The views of a significant minority of the U.S. population have proved stubbornly impervious to the findings of scientific analysis of climate change. This wouldn’t matter except that a key element of that minority, the Republican Party—in and out power—has blocked efforts to alter policies that might reduce the ever-increasing impacts of climate change. This approach makes it unique among the major political parties of the developed world. 

Even though they, like the rest of us, stand chin deep in a deluge of evidence, they are determined to stop implementation of climate-related policies that would have a detrimental impact on the bottom lines of the fossil fuel-intensive industries that make up a hefty proportion of their campaign contributors. 

As veteran climate reporter David Roberts noted recently, their success in blocking changes is not based on facts or even the “alternative facts” cooked up by the fossil-fuel propagandists over the past 25 years. Rather they’ve adopted a strategy of disputing the authority of the vast majority of scientists with climate-related credentials. You can’t trust ‘em is the message they’ve spread, assisted by right-wing radio and traditional media that have, until recently, refused to treat their claims with the disdain they deserve. However, just in case access to relevant information might change a few minds, the Trump regime is determined to curtail the collection of climate facts and expunge already collected ones from government websites.

If facts guided policy, the nation would long ago have taken seriously the conclusions of the first climate model developed half a century ago. Ethan Siegel has written about that 1967 model at Forbes. It was developed by Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald “and they got almost everything exactly right”:

As many of us pro-science bloggers have written, the malodorous, fetid cesspool of pseudoscience, Mike Adams’ Natural News website has been blacklisted, stripped, blacklisted, and delisted from Google searches (as of 26 February 2017). Of course, this has resulted in a series of comical headlines regarding the Natural News conspiracy theories – it’s all about how Google is out to destroy Natural News, because of whatever fantasy that comes from the brain of Adams.

Why is Mike Adams going after Google so directly? Despite some the wishes and hopes of the scientific community, Natural News was not delisted because of its awful pseudoscience. As I had written on the initial article about this story:

I have no clue why Google blacklisted Natural News. It may have been some SEO (search engine optimization) change by Google – the dark arts surrounding SEO is only understood by secretive wizards who try to explain to mortals like me. The blacklisting may be permanent, or it may be temporary. There are literally dozens of reasons that cause Google to remove a website from it’s search results – bad spelling and grammar, fake links, and many others.

In other words, I was pretty certain that the story of the blacklisting had little to do with fake news or pushing pseudoscience, but more to do with something strange to do with their website. And several Search Engine Optimization folks, who have nothing to do with scientific skepticism, they just write about the alchemy of SEO mysteries. Because I swear the existence of sasquatch is more real than some of the rules surrounding SEO.

An SEO website, called Search Engine Land, wrote extensively about the Natural News conspiracy – the website was not delisted because of fake news (or bad science) but for some technical violation of webmaster rules. Without going into all the details, webmaster, like myself for example, cannot do anything that artificially raises the ranking of a website, like creating fake clicks on the article. Fake clicks can lead to a higher Google ranking and also change the value of advertising on the website. There are dozens of ways to manipulate a website’s Google ranking, and if Google catches it, you’re in deep trouble. The Skeptical Raptor’s Google ranking is purely organic – every click I get is generally from someone interested in the article or subject.

Natural News was accused of something devious in designing their website – it probably wasn’t unintentional. Search Engine Land wrote, “Google has confirmed the site was not removed for its political views but rather because of a webmaster guidelines violation.” They also report comment directly from a Google spokesperson:

We don’t comment on individual sites, but if we find that a site violates one or more of our Webmaster Guidelines we may take manual action against it. For webmasters who have questions about their own sites, our Webmaster team provides support through platforms such as the Webmaster Forums. Once a site has remedied the problem, the webmaster can submit the site for reconsideration.

Apparently, Natural News is using a “sneaky mobile redirect.” What’s that, you ask. Well, a sneaky redirect (yeah, that’s what they’re called) is a method by which a website redirects someone from intended website to something completely different. Let’s say you clicked on this article on website, and I had a sneaky redirect that took you to a car dealer instead. Or a natural vaccine replacement. Or anything. I don’t do that, because every link redirects you to what is stated – I also have a plugin that warns me when I put in a link that might have issues like a sneaky redirect. Obviously, Mike Adams didn’t try very hard.

So, Google might have dozens of rules and regulations that could result in a website like Natural News being blacklisted or delisted, but apparently fake news and pseudoscience are not amongst them. Actually, I don’t think any of us care why Natural News is no longer searchable – we just wish it were permanent.

Despite the fact that the delisting resulted from Naturals News’ propensity for pushing the boundaries of SEO based website design, they have gone seriously conspiracist over the past couple of days. Let’s take a look at some of their more recent headlines:

• Google refuses to provide any evidence to justify blacklisting of Natural News… webmaster guidelines a “black box of total bulls##t”. Actually, Google is secretive about it’s SEO rules, because once they explain what they’re doing with SEO ratings, people will rush out to manipulate their websites to maximize it. But Google does help webmaster fix problems, you just have to reach out to them. Unless being a martyr is more important.
• BOMBSHELL investigation: Google an “information dominance” front for the CIA – the CIA has access to the NSA, so I doubt they need Google to control information. Besides, managing and punishing websites for SEO violations makes sure that when we Google something, it meets some minimal standard of being a reliable source of information.
• Google may be part of a deep state conspiracy to silence Trump defenders, new interview reveals – some of us wish this, but alas, it’s ridiculous.
• The HARM of Google censorship: The day you (or a loved one) are diagnosed with cancer, you will desperately wish Google hadn’t censored Natural News – if you’re getting your cancer treatment information from Natural News, that’s scary. Adams still pushes the vitamin B-17 laetrile junk medicine on cancer patients, despite its being thoroughly debunked as a cancer treatment. The only place you should get cancer advice is from a well trained physician who will make no promises, but an honest assessment of what will be needed to attack your cancer. There are no simple pills available – that is a lie pushed by websites like Natural News.
• By blacklisting Natural News articles on holistic health and cancer prevention, Google proves it is a DANGER to all humanity – actually Google saved people, for a short time at least, from finding junk medicine treatments for real diseases. And they haven’t had to read about Mike Adams ridiculous and dangerous vaccine denialism. So that’s good.

