“I guess people like Phil realize that when both the truth and lies are discussed openly and honestly, the truth will win out – and I guess the antivaxxers realize that too. Antivax Angie was wise to run away when she did – it must be brutally difficult to keep up belief in a lie if one reads the truth too often.”

Hopefully at least a few of the anti-vaxxers who have contributed to this thread have enough integrity and humility to honestly examine the abundant and compelling evidence provided that shows how badly they have been duped, and are now willing to at least consider the possibility that they were mistaken.

I predict, though, that the next time Phil Plait posts on this issue, many of the same anti-vaxxers will be back in force, repeating the very same often and devastatingly refuted arguments, and making fools of themselves all over again. It is probably only because this thread is so far from the top that they have stopping posting here for now.

Here are our contributions:

http://zdoggmd.com/2011/02/immunize/ (a music video parody ridiculing the antivax movement)
http://zdoggmd.com/2011/04/immulies/ (ditto)
http://zdoggmd.com/2012/01/big-pharma/ (a parody of becoming a “Big Pharma Shill”

• concern troll threatening to never return to this blog again, even though it is their first post.
• concern troll threatening to cancel subscription to Discover magazine, whether said subscription exists or not.
• concern troll moaning on each occasion “I thought this was an astronomy blog” or words to that effect.

It’s telling how pro-children blogs like this one allow anti-vax ‘information’ to be posted freely, while pro-disease sites (like mothering.com and AOA) have explicit rules prohibiting the posting of any pro-health information. I guess people like Phil realize that when both the truth and lies are discussed openly and honestly, the truth will win out – and I guess the antivaxxers realize that too. Antivax Angie was wise to run away when she did – it must be brutally difficult to keep up belief in a lie if one reads the truth too often.

Did you know that the typical flu shot contains 25 micrograms of mercury- or 50,000 parts per billion?

Which ones? Because according to this, at least half of the pediatric influenza vaccines are thimerosal free. So exactly which one is the “typical flu shot”? Please provide the sales data to show that the most used influenza vaccine for children include thimerosal.

Also, ND, too true. I think all anti-vaxxers should be required to travel to one of the few parts of the world where new polio infections still exist, and care for those victims (who in many cases were not vaccinated because of fear-mongering and conspiracy theories).

Not only is there scientific evidence for the success of vaccinations, but I’m sure there are scientific papers and studies on the psychology of people like those that deny vaccines work. I’ll just have to google for it

My son has never been vaccinated and will never be vaccinated. He has also never been sick other than a runny nose. Coincidence? I think not.

Agreed.

This is almost certainly an example of proptection provided by herd immunity.

I don’t coddle him either. He goes out and plays and he goes out in public with me. I’m very loud and proud I don’t vaccinate and I think anyone that doesn’t vaccinate should be proud as well.

You’re proud of gambling with your child’s health? What kind of twisted individual are you?

This is getting ridiculous and I’m not endangering my child to satisfy all you “vaxxers” illegitimate fears.

So, what are you saying here? That smallpox never existed? That polio does not exist? That measles never kills, or rubella never caused birth defects, or what?

I’m not sure “fear” is the correct word here. If I’m given a chance to prevent my child from catching a highly communicable disease that used to be common, endemic and harmful (and could come back), I will of course take that chance. It is only prudent to do so.

It is your fear of vaccination that is illegitimate.

I posted those article (more than 2, Nigel)

Yes, so what?

Since you didn’t read or link to the full article on your first one, why should I bother to follow all the other links?

Do you even know what support those papers provide to the claims made in their abstracts?

IOW, why should I waste my time looking up what your argument was supposed to contain?

because everyone is taking about EM.

Yes, in case you had not noticed, many antivax “arguments” hinge on people not noticing that ethyl mercury is not elemental mercury. Oh, look, you made that same conflation in your comment #441.

But the more relevant discussion should be aluminum, as it is replacing EM as one of the vaccine preservatives.

As Todd points out, this is not a preservative. I’ll point out that it’s also not elemental aluminium, but a salt, typically aluminium hydroxide. And it’s not relevant, it has been safely used for decades.

I second all of that!
Granted, “herd immunity” is indeed an unfortunate term. Personally I’d prefer “community immunity” but that’s a bit of a mouthful.

I’d also add that the Amish thing is a huge canard. The Amish do indeed vaccinate, and they do indeed experience autism, though their numbers are small enough that it’s difficult to tell whether their autism numbers are normal or not.

In a way, this is one of the most massive informal medical studies ever undertaken.
The hypothesis: Thimerosal causes autism/autism spectrum disorders.
Expected result if hypothesis has merit: Without thimerosal-containing vaccinations, we’d expect a massive an immediate drop-off of diagnosed ASDs.
Observed result: ASD diagnoses continued to rise at the same rate seen previously, with no substantial deviation at all in numbers coinciding with the removal of thimerosal.

In other words, the very advocacy of those who blame mercury in vaccines for autism has led to us implementing policies that provides perhaps the strongest evidence yet that their position was always utterly wrong.
And yet, they’re still at it. Why?

Someone needs to look up what PPB means in relation to quantity versus concentration. Of course, it only refers to concentration, no matter how small the quantity…
So if I were to inject ONE ATOM of mercury into myself, i would be injecting something that is ONE BILLION ppb … except it’s only one atom, and wouldn’t make a lick of difference. The same holds true for vaccines of course – the small quantity (especially considering the EM compound) makes the concentration totally irrelevant.

