Dirty Diaper Theory
Bill Frist famously diagnosed Terri Schiavo as a non-vegetable from the Senate floor via video tape. When he's the most sensible person in a debate about medicine, we have a problem. That was the case when Bill Maher started spouting his superstitious beliefs on health and "western medicine" (known simply as "medicine" by those who practice it) with regards to the H1N1 vaccine.
Maher thinks he is the most reasonable man on the planet, but he employs the same tactics that the creationists and climate change deniers he shouts down on his show use when defending their unscientific nonsense. Which is to say something like, "We shouldn't shut off the debate--after all, there are still a lot of questions!" Sorry, Bill. The science is in. Vaccines work.
Other crazies on this issue include the incredible level of fear-mongering of Rush and Beck along with Farrakhan claiming it was designed to kill people. While Dobbs doesn't appear to be a vaccine skeptic, his use of Swine Flu to stir up anti-immigrant hysteria earned him a place in the comic.
Wednesday: Executive Pay
posted by Matt Bors at
12:00 AM
8 Comments:
My sister has recently become on of these people, claiming that regular MMR vaccines have given her friend's kid autism and that a mercury based preservative (Thimerosal) is still used in vaccines (Thimerosal is still used in the combined H1N1 shot, but it's not in the individual or nasal and it has been removed from standard vaccines for years).
She brings up that kid on CBS news who reportedly got nerve damage from the HPV Vaccine. There have been 23 million doses of that vaccine released with only 12,000+ reported side effects (less than 1%). If it did cause nerve damage, we'd be hearing a lot more.
I'm not fan of the pharmaceutical industry. Merrick, Pfizer and the Prescott Group are all guilt of making bad drugs and publishing misleading studies, but this recent scare over the safety of vaccinations is pretty asinine, and that's coming from a 9/11 truther.
Also, I noticed when I walked into her house that the TV was turned to Fox News.
To be fair to Bill, there are some nasty side effects to flu vaccines. Guillain-Barré syndrome is a known side effect that puts people in the ICU for months. That said, I still get them.
So... Glenn Beck's audience is being encouraged to forego vaccination? Is there a downside?
LOL@Steve!!
@Steve: Numerous unvaccinated GooBers will survive the flu anyway. Downside is they'll be walking infection vectors.
Say Matt, is the gal in frame 2 foreground intended to be Ariana Huffington? If not, it should be.
The Huffington Post is known vector for pseudoscience, including antivaxosis- and will be long remembered as the place Jim Carrey chose to commit career suicide.
@Aaron Manton said: To be fair to Bill, there are some nasty side effects to flu vaccines. Guillain-Barré syndrome is a known side effect that puts people in the ICU for months.
"GBS may be a rare side-effect of influenza vaccines, with an incidence of about one case per million vaccinations." (via Wikipedia)
The source study is here, and puts the number at "0.70 reports per million vaccinations".
Dav, that's horrific! 210 cases can be projected per 300 million (US population est.)! Won't somebody think of the children?!
BTW, the statistical likelihood of being struck by lightning is about 4.16 per million, or 1248 cases per 300 million.
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