Let’s summarize the paranoid and laughable Natural News conspiracy – Google is a deep-state institution that is run by the CIA to block information about cancer prevention and treatment to the world. Sure Mike Adams, that’s precisely what’s going on. Oh wait, what’s that thing I repeat over and over and over – oh yeah, bring evidence or shut up.

Since it appears that Natural News violated Google’s own rules on how it does SEO, rules that are fairly transparent, it seems it would be more productive finding what went wrong, then filing a formal appeal to get re-listed on Google’s searches. Then everyone can read about the pseudoscientific cancer cures. And genuflecting towards Donald Trump.

I once made a minor, very minor, violation of Google’s SEO rules. Of course, I didn’t know I had done it, until I got a warning on my webmaster’s tools page. I fixed the problem, wrote them an appeal, and they quickly removed the warning. Only if you believe in conspiracies would you think that Google is run by Terminator robots bent on our destruction.

Personally, I hope Mike Adams keeps pushing the Natural News conspiracy theories regarding Google. That might make it harder for his website to show back up on Google.

Natural News, a website run by Mike Adams, the self styled Health Ranger, is a festering cesspool of junk medicine, pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. There isn’t one positive thing I can say about the website, but there’s very good news – Google blacklisted Natural News. If you use Google (who doesn’t?), then perform a search for “Natural News” or the title of any story on that website, the actual website (naturalnews.com) does not appear at all in the search results. The only results that seem to appear are articles about Natural News. And a wonderfully snarky RationalWiki article.

Of course, Mike Adams went nuclear, something he’s done in the past with Dr. David Gorski. In response to the Google action, Adams posted an article, “GOOGLE blacklists Natural News… removes 140,000 pages from its index… “memory holes” Natural News investigative articles on vaccines, pharma corruption, fraudulent science and more.” Apparently, Adams jumped off the cliff of delusion down into the cave of hilarity. This has apparently unhinged him in ways that we skeptics have never quite been able to do, despite pointing out every dumb thing he’s ever written.

Google blacklisted Natural News – Mike Adams’ hilarious response

Let’s start right at the beginning – Mike Adams wrote:

Late last week, I received a direct threat that warned if I did not take steps to destroy Alex Jones and InfoWars, I would be targeted for destruction in a campaign of smears, censorship and defamation.

Instead of giving in to the enemy, I refused to take the bait and went public with details of the threat, warning everyone in the new media that sinister forces were now being pursued to undermine and silence every anti-establishment (and pro-Trump) voice on the internet.

True to form, today the entire Natural News website has been blacklisted by Google, entirely without warning.

In case you were wondering, Adams is a supporter of Alex Jones, one of the lunatics supporting Donald Trump. Oh, and he is a big Trump fanboy. As the loquacious Orac puts it, “More recently, Adams has become a die-hard Donald Trump supporter and a rising star in the alt-right.”

Just as an ironic aside, when I get into “discussions” with liberals who believe in pseudoscientific nonsense, and use Natural News as their “reliable source,” I constantly have to remind them that Mike Adams is a right wing Trump supporting crackpot. He is the number 1 American Loon.

But it gets worse.

The removal of Natural News from Google’s index means that millions of people may now be unnecessarily harmed by toxic medicines, herbicides and brain-damaging mercury in vaccines because they are being denied the “other side of the story” that’s censored by the corporate-controlled media. By censoring Natural News, Google is, in effect, siding with the criminal pharmaceutical industry that has been charged with multiple felony crimes and caught bribing doctors, fraudulently altering scientific studies, conducting medical experiments on children and price fixing their drugs to maximize profits.

In effect, censorship of Natural News is part of the establishment’s war on humanity which includes depopulation measures (Bill Gates), covert infertility vaccines, corporate-run media disinfo campaigns and a full-on assault against scientific truth and free speech conducted in the public interest.

Wow. Natural News is the one Truth™ in the world of science. Actually, Natural News is the one Truth™ in pseudoscience. And this man has an ego worthy of Donald Trump.

Speaking of which:

It’s clear to me that Natural News is being targeted primarily because of our support for President Trump and his review of vaccine safety. It is now apparent that any person who engages in real science, critical thinking or any attempt to protect children from the brain damaging effects of mercury in vaccines is going to be silenced, discredited, smeared and blacklisted. This is an astonishing realization about the depths of total corruption in society today and how the medical cartels control information to maximize their profits off human suffering.

I have no clue why Google blacklisted Natural News. It may have been some SEO (search engine optimization) change by Google – the dark arts surrounding SEO is only understood by secretive wizards who try to explain to mortals like me. The blacklisting may be permanent, or it may be temporary. There are literally dozens of reasons that cause Google to remove a website from it’s search results – bad spelling and grammar, fake links, and many others. But it has absolutely nothing to do with President Trump and his possible review of vaccine safety.

