Investigating the truth behind @steemtruth’s “truth” - Part 2: Vaccines Increase Your Chances of Catching Infectious Disease?

in #health6 years ago (edited)

During the last weeks, @steemtruth has made a small fortune with a series of anti-vaccination posts, seemingly providing evidence for the complete failure of vaccines to immunize against illnesses and for their harmful, poisonous behaviour towards humans, especially children.

First off: I appreciate the guy.
Unlike many other vaccination sceptics, he seems to base his views on scientific studies and statistics – which makes his theories tangible, and opens the possibility for scientific evaluation.
So let’s do exactly that: Let’s take his posts, evaluate his key points and recheck his statistics and cited studies. After all, @steemtruth’s credo is: “Truth Fears No Investigation”.

So let’s investigate, for real.
Here you can find part 1 about how "vaccines do not stop desease" (but they do).

Part 2 of my answer will focus on his second post:

Vaccines Increase Your Chances of Catching Infectious Disease - Study Reveals!

In this post he brings up a lot of different stuff, so we will have to go step by step:

figure 12 statement

Inactivated influenza vaccines are 0% effective in young children (0-2 years old)

This assumption is based on a review on influenza vaccine studies from 2006, which really states:
“In children under two, the efficacy of inactivated vaccine was similar to a placebo.”

The last sentence of this report draw criticism from the scientific community. Booy, 2006 wrote:
“primary researchers contend that the limited data from studies in children aged less than 2 years are consistent with a possible benefit and are not statistically significantly different from placebo due to an underpowered comparison and because key data were excluded”.

In their latest update from 2012, the Cochrane Review took into account this point and is stating:
„Influenza vaccines are efficacious in preventing cases of influenza in children older than two years of age, but little evidence is available for children younger than two years of age.”

I conclude:

Yes, this source really says that a vaccination with inactivated influenza is probably inefficient in children under 2 years old.
But @steemtruth left away the other half of the truth:
The same source provides evidence that it is efficient in older children, and that the live vaccine is efficient in both younger and older children.

Which is a thing you should have to add if you start quoting the Cochrane review. You can’t just pick out the one thing you like and leave away the other main points that you don’t want to hear.

figure 13 statement

Inactivated influenza vaccines have little or no effect in elderly people

This is again based on a Cochrane review from 2005. Sadly, I only had access to the updated version of 2010, where they write:
“We were unable to reach clear conclusions about the effects of the vaccines in the elderly.”

I conclude:

They write nothing about 0% effectiveness. The analyzed date were not conclusive. So we just don’t know if it’s effective in elderly people. And that is a difference.
But he is right in one point: scientific data does not support vaccinations of elderly people with an inactivated influenza virus. Good there's also the living stuff with proven effectiveness.

figure 14 and 15 statement

The BCG vaccination is a) inefficient against tuberculosis and b) actually leads to more cases of tuberculosis

This is based on two studies from Malawi and India, which really found BCG to be ineffective against pulmonary tuberculosis.

But: This is nothing new. We scientists know that for some time, and we don’t deny it. Even Wikipedia knows that BCG is not very effective against pulmonary tuberculosis.
It is, however, highly effective against tuberculous meningitis and the so-called "military tuberculosis" (source), and this efficiency is the reason why it is still used as a vaccine in developing countries.

Also, the two studies do not state that people/children receiving BCG are more likely to catch tuberculosis in general.
The Malawian study specifically looked at people who had suffered from leprosy before giving them the vaccine, and they found a slightly higher incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis in those (so slight that it could easily be a false-positive result, which is why the authors of the study did not build a conclusion around this). And that does not implicate at all that the same is true for previously healthy people.

The Indian study does really state that BCG lead to a higher incidence of tuberculosis in the group below 2.5 years old (12 instead of 6 cases in a group of 70,000 children).
But again, @steemtruth is either not knowing his source or trying to hide its true nature:

Because the study also reveals that from the age of 5 or higher, it's the other way round and vaccinated people got half as often tuberculosis than those who received a placebo.
That and of course they took into account all types of tuberculosis, which is a serious flaw considering the vaccine's widely accepted inefficiency towards pulmonary tuberculosis.

