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Topic: Trump vs Vaccines (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 18 February 2017 at 9:19am | IP Logged | 1  

Is he really climbing on this legless horse? Reports seem vague, but the very fact that he's had a meeting with anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr strikes me as a bad sign. Was there something ELSE they were talking about?

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Rich Marzullo
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Posted: 18 February 2017 at 9:32am | IP Logged | 2  

According to the NY Times. Kennedy Jr is saying Trump wants him to lead a government commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity.


Honestly, I would not be surprised if this comes to fruition. He wrote on Twitter in 2014 (from the article): “Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes,” he wrote in March 2014. “AUTISM. Many such cases!”
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Brian Miller
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Posted: 18 February 2017 at 10:00am | IP Logged | 3  

I bet each one of his children were vaccinated.
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

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Posted: 18 February 2017 at 10:30am | IP Logged | 4  

“Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes,” he wrote in March 2014. “AUTISM. Many such cases!”

••

"Many" if defined as "none".

This may well be one of the great crimes of the internet, keeping alive this completely debunked and DANGEROUS myth.

For those unfamiliar, the whole thing began decades ago with an essay published in THE LANCET, the British medical journal. Subsequently, it was revealed that the doctor who wrote the essay was actually in the employ of a company that manufactured vaccines, and he'd been hired to cast doubts upon a competitor's products. His "data" was completely invented -- based upon the coincidence of signs of autism often presenting around the same time vaccines are administered -- and he was even sent to jail for fraud. THE LANCET retracted the article in full.

Since the internet does not have a "self cleaning oven" function, this misinformation can still be found, presented as fact.

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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 18 February 2017 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | 5  

I hate to invoke another overused Idiocracy comparison, but there really does seem to have been a change over the past 20 years in terms of peoples' willingness to reject any facts they don't want to believe, and to accept proven falsehoods if they come from a "trusted" source.  The fact that we now have a president who falls victim to this type of unthinking acceptance multiple times on a daily basis is really depressing.  We really aren't that far removed from a country that can be persuaded that gatorade is effective for irrigating crops.  
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Steve De Young
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Posted: 18 February 2017 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | 6  

RFK Jr. is also a major environmental activist and climate change opponent...yet he's going to serve on a commission on scientific integrity for the Trump administration....

And this vaccine stuff isn't just wrong or stupid, its literally endangering our children and elderly as decreases in vaccination rates jeopardize herd immunity.
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Brian Peck
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Posted: 18 February 2017 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | 7  

a change over the past 20 years in terms of peoples' willingness to reject any
facts they don't want to believe, and to accept proven falsehoods if they come
from a "trusted" source.

******************

Blame the internet. Any idiot with an idea or opinion can post it online. It take
no effort at all. Wikipedia is the perfect example, it used to be people went to
Encyclopedia Britannica but now its any idiots website and they consider it
contacts facts.
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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 18 February 2017 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | 8  

Yeah, it probably is largely the fault of the internet.  Too many people seem to believe that "publication" on the internet gives a statement legitimacy in the same way that publication in a newspaper used to do. 

It truly is disenheartening, though.  It used to be that there was general agreement about the facts, and the political arguments centered around what should be done about those facts.  But now there is a political party that absolutely relies on getting people to believe untruths in order to pursue its political agenda.  And people are depressingly willing to accept those untruths if they come from someone "on their team."
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Rich Marzullo
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Posted: 18 February 2017 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | 9  

I generally don't care if people want to believe whatever nonsense they want; it's when they decide to legislate their lies and form public policy that pisses me off.
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Rick Whiting
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Posted: 18 February 2017 at 8:09pm | IP Logged | 10  

This may well be one of the great crimes of the internet, keeping alive this completely debunked and DANGEROUS myth.

For those unfamiliar, the whole thing began decades ago with an essay published in THE LANCET, the British medical journal. Subsequently, it was revealed that the doctor who wrote the essay was actually in the employ of a company that manufactured vaccines, and he'd been hired to cast doubts upon a competitor's products. His "data" was completely invented -- based upon the coincidence of signs of autism often presenting around the same time vaccines are administered -- and he was even sent to jail for fraud. THE LANCET retracted the article in full.

Since the internet does not have a "self cleaning oven" function, this misinformation can still be found, presented as fact.

________________


So that's when and where that whole myth started. The way the news media talks about it, they act like this is some recent finding and movement. How come the mainstream news media doesn't point out how and why this whole myth started whenever they do a story on idiot parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids?

I guess this just proves the not so old saying true "Fame is fleeting, but the internet is forever".
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Brian O'Neill
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Posted: 18 February 2017 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | 11  

The only time I ever heard RFK Jr. interviewed at length, was on...Fox News. By...Sean Hannity, Guess which one sounded sane.
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James Woodcock
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Posted: 19 February 2017 at 7:01am | IP Logged | 12  

I'm pretty sure Trump thinks the debunking of that nonsense is 'Fake news'!!!

In the UK, we know very well that this all came from a debunked Lancet article and that the guy who wrote it has paid dearly for what he did.

Mind you, even though his data has been proven false and he's been struck off by the BMC, he still continues to repeat his belief.
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