Dachel Media Update: Passing the Buck(nell) to Genetics
Dachel Media Review: Conversation with Authors of Plague

Dr. Paul Offit Tells Jon Stewart That Caucasian Upper Middle Class Educated are....

Educated dunceBy Anne Dachel

April 28, 2014, Dr. Paul Offit made an appearance on the Stephen Colbert Show on Comedy Central.  I wrote about it on April 29.

Offit used that occasion to criticize parents who blame vaccines for their children's autism.  He was adamant--there is no link!

Then incredibly, Offit was a guest on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on June 2, 2024, just four and a half weeks later.

In a skit entitled, "An Outbreak of Liberal Idiocy," Samantha Bee blamed "right wing science denial" and made one big joke out of parents who don't vaccinate while interviewing vaccine developer, Paul Offit, whom she described only as an " infectious disease expert."

So just who isn't vaccinating?

Offit: "They're communities that have large populations of Caucasian, upper middle class residents who are college educated, often graduate school educated, and believe simply by Googling the term 'vaccine' on the Internet, they can know as much, if not more than anyone who's giving them advice."  

Bee feigned shock that her neighborhood might contain non-vaccinating parents.

Does this make any sense in the real world?  If white, upper middle class, college educated parents are MORE LIKELY not to follow the recommended schedule, then the reverse must be true: lower class, uneducated parents willingly vaccinate their children according to the recommended schedule.  This disconnect from reality should raise lots of questions. 

Bee was next shown interviewing "health and nutrition blogger," Sarah Pope. 

Pope: "These vaccines are loaded with toxins and I'm not going to inject them into my kids."  While Pope spoke, Bee appeared to foam at the mouth.

Brief film clips of parents at rallies carrying signs about mercury in vaccines and of Andrew Wakefield outside the GMC were shown.  Then Offit continued speaking.

"They have an amazing ability to ignore scientific consensus."

"If you spend millions and millions of dollars to answer the question and you show people these great data and they still deny its existence. 

Samantha Bee went on ridiculing parents who don't vaccinate and viewers were shown a clip of Jenny McCarthy on CNN.  Paul Offit had the last word saying, "Sadly, the only way this gets better is when we start to see more and more outbreaks."

Bee: "So the cure for the anti-vaccination epidemic is observing very real negative effects of the anti-vaccination movement."

Offit: "Yes, I think that's exactly right."

My question is: How does Paul Offit command this kind of coverage?  Imagine all the events happening in national and international news reports that could be topics for Colbert and Stewart.  So why do they both focus in this one?   

I'd also like to ask Jon Stewart about what Robert Kennedy, Jr said on his show in July 2005 during an interview about vaccine and autism.

Stewart: "Most recently you were talking about the link between autism and vaccinations. Pretty controversial."

Kennedy: "It's not all vaccinations. Between 1989 and 2003, almost all of our vaccinations included a material called thimerosal, which breaks down to form mercury. It was a preservative. It was unnecessary to add to vaccines. And we saw during that period, a dramatic increase in neurological disorders among American children. Today, one in every six American children born during that period has some kind of neurological disorder: speech delay, language delay, dyslexia, and at the opposite end of the range, autism. Autism rates in 1988, before they started adding all these vaccines, one in every 2,500 children had autism, today one in every 166 children have autism. And there is very, very strong science, really overwhelming science, linking those autism rates to the thimerosal that was in the vaccines. The thimerosal, people should know, has been removed from most of the vaccines in America. We still have it in the flu vaccine and in one or two other. But we are still giving it to children all over the world and there's now been a dramatic increase in the Third World in autism rates. A few years ago, six years ago, autism was unknown in China. We started giving them our vaccines in 1999, today there's 1.8 million cases of autism in China. . . . (Stewart is nodding and looking concerned here.)

"If you actually read the science, which most journalists don't do, the science is overwhelming that there is a link between the autism and the thimerosal."

Stewart: "So where then is the controversy? There are certain issues, if true, if validated, do boggle your mind with a sense of humanity. If these vaccine makers, or if the FDA, or other people are allowing a certain compound into these vaccinations that's causing autism and they now know it, why are they fighting so hard to keep that- Is it purely to save their asses, are they concerned about people then rejecting vaccines in general and then the public health suffers. I mean clearly a lot of these people are not malevolent."

Kennedy: "There appear to be two concerns. One is the pharmaceutical industry is terrified of the litigation. This is literally trillions of dollars of damage. Each autistic kid, if you have a kid with autism in your family, it shatters your family. so that's concern with the pharmaceutical industry. There's also a concern with scientists at CDC and the FDA, the federal agencies that green lighted [thimerosal].

