demagogue on 19/2/2015 at 17:33
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
Quote Posted by faetal
Salt = NaCl = Instadeath
Has that actually happened or are you just making that up as a strawman?
Best post. Thread won.
The rest of you can retire now.
faetal on 19/2/2015 at 17:53
Tony, you've turned in to the Food Babe. What side effects of monosodium glutamate? Which known carcinogen? At which dose?
Seriously, as a biochemist and a (semi) toxicologist, I can tell you that you are talking complete vague nonsense. Do you bother to read further into any of these things or is someone shouting THEY ADD CELLULOSE* FROM TREES TO MCDONALDS MILKSHAKES on a clickbait website somehow an OK alternative to actually looking at unbiased facts?
* Otherwise known as dietary fibre
faetal on 19/2/2015 at 17:56
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
That said, you are asking about something that just didn't happen. The original study occurred in 1998 and I didn't notice any significant amount of anti vaccine sentiment until about 2011-2012.....over a decade after that study was performed.
No, that's about the time it started getting big in the US. You are forgetting that there are quite a few other countries outside of the borders of your own.
You also don't realise that a drop in herd immunity would lead to a delayed increase in the diseases they prevent rather than an immediate one, but fair enough, you aren't a biologist.
Tony_Tarantula on 9/3/2015 at 22:58
Speaking of the Vaccine thing, it's back in the news(although not much in what most people would call the "media").
An Italian court just ruled in favor of a family that sued a vaccine maker for Autism. The basis of the ruling? (
https://autismoevaccini.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/vaccin-dc3a9cc3a8s.pdf) A Confidential GlaxoSmith-Kline report that listed autism as a side effect of the vaccine in question.(table of side effects identified during clinical trials begins page 598. Specifically, 5 cases of autism occurred during the trial.)
Brace yourselves. This issue is going to become a lot more heated.
faetal on 9/3/2015 at 23:08
No idea how that held up in court. A serious adverse event of autism during a drug trial doesn't imply causation any more than a serious adverse event of being hit by a car.
Guessing the judge just didn't understand how clinical trials / immunology work. Odd that GSK weren't able to provide an expert witness to explain. Guessing the decision was in the hands of someone "going with their gut" or whatever.
Just to clarify for those without the benefit of the right education - you need a study to demonstrate causation - simply noting that x people receiving a vaccine were diagnosed with autism during the trial doesn't really tell you anything.
This will no doubt provide fresh fuel on the fire of anti-vax ignorance though. It's going to get heated because a lot of people don't understand and will believe that this is some kind of huge deal. Autism levels won't change, preventable deaths and morbidity will, for the worse. Things like pertussis, all but eliminated will start creeping back and killing kids again, like it used to before evidence-based medicine relegated it almost to a distant memory. This wave of distrust of vaccines can only exist in a time where people have begun to forget what these diseases actually do spread "naturally".
Idiots will always stay blind to a mountain of contrary evidence if they think they spy an anthill of what supports their view somewhere in the distance.
[EDIT] Seriously, how is this smoking gun?
Tony_Tarantula on 10/3/2015 at 01:08
Because it's going to be perceived that way.
Speaking of which.....I'll bet you could make a killing by marketing "organic vaccines" right now. You need to get your bosses on that.
demagogue on 10/3/2015 at 03:18
On that note, most pharmaceuticals are genetically modified. Not sure why the tin foil hat fringe isn't going nuts over that, given how crazy they go over GMO food & the pharmaceutical modifications go a lot further than the food ones.
American law is very particular about what scientific evidence can come into trial and what judges or juries can decide about it. Often you'll see plaintiffs bringing in experts with 'minority opinions', which usually means crackpot science. When a judge boots them, then you really get the conspiracy theories rolling. It still gets in though. Thankfully, regulatory agencies are pretty insulated.
In contrast, speaking of GMOs, a lot of European countries have shut down billion dollar industries because of a few crackpots that their own resident scientists are embarrassed of. This Italian case is par for the course. The message: Europe needs to get politics out of their science and regulation. Or at least start taking their own scientists more seriously in regulation. Do that and America can trade you getting religion out of our's. Well, a lawyer can dream.
Tony_Tarantula on 10/3/2015 at 03:21
I once worked a night shift with a guy who'd worked on a hog farm before he got his degree, and when the topic of GMO's came up in conversation he mentioned that they'd tried GMO feed at his farm but were quickly forced to discontinue its use because the pigs that they had tested the new feed on stopped reproducing.
I've also noticed that there's is definitely a continental divide on the issue. The GMO issue has gotten a lot of fire over here due to some questionable legal practices involved. Monsanto has patented their modified variety of corn and has used that patent aggressively by suing farmers who re-plant saved seed or even farmers whose fields were cross-pollinated by nearby GMO corn fields. Not only does the latter lawsuit fail to pass any measure of common sense, but the court sided with them Monsanto in that instance.
This issue in particular has seen a lot of scientific studies in both the for and against camps retracted(at 15 times the rate in 2001), as well as a lot of studies that are paid for by a vested stakeholder( anti-GMO crusaders or biotech companies that produce the crop being studied).
It overlaps slightly with my Project Management experience in other sectors because when you have stakeholders who have invested large amounts of money in the project, it's difficult to maintain the integrity of your project. You are more or less forced to cater to said large stakeholders or risk them pulling their money out of the project and sinking it permanently. One example i can think of is project that failed in a rather spectacular manner because a key stakeholder wasn't particularly happy with the environmental safeguards that had to be put in the place...and faced with a choice between violating federal law and him jumping ship we chose the latter.
I'd imagine that scientific studies have the same problem in that you can't risk a conclusion that will piss off your financial backers.
demagogue on 10/3/2015 at 03:58
I mentioned the 'Sound - Salient - Legitimate' trilemma for policy relevant science in another thread around here, edit. Or maybe this thread. (Getting all 3 goals is hard because they're in mutual tension.) It comes up a lot on this topic. Short answer is there are different groups doing relevant studies, and all of them have the challenge of meeting those 3 goals to be fit for informing regulation. It's a challenge regulators have to deal with ensuring good science gets acted on.
Another issue are Monsanto's dick practices, which can be a problem aside from any risk. I studied the crosspollination cases quite a bit. (Monsanto doesn't have all the practices people allege though.) Of course the crosspollinated farmer can sue for the non-consented infow also, eg, if they lose organic status. That's the main line of cases. The problem is often the outflow farmer was negligent and didn't take the right precautions, which is a problem for any crop. Same with the superweed, superpest, and monoculture problems. They were problems before GMOs got in the mix. There's a lot of challenges GMOs pose as crops that all crops face. So it's not like regulation just stops with them either.