I conclude:

As we all know BCG is not effective against pulmonary tuberculosis, but highly effective against tuberculous meningitis, the sickness against it is used. To state it is “0% effective” against any type of tuberculosis is either a blatant lie or a serious error resulting from a very limited medical knowledge. The sources do support the statement that BCG leads to more cases of tuberculosis in 0-2.5 years old children, but also found that it's protective for older children.

figure 16-19 statement

several disease outbreaks (mumps, chickenpox, pertussis, measles) affected more vaccinated than unvaccinated people


Well of course they do. There is a mathematical error in thinking here, as I will show you:

First off, the sources have been falsely cited and misinterpreted. Let’s take figure 16 and the mumps outbreak in Iowa, 2006, as an example. The original piece of literature states:

“Among 1,192 patients, 69 (6%) were unvaccinated, 141 (12%) had received 1 dose of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, and 607 (51%) had received 2 doses of MMR vaccine; the vaccination status of 375 (31%) patients, the majority of whom were adults who did not have vaccination records, was unknown.”

Thus, it is invalid to state that 92% of the patients were vaccinated. Obviously, 6% were unvaccinated. But we don’t know about 31%. If you want to build an argument against vaccination, you may use the 63% of the patients that were vaccinated for sure – assuming the 1-dose patients were not overdue with their second shot, in which case they would have to be included in the “unvaccinated” group.

And now the error in thinking:

It’s important to know one thing: No vaccination is 100% effective.

Yes, you heard right, I said it!

There is no 100% effectiveness of any vaccine, drug or whatever in medicine.
According to the state of Iowa, the MMR vaccination rate in 2016 is 86% state-wide (Source), and dropping. In 2006, it was most likely around 90%. This means, if the MMR vaccination was totally ineffective, you would expect 90% of mumps patients to be vaccinated. In reality, it was 63%.

Still sounds a lot like ineffectiveness. Well, read on.

What does this mean for the individual level?

Iowa has about 3 Million Inhabitants. So 1192 people, which is 0.039% of the population cought mumps during that outbreak, while from 2.7M (90%) vaccinated people, 708 cought it, which is 0.026%. From unvaccinated or unreported people, 444 of 300,000 people got sick, which equals 0.148%. If you compare the two groups directly, you can now easily calculate that a vaccination reduced the risk to catch mumps during the Iowa outbreak from 0.148% to 0.026% - or, in other words, by about 83%.
83% efficiency is not as good as I would have expected (literature states ~90-95%), but much, much better than the 0% @steemtruth wants you to believe.

The same principle can be applied to the other outbreaks that served as example, and was the matter of a very good recent post of @alexs1320 on the importance of herd immunity.

I conclude:

The provided examples show that vaccines are not 100% effective (as we already knew), but are presented in a manipulative way that is misleading from their true meaning:
Vaccines are obviously not 100% effective, but drastically decrease the likelihood of catching a disease.

figure 20-24 statement

Disease case rates increased after vaccination programs were started!

Here, @steemtruth uses several graphs from Nigeria and the Dominican Republic to demonstrate that the number of disease cases haven’t decreased – but even increased – after vaccination programs have been started in these 2 countries.

The first question you should ask yourself is: Why the heck did he take two developing countries?

The answer is: look at the same graphs of Western countries. I posted one for England and measles in my last blog.
In our countries, introduction of vaccinations correlate with a significant decrease in infectious disease cases for the following years. He doesn’t want you to see that, so he singles out Nigeria and DomRep, two countries infamous for their bad medical system back in the 1970s.

Even today, the vaccination coverage for most diseases in Nigeria is only 60-70% (source), and in the DomRep, more than 50% of the children are undervaccinated (source.

So if you only look at the 4 years (!) after the program officially started, I’d be surprised by a coverage of more than 5-10% in those years, considering even european countries have not reached above 20% uptake rate in the initial years of their programmes.