Mike Adams narcissistic tendencies regarding his website overlooks the primary reason why it may have been blacklisted – Google insists on providing medical search results that are scientifically reliable. There is absolutely nothing scientifically reliable about the pseudoscience presented in Natural News.

Mike Adams whines again

I don’t know now how many stories on Natural News have been written this morning about how evil Google has treated the website, but this one caught my eye: “Breaking: Mike Adams and Alex Jones Taken Down by Google / CIA Prior to Big Event: Trump Needs to Beware.” Yup, Google is in cahoots with the CIA to suppress fake news (and fake science) websites.

The delusional Mike Adams goes for all the gusto in this post:

Late last night, I recorded an emergency interview with Dave Hodges of The Common Sense Show. In that 45-minute interview, I revealed why I think the Google / CIA “take down” of InfoWars and Natural News is a prelude to a massive event being planned to take out President Trump.

The censorship of the Independent Media has begun in earnest by Jeff Bezos and Google.

Wait what? Jeff Bezos, chairman of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post is part of the conspiracy against Natural News? With the CIA? Wow, Mike Adams has a considerable imagination. He should go into writing fiction. Oh, wait.

But this gets more laughable in ways that you could not imagine:

Many will think, for example, that Adams was targeted because of his fine work in exposing the dangers associated with vaccines which is big business for many of the elite (eg Bill Gates). However, Mike has been exposing this information for years without suffering these kinds of illegal intimidation and anti-trust actions by Google. What do Alex and Mike have in common that would cause these people to act with such reckless abandon? The answer can be summed up in one word, Pizzagate.

One must consider the fact that both Alex Jones and Mike Adams have been among the leaders in exposing Pizzagate and linking this heinous criminal enterprise with very prominent people. Names are beginning to be named and no doubt, Mike Adams and Alex Jones would be among the first to strike blows in this arena by naming prominent politicians. We fully know that we are days and weeks away from these revelations. The Common Sense Show is beginning to receive names of the participants.

For those of you who don’t follow this type of nonsense, Pizzagate is a fake story about Hillary Clinton, a Washington DC pizza restaurant, and satanic symbols and other nonsense. Apparently, Mike Adams exposed a fake story, so the CIA, Google and Jeff Bezos are taking him down.

I’ve kind of ignored the alt-right, because they’re not my kind of people. But they really are deplorables on just about any scale of deplorability.

Adams then concludes his rant with this statement:

The recent actions by the CIA and Google serve to inhibit any Pizzagate prosecution at the highest levels of corporate and political power. To ensure the investigations stop, the Trump administration must be neutered and the best way to do that would be to cut the head off of the snake and that means to assassinate Donald Trump.  This is their only play. Protests, riots and incessant media lies have not derailed the Trump machine. We are witnessing the absolute desperation of the Deep State and Mike Adams and Alex Jones are caught up in the continued concealment of heinous crimes of prominent people protected by the Deep State.

Wow. The neurotic and overblown language is impressive – so he’s no longer being blocked by Google because of his outing the massive conspiracy about medicine, but it’s all about pizza. Ok then.

Well, whatever Google’s reasons may be for blacklisting Natural News, I don’t care. I know it probably won’t be permanent. But I am enjoying it. No more news about fake Zika virus cures at the top of the listings.

As Orac puts it, “I am, however, very much enjoying my schadenfreude, and will continue to do so as long as Adams’ site is delisted and he continues his tirades against Google and his victimhood conspiracies.”

Yeah, that. I’m just happy that Google blacklisted Natural News. Let’s hope it lasts.

I have been unwavering on this one point – there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). They are simply unrelated, based on high quality evidence published in respected peer-reviewed journals across the world. To dispute this conclusion, using only low quality evidence published in predatory and low impact factor journals, is the epitome of science denialism.

There are some interesting early results from a study, published in Nature, that is examining brain development in infants who are at risk for autism spectrum disorder. The study hasn't uncovered any new information about what may cause autism, but it did confirm that the MMR vaccine is unrelated to autism. Throw this study onto the mountain of evidence that completely debunks that myth.

The ongoing study's results indicates that changes in the brain in early infancy may be predictive of an autism diagnosis at age 2 in children who have higher odds of autism because an older sibling has been diagnosed with ASD. The researchers took MRI images of the brains of children at higher risk at ages 6, 12, and 24 months, along with administering a test at age 24 months that assists in the diagnosis of autism along with another test that evaluates social skills.

The early results (the final paper will come out within a year or two) suggests that rapid growth of the surface of the cerebrum from ages 6-12 months preceded an increase in brain volume at age 12-24 months in children at risk for ASD and who were diagnosed with ASD at 24 months. Based on this cortical surface growth, the researchers were able to predict an ASD diagnosis in 81% of high risk children who eventually were diagnosed with ASD.

Again, this study didn't provide us with any information about possible causality for ASD – it provides us some evidence of predictive diagnostic methods. Moreover, the study had a relatively low study population, and we really need repeated studies to confirm the value of this study.

Emily Willingham, writing in Forbes, does a rather thorough review of the study for those interested in the predictive ability of the study. She says this about what this study says about any relationship between the MMR vaccine and an ASD diagnosis:

Finally, these changes before age 12 months that are associated with a later autism diagnosis precede the timing of administration of the MMR vaccine. This vaccine, readers may recall, is the one that true-believer anti-vaccine activists consistently promote as causative in autism. According to the vaccination schedule, it is administered at age 12 months. These latest detected changes arise before that age, but the rapid growth associated with them kicks in right at about age 12 months, once again illustrating that coincidence of events doesn’t always mean their association.