Congressman Weldon who's a right-wing Republican Congressman who's also investigated this issue and is convinced that there's a link, what he says is that how many of us would want to admit that a decision we made had poisoned a whole generation of American children.

"The principal kind of benevolent rationale is that the federal agencies and the pharmaceutical companies want to make sure that the people don't get scared off of vaccines. What I've been saying is people are going to be frightened of vaccines if they don't trust the federal regulators to be honest with the American people. And the biggest threat to our vaccine program is that these people have now been caught red-handed conspiring to hide this information from the American people."

Stewart: "You've tried to talk about this publicly and there a real interesting story about what happened to you with ABC News where they had shot a story for you concerning the link."

Kennedy:  "I had pieces coming out, the cover story of Salon.com and Rolling Stone simultaneously published the same piece. We had an exclusive deal with ABC to air the piece, to air a story about the piece on ABC Nightly News and Good Morning America. ABC told us they had read the piece, we gave them an exclusive so we didn't pitch it to the other networks. They told us that they believed in the story, that they were behind it. They wanted to be the network to expose this to the American people. The night before the piece aired, I received a call from the producer saying ABC has cancelled the piece. The order came from higher up at the network. They won't explain why they're doing it. Two days later, ABC was deluged with letters from the autism community, mainly mothers who have autistic kids. Hundreds and hundreds of emails. This is what the producer told me. And he said we are no longer going to cancel it. We're going to air it but we're going to recut it. They recut the show, but they recut it to make it virtually an advertisement for the pharmaceutical industry. And indeed, as if to emphasize the capitulation to big pharma, they bracketed the segment that they did on thimerosal with two ads for pharmaceutical products. (Stewart is smiling broadly here.)

"I have no idea what happened at ABC. I can't look into their heads and see what happened but that series of events was suspicious."

Stewart: "And if nothing else it does seem that it's very hard to argue the idea that putting mercury in things-some people would argue that we're surrounded by all sorts of mercury contaminates in everything and the vaccines aren't as much. But with so many passionate people on the case of it, there must be something there. Where there's smoke there's fire."

Kennedy: "I got into this serendipitously; it's not really my area. I've been working on environmental mercury for many years, from power plants. In nineteen states it's now unsafe to eat any freshwater fish because of mercury that's coming from our power plants."

Stewart: "It's a remarkable story. I wish we had more time but I appreciate you getting the word out and I know parents of kids with autism truly appreciate-and I know it's a very difficult thing for them to be dealing with so I'm sure they appreciate the help."

Getting the word out?  The word is that the more educated you are, the chances are you won't buy the safety claims about vaccines.


Anne Dachel Book CoverAnne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism and author of  The Big Autism Cover-Up: How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public, which goes on sale this Fall from Skyhorse Publishing.

Comments

Handthatrocksthecradle

Unfortunately, a very well played spin for the pro-vaxers. These two pieces are so palpably slanted in favor of the pro-vaxers, it confirms my suspicion that the Colberts, Stewarts, Oprahs, and SNLs of today’s mainstream media are very often deliberate, calculated propaganda tools for the oligarchs.
Although Stewart did not directly spew that dangerous poop from his mouth, Colbert, with his trademark snarky, tongue-in-cheek word smithing always leaves wiggle room for (mis)interpretation. He obfuscates in the name of yuks to avoid responsibility and liability. I hope the comic flip-flopping he engaged in for the benefit of the chuckleheads in his audience assuages any personal guilt he may have about helping to promote a dangerous vaccination policy that will no doubt disable even more thousands of American children.
As for Samantha Bee, since she stopped short of dropping trou to take a vaccination on the cheek for her art, perhaps she has more in common with the well educated, Caucasian anti-vaxers she derides than she cares to admit.
As parents of vax injured children, the pieces were as funny as a broken crutch.
As far as there being no mention of the synergistic or cumulative effects of the current, aggressive vax schedule, that is not just junk science, it is BAD PHARMACOLOGY.
Subjects used to determine vax safety are primates and not humans, as far as I know. While the immune systems of both may be similar, I would hope "Profitt" is not claiming that human and primate immune systems are identical matches.
If he is, then it is further proof to me that he is involved in some “(Pr)ofitt” driven monkey business.

cia parker

I just watched the interview, and I agree with those here who believe that it was pretty much a send-up of the pro-vaxxers. The slapstick terror of disease of Samantha Bee and the horrifying possibility that WE (anti-science, anti-vax nutjobs) are all around all the time, I cannot believe were meant to seriously prop up Dr. P's conventional, endlessly repeated presentation.

