Control All Delete, Part 2: How Crying ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Suppresses the Vaccine Safety Debate
Read Part 1 HERE.
By Dan Olmsted
A few weeks ago in the midst of measles mania – say, whatever happened to that? -- I was on a Canadian TV show with a crusty but kind of likeable host who wanted to hear how people like me defend the “debunked” claim that vaccines cause autism.
He began: “I’m sure you’re taking a lot of criticism these days but you boldly stay the course?”
Me: “Vaccines are very strongly implicated in the rise of autism since the 1980s, yes.”
Now that is a pretty carefully calibrated statement, based on my own reporting and ten years of research and two books with my colleague Mark Blaxill, and I’m more than happy to stand by it, amplify it, show evidence for it and, in the language of science, provide citations.
The host immediately started talking about how “there is correlation but there is not causation.”
Fine, that’s a good debate to have! There is plenty of evidence that does in fact point to causation. But when I said that, he interrupted by saying that “no scientific study that demonstrates vaccines cause autism” – except the “debunked” Wakefield early report from 1998. So I mentioned William Thompson at the CDC and said Thompson acknowledged a study he was part of hid a link between vaccines and autism.
So, to my mind there’s another concrete piece of evidence. We are having a real debate!
Well, not exactly.
My host: “Well I think people can probably look up more detail on that than you and I can get into and may find that he’s being misquoted in that regard.
“And that’s the problem that I have. It’s conspiracy theory stuff and it’s easy to throw out names and things in a six-minute interview but we’re panicking people into not doing the very thing that has eradicated diseases."
How is directly and accurately citing a sitting CDC senior scientist “conspiracy theory stuff”? Boy, was I ever glad I had in my hand a few loose papers that included the actual statement from William Thompson!
Me: “William Thompson being a case in point, he says, ‘I regret that my co-authors and I omitted statistically significant information. The omitted data suggested African-American males who received the MMR vaccine before the age of 36 months were at increased risk for autism.’ He said it, I don’t know if you [speaking to my host] want to believe it, but I’m quoting from his statement through his lawyer.”
My host: “Well I’m encouraging people to read further into it.”
“I am too,” I said.
I explained how the root of the problem was not some evil worldwide plot but the fact that Congress gave liability protection to drug makers and doctors in 1986. The result: Big business and big government got in bed and cut the consumer out of the equation and we’ve been paying the price.
“It’s really a public policy debate as much as a public health debate,” I said. Again: It’s a debate that reasonable people can have based on a careful review of the evidence.
But my host came back around – again -- to the conspiracy idea – that if we have a problem with the vaccine schedule as I claimed, it could only be because doctors and public health officials and drug manufacturers concocted a massive conspiracy that defies belief. “What would be the value to any of those people to try and sell the idea that vaccines are safe when they are not?” he asked.
I responded: “I can’t speak for them.”
My host: “No, but I mean if you’re accusing people of this vast conspiracy you have to believe there’s some agenda behind it.”
Me: “I’m not using the word conspiracy, I’m just saying what the outcome is. I think it was unintended. But at this point I think there may be an unwillingness on the part of people who have sort of bet the farm, bet the business, bet their professional reputations on there being no link, they may not be the best people to get an objective answer here, that’s my feeling.” William Thompson sort of points to that, I’d say.
Perhaps having exhausted that avenue, my host changed the subject. “Do you have children?” he asked.
“No.” Pause. “I have a dog.” The crusty guy chuckled, which may be why I kind of liked him.
All this is preamble to what I now wish to briefly note. A regular and astute commenter on AOA, Twyla, forwarded me a note she got last week from The Daily Kos, the progressive site with quite a large readership. I guess her intended comment triggered some algorithm or alert intern. She got this in red type:
A message has been issued from site admin at Tue Feb 03 2015 10:25:09 GMT-0800 (PST):
The vaccine-autism link has been debunked by many careful studies, and here at Daily Kos we consider it conspiracy theory.
CT postings are not permitted here. Postings that advocate this theory can get you banned at Daily Kos.
[box to check] I acknowledge receipt of this message: (Posting is not allowed until the message is acknowledged.)
--
This un-American suppression of speech is always harmful, and especially ironic given that progressives (I count myself as one) champion all kinds of crazy talk in the Academy and elsewhere but can’t bear to hear anything that contradicts their frankly lazy and uninformed view on the most pressing domestic issue of our time. And it’s doubly ironic because back in 2010, after I wrote about “How Progressives Don’t Get Autism,” and laid out arguments similar to those here, a Daily Kos blogger wrote a reasoned response.