Dr. Willingham states that the changes that precede a diagnosis of autism appear well before the first administration of the vaccine. The first MMR vaccination just happens to be coincidental to the rapid growth that is associated with ASD. Remember correlation doesn't imply causation, especially now that we have evidence that the brain changes indicated in ASD occur prior to administration of the MMR vaccine.

I know that the "true-believer anti-vaccine activists" will be unconvinced by this evidence, and that is sad. There is simply no evidence that MMR vaccine and autism are related. In fact, evidence suggest that they are not related.

The MMR vaccine saves lives, so let's just protect our children with it.

Key citations

• Hazlett HC, Gu H, Munsell BC, Kim SH, Styner M, Wolff JJ, Elison JT, Swanson MR, Zhu H, Botteron KN, Collins DL, Constantino JN, Dager SR, Estes AM, Evans AC, Fonov VS, Gerig G, Kostopoulos P, McKinstry RC, Pandey J, Paterson S, Pruett JR, Schultz RT, Shaw DW, Zwaigenbaum L, Piven J; IBIS Network.; Clinical Sites.; Data Coordinating Center.; Image Processing Core.; Statistical Analysis.. Early brain development in infants at high risk for autism spectrum disorder. Nature. 2017 Feb 15;542(7641):348-351. doi: 10.1038/nature21369. PubMed PMID: 28202961.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Robert De Niro just had a press conference to push their anti-vaccine bullshit on the public. This time, they’re offering US$100,000 to anyone who can show that mercury in vaccines are safe. Well, they can write me the check today, since there is NO mercury (really, there never was) in vaccines, so based on their lame accusations, it’s safe.

I’m starting to think that the anti-vaccine forces think that the wind is blowing in their direction. This so-called press conference was held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, an important venue for announcements. The National Press Club ought to be embarrassed – how could a prestigious institution allow such junk “news” at their site. But that’s a story for another day.

Kennedy and De Niro – pushing anti-vaccine bullshit

Let me remind you about the participants in this travesty. Let’s start with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has sold out the left by sidling up to Donald Trump with respect to vaccines – Trump, after he’s done selling out the country to the Soviets (errr, Russians), is planning to establish a commission on vaccine safety. Trump may or may not have offered RFK Jr. the chairmanship of the commission. You never know with Trump.

RFK Jr. has a long history of being a vaccine denier (despite his claims that he really isn’t) – he even pushes the myth that the CDC somehow profits mightily from its vaccine patents. But he really pushes this trope about mercury –

In 2005, he published an article titled “Deadly Immunity,” in both Rolling Stone and Salon, alleging that the mercury-based chemical thimerosal, which was once but is no longer used as a preservative in children’s vaccines, causes mercury poisoning and in turn autism. There is no evidence to support this view. The consensus position of the medical community is that thimerosal does not cause mercury poisoning in children, and in any case the symptoms for mercury poisoning and autism are radically different. A comprehensive review by a committee of the Institute of Medicine in 2004, the year before Kennedy’s article, concluded that “the body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.”

By the way, RFK Jr.’s article at Salon was quickly retracted, after Salon was forced to publish a series of corrections that disputed most of Kennedy’s claims.

As for Robert De Niro, unless you are closely involved with the anti-vaccine movement, you probably think he’s a famous award-winning actor. Well, he became a mouthpiece for anti-vaccine bullshit pushers when a controversy arose over the fraudumentary Vaxxed, which was being featured at De Niro’s Tribeca Film Festival. The fraudumentary was eventually pulled from the schedule because of the controversy. But after it was pulled, De Niro stepped forward to claim:

There’s a lot going on that I still don’t understand, but it makes me question the whole thing, and the whole vaccine issue is a real one. It’s big money. So it did get attention. I was happy about that. And I talked about another movie called Trace Amounts that I saw and spoke about it a lot, that people should see it, and it’s there. Something is there with vaccines, because they’re not tested in some ways the way other medicines are, and they’re just taken for granted and mandated in some states. And people do get sick from it. Not everybody, but certain people are sensitive, like anything, penicillin.

Speaking of Trace Amounts, Dorit Rubinstein Reiss wrote a comprehensive critique of this fraudumentary. The film’s story is best described by Professor Reiss:

The movie, Trace Amounts, opens with the story of Eric Gladen, one of the directors, whose health suddenly and unexplainably deteriorated. Distressed by his very serious symptoms, Mr. Gladen took to the Internet and researched them, finally arriving at the conclusion that he was poisoned by mercury. He also created a timeline and arrived at the conclusion that his symptoms started immediately after he received a tetanus vaccination that contained thimerosal (also known as thiomersal outside of the USA or, generically, ethyl mercury).

A search on the Internet convinced him that thimerosal in vaccines can cause his symptoms. He chose to follow a specific chelation protocol and apparently found a doctor willing to cooperate. His symptoms improved temporarily, and he believed chelation worked.

When his health deteriorated again, his doctor suggested thinking about other sources of exposure to mercury (there is no indication the doctor reconsidered that maybe the diagnosis of mercury poisoning was in error). Gladen concluded the return of his symptoms came from being exposed to mercury fumes from a broken lightbulb. Although further chelation did not seem to work, Mr. Gladen remained convinced that his symptoms are due to mercury poisoning, and he also concluded that his symptoms resemble autism.

So then, mercury.

It’s always about mercury

So, Kennedy and De Niro are pushing their anti-vaccine bullshit based on the element mercury. Unfortunately for their narrative, mercury has not and is not in any vaccines anywhere in the world. In fact, mercury is a nasty element that certainly does have some severe neurological effects, but it’s not relevant to vaccines.