Birgit Calhoun

Offit is apparently having his way with the Caucasians. Does that mean that he was afraid to include the Jewish population in order not to offend his host John Stewart? Why didn't he just say Germans like me(and I am not per se against vaccines). I am against the idea that vaccines are "unavoidably unsafe". The reason why lesser educated people are maybe more likely to accept vaccination is that they have not read about this unavoidability. I resent it that any scientist in any scientific endeavor can live with something being unavoidably unsafe unless you want to belong to the "breaking bad" crowd. Any scientist who says vaccines have to be accepted the way they are is disingenuous at best and a quacksalver at worst.

I am glad to take on Dr. Offit in a debate. I know he won't take me up on it as he doesn't Dr. Wakefied up on it.

Barry

I feel we have gone way off the deep end regarding saying vaccines caused autism. May be true for some but not all. My son was BORN WITH AUTISM before he was vaccinated.

**********

If your son was born in a hospital, then you have no idea when he received his first vaccine.

Theres no way to tell the difference between autism that was caused a vaccine received in the first days of life, and what your doctor has told you is born with autism.

barbaraj

I'm not sure? My oldest son had a completely different take on this. Stewart brings on the vaccine "profiteer" Offit, to tell us he has spent millions in designer science to give us the conclusions he demands ,he admits he's bothered by the types of refuser, those pesky educated young parents who can READ. The woman, goes manic, she who doesn't bother to read the simplest of labels, was foaming on an alkaseltzer she mistook for a breathmint. Then ,overtaken by group thinking fear, put on her hazmat suit to shut down spots where conversations could brew more vaccine refusers. The ugly ending, if these profiteers can't get their way will they be the anthrax mailers of yesterday, will they start epidemics , afterall they have power and the money and the "science" to end this. They are the big guns! The only solution left by this corporate vaccine guru was in "epidemics"a not so veiled warning?

Kathy Sincere

As a founding member of the Colorado Coalition for Vaccine Choice,I was disgusted to watch Paul Offit on the Daily Show, right after his appearance on Stephen Colbert. I kept pondering what really was going down. Then, alas, it hit me: this is Offit's poor pathetic response to NVIC's message on the Times Square Jumbotron, which is running from May until Mid-July. All visitors to Times Square will read "Vaccinations? Know the Risks and Failures" and also "Vaccinations - Your Health, Your Family, Your Choice" NVIC.org. This man despises Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center. She has been a thorn in his side for years. Way to go, Barbara. It's really too bad that Colbert and Stewart have drank the Kool-Aid, but not the rest of us "college educated free thinkers"!

Jim


Martha:

I am sorry for your son's autism. The federal subsidies for adjustment training centers that may provide future housing and care for your son are subject to the political whim of state governors and state legislators. You might have an advocacy group available in your state to seek help with this.
See http://www.bazelon.org/News-Publications/Other-Resources/Mental-Health-and-Disability-Advocacy-Resources.aspx
and
http://www.ndrn.org/index.php

Jen

Good points about the disingenuous timing of Offit's graph, Tim, conveniently starting at a point in time after major economic and infrastructure changes that affected health outcomes for disease.

Marie-Anne Denayer, M.D.

The group of parents Dr Offit blames for the anti-vaccine movement is the same group Bruno Bettelheim blamed for causing their child's autism.

For Martha Moyer

Martha

No one said it was all cases but other people have their experiences - the sneering Dr Offit should be regarded what he is, a cynical industry apologist and bully.

Martha Moyer

I feel we have gone way off the deep end regarding saying vaccines caused autism. May be true for some but not all. My son was BORN WITH AUTISM before he was vaccinated.

Jim Thompson

Powell's Books sells a book entitled “Trust Us We’re Experts” by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber. Here is a book review by Robert Kennedy Jr.

"Rampton and Stauber have once again exposed the ugly underbelly of corporate America's psychological war on our citizens. Trust Us, We're Experts! shows how giant corporations employ sophisticated psychiatric techniques, unscrupulous public figures, paid biostitutes, junk science, tainted studies and clever PR mercenaries in a relentless effort to market products that routinely kill, maim, deform and poison consumers and our environment."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President, Water Keeper Alliance

See http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781585421398-19

sfischer

We hear that around 25% of Americans now believe that ASDs are linked to vaccines. We don't hear of the breakdown. I suspect its young educated parents with something to lose. This is what is scaring the industry so much that the propaganda battle is being ramped up.