Of course, having 10% of people vaccinated will not lead to a significant decrease in case numbers, and will not prevent epidemics among the other 90%, which is exactly what you can see in those graphs.

I conclude:

The graphs are completely meaningless. They only look at a very small time window, where programs have just had started and no significant part of the population was immunized.

His concluding plea

my direct answer to a quote

Also note, they are comparing one vaccine (live) against another vaccine (inactivated) when they should be comparing both of them against a double-blind placebo group. Big Pharma knows this and so do you, it’s plain common sense! Big Pharma does not want to conduct double-blind placebo studies and Big Pharma gets what Big Pharma wants!

You quoted some double-blind studies yourself, showing the effectiveness of live vaccines against the placebo group!

The Cochran review on influenza vaccines from 2006, for example.
#1 rule in science: Read your sources!

I am the last one to defend Big Pharma. They often act unethical and corrupt, they overprice drugs, they try to sneak away when stuff goes wrong, and they spend more money on marketing than on drug development/improvement.

But this doesn’t make vaccines ineffective. They are immunizing against diseases, partly proven by the sources supplied by @steemtruth himself.

Conclusion

After a close investigation of @steemtruth’s sources and the accuracy of his conclusions, I found the usual pool of half-truths, misinterpretations and smoke grenades. His examples do not proof that vaccines do not work and when there are hints that they increase the incidence in very few cases, he (or his source) is hiding they were found to do quite the opposite in larger groups in one and the same study.

He clearly either hasn’t read his sources, or - even worse - states only a fragment of truth from them to underline his personal opinion.
In other words, he does exactly what he accuses us scientist for.

I think analyzing his next post will be most interesting, as there he finally talks about vaccine safety, which indeed is a scientifically controversial topic.

Stay tuned!


Disclaimer: In my blog, I'm stating my honest opinion as a researcher, not less and not more. Sometimes I make errors. Discuss and disagree with me - if you are bringing the better arguments, I might rethink.

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This counter-argument does an excellent job at depicting the flaws in the anti-vaccination post. In particular, showing how the mumps pie graph is misleading is a great example of how the information present in an anti-vaccination post can be used to show the effectiveness of a vaccine.

thanks.

Surprised that "rabies vaccination" was not discussed in this context or in comments yet. Rabies infection when it sets in after an unfortunate contact with affected animal (bats, dogs, wild animals) is almost 100% fatal. But if rabies vaccination (post-exposure prophylaxis) is provided within a short period of time it is almost 100% effective. Unfortunately, 99% of mortality due to rabies is in developing countries due to it being endemic in dogs in these places. I agree with author that nothing in science is 100% that is why we follow P<0.05 rule. There is always a 5% chance of being wrong in any clinical experiment. But in certain situations such as vaccination to prevent rabies infection you can be 99.99% sure that it works.

indeed, rabies vaccination is a great invention.
Thanks for commenting.

Thank you for taking the time to address these pertinent points and putting yourself out there on a contentious issue. I have gone through the vaccination debates ad nauseum on both ends (cue joke about a vaccine preventable disease making you purge at both ends), so I know where these subjects can lead and how unreasonable people can be when discussing this, especially with the pseudo-anonymity of the internet.

You have created an eloquent and thorough deconstruction of the conclusions that were erroneously drawn by steemtruth, and supported by his followers and fans (lol@truthtrain's incoherent babbling and talking ridiculous shit; dude's become unhinged in grandiose conspiratorial thinking). It is quite intellectually dishonest for them to selectively cherry-pick evidence that supports a narrative through lying by omission, all while simultaneously accusing scientists of the same, or worse. Forgivable if they don't know any better, but I think they do know better than to appeal to poor reasoning.

I also appreciate that you are a research toxicologist writing this article who can properly analyze data and interpret figures; this is important, as it means this information isn't just more ideologically driven spam from science-enthusiasts that may misrepresent the facts to further their "I'm right, your wrong" narrative (e.g. "vaccines are 100% effective!"). Your analysis is honest and empirically driven, leaving possibility for doubt, and acknowledging that nothing is 100% effective.