What this anti-vaccine gang tries to sell is that thimerosal (or, if you’re outside of the USA, thiomersal) is equivalent to mercury. This would be true if we completely ignored all that we know about chemistry.

Thiomersal is an anti-bacterial preservative that is used in many medical products (including, at one time, most vaccines). It was used in vaccines to prevent cross contamination of multi-dose vials (they usually had 10 doses). Today, most vaccines are in single-use pre-filled syringes, so preservatives are not used.

Thiomersal, the chemical, contains one mercury atom attached to an ethyl group, or CH2CH3, which generally makes it soluble in water and to have it’s anti-bacterial effect. Thiomersal is an “ethyl mercury” – to consider it “mercury” would be similar to considering table salt, NaCl, a form of poisonous chlorine gas. That ignores basic chemistry.

Generally, thiomersal remains in the ethyl mercury form, and is cleared out of the body within a couple of weeks. Yes, thiomersal is toxic, but it’s important to realize that the dose makes the poison – and the dose of thiomersal in vaccines was so far below the toxic dose, that it’s beyond implausible to think that the dose would have any biological effect, long or short term. And it is not elemental mercury (which would be dangerous).

There is a form of organic mercury that is dangerous – methyl mercury, which is widespread in our environment. If you were to be worried about mercury, the amount in fish you eat is far more dangerous and in higher concentrations than you would find in the form in vaccines. If all childhood vaccines contained thiomersal, and they don’t, it wouldn’t come close to the amount of mercury found in one can of tuna fish.

Maybe you agree that the dose is low, but still think that thiomersal in vaccines causes something, like autism. Well, there is simply no evidence that supports this belief. Again, Professor Reiss looked at the evidence for a link between thiomersal and autism in her review of Trace Amounts:

In addition to trying to dismiss some of the data contradicting its point of view, the misleading picture it makes is compounded by glaring omissions. The movie completely ignores the many other studies from all around the world that examined the link between thimerosal and autism and found none. If we accept that the CDC is engaged in a conspiracy to hide a link between thimerosal and autism, would we say that:

The U.K. is part of the conspiracy, since this 14,000 children study also found no link?  Nor did this study. 

Canada is part of the conspiracy, since this large-scale study found no link? 

Iceland is part of the conspiracy, since although thimerosal was removed from the vaccines in 1991, ASD rates have continued to increase since then (and administration of influenza vaccines, which may contain thimerosal, is not recommended to children or pregnant women?):

Japan is part of the conspiracy, since this recent study also found no link?

Poland is part of the conspiracy, since this recent study found no link? Or in an earlier Polish study.

In other words, the scientific evidence, and only evidence matters – not anecdotes, articles in low quality journals, or YouTube videos. And the evidence is overwhelming that thiomersal has no link to autism or other neurological disorders. These are large, well-designed studies that are near the top of the hierarchy of scientific evidence.

Let me sum it up about mercury:

• It is not linked to autism
• Thiomersal is not mercury
• Importantly, except for multi-use vials of some flu vaccines, there is no thiomersal in any vaccine on the market

The anti-vaccine bullshit meter reads very high with this one.

The nonsense press conference

If you are so interested, you can view the full press conference on the World Mercury Project Facebook Page. Make sure you’re wearing your skeptical hat if you are inclined to watch this thing. Here are some highlights:

“On the occasion of our announcement of the World Mercury Project’s $100K challenge, we want to address America’s reporters, journalists, columnists, editors, network anchors, on-air doctors and news division producers….

Despite the cascade of recent science confirming that thimerosal is a potent neurotoxin that damages children’s brains, the American media has fiercely defended the orthodoxy that mercury-based vaccines are safe. We believe that even a meagre effort at homework will expose that contention as unsupported by science. In just the past month, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) review confirmed thimerosal’s profound neurotoxicity and a Yale University study connected vaccines to neurological illnesses including OCD, anorexia and tics…

Journalists, we have discovered—even science and health journalists—don’t always read the science! On the vaccine issues, many of them have let government and industry officials tell them what the science supposedly says. Instead of questioning, digging and investigating, journalists, too often, have taken the easy course of repeating the safety assurances of the pharmaceutical industry and the regulators at CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, which they have good reason to doubt.”

First of all, the CDC has not confirmed thimerosal’s “profound neurotoxicity.” In fact, the CDC states that thiomersal is safe in vaccines. Kennedy is so filled with his own myth-making, he can’t even state a truth.

And as for the “Yale University study,” I’m always skeptical when someone trying to push pseudoscience uses the educational institution as an appeal to authority, let’s take a quick look. It was published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, whose publisher is considered a “predatory publisher,” that is, you have to pay to publish in the journal. Maybe you don’t care about that, but it is indicative of “research” that is so bad that it can’t make it into prestigious journals. In fact, if this study provided us good evidence about risks of vaccines, it would be published in prestigious journals. It’s too important.

I think it’s important to look at this “research” and compare it to the body of work that contradicts it. Cherry picking one study is not real science. If this were a good study, and we’ll get to that, it would need to be added to evidence for and against the safety of vaccines. And right now, this study would be overwhelmed by all of the others that show no link, some of which we’ve described in the previous section of this post.

But those are more meta-level issues with the article.