I also believe, since I don't encounter as many afflicted children under 10 yrs old these days, that the numbers of severe cases has dropped precipitously since 2004 when California pulled thimerasol from most child vaccines and many parents became aware of the issue.

Could this be why recent studies are using data prior to 2004? Could this be the reason for lumping Asperger's with Autism? It lays the foundation for future obfuscation which will become essential.

Tim Kasemodel

I agree with others that regardless of the message intended this parody can be looked at to support both sides of the issue. That in my mind makes the writer look like a genius.

What bothered me is how disingenuous it was to use a graph showing the decline in certain diseases but only starting the graph in 1950 with 67,000 cases the top of the graph.

If the graph started in 1900 the side bar would have to start above 1,000,000 and most diseases would show a steady decline in response to the availability of clean water and public sewer systems.

A graph like that shows that disease had come to near flat line after the introduction of economic stabilization factors such as social security and widespread deep rural electrification in the 50's and 60's.

Even into the early 60's if you could not pump water or afford toilet paper or even cloth diapers it would of course affect your ability to control disease in your neighborhood (rural OR city).

I hope that the progressive, liberal, educated middle income audience of Jon Stewart who are really interested will look into the history of disease without thinking the rate of those diseases were completely steady for thousands of years until the introduction of Doc Proffit's "lifesaving vaccines".

Benedetta

S. Ilfray-Hraka
Who will be coming after who by the public - remains to be seen.

Kristina

If there is something I've never heard of, or are unsure about, and I hear that college educated upper middle class people like me are increasingly supporting it, then I'm going to look into it.

The Daily Show may be more on our side than we think. I'm sure they had hours of interview footage with Offit, and they chose to highlight him saying that.

4Bobby

Merck settled Nuvaring lawsuit for $100 million...chump change to them I guess...

Carol

I understand Offit's frowny face; they've spent millions and millions of dollars generating the data they want and people *still* don't believe it.

I don't think I understood how blatant this data manipulation can be until I read about the McElmurray dairy farm in _Science for Sale_ by David Lewis. I recommend that everybody buy and read this book, but until then a snapshot from sourcewatch.org:

"Andy McElmurray was a farmer who testified before Congress that contaminated fertilizer from a waste water treatment plant killed off his cattle and the cattle of a neighboring farm. The cattle deaths were traced to high levels of chemicals like molybdenum and cadmium in the sludge applied to his land. Another sludge chemical, thallium, a rat poison also showed up in the cows milk, including milk pulled from nearby grocery store shelves. McElmurray and his family became sick from working near sludge as well. When McElmurray's case came to light, the EPA fabricated the sewage plant's numbers to make a case that the sludge was, in fact, safe. However, in a U.S. District court, the judge examined the EPA's numbers and called them 'incomplete,' 'unreliable,' 'fudged,' 'fabricated,' and 'invented.'"

cmo

Are there not cases of the not-so-educated going from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart getting multiple "free flu shots" for their children.... as they are then provided with a $5 off coupon for groceries ???

As always, there is an open offer for the pro-vaxers to take the "Hannah Poling vaccine cocktail" adjusted for their body weight.

John Stone

Jersey Guy

I can't see these things in the UK but I wonder whether you are right - is it just that they miss the tone because they are not in their comfort zone. They are being called upon to be deferential, obsequious and it doesn't really work. It wouldn't surprise me if people drew reverse conclusions from those intended, whether they say to themselves that they are being manipulated or that suddenly ordinary people and not the powerful ones are becoming the object of satire. Whatever is left (and whatever they intended) it may end up with a hollow ring. I remember a Soviet politico in a British newspaper at the height of the cold-war assuring us that people in their circles made fun of dissidents. Well, I am sure they did but how would you interpret the humour?

John

Laura Hayes

Thank you, Anne, for covering this so well.

I have always found it quite interesting (okay, ludicrous) that those who vilify those of us who question and/or denounce vaccines choose to call us "college-educated", like it's a bad thing to be educated...or "upper-middle-class", like it's a bad thing to work and earn a living. Shows their sheer desperation...they speak utter nonsense right and left.

