Robert Kennedy jr. about to run for president

[Matt Allison]

If vaccines caused autism then almost every person born in the U.S. for the past 70 years would be autistic, as every child in the U.S. must have vaccinations to attend school, whether public or private.

Why this basic piece of logic escapes so many people is beyond my comprehension.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

If vaccines caused autism then almost every person born in the U.S. for the past 70 years would be autistic, as every child in the U.S. must have vaccinations to attend school, whether public or private.

Why this basic piece of logic escapes so many people is beyond my comprehension.

That’s a simplistic view, with all due respect, Matt. I’ll explain why. Something can dramatically increase your risk of something without producing the result 100% of the time. There are so many carcinogens in foods and that we come in contact with environmentally, yet cancer sits at a rate of 1/2, it used to be 1/3. People are genetically predisposed to some things and others not. 
 

The RFK Jr / Del Bigtree argument is an easy one to understand. America has some of the best healthcare on earth, yet one of the sickest populations of any developed economy. They also are one of the heaviest countries on earth in terms of jabs. I think 69 by adulthood (before the C19 pandemic). In Britain, I think I have had 10 jabs or so by adulthood and probably a few more for visiting Asia, South America etc. I think its getting up toward 50% of Americans who have a serious underlying health from childhood. All RFK Jr has asked is that the data is shown to the public of those vaccinated vs those unvaccinated. Before C19 that was 70% vaxxed and 30% unvaxxed. The data belongs to the public and it will either make vaccines look safe or give clarity in terms of the risks. it kills the argument or it vindicates the critics. If the rates of autism are identical in both control groups, you know the vaccines are safe. If the rates are much higher in those vaccinated, you know we have a big problem.
The CDC will not release the data. The CDC also says in bold on their front page that vaccines do not cause autism. Yet in the list of side effects listed in the vaccine pamphlets, autism is listed as a potential side effect.

I don’t think that’s an unreasonable argument, just show the public the data. Surely the public deserve transparency to help them make an informed decision? 

[John Cotter]

1 hour ago, Chris Barnard said:

That’s a simplistic view, with all due respect, Matt. I’ll explain why. Something can dramatically increase your risk of something without producing the result 100% of the time. There are so many carcinogens in foods and that we come in contact with environmentally, yet cancer sits at a rate of 1/2, it used to be 1/3. People are genetically predisposed to some things and others not. 
 

The RFK Jr / Del Bigtree argument is an easy one to understand. America has some of the best healthcare on earth, yet one of the sickest populations of any developed economy. They also are one of the heaviest countries on earth in terms of jabs. I think 69 by adulthood (before the C19 pandemic). In Britain, I think I have had 10 jabs or so by adulthood and probably a few more for visiting Asia, South America etc. I think its getting up toward 50% of Americans who have a serious underlying health from childhood. All RFK Jr has asked is that the data is shown to the public of those vaccinated vs those unvaccinated. Before C19 that was 70% vaxxed and 30% unvaxxed. The data belongs to the public and it will either make vaccines look safe or give clarity in terms of the risks. it kills the argument or it vindicates the critics. If the rates of autism are identical in both control groups, you know the vaccines are safe. If the rates are much higher in those vaccinated, you know we have a big problem.
The CDC will not release the data. The CDC also says in bold on their front page that vaccines do not cause autism. Yet in the list of side effects listed in the vaccine pamphlets, autism is listed as a potential side effect.

I don’t think that’s an unreasonable argument, just show the public the data. Surely the public deserve transparency to help them make an informed decision? 

Well said. 

[John Cotter]

6 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

If vaccines caused autism then almost every person born in the U.S. for the past 70 years would be autistic, as every child in the U.S. must have vaccinations to attend school, whether public or private.

Why this basic piece of logic escapes so many people is beyond my comprehension.

Matt,

If this post by you is meant to be a rebuttal of the Ethical Skeptic article I posted, it doesn’t pass muster.