Lucky for me, the eccentric Orac reviewed this article in detail. Let’s just jump to Orac’s conclusion (though the whole article is a good read):

There are so many dodgy things about this paper that I could continue to go on, but for purposes of a wrap-up, what you need to know is that, no, it doesn’t show that vaccines cause anorexia nervosa or tics, or the other neurological disorders linked to them; that it isn’t even good evidence of a correlation between vaccines and these conditions; that it’s funded by two of the authors and the wife of one of the authors; that one of the authors has a history of writing antivaccine articles for Medical Hypotheses; and, finally, that the other author is chairman of the board of directors for a lyme disease charity that appears to be heavily into chronic lyme disease woo. Basically, it’s bad epidemiology and statistics carried out by mostly non-epidemiologists and non-statisticians. Indeed, it’s so bad that I was surprised not to see someone like Andrew Wakefield, Mark Geier, or Christopher Shaw associated with it. How something this bad could be published by Yale faculty (plus non-Yale faculty listed as affiliated with Yale) is beyond me. When I decided to look at this paper, I hit the jackpot in terms of—shall we say?—teaching opportunities in critical thinking.

From my standpoint, I was concerned about the quality of the database used (a commercial marketing tool, rather than an unbiased medical records database), the credentials of the authors (none appear to be epidemiologists, who know how to design these studies), and the statistics. The statistics themselves, a form of p-hacking, a form of statistical manipulation that ignores basic principles like correcting for confounding variables and establishing biological plausibility. If you look through the data, it shows that vaccinations are correlated with broken bones. Yes, it does.

It is a junk study. It doesn’t rise to the level of good evidence, just more manipulated statistics that support the pre-conceived conclusions of the anti-vaccine crowd.

The TL;DR version

Robert F Kennedy Jr. and Robert De Niro are back at it – pushing anti-vaccine bullshit and nonsense. They get it wrong on “mercury.” They get it wrong on links between vaccines and neurological disorders (there are none). They get it wrong on everything. But because Donald Trump thinks vaccines are bad, the anti-vaccine forces think they’ve got momentum on their side.

I hope they’re wrong.

Key citations

• Andrews N, Miller E, Grant A, Stowe J, Osborne V, Taylor B. Thimerosal exposure in infants and developmental disorders: a retrospective cohort study in the United kingdom does not support a causal association. Pediatrics. 2004 Sep;114(3):584-91. PubMed PMID: 15342825.
• Bernard S, Enayati A, Redwood L, Roger H, Binstock T. Autism: a novel form of mercury poisoning. Med Hypotheses. 2001 Apr;56(4):462-71. Review. PubMed PMID: 11339848.
• Fombonne E, Zakarian R, Bennett A, Meng L, McLean-Heywood D. Pervasive developmental disorders in Montreal, Quebec, Canada: prevalence and links with immunizations. Pediatrics. 2006 Jul;118(1):e139-50. PubMed PMID: 16818529.
• Håberg SE, Trogstad L, Gunnes N, Wilcox AJ, Gjessing HK, Samuelsen SO, Skrondal A, Cappelen I, Engeland A, Aavitsland P, Madsen S, Buajordet I, Furu K, Nafstad P, Vollset SE, Feiring B, Nøkleby H, Magnus P, Stoltenberg C. Risk of fetal death after pandemic influenza virus infection or vaccination. N Engl J Med. 2013 Jan 24;368(4):333-40. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1207210. Epub 2013 Jan 16. PubMed PMID: 23323868; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3602844.
• Heron J, Golding J; ALSPAC Study Team. Thimerosal exposure in infants and developmental disorders: a prospective cohort study in the United kingdom does not support a causal association. Pediatrics. 2004 Sep;114(3):577-83. PubMed PMID: 15342824.
• Legge A, Dodds L, MacDonald NE, Scott J, McNeil S. Rates and determinants of seasonal influenza vaccination in pregnancy and association with neonatal outcomes. CMAJ. 2014 Mar 4;186(4):E157-64. doi: 10.1503/cmaj.130499. Epub 2014 Jan 6. PubMed PMID: 24396098; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3940592.
• Leslie DL, Kobre RA, Richmand BJ, Aktan Guloksuz S, Leckman JF. Temporal Association of Certain Neuropsychiatric Disorders Following Vaccination of Children and Adolescents: A Pilot Case-Control Study. Front Psychiatry. 2017 Jan 19;8:3. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00003. PubMed PMID: 28154539; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5244035.
• Madsen KM, Lauritsen MB, Pedersen CB, Thorsen P, Plesner AM, Andersen PH, Mortensen PB. Thimerosal and the occurrence of autism: negative ecological evidence from Danish population-based data. Pediatrics. 2003 Sep;112(3 Pt 1):604-6. PubMed PMID: 12949291.
• McMillan M, Porritt K, Kralik D, Costi L, Marshall H. Influenza vaccination during pregnancy: a systematic review of fetal death, spontaneous abortion, and congenital malformation safety outcomes. Vaccine. 2015 Apr 27;33(18):2108-17. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.02.068. Epub 2015 Mar 8. Review. PubMed PMID: 25758932.
• Miles JH, Takahashi TN. Lack of association between Rh status, Rh immune globulin in pregnancy and autism. Am J Med Genet A. 2007 Jul 1;143A(13):1397-407. PubMed PMID: 17508426.
• Mrozek-Budzyn D, Majewska R, Kiełtyka A, Augustyniak M. [Lack of association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism]. Przegl Epidemiol. 2011;65(3):491-5. Polish. PubMed PMID: 22184954.
• Mrozek-Budzyn D, Majewska R, Kiełtyka A. Early exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccines and children’s cognitive development. A 9-year prospective birth cohort study in Poland. Eur J Pediatr. 2015 Mar;174(3):383-91. doi: 10.1007/s00431-014-2412-5. Epub 2014 Sep 5. PubMed PMID: 25185528; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4334107.
• Nelson KB, Bauman ML. Thimerosal and autism? Pediatrics. 2003 Mar;111(3):674-9. Review. PubMed PMID: 12612255.
• Price CS, Thompson WW, Goodson B, Weintraub ES, Croen LA, Hinrichsen VL, Marcy M, Robertson A, Eriksen E, Lewis E, Bernal P, Shay D, Davis RL, DeStefano F. Prenatal and infant exposure to thimerosal from vaccines and immunoglobulins and risk of autism. Pediatrics. 2010 Oct;126(4):656-64. doi: 10.1542/peds.2010-0309. Epub 2010 Sep 13. PubMed PMID: 20837594.
• Saemundsen E, Magnússon P, Georgsdóttir I, Egilsson E, Rafnsson V. Prevalence of autism spectrum disorders in an Icelandic birth cohort. BMJ Open. 2013 Jun 20;3(6). pii: e002748. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002748. PubMed PMID: 23788511; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3693420.
• Thompson WW, Price C, Goodson B, Shay DK, Benson P, Hinrichsen VL, Lewis E, Eriksen E, Ray P, Marcy SM, Dunn J, Jackson LA, Lieu TA, Black S, Stewart G, Weintraub ES, Davis RL, DeStefano F; Vaccine Safety Datalink Team. Early thimerosal exposure and neuropsychological outcomes at 7 to 10 years. N Engl J Med. 2007 Sep 27;357(13):1281-92. PubMed PMID: 17898097.
• Uno Y, Uchiyama T, Kurosawa M, Aleksic B, Ozaki N. Early exposure to the combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines and risk of autism spectrum disorder. Vaccine. 2015 May 15;33(21):2511-6. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.12.036. Epub 2015 Jan 3. PubMed PMID: 25562790.
• Verstraeten T, Davis RL, DeStefano F, Lieu TA, Rhodes PH, Black SB, Shinefield H, Chen RT; Vaccine Safety Datalink Team. Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health maintenance organization databases.Pediatrics. 2003 Nov;112(5):1039-48. Erratum in: Pediatrics. 2004 Jan;113(1):184. PubMed PMID: 14595043.