John Stone

It occured to me that S.Ilfray-Hraka might enjoy my article 'Paul Offit and the Milgram Experiment':

http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/10/best-of-age-of-autism-paul-offit-and-the-milgram-experiment.html

Kapoore

I watched the video clip on youtube and I'm disgusted with Jon Stewart. I wish he didn't have so much influence on the twenty/thirty something crowd who will be having children and vaccinating. There is nothing funny about vaccine injuries. There is nothing funny about auto-immune disorders that go undiagnosed, untreated, and can destroy a person's life. I'm also disgusted with New York State which has one of the worst civil rights records around when it comes to choice about injecting toxins into one's body. If I lived there I would be moving, and I can't imagine why parents would want to move there with their children or work in a medical field there. I'm glad that this article gives a positive twist to what to me was an insulting skit--get educated, don't vaccinate..hmmm not so obvious interpretation. Hey people out there in clueless land: rich and educated moms don't vaccinate, and if you are poor and uneducated you better vaccinate or we'll take your kid into protective services where they might end up in human trafficing. Sorry...not funny...not funny..not funny!!

cia parker

Ilfray,
I also agreed with Dr. P. when he made the statement that things will change when we see the diseases come back, but the way that they will change is that people will say: "Is that all? THAT was the disease we've been told was as deadly as the bubonic plague all these years?" Even in the '30s many doctors observed that pertussis had become so much milder than it had been that there would be no need to develop a vaccine for it. Doctors in the '60s said the same thing about measles, while doctors in the '90s said the same thing about chickenpox. I had measles, rubella, and chickenpox in the '60s the way all children did then, and no one worried about it. I had pertussis in '01 when my baby, who had gotten the DTaP at 2, 4, and 6 months, like countless thousands of other appropriately-vaxed people, got pertussis anyway at 8 months because the new acellular vaccine is close to worthless, while the disease is only dangerous to a few newborns, usually from impoverished families. It was unpleasant and long-lasting in our case, but not dangerous. Diseases like meningitis and tetanus are dangerous, but they are rare, and high-dose vitamin C can be used to successfully treat them. Dr. P. is right, but what will happen is that when people see how mild or treatable the VPDs nearly always are, they will opt to take their chances with the diseases rather than the vaccines. We lived healthy, happy lives in the '60s and '70s, before the onslaught of dangerous vaccines we didn't need. When they realize the truth, people will choose to go back to that happier situation.

cia parker

It had been a while since I had read this extremely impressive, intelligent interview with Kennedy from ten years ago. He says, however, that it's important that the government etc. recognize the danger of mercury in vaccines and its role in causing autism, to prevent the wholesale lack of trust in medical authority and the vaccine program. However, at this point, with ten years more of numerous studies and much experience, it's extremely important that everyone recognize that even if the mercury is taken out as much as possible from all vaccines, the trace amounts that would remain are still dangerous (especially cumulatively and for those like our family with a genetic susceptibility to react to even one vaccine), and critical to recognize that all vaccines can cause encephalitis, and the resulting brain damage can often manifest as autism, even in the complete absence of mercury. The MMR, as exhibit number one, has never contained mercury but often causes encephalitis, bowel disease, and autism. Judy Converse, in her excellent book When Your Doctor is Wrong: The Hepatitis-B Vaccine and Autism, about her son Ben's life-threatening encephalitic reaction to the hep-B vaccine at birth, given to him, as it was to my daughter, without permission, as well as her congressonal testimony and facts about the extreme danger of the vaccine, makes the important point that that vaccine (as well as all others) can cause encephalitis and autism independently of mercury content. Mercury, of course, has always been devastatingly dangerous, especially when injected into the body, and it has caused a lot of autism. But governments may not rest easy that they have solved the problem and public confidence in vaccine safety may be restored once the mercury is as removed as it can be. The most intelligent, best-educated families will and should continue to refuse all or almost all vaccines (if I had it to do over again, I'd refuse all of them). High-dose, intravenous vitamin C therapy is life-saving in the treatment of many VPDs, and the refusal to use any fever reducers like Tylenol (etc.) would preserve lives, but the medical establishment does not yet wish to acknowledge this, as it would crush the market for vaccines even more. Dr. Profit is a joke. I guess everyone has noticed how he's fallen off the go-to list for articles in parenting magazines? There was an article at Shot of Prevention while I was gone extolling him as an omniscient god on the subject of vaccines, and that's really what it takes, you just have to put your brain in park, attend his revival meetings, and accept him as your Lord and Savior. Ensuing death and disability must be accepted as the will of the Lord. Educated, thoughful people, of course, recognize that this may be considered to be blasphemously worshiping the Golden Calf. Not a good idea.