Your argument is refuted in, inter alia, the following passage of the article:

Red Shirt Syndrome

/philosophy : bias : self/ – a belief that injury/calamity/ruin only happens to other people (those in red shirts on Star Trek – The Original Series) or those who deserve it for some subconsciously held reason. Ignorance of the principle that a pervasive systemic injury happens to almost everyone exposed to it, to varying degrees, and not merely to the unfortunate few. It is just the few who are indeed detected or measured.

System disruptions, such as immune and brain system injuries, are not confined to one discrete sliver of the population as the NVICS or CDC statistics might imply – rather they are distributed over a diminishing arrival wave function (see right hand image in graphic above) across virtually all persons who possess such an exposure (virtually all of our children). There is no such thing as a ‘no effect’ in the human brain.3 A vaccine is a potentially permanent systemic alteration… a large footprint, potentially premature system activation and brain barrier tampering involving plurifinality – including brain injury.4 5 It does not simply perform the primary task intended – and is not the same thing as a cure, nor antidote. We must cease viewing these treatments in such naive and simpleton-science 1880’s understanding. Yes they bear benefit, but they also tamper with and involve, immune systems and cerebral impacts which we do not yet fully understand.  Systems which are now coincidentally failing, in over-vaccinated American children and adults in particular, at epidemic rates. Human Immune Systems are subject to exoentropy and dysfunction, without warning or clear indication of cause. Our inability to spot the cause of related symptoms, does not therefore mean that a cause does not exist. This is an implicit argument from ignorance – the heart and soul of today’s vaccine and autoimmune science. Precaution, premises, logical calculus, multiple confirmed mechanisms, aetiology, epidemiology data, evidence of expression, enormity of risk, and public will – ALL exist such that they collectively support now, this

Null Hypothesis:  A Vaccine Reaction is a cerebral and immune system disruption of unknown magnitude and persistence.

https://theethicalskeptic.com/2018/01/14/vaccinials-the-betrayed-generation-of-americans/

Edited April 8, 2023 by John Cotter

[Paul Brancato]

9 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

If vaccines caused autism then almost every person born in the U.S. for the past 70 years would be autistic, as every child in the U.S. must have vaccinations to attend school, whether public or private.

Why this basic piece of logic escapes so many people is beyond my comprehension.

If smoking causes cancer every smoker would get cancer? No. But many people who smoke get lung cancer, enough to draw a link. But you wouldn’t know that by reading studies published by tobacco companies over decades, because they chose to present the public with a big lie and put profits first. Studies of vaccines need to be done by neutral parties in order to guarantee publication of non biased information. And vaccines are only one element of RFK’s children advocacy group. Ask yourself, everyone, why is his life is being reduced to one issue? 

[W. Niederhut]

26 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

If smoking causes cancer every smoker would get cancer? No. But many people who smoke get lung cancer, enough to draw a link. But you wouldn’t know that by reading studies published by tobacco companies over decades, because they chose to present the public with a big lie and put profits first. Studies of vaccines need to be done by neutral parties in order to guarantee publication of non biased information. And vaccines are only one element of RFK’s children advocacy group. Ask yourself, everyone, why is his life is being reduced to one issue? 

Paul,

    Decisions about the efficacy and safety of medical treatments need to be made by competent, educated medical experts-- and based on statistically valid data samples.  What medical education and training has RFK, Jr. ever had?

    Has he studied virology or epidemiology on a post-graduate level?

    As for the fraudulent claim that vaccines cause autism, it was debunked long ago.

    That myth originated in the U.K., if I recall correctly.  It was based on fraudulent data.

[Matt Allison]

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

If smoking causes cancer every smoker would get cancer?

If everyone only smoked one cigarette, then no, smoking a cigarette would not give you cancer. Getting cancer from cigarette smoking requires constant and repeated usage over years.

