Sharon

http//www.autoloans101.info

Sometimes this could be counterproductive, but still, it’s a good point.

I’ve heard this one before — - - - transmitted even by religion professors. There is more to the story. Oral tradition was a central part of Jewish culture and the way teachings were passed on from century to century. Then came christ, then came the letters of St. Paul, then came various gospel accounts, then came the bible—-along side that oral tradition that had existed forever. These bibles could be reproduced only through painstaking word by word transcription. And that caused just a few bibles. A problem which was exacerbated by the generally low levels of literacy. Moreover, the world’s first “internets” a.k.a the printing press, was used to publish the bible—sparking the widespread distribution of the bible and, of course, literacy and other books.

Are there any psycholigists who study conspiracy buffs? To me there seem to be common qualities (but my interest is not great enough that care to try to categorize them myself). My gut feeling is that the anti-vaccine crowd has a lot in common with Kennedy assisination investigators, as well as the followers of this guy:

http://www.enterprisemission.com/

Offit is getting in the way of better decisions by presenting an attack as a fair description. And, as an attack, it is a joke. “Sears never discusses the fact that mercury is present on the earth’s surface,” Offit and Moser write.

Cam, large epidemiological studies are far from perfect. Gary Taubes wrote an article in the NY Times Sunday magazine about some of their problems.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45360000/gif/_45360950_measles_cases_gr_226.gif

“Take a bow, morons.” -Ben Goldacre

It is also worth mentioning that the ‘parents of vaccine injured children’ in the comments section of the paediatrics article, on the whole, have very little evidence for the title they claim. If there is no statistical link shown in large epidemiological studies between the harm they/their kids suffered and the vaccine they received, the best they can do is post hoc ergo procter hoc. And thar be dragons. If we ran things that way… there would be little point in doing science.

Their complaint is mostly that Dr. Sears is misinforming his readers. You are right that there is no new information. In particular though, the highlighted comments do nothing to refute the critique. The only place where the critique is inadequate is in quantifying the harm done by this alternative schedule. They do a poor job of putting a number on it, simply noting several diseases, say where waiting until 5 for influenza vaccine, has led to the hospitalization of X young children (ie, where such studies exist).

But yes, they provide evidence against not just his misdirections and falsehoods, but concerning the thesis of the book. The justifictions for not getting them, and even for simply delaying or spacing them are attacked. With references.

I don’t see where Dr. Offit is getting in the way of better decisions. He has identified a book full of misinformation, one that gives phantom support to anti-vaxxers. It actually appears that the fulltext has been made public. If any readers are interested in the references, my experience has been that the authors are always willing to send a pdf copy to polite emailers.