From Donald Trump to Sean Hannity to Harold Hamm to Sen.

Jim Inhofe (R-Exxon), one of the favorite global warming science denial idiocies is "Ha ... if there's so much warming, why's there snow outside."  Jim Inhofe famously had his grandchildren make an igloo mocking Al Gore and more famously wanted to start a snowball fight in the Senate.

It is now February 2017, just less than two years after the above video and this prominent example of Jim Inhofe's anti-science mania. (As Alec Baldwin put it about Inhofe, "Is there a bigger oil whore than Jim Inhofe?") In those two years, we had 2015 hotter than 2014 and then 2016 hotter than 2015.  The world is warming -- despite Inhofe's big snowball.

There is a 4A weather / climate emergency

• The Arctic is experiencing massive temperature fluctuations, with record high temperatures.
• Australia and much of the Americas are experiencing record heat.
• The Antarctic has ice missing in action and what might be the largest ice shaving in world history.

When it comes to America, for example, Oklahoma is experience record heat for Valentines Day and this has nothing to do with Oklahomans romantic passion. It is the middle of February and the thermometer is hitting 100F.

 TO REPEAT:

           IT IS THE MIDDLE OF FEBRUARY.

                  OKLAHOMA is 100F.

                          THIS IS A SERIOUS SIGN OF CLIMATE CHANGE.

Oklahoma is represented by one of the loudest climate science denialists in the U.S. Senate, a Senator who has received more fossil fuel contributions to his campaigns than almost any other Member of Congress. The products of these firms are a serious contributor to humanity's ever-mounting greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions. And, continued denial of basic climate science (and of the scientific consensus about climate change) is inhibiting action to slow (and reverse) the warming fostering 100F days in Oklahoma in the middle of winter.

In the interim, Oklahoma needs Jim Inhofe's snowball a lot more than the Senate floor.

Generally, when I write about vaccines, it’s about protecting children’s lives from vaccine preventable diseases. That itself is a noble goal for vaccines. But in case you didn’t know, there is also a CDC schedule for adult vaccines, which is as important to adults as they are to children.

Vaccines have one purpose – to protect us and those whom we love from potentially deadly and debilitating diseases. Many of us in the blogosphere have talked about the children’s schedule a lot, often to debunk claims of people who are ignorant of science, and think that the children’s vaccine schedule is causing undue harm. Yeah our intellectually deficient president, Donald Trump, thinks he knows more than the CDC, but that’s a problem shared by many vaccine deniers.

One adult vaccine I push regularly is the flu vaccine. It protects adults, pregnant women, the elderly, children, and healthy young adults from a severe infection that hospitalizes and kills more people every year than you’d think. Because flu is not really a serious disease, in some people’s minds, a lot of people decide that they don’t need the vaccine. They’d be wrong.

Just in case you were wondering, there is more to adult vaccines than just flu vaccines. There are several other vaccines indicated for adult use, including those adults with underlying health issues like diabetes, HIV and heart disease – unfortunately, the uptake for adult vaccines is depressingly low. Let’s take at the low uptake and the recommended adult vaccines schedule.

