Debunked again: The Vaccine/Autism link

Posted on by The Old Wolf

As discussed in my previous post,  once a “fact” has taken hold in the public’s mind, it will most likely live forever in some sectors of the general population.

One particularly egregious – and harmful – example is found in the Vaccination/Autism link, which has long been debunked but which continues to perpetuate itself.

Wrong

Executive Summary: There is no link between vaccinations (particularly thimerosal) and autism. The scare was created by a disreputable doctor, Andrew Wakefield, who was hired as a paid consultant by a law firm who looked to make money from suing vaccine manufacturers. The flawed study was published in Lancet, and later retracted.

It’s a shame that time and energy even needs to be spent on this nonsense.

Here are some links that are worth reading if you have any questions.

1) Journal of Pediatrics: “The Risk of Autism Is Not Increased by “Too Many Vaccines Too Soon“

2) Time Magazine: Debunked

“More than any other research, it was a study published in the British medical journal the Lancet in 1998 that helped foster the persisting notion that childhood vaccines can cause autism. On Feb. 2, that flawed study, led by gastroenterologist Dr. Andrew Wakefield, was officially retracted by the journal’s editors… Among other failures, Wakefield neglected to disclose that he was a paid adviser in legal cases involving families suing vaccine manufacturers for harm to their children.”

According to the Huffington Post, Wakefield was stripped of his right to practice medicine in Britain in May of 2010.

3) British Medical Journal: How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed

In this brilliant and painstakingly documented investigative report, Brian Deer outlines step-by-step how the fraud was perpetuated, and by whom, and for what rea$on.

Do yourself a favor – get your kids vaccinated – failure to do so is resulting in an explosion of measles cases, and as many parents continue to refuse all vaccinations, a resurgence of previously rare diseases is a real possibility.

Edit: As of 2013, the reported number of cases of whooping cough has been declining since last year, but there is still an unacceptable jump in the numbers since 1990 or thereabouts.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Conspiracy Theory Poll

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Interesting data here.

Conspiracy Theory Poll Results

(Reblogged from Public Policy Polling)

On our national poll this week we took the opportunity to poll 20 widespread and/or infamous conspiracy theories.  Many of these theories are well known to the public, others perhaps to just the darker corners of the internet.  Here’s what we found:

–          37% of voters believe global warming is a hoax, 51% do not. Republicans say global warming is a hoax by a 58-25 margin, Democrats disagree 11-77, and Independents are more split at  41-51. 61% of Romney voters believe global warming is a hoax

–          6% of voters believe Osama bin Laden is still alive

–          21% of voters say a UFO crashed in Roswell, NM in 1947 and the US government covered it up. More Romney voters (27%) than Obama voters (16%) believe in a UFO coverup

–          28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order.  A plurality of Romney voters (38%) believe in the New World Order compared to 35% who don’t

–          28% of voters believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks.  36% of Romney voters believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, 41% do not

–          20% of voters believe there is a link between childhood vaccines and autism, 51% do not

–          7% of voters think the moon landing was faked

–          13% of voters think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ, including 22% of Romney voters

–          Voters are split 44%-45% on whether Bush intentionally misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 72% of Democrats think Bush lied about WMDs, Independents agree 48-45, just 13% of Republicans think so

–          29% of voters believe aliens exist

–          14% of voters say the CIA was instrumental in creating the crack cocaine epidemic in America’s inner cities in the 1980’s

–          9% of voters think the government adds fluoride to our water supply for sinister reasons (not just dental health)

–          4% of voters say they believe “lizard people” control our societies by gaining political power

–          51% of voters say a larger conspiracy was at work in the JFK assassination, just 25% say Oswald acted alone

–          14% of voters believe in Bigfoot

–          15% of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals (the so-called Tinfoil Hat crowd)

–          5% believe exhaust seen in the sky behind airplanes is actually chemicals sprayed by the government for sinister reasons (also called chemtrails)

–          15% of voters think the medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry “invent” new diseases to make money

–          Just 5% of voters believe that Paul McCartney actually died in 1966

–          11% of voters believe the US government allowed 9/11 to happen, 78% do not agree

Full results here

In my experience, once a “fact” has taken hold in the public’s mind, either from a Mr. Popiel infomercial, or a Dr. Oz special, or a spam email trumpeting “Seen on Oprah!”, it will essentially live forever.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Child Labor

Posted on by The Old Wolf

bib_92651

 

Part of a night shift in an Indiana glass factory, August 1908. Lewis W. Hines (1874-1940). This photograph was taken as part of an assignment for the National Child Labor Committee and the original belongs to the National Child Labor Committee Collection of the Library of Congress. This print (Collection of the Rakow Research Library 92651) was obtained from the Library of Congress.

You can see some intriguing statistics about this kind of work at the Corning Museum of Glass:

“In one glass factory, the average 1912 hourly wage for a male worker was 18 cents, and that of a female worker was 11 cents. They did not perform the same work. The lowest rate for a male was 15 cents and the highest rate for a female was still 11 cents. A 1917 statistic for the same factory shows that the average yearly wage for the lowest pay-rated male was $526, well above the U.S. poverty level at the time.”

The Old Wolf has spoken.

The Osborne Computer

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Osborne-ad

 

I owned one of these, picked up from the surplus department of my company for about $50.00 in around 1985. Well, mine was actually an Osborn Executive, but still. It worked. Despite the tiny little orange screen, the CP/M operating system, WordStar word processor, and a (programmable) dot-matrix printer, I was able to do a lot with it. Inventories, journals, databases, and much more. Like most of my cool retro stuff, I wish I had kept it.

exec

 

The Executive may have been directly responsible for the failure of Osborne as a company. As soon as it was announced, dealers began cancelling orders for the Osborne I, which had been doing quite well. The Executive, however, was vaporware – it didn’t actually show up for a year after it’s hyped announcement, and the company ran out of cash. This phenomenon has been dubbed the Osborne Effect.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Must Sell

Posted on by The Old Wolf

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To look at the country, I’d almost say times are as tough now as they were then. Economic terror is snapping at the heels of far too many of us, and our leaders seem interested in only one thing – fortifying their fiefdoms and filling their re-election war chests. I have a message for them:

“This is not what you were elected for. You were elected to serve the nation and improve the lives of your constituents. Do this, and you shall endure. Do it not, and every last one of you will be out of a job. America is angry. We will not see our Constitutional rights eroded – a storm is coming that even the lobbyists and attorneys of Monsanto and friends will not be able to withstand. The only thing that will protect you is doing the right thing, which is: stop thinking about yourselves, and do the job you were elected to do.”

The Old Wolf has spoken.