we can find no correlation between the two. Lack of correlation means lack of causation. That's basic science.
In your other comment you referred to the "Hill criteria". Those criteria, developed by AB Hill after he and Richard Doll showed the causal link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, were a primitive precursor of the more modern tool of causal inference. That important tool is a little hard to explain to someone with no background in statistics or the scientific method, so I won't go into detail. But it is clear from using it that vaccines don't cause autism.
No correlation between vaccines and autism? You must be joking!
No, I'm not joking. The Danish health records are the best in the world, going back generations. Studies using those records found no correlation (technically, I should say association) between vaccines and autism. There are associations between autism and other factors, all of which point to genetics as the cause of autism.
Danish children do not follow the CDC schedule, so relying on their data to make generalizations about vaccines and autism and American children is poor science. Notably, none of them receive a shot with a dose of neurotoxic aluminum on the first day of life.
https://vaccine-schedule.ecdc.europa.eu/Scheduler/ByCountry?SelectedCountryId=58&IncludeChildAgeGroup=true&IncludeChildAgeGroup=false&IncludeAdultAgeGroup=true&IncludeAdultAgeGroup=false
Also, not everyone thinks the Danish cohort studies are solid: https://thevaccinereaction.org/2019/04/a-scientists-rebuttal-to-the-danish-cohort-study/
Also, it is notable that the studies "debunking" a connection between vaccines and autism are centered on the MMR vaccine and the preservative thimerisol. Yet very many parent reports indicate that normally developing babies regressed into autism well before their first MMR shot. It is notable that the CDC, upon being legally mandated, could not present ANY research looking at any of the vaccines given in the first year to uphold their claim that "vaccines don't cause autism." From the link below:
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In the summer of 2019, ICAN submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the CDC for “All studies relied upon by CDC to claim that the DTaP vaccine does not cause autism.”
ICAN also submitted this same request for HepB, Hib, PCV13 and IPV vaccines, and additionally requested that the CDC provide studies to support its claim that the cumulative exposure to these vaccines during the first six months of life do not cause autism.
Despite months of demands, the CDC failed to produce a single study in response to these FOIA requests.
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https://icandecide.org/article/ican-v-cdc-cdc-cannot-support-its-claim-that-vaccines-do-not-cause-autism/
Logic tells me that if they are making a claim they cannot support with science, it is at best unproven, worse false, and worst fraudulent. In any case, it would be illogical to believe they have "the data."
You make some interesting points, but I think you misunderstand how science works. In particular, you seem not to know how causal inference works. Most people don’t, but causal inference is a very powerful scientific tool that applies logic and reasoning to statistics.
To show how causal inference works in your case, let me ask you a question. If the DTaP vaccine causes autism, why do so few children who receive the DTaP vaccine become autistic?
“…all of which point to genetics as the cause of autism.”
Really? “The” cause? And “all”?
You would lose any proper debate with statements such as those.
That's true, I likely would lose a debate. But science is about data, not debating ability.
Your last paragraph shows your unwillingness to apply logic and reason to data if it doesn't reach the conclusion you have predetermined to select.
I have no predetermined conclusion. I'd be happy to discuss the so-called Bradford Hill criteria or the application of causal inference to the question of whether vaccines cause autism. I'm a computer scientist and my research for the past 10 years or so has been on the subject of causation in complex adaptive systems, which means that question falls in my wheelhouse. Do you know enough about the analysis of statistical data to have a discussion?
The “I'm more qualified than you to have an opinion on this” argument is irrelevant. You are making extreme statements such as “no one has ever found an association” that you expect to be taken at face value.
Statistically, how often does this argument from (supposed) authority work for you?
One can certainly question whether vaccines are safe and effective, and one should not blindly trust experts. But one should rely on data, snd there is lots of data about vaccines. That data shows that vaccines do more good than harm.
For the Covid-19 vaccines, for example, billions of doses have been given, and the data shows very few, if any, deaths due to vaccines and many lives saved. That data is there for anyone to analyze.
Statistical analysis is hard for people who are not familiar with the principles of causal inference. But that is no excuse for people to claim harms that cannot be demonstrated.
Del BigTree and Bobby Kennedy do not have any data to support their belief that vaccines are unsafe and ineffective. They don't know how to use scientific tools like causal inference. They flout the scientific method.
Anti-vaccination beliefs are anti-science, unsupported by data. They are based on emotion, not fact. That's why people who do know how to do science object to those beliefs.
Nope. John S. None of what you are saying is true. And that's easy to show. But you need to do this work for yourself or you won't change what you think. There's plenty of info and data out there to refute what you "believe." And it comes from well credentialed people.
I've studied the science of causation in complex adaptive systems for decades now, especially in nutrition and climate science. The best work on that comes (in my opinion) from Judea Pearl, a Turing prize winning computer scientist. His book for general audiences is called The Book of Why. I recommend it for people who don't know how science works.
I have done the work of causal inference for the question of whether vaccines are safe and effective. Of course the data is never complete, but many billions of doses of vaccines have been given and that gives us plenty of data to work with.
If you think there are well-credentialed people who have analyzed the data and shown using causal inference that vaccines cause more harm than good, please point me to their work. I'd like to see it.
During the pandemic vaccines were grossly oversold and mandates were foolishly imposed. I can see why people mistrust scientists and experts like Tony Fauci.
But that's no excuse for abandoning science in favor of snake oil salesmen like Bobby Kennedy.
You speak as if "the data" on Covid and the covid shot and vaccines all offer a single inescapable conclusion for anyone who looks at it. Yet Bret Weinstein and his wife, Heather Heying, are two PhD evolutionary biologists who have spent decades doing field work and teaching about how to collect and read data and think about complex systems, and they haven't come to your conclusions. In fact, once upon a time they were huge advocates of vaccines but their examination of the evidence on Covid and the mRNA shots opened their eyes to a closer review of vaccine research and their minds were changed. Bret recently tweeted: "I’m a biologist. My wife is too. We believe strongly in the potential value of vaccines. Our kids are 18 and 20 and “fully vaccinated.” But if they were born today—now that we understand how modern vaccines work, how manufacturing is done, how their safety and efficacy is tested, how adverse reactions are tracked, and how the injured are treated—We wouldn’t give them any. Not one. It’s not even close."
Dissolving Illusions and Turtles All the Way Down are two books that examine vaccine and public health data and don't come to your conclusions.