The level of certainty that the anti-vaccination crowd speaks with is concerning, and shows a lack of appreciation for the importance of being uncertain. If there is no room for doubt there is no room for progress. It is refreshing to see that you understand the value and importance of being uncertain.

Thank you again for taking the time to address these articles in a thorough point-by-point manner.

Cheers!

Thank you for that voice of reason sco and molecular-wizard.

The anti-vacc and similar arguments (Ahem, flat-earthers) area easily proven inaccurate (or outright false) when someone who really knows the subject matter speaks up. We see here a case where one side forms an opinion before doing any research, then cherry picks evidence that supports their idea while ignoring opposing evidence.

Science is about finding REAL trends in large data sets in order to provide the best possible explanation, even if there is doubt. It's a shame so many people instantly discount valid scientific arguments as soon as they hear any doubt. Understanding and admitting your argument might be wrong in certain cases makes it a strong argument, not a weak one.

Uncertainty leads to curiosity which leads to knowledge.

Great post sco, looking forward to more.

Thank you! If you wanted a bit of humor, I posted something earlier this week that was satirical with respect to vaccinations under a deliberately clickbait sounding title: https://steemit.com/science/@molecular-wizard/truth-revealed-shocking-vaccine-consequences-you-will-not-believe

The degree of insular thinking these days is becoming problematic. Instead of people engaging with facts or evidence it seems that individuals silo into their preferred narrative and take to their familiar ideological battlements to reiterate the simplistic talking points and shout over one another. This is making us dumber.

thank you for you attention and the thorough reading.

I had to mute the truthtrain guy after he told me to "abort some babies". I can't see him anymore - which turns out to be quite a convenience as well^^

I really liked the point you made about science-enthusiasts. I see a lot of this on social media, like from shares from pages named "I fucking love science." It's good to be involved and to advocate for science, but acting like vaccines are completely safe and effective 100% of the time for 100% of the people just makes people latch on to vaccine-negative attitudes when it's shown that these claims aren't true.

I want to stress one point: Who found that the vaccines/ medical treatments are ineffective for some age groups, for some forms of the disease:

  • AlexJones, Mercola et. al?
  • Popular Youtuber?
  • Alternative Practitioner?

No, it was done by the committed, trained scientists who know how to do the job!

The general public should understand that we are living to find new things. That is often the only reason to stay in the scientific career.

Hey, I was doing industrial research as the full-time job and kept collaborating with scientific colleagues for FREE. 0.00 $ just because I found it interesting.

Find me on chat, the same name, for 2006 Paper

Straight out of my heart. We ARE scepticly evaluating the works and theories of other scientists, and if we findcissues, we ARE reporting them.

Okay, I do agree with you that the graphs seem kind of wonky. But if you read the ingredients inside vaccines, it makes you question why they are putting these dangerous toxins in them? Like for example, formaldehyde which is a known carcinogen. The CDC argues that it's supposed to make the viruses "inactive", but I would rather not get it shot if it risks getting cancer.

Not to mention to this day, the US gov refuses to do a study between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

Here's a pdf link to the CDC's ingredients of vaccines if you want to check them out.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf

Thank you for your mindful answer.

a) I did so far not argue that vaccines are perfectly healthy, as this would be rubbish, there are possible side effects, just as with any other medication. This post is simply an answer to the completely untrue statements in last week's post from steemtruth.

b) Yes, I can completely see why the ingredients scare people - there ARE known toxins in there (I am a research toxicologist from profession, so I know them). Like aluminium, for example, which is a known inducer of oxidative stress and can cause neurodegenerative diseases, or sometimes formaldehyde.
But there is the anicient saying from paracelsus: "The dose makes the poison." If the amount of formaldehyde or aluminium or whatever is low enough, and the exposure to it is short enough, it is not toxic.
It's all a matter of concentration and the time you're exposed to it. The exposure time with the stuff in vaccines is very low, as you usually get one shot and then your body excretes the toxin. Food contamination, for example, where you may continously eat small doses of e.g. aluminium, is a much bigger problem in that regard.
Toxins in vaccines are generally dosed in a matter that they are not toxic, or at least nearly untoxic.