That's why the smoking analogy doesn't work; with vaccines everyone gets the exact same dosage, and everyone gets most vaccines once or twice, and that's it.

Blaming autism on vaccines makes no more logical sense than blaming autism on milk.

[W. Niederhut]

RFK Jr. Is Our Brother and Uncle. He’s Tragically Wrong About Vaccines.

We love Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but he is part of a misinformation campaign that’s having heartbreaking—and deadly—consequences.

 

By KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, JOSEPH P. KENNEDY II and MAEVE KENNEDY MCKEAN

May 08, 2019

Excerpt

   ...We are proud of the history of our family as advocates of public health and promoters of immunization campaigns to bring life-saving vaccines to the poorest and most remote corners of America and the world, where children are the least likely to receive their full course of vaccinations. On this issue, Bobby is an outlier in the Kennedy family. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy urged the 80 million Americans, including almost 5 million children, who had not been vaccinated for polio to receive the Salk vaccine, which he called “this miraculous drug.” In the same year, he signed an executive order creating the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has spent billions of dollars over the past decades in support of vaccine campaigns in developing countries.

President Kennedy signed the Vaccination Assistance Act in 1962 to, in the words of a CDC report, “achieve as quickly as possible the protection of the population, especially of all preschool children ... through intensive immunization activity.” In a message to Congress that year, Kennedy said: “There is no longer any reason why American children should suffer from polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, or tetanus … I am asking the American people to join in a nationwide vaccination program to stamp out these four diseases.”

[John Cotter]

Matt and William pretend that the arguments of the Ethical Skeptic article I posted don’t exist and continue parroting the official vaccine dogmas.

Such is the vaccine “scientific” method.

[W. Niederhut]

3 hours ago, John Cotter said:

Matt and William pretend that the arguments of the Ethical Skeptic article I posted don’t exist and continue parroting the official vaccine dogmas.

Such is the vaccine “scientific” method.

John,

    If you're truly interested in the scientific data, try studying the mortality rates in the U.S. for vaccinated vs. unvaccinated adults.  Here's one paper among many.

    I've already referenced some similar data for you in our previous discussions.

COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality Among Unvaccinated and Vaccinated Persons Aged ≥12 Years by Receipt of Bivalent Booster Doses and Time Since Vaccination — 24 U.S. Jurisdictions, October 3, 2021–December 24, 2022 | MMWR (cdc.gov)

February 10, 2023

Excerpt

  "Overall mortality rates among unvaccinated persons were 14.1 times the rates among bivalent vaccine recipients."

 

   

[John Cotter]

43 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

John,

    If you're truly interested in the scientific data, try studying the mortality rates in the U.S. for vaccinated vs. unvaccinated adults.  Here's one paper among many.

    I've already referenced some similar data for you in our previous discussions.

COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality Among Unvaccinated and Vaccinated Persons Aged ≥12 Years by Receipt of Bivalent Booster Doses and Time Since Vaccination — 24 U.S. Jurisdictions, October 3, 2021–December 24, 2022 | MMWR (cdc.gov)

February 10, 2023

Excerpt

  "Overall mortality rates among unvaccinated persons were 14.1 times the rates among bivalent vaccine recipients."

 

   

You’re changing the subject, William.

We’ve previously discussed covid and you had no answer to the authoritative material I posted based on the official statistics which showed that the covid mortality rates in Ireland and Britain were negligible.

You’re still ignoring the Ethical Skeptic article I posted on this thread about vaccines generally.

Thanks for thus validating the contents of that article.

Edited April 8, 2023 by John Cotter

[W. Niederhut]

55 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

You’re changing the subject, William.

We’ve previously discussed covid and you had no answer to the authoritative material I posted based on the official statistics which showed that the covid mortality rates in Ireland and Britain were negligible.

You’re still ignoring the Ethical Skeptic article I posted on this thread about vaccines generally.

Thanks for thus validating the contents of that article.