Uptake of adult vaccines

Unfortunately, in the most recent review of adult uptake of vaccines, the news is not good. Here are the CDC’s estimates of rates of uptake of adult vaccines during 2014:

• Tdap vaccine for tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (whooping cough) – uptake is around 20% for adults older than 19 and above. Being protect against these diseases is important not only for the adult, but for children. For example, an adult can transmit the pertussis infection to children who have not been vaccinated or who have a less than optimal response to the vaccine. If I were a parent of a baby who had not yet been vaccinated against pertussis, I would be reluctant to expose her to adults who were not vaccinated recently.
• Herpes zoster (or shingles) vaccine – shingles is a serious, debilitating disease afflicting those who have had chickenpox in the past, maybe years earlier. The chickenpox virus, Varicella zoster, hides from the immune system after a bout of the disease, to show up decades later to cause a more serious disease. It is unknown what causes shingles to suddenly appear, but the only way to prevent it is to be vaccinated. Sadly, the herpes zoster vaccine uptake was around 27.9% for adults older than 60 years, putting elderly patients at risk of the infection.
• Flu vaccine – the coverage for the seasonal influenza vaccine was around 43.2% for adults aged 19 or older years. Considering the dangers of the flu, something that is dismissed by vaccine deniers everywhere, this rate is shockingly low.
• Pneumococcal vaccination – the coverage for this serious disease was only 20.3% for individuals 19-64 years and at high risk to the disease. This is a deadly disease, and coverage should be much higher. There was some slightly better news which showed that around 61.3% of adults aged over 65 years old were vaccinated, though it would be much better if the rate was >90%.
• Td (the tetanus-diphtheria only version of Tdap) vaccine – the uptake for adults aged 19 and older was 62.2%. It seems that physicians stress vaccinations against tetanus for anyone who has had a large cut, which keeps the coverage of the vaccine a bit higher than most.
• Hepatitis A vaccine – the uptake for this vaccine among adults 19 years or older was 9.)%, one of the worst uptakes for adult vaccines.
• Hepatitis B vaccine – uptake for adults aged 19 or older was 24.5%. Over 90% of adults with hepatitis B infection become chronically ill, and the disease is indicated in cirrhosis and liver cancer.
• HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine – uptake among adults aged 19–26 years was 40.2% for females and 8.2% for males. Considering this vaccine (along with the hepatitis B vaccine) are two of the handful of actual, evidence-based, methods to reduce the risk of cancer, it’s upsetting that up take is so low. If you do nothing else with regards to the adult schedule for vaccines, get the HPV and hepatitis B vaccinations. Then, if you’re getting those two, get the rest of the vaccines.

But the news is worse. Predictably, adults without health insurance were significantly less likely than those with health insurance to get most vaccines. Of course, vaccination coverage is a part of Obamacare, so it’s possible the rate of vaccination will go up. But even among adults who had health insurance and access to healthcare 23.8-88.8% reported not receiving the recommended adult vaccinations. That’s just unacceptable.

CDC recommended adult vaccines schedule

The CDC has established vaccine schedules for adults by age and by health condition (full size chart, pdf) – I’m a solid pro-vaccine person, and I had no clue what vaccines were required for adults. In fact, recently I took this chart to my primary care physician, who seemed surprised by some of the vaccines on there (like I said, I was too, and I focus on this stuff). Since my health insurance explicitly covers all vaccines recommended by the CDC, I got caught up on Hep A and B, MMR, HiB, meningococcal and pneumococcal vaccines. Some of the recommended vaccines, like Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b), might be a surprising adult vaccine recommendation for many who follow vaccines.

My arm hurts, but so far, I’m still alive with no tail growing out of the top of my head. But I am a warrior against vaccine preventable diseases. Come at me pneumococcus…my immune system will kick your bacterial butt.

I know many of us spend much of our vaccine advocacy supporting the lives of children, by protecting them from vaccine preventable diseases. However, we should not ignore what we’re doing to save the lives of our adults. Vaccines are important for adults, not just to protect our lives from these diseases, but it also helps protect others who may not be vaccinated or who are more susceptible to a disease they might catch from you. Yes, you need to be protected against some childhood diseases like measles, which are making a comeback lately thanks to the anti-vaccine movement, because they can cause harm to you and your family.

Go get caught up on your adult vaccines. Because vaccines save lives. My physician gave me a lollipop afterwards, so I think it was worth it.

Citations

• Williams WW, Lu PJ, O’Halloran A, Kim DK, Grohskopf LA, Pilishvili T, Skoff TH, Nelson NP, Harpaz R, Markowitz LE, Rodriguez-Lainz A, Bridges CB; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Surveillance of Vaccination Coverage Among Adult Populations – United States, 2014. MMWR Surveill Summ. 2016 Feb 5;65(1):1-36. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.ss6501a1. PubMed PMID: 26844596.

There’s an editorial in Forbes that spells it out: supporting science is a political act these days. Emily Willingham has five reasons why it matters. She’s taking issue with those who think Science should be above the fray, should be above politics. In an ideal world based on rational thought, that might be a tenable hope — but that’s not true where we live today, in Trump World.

Here’s the list — Read The Whole Thing for the details and links. 

1. Scientific research in this country is under political threat.

2. Scientific understanding in this country is under political threat, beginning with our earliest education.

3. The political repercussions of the threats to science will differentially affect people who have different identities that they bring to the table.

4. In the current climate, staking a claim to an intellectual framework that relies on facts, critical thinking and evidence-seeking is a political act.

5. The repercussions of stifling scientific advancement in this country are inherently political, from how they affect the healthcare of this nation to how we will be able to respond to threats inside and out.

Want to do something? You can start by going to The March For Science website and signing up for more information. You can find local marches near you, or organize your own. There will be no lack of opportunity to resist — find something you can do. The world is made by the people who show up for the job.