c) why are they there? That has several reasons:

  • Aluminium is a so-called adjuvant that stimulates the reaction of the immune system - in other words, it potentiates the effect of a vaccine. How that works exactly is too long for a comment, it is described quite well in wiki
  • Formaldehyde really is a virus killer. Some vaccines work by giving the human body inactivated forms of a virus. In other words, the virus has to be killed first. This cannot be done by cooking, as a virus consists of pure DNA and DNA is quite stable at high temperatures, so it has to be done chemically, for example with formaldehyde. As formaldehyde is toxic, there are treshhold values that have to be respected in vaccines (and they are controlled by the FDA), which are considered untoxic based on loads of studies (mainly animal studies, as you can't test a toxin on humans).

d)

Not to mention to this day, the US gov refuses to do a study between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

I honestly do not know anything about that (I'm European), but I know there are studies that compared the health of vaccinated to unvaccinated people from other countries (germany, canada,...), and found vaccinated people to be as healthy or healthier as unvaccinated. Examples: 1, 2

I was only able to read the abstract of the second article (it was requesting me to pay to read the whole thing), but I did go over the first article. I found it interesting that the study found low parental education to be helpful (pg 983) and exposure to tobacco smoke (985). Probably discrepancies .
Correct me if I'm reading the graphs wrong.

I agree with you on dosage and exposure. Nightshade for example can be used as a pain reliever if the right dosage is used. Perhaps vaccines in Europe are different than the ones from the US. But Mike Adams (the director of an independent lab called CWC) did an ICP-MS analysis of a flu shot made by GlaxoSmithKline and found the mercury level to be 51 parts per million or 25000 times higher than the maximum water contamination level by EPA. He's widely known for exposing corruptions in the food and health industry, and his lab is certified by the FDA so I trust him.
https://www.naturalnews.com/045418_flu_shots_influenza_vaccines_mercury.html

I was only able to read the abstract of the second article

ah, the advantages of working for a university^^

I found it interesting that the study found low parental education to be helpful (pg 983) and exposure to tobacco smoke (985). Probably discrepancies .

you have to consider the error margins. both factors are not significantly different from the average if you consider them, if I read the graphs correct.

found the mercury level to be 51 parts per million or 25000 times higher than the maximum water contamination level by EPA

this is like comparing apples to peaches. How much water do you drink? up to 3-5l every day of your life?
And the injection volume of the vaccine is maybe 0.5 ml (I didn't check on this, but that's common for many vaccines), but only once.

So you have a factor of 5000-10000 for the volume, and another big factor for long-term vs short-term exposure, plus a smaller factor in the other direction for the different way of uptake (oral vs. intravenous)

And thus, there are completely different treshold values of what is considered safe for food/water and vaccines. If the lab found the mercury levels above the treshhold for vaccines, this woul probably lead to a recall of the vaccine. But finding it above levels accepted for drinking water is not very meaningful.

Btw, a result from my quick-search: there's an a US-government-funded study that found mercury levels in infant blood after vaccinations "well below those considered safe"

Edit: upvoted it with 1% to be better visible

I read it. I'm confused why the paper says it has 21 controls but the findings says it used only 15 blood samples out of 21.

The article reminded me of something though. Babies mostly receive their antibodies from their mother. Why is it necessary to forcefully vaccinate babies when their baby immune systems aren't fully developed yet? Especially when it's proven mercury is a neurotoxin.

Don't you also find it also find it strange how the US gov ( I know you're European) was denying there was mercury in vaccines at first and they finally admit it now? The CDC avoids the word "mercury", it calls it thiomersal.

Babies mostly receive their antibodies from their mother. Why is it necessary to forcefully vaccinate babies when their baby immune systems aren't fully developed yet?