JerseyGuy

In an earlier post I suggested that Stephen Colbert might have been subtly undermining Offit's message, and I wonder whether something similar was done on the Daily Show. Sarah Pope, the holistic blogger who was supposedly the target of the sketch, is in fact very happy with it:

http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/

After all, it was excellent publicity for her blog (thanks for the plug, Sam) and she had a chance to present her case to a national audience. And who was Samantha Bee directing her humor against? When she vomited on camera, put on a hazmat suit, and quarantined Starbucks, she was obviously lampooning the vaccine propaganda film "Contagion".

Let's remember that the method of Daily Show mock interviews is to talk to some pompous establishment figure, feign agreement with him, and do a reducio ad absurdum number on him -- ideally without him noticing that he is being ridiculed. Well, the (il)logical conclusion of Offit's position is that we should quarantine Starbucks -- and again, he didn't notice that he was being guyed.

In reality, vaccine skeptics run clear across the political spectrum -- left, right, and center. But this program portrayed them as liberal, educated, and organic -- exactly the kind of people who watch the Daily Show. Now, if you wanted to persuade these viewers that vaccine skeptics have a case, how would you do it? Tell them that those skeptics are folks just like them.

I suspect that the Daily Show was pressured to do a hit job on us, but then subtly twisted the message to convey quite the opposite. After all, Samantha Bee has young children. And if Offit thinks this is helping him -- fine, let him go on thinking that.

John Stone

'S.Ilfray-Hraka'

There is nothing that I know about Offit's science or the US government which would lead me to defer to them. They don't listen when vaccines go wrong, they just deny. It is just hit and run. If the program is not trusted it is their fault.

People should see the manipulative techniques for what they are, and read for themselves.

It'll make people wonder more what's going on

Offit bumbling against Boyd Haley? in the video was way funnier. As someone said it'll just make people wonder more. And they should wonder when 1 in 42 boys has autism.

Truth is hard to come by

Ah yes, Orwell lives. Black is white. Up is down. Educated is stupid. Horrific situations are actually great comedy. And toxic chemicals are health inducing.

Perhaps Stewart has had one too many flu shots?

S. Ilfray-Hraka

Offit is literally dead right when he said "Sadly, the only way this gets better is when we start to see more and more outbreaks."

I do hope the general public comes after you for all the harm you've done to public health. You deserve every bit of ridicule and shame that can be given.

Benedetta

Bee and Stewart hands have been tied -- but they are smart -- Offit and those that support him are playing into our hands -- they are in show bussiness and they know there is not such thing as bad publicity -- the worse thing is silence.

Oh and if you google vaccine - or vaccine injury -- you have pages and pages to go through before you finally get to the anit vaxxers as they call it.

So those white educated people waded through a lot of stuff before getting to those red eyed, foaming at the mouth, cult status -anti vaxxer radical groups.

Barry

Then Offit continued speaking.

"They have an amazing ability to ignore scientific consensus."

************

What those "edumecated" people understand, is that their children were injured by the vaccines that were supposed to protect them. And that real science, has nothing whatsoever to do with consensus.


“I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.”
― Michael Crichton


“Truth has nothing to do with the conclusion, and everything to do with the methodology.”
― Stefan Molyneux

 Bob Moffitt

The difference between John Stewart show of June 2, 2014 with Paul Offit .. and .. his previous show of July 2005 show with Robert Kennedy .. is stunning.

Somehow .. someway .. Stewart and his producers went from "concerned citizens" in 2005 .. to .. "useful idiots" in 2014.

"Offit describing his enemies: "They're communities that have large populations of Caucasian, upper middle class residents who are college educated, often graduate school educated .."

Silly me .. but .. Offit's enemies sound exactly what I always perceived to be the majority of John Stewart's audience.

Still .. there is hope .. Fortune article: Could GM be charged with murder?

http://tinyurl.com/mr53hfp

"For a company to be charged with manslaughter, Arlen said, a few things have to happen. First, prosecutors would have to be able to find a specific person whose actions led to people dying. Second, that person would have to have taken those actions for the benefit of the company and within the scope of their employment, and have been “in the right mental state” when they took the actions."

Aussie Dad

From Australia today. $10 million dollar settlement for flu shot gone wrong. Took one for the herd I guess.
http://m.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/parents-of-saba-button-who-was-victim-of-flu-vaccine-debacle-receive-payout-from-wa-government/story-fnhocxo3-1226945651845

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