John,

    The U.S. database on COVID morbidity and mortality is very large, which increases the statistical power of the data.

    A 14-fold increase in COVID death rates for unvaccinated adults, compared to the bivalent vaccinated population, is evidence of significant vaccine efficacy.

    The data has also shown that the risk of myocarditis in young people is greater with COVID infections than with vaccines-- debunking another popular anti-vaccine talking point on the internet.

    As for the more general topic of vaccines and virology, have you known any people who were infected with polio-- or had family members who died from polio-- in the pre-Salk era?

    In the course of my psychiatric career I encountered a number of such people.

    Many people today, especially young people, seem to know nothing about the horrors of polio in the era before it was eradicated in the U.S. by the Salk and Sabin vaccines.

[John Cotter]

18 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

John,

    The U.S. database on COVID morbidity and mortality is very large, which increases the statistical power of the data.

    A 14-fold increase in COVID death rates for unvaccinated adults, compared to the bivalent vaccinated population, is evidence of significant vaccine efficacy.

    The data has also shown that the risk of myocarditis in young people is greater with COVID infections than with vaccines-- debunking another popular anti-vaccine talking point on the internet.

    As for the more general topic of vaccines and virology, have you known any people who were infected with polio-- or had family members who died from polio-- in the pre-Salk era?

    In the course of my psychiatric career I encountered a number of such people.

    Many people today, especially young people, seem to know nothing about the horrors of polio in the era before it was eradicated in the U.S. by the Salk and Sabin vaccines.

You're still ignoring the Ethical Skeptic article, William.

[Matt Allison]

Here is the Daily Beast article on RFK Jr.'s run; if there are factual errors here, please point them out precisely.

 

RFK Jr. wants to use his run for president to amplify his anti-science agenda. Everything he stands for is the antithesis of Jack and Bobby Kennedy’s working for the common good.

Lawrence O. Gostin  Kenneth H. Rabin  Scott C. Ratzan

 

We grew up inspired by the historic words from John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” After JFK’s assassination in 1963, our hopes turned to his brother Robert F. Kennedy, who echoed George Bernard Shaw’s trenchant observation: “Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?”

The Kennedy legacy was one of public service and civic engagement, always aspiring to the common good.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of a US Attorney General and nephew of a president, has turned the Kennedy legacy upside down. Beginning in 2003, RFK Jr. abandoned his promising career as an environmental advocate to embrace the libertarian agenda of anti-vaccine and anti-science activism—a fascinating and dangerous U-turn from self-sacrifice to self-serving.

The triggering element, literally, was mercury. In 1998, the British doctor, Andrew Wakefield published an article in The Lancet claiming that thimerosal, a mercury preservative contained in the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine, caused autism. The Lancet later retracted the article, its editor calling its statements “utterly false,” while the British Medical Journal called Wakefield’s article “fraudulent.” British authorities stripped Wakefield of his medical license. However, distraught parents of autistic children still embrace Wakefield, who now makes a fortune on the anti-vaxx propaganda circuit—and so too does RFK Jr.

The irony here runs deep. RFK Jr. continues to hype a massive conspiracy regarding thimerosal, even though the CDC actually removed it from most childhood vaccines, including MMR, in 2001. He has also stubbornly ignored an Institute of Medicine immunization safety review, along with nine CDC-backed studies, showing no association between thimerosal and autism. It’s sadly not hard these days to sell the idea that CDC and the rest of the public health community is engaged in all manner of deceit.

This week RFK Jr., with the blessing of no less than agent provocateur Steve Bannon filed papers with the Federal Election Commission stating his intent to oppose President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic Presidential Nomination, and apparently plans to announce his formal candidacy in Boston on April 19.