Because there is a huge difference between receiving antibodies and being triggered to produce them yourself.
The received antibodies from the mother help the baby to be mostly immune to anything during the first months, which is incredibly important considering they come from a quite sterile environment (the womb) into our world without a trained immune system.
But if you are triggered to produce antibodies yourself (by infection or vaccination), you not only produce antibodies, but also, a part of the antibody-producing cells will change and become "memory immune cells". They are the memory of our immune system and will trigger a much faster and stronger immune reaction if they see the virus/bacteria they are trained against again, which is why and how a vaccination works.
And on contrary to antibodies, they can only be trained by your own body, not transferred from the mother.

Don't you also find it also find it strange how the US gov ( I know you're European) was denying there was mercury in vaccines at first and they finally admit it now?

I honestly don't know anything about that.

Mike Adams is beyond dishonest; he's blatantly fraudulent.

Nature News (the journal) is valid; NaturalNews is not. The exploit fear to market supplements by appealing to naturalistic fallacies, chemophobia, and lying by omission. Be careful about sources, as there any many that capitalize on the exploitation of scientific ignorance to hawk their own "health" supplements at inflated costs.

Mike Adams may have an independent lab, but his results do not go through independent 3rd party validation, peer review and has serious methodological flaws in analysis. On top of that, he does not start with a hypothesis -- he attempts to sensationalize his findings by omitting crucial details, selecting the "wow-factor" ones, and seeks to validate a confirmation bias with "experimental proof", which is a breach of scientific ethics. Bear in mind FDA approval isn't best metric for establishment of trust or transparency.

Just out of curiosity what's the best metric for establishment of trust in your opinion?

In the beginning I thought they were a joke too because I read their page on wiki. But I started to realized that the main stream media were publishing were published way- earlier on natural news and so I started reading them. Your opinion about Mike Adams sounds similar to the intro on wikipedia and I just want to warn you that anybody can edit articles on wiki therefore politicians can have a lot of influence over how people should think and act.

I assure you, I am not basing my opinion from a Wikipedia intro, and haven't even looked at that wiki page.

A better metric for establishment of trust is scientific consensus, as scientists rarely just agree with one another without nitpicking unless there is overwhelming evidence from multiple sources converging on an emergent truth. Scientific consensus is important because often the statistical stringency used in studies has a fairly low threshold for statistical significance (p<0.05), which implies that if the experiments were flawless, the data has a 1/20 chance of reaching that significance threshold due to chance. If you have one paper that supports a hypothesis that has a 1/20 chance it was chance results, that's not the strongest evidence; however, if you have hundreds of papers meeting that statistical threshold it is now far lower than 1/20 that all of these papers and methods collectively are flawed and getting their results due to chance. This is the importance of consensus.

This is why I ask people to use multiple sources, if possible, to convey a message; there is a lower probability that the information is erroneous if there are multiple sources corroborating the same results and converging on the same conclusions with empirical backing.

Unfortunately, Mike Adams uses his own data points that frequently have selective information cherry picked to posture a compelling narrative, even if it means hacking his way to a statistically significant value (otherwise known as "p-hacking"). For more on data manipulation, and why science isn't broken, see this: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/#part1

That link comes with an interactive exercise where you can include, or omit data point to try and make compelling looking trends in data that would appear to "prove" a particular point, but that is "proven" by data manipulation and cherry picking. So, it is less likely that hundreds of studies were all flawed than just picking one and running with it (unless it was exceptionally scientifically rigorous).

Hope this clarifies a few things. It's a wild world out there, and I don't want to see people be unwittingly duped, as I have been before by these charlatans.

As a final note, another red flag is someones demand to appeal to emotion when their data cannot speak for itself. If someone needs to appeal to a perceived morality because their data is dodgy, than it might be that the entire argument is on a dodgy foundation, as the reasoning and rationale cannot stand on it's own without sensationalism. Scientists attempt to sensationalize their information as little as possible, as to keep it objective and as free from human/researcher bias. This is critical.

Then please give me an example of an actual report given by Mike Adams that is an example of him picking data points. Scientists do peer reviews, yet only one third of the studies are able to be replicated. The article you gave also did a good job pointing it out that most of the misconducts were deliberate.

