Thanks for the interesting comments and discussions. And thanks for Liz Ditz for doing my job for me!

Jen

The majority of people believe what they want to believe, and a genius is someone who provides them with evidence or something that can pass for evidence to support this existing belief. An idiot is someone who provides an argument against their cherished belief.

I’m so sorry for your children, should you have any. If you don’t please castrate yourself and, at the very least, stop using science-based medicine for the rest of your life. If you don’t BigPharma will get you!

Those imaginary stories are just designed to create fear and confusion. Then it becomes a matter of trying to prove that 2 unrelated things have nothing to do with each other. This requires a lot of time and money, which is diverted from real medical problems. The results will never satisfy the critics. They will only make up more excuses for distrusting vaccines.

These are the people who will pull a fire alarm just to watch the confusion they cause. They endanger other people for their own entertainment.

Let us take your claims one by one.

Claim #1

Flu shots double the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s Disease.

Primary source of this claim appears to be Hugh Fudenberg, who used to be a physician until deprived of his license by the North Carolina state board in 1995 citation. Since there are no other supporting studies, I think that we can put this claim into the “not proven” category. Unless, of course, Mark comes back and provides sound evidence.
Claim #2:

Anti-bacterial soaps increase the likelihood of developing asthma and other allergies/immune system dysfunctions.

I am going to cut Mark some slack on this one, as in general, regular soap is as effective as “antibacterial” soap products in killing or reducing bacterial loads. citation In other words, antibacterial soaps are probably a ploy to sell more product that doesn’t really have a benefit. As to the asthma etc. claims? Not proven. But if Mark comes back and provides sound evidence, I’ll change my opinion
Claim #3

Chicken pox vaccines increase the likelihood of contracting shingles (a latent form of chicken pox virus) early in life.

“Chicken Pox” is an infection with a virus in the herpes family, varicella zoster virus (VZV) . Like other herpes viruses, after infection resolves the virus then “hides” in the nerve roots. citation. Mark’s claim seems to be based on a series of papers published by Gary S. Goldman, PhD. Goldman, whose undergraduate degree was in computer sciences and whose terminal degree was in computer science citation and was granted by a defunct for-profit institutioncitation. In other words, Goldman had no training in infectious disease, vaccinology, immunology, or public health. Nonetheless, he published a series of papers based on a single population in a California population 2003 citation; 2005 citation; 2006 citation. A later paper by other researchers concludes

Varicella vaccine substantially decreases the risk of herpes zoster among vaccinated children and its widespread use will likely reduce overall herpes zoster burden in the United States. The increase in herpes zoster incidence among 10- to 19-year-olds could not be confidently explained and needs to be confirmed from other data sources. 2009 citation

Since there are no other supporting studies, I think that we can put this claim into the “not proven” category. Unless, of course, Mark comes back and provides sound evidence.
Claim #4:

Tetanus shots only marginally reduce the risk of contracting Tetanus but increase the severity of the disease once contracted.

Tetanus is caused by an infection by the bacterium Clostridium tetani (C. tetani). The disease isn’t caused by the bacterium itself, but by toxins produced by the bacterium. The vaccine’s effectiveness wanes over time, requiring reimmunization at approximately 10-year intervals. As to Mark’s claim, I searched PubMed using multiple search terms, plus searching using several lay search engines. No results. I can only conclude that Mark made up this claim. Unless, of course, he provides citations.
Claim #5:

The HIV epidemic can be shown to follow the distribution of the MMR vaccine. Did the vaccine create a breeding ground for the HIV virus? The study is too controversial to get funded.

This is a two-part claim (1) that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR) somehow contributed to the AIDS epidemic and (2) that investigating the claim is “too controversial to get funded”

Part 1: The MMR vaccine was licensed in 1971. HIV came to public attention in 1981 citation; most of the people affected were far too old to have received the MMR vaccine. Since there are no other supporting studies, I think that we can put this claim into the “not proven” category. Unless, of course, Mark comes back and provides sound evidence.

Part 2: “too controversial to get funded” — well, until Mark provides evidence that there’s an MMR vaccine-AIDS link, I think that this can be safely dismissed.

Again, Mark is making stuff up.

To support the thesis of scientific morons, look at the rants of Leonardo d’Caprio.

Non sequitir and far to silly to respond to.

News flash:
Flu shots double the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s Disease.
Anti-bacterial soaps increase the likelihood of developing asthma and other allergies/immune system dysfunctions.
Chicken pox vaccines increase the likelihood of contracting shingles ( a latent form of chicken pox virus) early in life.
Tetanus shots only marginally reduce the risk of contracting Tetanus but increase the severity of the disease once contracted.
The HIV epidemic can be shown to follow the distribution of the MMR vaccine. Did the vaccine create a breeding ground for the HIV virus? The study is too controversial to get funded.

Would you care to provide a link to any evidence for any of that? A single citation is all I ask.

Cheers,

But, no, superstitious sporting fads and spicy lemon juice and semen reabsorbtion – that’s definitely something we should be paying lots of attention to. (Kudos for this blog linking to an article about the anti-vaxxers, tho).

All that other stuff is funny and kooky and worrying, but there should always be room at the top of any article about celebrity kookiness to denounce people like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and Oprah Winfrey as liars and murderers.

And again, just for the record: Jenny, Jim, Oprah and many others are, in plain sight, for all to see, liars and murderers.

Also, I’m not sure if it is true that the US as a whole associates breastfeeding with sex, I know I sure don’t, and I don’t even have kids yet. It *is* true that breasts in general are more sexualized here than other countries though, we have very few openly publicized nude beaches and if you want a place to openly tan in the buff you really have to do some homework sometimes.

As far as making a big deal from the comment that “it should become law” .. that is just media being sensationalist and blowing things out of proportion. What if she instead proposed goverment incentives for breastfeeding moms, extra money or something like that? That would be a *law* as well. The way this article is phrased makes it sound like breastfeeding is bad, and it simply isn’t.

http://www.powerbalance.com/australia/CA

“We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974″

So funny!

I hear the Advertising Standards Agency has opened an investigation.

I never checked the research, but at the time it made sense to me that a mother’s milk would be much more a adequate source of nutrients for a baby than formulas. I don’t know if research has shown this, though (if anyone would care to enlighten me…).