Four years ago, when two of RFK Jr’s siblings (Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and former Rep. Joseph P, Kennedy II) joined niece and health care worker Maeve Kennedy McKean, to publish a heartfelt plea for him to abandon his unfounded attacks on public health, many naively thought he might dig deep to discover his roots. Instead, RFK Jr. has doubled down, building the war chest of his anti-vax propaganda organization, Children’s Health Defense, to eight figures, publishing a nasty screed against Dr Anthony Fauci, and rubbing elbows with the likes of Roger Stone at “Reawaken America” events.

Facebook and Instagram removed the Children’s Health Defense account, naming the organization one of the “Disinformation Dozen,” which refers to the top 12 COVID-19 misinformation super-spreaders.

Standing at the Lincoln Memorial at an anti-vaxx rally last year, RFK Jr. compared COVID-19 vaccines mandates to National Socialist Germany. His wife, actress Cheryl Hines, condemned those remarks tweeting, “My husband’s reference to Anne Frank at a mandate rally in D.C. was reprehensible and insensitive. The atrocities that millions endured during the Holocaust should never be compared to anyone or anything. His opinions are not a reflection of my own.”

Earlier this year, RFK Jr. and other anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists joined forces in a bizarre lawsuit accusing the Washington Post, BBC, Associated Press, and Reuters of violating 19th-century antitrust laws by refusing to credit bogus COVID-19 conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine misinformation. Here is a man who would use his good name, the political system, and the nation’s courts to undermine vaccines, probably science’s greatest achievement ever.

This is a head spinning moment for the Kennedy legacy. It is also a dangerous moment for the nation.

Consider these worrying statistics. According to the CDC, coverage with two doses of MMR vaccine declined during the pandemic, amounting to 250,000 children who aren’t protected against deadly diseases. Vaccinations for polio, varicella, and for diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis also declined.

It was unsurprising to see wild polio found in a religious community in New York City, the first time in a generation. As for COVID-19, researchers estimate that there have been 318,000 vaccine-preventable deaths due to failure to get even the primary series. COVID-19 vaccine misinformation is strongly associated with declines in vaccination intent.

Even a known COVID-denier, Donald Trump couldn’t get behind RFK Jr., first appointing him to head a vaccine safety panel, but then backing away. And now Kennedy wants to use the platform of a run for president to amplify his anti-science agenda. RFK Jr. would never have received the public attention and the ability to raise so much money to fuel disinformation campaigns had he not had the Kennedy name. It’s obvious that his Democratic presidential candidacy will gain no traction, but it has already gained a startling amount of ink, and social media is saturated with his destructive messages about vaccines.

RFK Jr.’s obsession with casting doubt on the simply overwhelming scientific evidence that vaccines save lives is the antithesis of the common good. And it is the antithesis of the public spirit that Jack and Bobby Kennedy aspired to for America.

[W. Niederhut]

Speaking of COVID vaccine disinformation...

Chalk up another success story for Rupert Murdoch's favorite 2024 GOP Presidential nominee, Ron DeSantis.

Florida health officials removed key data from COVID vaccine report

https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2023/04/07/florida-surgeon-general-covid-19-vaccine-study-heart-problems-men/

 

April 7, 2023

The Surgeon General’s guidance against the vaccine for young men ignored results showing infection was a greater risk for cardiac-related deaths.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced in October that young men should not get the COVID-19 vaccine, guidance that runs counter to medical advice issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

His recommendation was based on a state analysis that showed the risk of cardiac-related deaths increased significantly for some age groups after receiving a vaccine. It has been criticized by experts including professors and epidemiologists at the University of Florida where Ladapo is employed as a professor.

Now, draft versions of the analysis obtained by the Tampa Bay Times show that this recommendation was made despite the state having contradictory data. It showed that catching COVID-19 could increase the chances of a cardiac-related death much more than getting the vaccine.

That data was included in an earlier version of the state’s analysis, but was missing from the final version compiled and posted online by the Florida Department of Health. Ladapo did not reference the contradictory data in a release posted by the state.

 

Edited April 9, 2023 by W. Niederhut