Here's Mike Adams being adorable and trying to talk about Bitcoin back in 2013: https://www.naturalnews.com/039865_bitcoin_crash_prediction_Mike_Adams.html

Here's him trying to rap about genetically modified foods and get everyone worked up into a lather by omission of data on "GMOs": https://www.naturalnews.com/030044_No_GMO_song.html

The guy goes on the Alex Jones show and attends conferences with swindlers like David Wolfe. Has no problem exploiting scientific ignorance and drumming up fear to market the massive amount up supplements in the banner ads on the page. He's making a killing by appealing to fear and mistrust, while simultaneously perpetuating it. That represents many "researcher" biases, as well as competing financial conflicts of interest; why would you trust that?

Recall that NaturalNews is an online store. You're being duped by marketers who are marketing you fear and mistrust to sell you shit you don't need.

even worse - states only a fragment of truth from them to underline his personal opinion. In other words, he does exactly what he accuses us scientist for.

Shock of the century.

As we all know BCG is not effective against pulmonary tuberculosis, but highly effective against tuberculous meningitis, the sickness against it is used. To state it is “0% effective” against any type of tuberculosis is either a blatant lie or a serious error resulting from a very limited medical knowledge.

I hear its also not very effective against staph infections.

Big Pharma does not want to conduct double-blind placebo studies and Big Pharma gets what Big Pharma

Big Pharma Big Pharma Big Pharma... Big pharma? Well Ill tell you Big Pharma Big Pharma... and then Big pharma big pharma! Big Pharma Knows This!

Shock of the century.

Imagine how surprised I was when I realized I was not the evil one.

Thanks for the support!

I just came here to say Big Pharma. That is all; thank you for your time.

Great post. Working in immunology and pediatric infectious disease exposes me to a lot of anti-vaxx and anti-science attitudes. It's good to see a step-by-step refutation of false claims.

This must have taken so much time! I bet you @steemtruth has not taken a tenth of the time you did. I really wonder if he is just trying to make money by providing "proof" to stirr up a cotroversy or if he genuinely believes in what he is spreading.
I really agree with @molecular-wizard below. If you try to argue with @truthtrain, and offer him a source or even a websearch link, he will not look at the source but just throw some fancy diseases at you.
I can accept people who are making an effort to prove their point, but people who think the one screaming the loudest is right need to be gone.
I really hope people read your response to @steemtruth and feel motivated to actually read his sources. As @alexs1320 has said, the sources that are suggesting vaccines may be unsafe and inefficient for certain people groups are written by hard-working scientists, and thus deserve recognition.
Thank you very much again @sco! Really looking forward to the third part! Resteemed and upvoted. Cheers!

yeah, it was not done in 20 min...and the third part will not go online today, for that reason. Thanks for the support!

Very very good! I am sadly also involved daily in debunking this particular myth and I can feel your pain. Hopefully as time goes, more and more people will be educated in this field and the pseuso-science will decrease.

Like Nietzsche (and partly Kierkegaard) said about (Catholic) Christianity, that it lost the fight the minute it started thinking it could prove God's existence rather than going the way of (Orthodox) apophatic theology and hide behind faith, similarly steemtruth lost the fight the moment he decided to use science to prove his claims. If you're gonna go conspiracy-theorist, you might as well go all the way. I mean, how can scientists support vaccinations when the research that says it's ineffective or bad is there for all to see? That would be some weak-ass Watergate level conspiracy.

Glad to have you debunking bunk on steemit!

hihi, so true! Thanks.

Now I am in doubt with vaccines due to what happens in the Philippines for the Dengvaxia or dengue vaccine. I am and everyone hope that before they give it to people, they must make sure its outcome. Thank yu for your post, it so full of information and you are right.

Thank you for commenting.

I am and everyone hope that before they give it to people, they must make sure its outcome.

Yes, I think this is something we can agree on. Quality control is important.

Exactly! Now in our school we already have one student died because of the dengvaxia and other student in the same class is fighting dengue fever for two weeks now. I keep on oraying that she will and everyone will be saved.

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