@Aaron, by not vaccinating your child you are endangering him and those around him. I find it disgusting that someone could be so proud of that. Chances are the only reason your son is healthy is because of the herd immunity of your community preventing him from being infected. The majority of your post is projection. It is the antivax crowd who “don’t cite a lot of the sources for all of these claims and all they do is bash the opponent”. It is the antivax crowd who “herd like sheep when they’re scared”. To reject a wonder of modern medicine in the manner you do is unfathomable.

Remember, with vaccination we were able to eradicate smallpox. Who knows what other terrible diseases we could eradicate without your mindless, twisted “propaganda”.

Oh, and to add to everything that Nigel said, I just wanted to comment on this bit from you:

Why are we then allowed to inject 50,000 parts per billion into our BLOOD and BRAIN?

Who is injecting any into the blood or brain? Last I checked, vaccines, whether they contain thimerosal or not, are injected below the skin, into the muscle, swallowed or inhaled. Not one is injected into the blood, and certainly not a single one is injected into the brain. Do provide evidence to support this assertion, though, if you feel so strongly that you are right.

Aluminum is not replacing ethylmercury as a preservative. Aluminum is an adjuvant, not a preservative. EtHg prevents the growth of contaminating agents, like fungi and other bacteria. Aluminum induces a more robust immune response, meaning less antigen is required in the vaccine.

“Mercury concentrations were determined in various tissues from 6 … infants /exposed to topical applications of 0.1% thimerosalfor the treatment of exomphalos . Mean tissue concentrations in fresh samples of liver, kidney, spleen, and heart ranged from 5152 to 11,330 ppb, suggesting percutaneous absorption from repeated topical applications.” This is topical only. Injecting into the blood is safer? Nope.

This is chronic exposure. Is it relevant to acute exposure? Nope.

Also, because ethyl mercury is non-polar, it may actually pass into the body quite easily through skin (in fact, the article you cite pretty much demonstrates this). Therefore, it’s not much different from injection. Also, I think you’ll find that the concentration of thimerosal in that topical treatment is somewhat higher than is used as a preservative in vaccines. Did you even bother to look it up?

“Major databases (PubMed and Web-of-science) were searched . . . The persisting use of TCV (in developing countries) is counterintuitive to global efforts to lower Hg exposure and to ban Hg in medical products; its continued use in TCV requires evaluation of a sufficiently nontoxic level of ethylmercury compatible with repeated exposure (co-occurring with adjuvant-Al) during early life.”
www[dot]ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21350943 (peer reviewed)

Have you read the full article, or just the abstract?

By following your linky, I couldn’t find even a link to the full article online, and I don’t currently have access to a library that subscribes to Neurochem Res. There’s plenty of stuff claimed in the abstract, but not any way of getting to any supporting information. Do you expect us to take it on faith?

Even if thimerosal does have some neurotoxic effect, it is still (a) being phased out of use anyway; and (b) not sufficiently toxic to justify not vaccinating.

If thimerosal in vaccines had any kind of noticeable effect in humans, then the incidence of said effect would be decreasing in correlation with the decreasing use of thimerosal. E.g. if it causes autism, then autism rates would be decreasing. I notice that none of your linked articles deals with human epidemiology. Maybe that’s because the animal models imperfectly model the toxicity of thimerosal in humans, did you think of that?

It is more than curious and very telling that none of the postings by the jabbers here contain a single article or testimony extolling the efficacy of vaccines

This is wrong, for two reasons.

First, several commenters have indeed linked or referred to papers in the primary literature that illustrate that vaccines are effective, adequately safe (no medicine is perfectly safe, after all) and certainly orders of magnitude safer than catching the disease against which a vaccine protects.

Second, water is wet but I don’t feel compelled to waste my time selecting a handful of articles to demonstrate this effect. That vaccines are effective has long been established. If you wish to challenge this conclusion, then the burden of proof is yours, and the responsibility is yours to understand the evidence that supports the idea you are challenging. Anti-vaxxers do not do this. That vaccines are adequately safe is demonstrated in the hundreds of clinical trials involving vaccines that have been carried out over the last few decades. Part of the significance of this evidence is the sheer quantity of it. Why should I waste my time selecting a few out of the many possible reports for you to then not read?

and yet articles written about the dangers and insanity of vaccines are ubiquitous as the majority of comments here reveal.

And they are ubiquitously wrong. As has been demonstrated by other commenters, either these articles don’t actually say what the anti-vaxxers claim they say, or they have already been shown to be fallacious.

I also find it telling that most all the jabbers subscribe to the same bizarre conspiracy theory that there are these tiny invisible organisms that are invading our bodies and making people sick and unless we shell out money for some snake-oil elixir that we will become victims of these shape-shifting invisible aliens.

Ah, this is a Poe, right?

Did you know that the typical flu shot contains 25 micrograms of mercury- or 50,000 parts per billion? The EPA classifies a liquid with 200 parts per billion of mercury as HAZARDOUS WASTE. The LIMIT for drinking water is 2 parts per billion. Why are we then allowed to inject 50,000 parts per billion into our BLOOD and BRAIN?

First of all, do you have any idea that there is a difference between mercury the element and a compound containing mercury, such as methyl mercury or ethyl mercury?

Your comment is analogous to observing that Strychnine is toxic and then concluding that the elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and carbon are equally toxic.

While some vaccines may still use thimerosol as a preservative, this is rapidly metabolised to ethyl mercury which is then cleared from the body with (IIUC) negligible effect. However, check that your source is not out of date, as many of the vaccines that once used thimerosol no longer use it.

Additionally, drinking water is – by definition – something to which a person is chronically exposed. Limits for chronic exposure are very often several orders of magnitude lower than for acute exposure. Note that a vaccine is an acute exposure (typically one, two or three shots in a person’s lifetime) so will have a different pharmacokinetic profile from something to which a person is exposed every single day.

In short, your comparison is meaningless.