I wrote:
"Progressives ought to be able to make this distinction, to tease out the fundamental public good [of a reasonable vaccine policy] from an inadvertent and ongoing disaster and the long failure to confront and fix it. If for no other reason, they should do this because when public action fails due to mismanagement, it plays into the idea that the public sector can’t run anything as well as private business, and the progressive movement inadvertently validates the conservative critique. Instead, public health officials are now trying ever harder to stifle the debate, preserve the status quo and their own careers and credibility; in doing so, they betray not only the children they are charged with protecting, but the progressive values that led to mass vaccination in the first place."
The Daily Kos blogger, “Critical Dune,” wrote:
"Dan Olmsted, Editor of the blog "Age of Autism" and former wire service reporter, offers up an interesting (and pretty thoughtful) analysis, pointing out what he thinks is a blind spot for many on the left: the issue of questioning current vaccine policy, especially as it relates to possible links with autism." (See here.)
Dune added: "Wherever you stand on this issue, or if you firmly think it's a non-issue, Olmsted points out some troubling behavior in the public health complex that should concern progressives." Dune continued:
"As a progressive, I strongly believe in public health initiatives all over the world to aggressively fight disease but think that a robust system of checks and balances is not what it ought to be in the United States. It worries me greatly that for some definable, and perhaps not so small, subset of kids with immune system vulnerabilites (like Hannah Poling and others), it's plausible that some components or timing of the recommended immunization schedule may be doing more harm than good."
Come on, Dune, that’s conspiracy theory stuff! You are hereby banned.
--
Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.
The bayh dole act likely played a part in that.
Posted by: grey one | March 20, 2015 at 08:58 PM
I would add that government should be absolutely forbidden to partner with any business. That's how this disaster began and that's what fuels it today.
Posted by: Linda1 | March 20, 2015 at 10:31 AM
Linda
You are quite right, it is just bad law but at least RFKjnr is pointing out why it is bad law - the Constitution was supposed to protect you from oppressive government and over-powerful interests and here they all are together. And bad government will deliver bad science.
John
Posted by: John Stone | March 20, 2015 at 06:37 AM
Even if the CDC was not corrupt and in bed with Pharma, even if Pharma didn't have a rap sheet a mile long, even if the FDA wasn't completely captured, even if all the studies were legitimately done and no ill effects were found, even if vaccines were tested for carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, effects on reproduction and fertility, even if there wasn't one scientist who thought that vaccines were any more harmful than water, even if all scientists agreed that vaccines were effective, even if the great majority of people thought vaccines were great and trusted the government, or conversely, even if people STILL didn't want them, citizens in a free country should ALWAYS have the right to refuse without coercion of any kind, any treatment for themselves and their children. Any treatment. Under any conditions. The right to be left alone, to be unmedicated, to be untampered with, to be unaltered, must be respected. Coercive tactics should be punishable by law. This is the legislation we need.
Remember America? - Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
Liberty: "freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice."
Posted by: Linda1 | March 19, 2015 at 11:28 PM
Always disqualify the disqualifiers.
Never try and respond to rhetoric with dialectic because in their mind it reinforces the notion that their approach is valid.
When someone says "you're a conspiracy theorist". The worst thing you can do is say "oh no I am not really one of those crazy people I swear I love love love the government and all it does. Just not vaccines."
Instead pull the rug out from their argument completely.
The way to do this is to say "do you believe in terrorists? Hostile foreign militaries? Organised crime?"
Ask them why they believe in such things when they are all conspiracies.
Ask them whether they believe all the world's homeopaths, astrologers, faith healers etc are also part of a vast worldwide conspiracy to pull the wool over our eyes. If not, then why don't they trust them?
And then at the very end you can say "and by the way, I never said there was a conspiracy. There is a vested interest shared by the main actors here and there is no need to assume any sort of a conspiracy on their part and if the best you can do is make up strawmen then clearly you don't have a substantive case".
Posted by: rtp | March 19, 2015 at 10:30 PM
More folks might open their minds if the question is personalized:
"How many forced vaccinations do YOU want?"
Posted by: nhokkanen | March 19, 2015 at 09:56 PM
Anyone know what happened to the website "A Shot of Truth".
Sorry, a little off topic.
Posted by: Danchi | March 19, 2015 at 09:16 PM
@Danchi, the sites you named are known propaganda. Others like Infowars are more calling it like it is. You may not agree with every article but at least they are really supporting vaccine choice.
Whoever you are you missed the point of the comment. The sites did not start out as pro-vaccine propaganda sites until their readership increased and more funding was needed to stay online. That's when they began to flip to the dark side. Infowars was not mentioned because IMHO it begin as a hard hitting in your face aggressive approach to forbidden topics. That was and never will be the approach of the sites I mentioned in my comment.
How about using you name or online name. I really don' like commenting to an unknowns.
Posted by: Danchi | March 19, 2015 at 09:13 PM
Like so many people who are incorrectly labeled "anti-vaxxer" both you and Twyla are well-educated and seek information from primary sources. You are dangerous because you know more than mainstream media that continues to spew the talking points handed to them by the corrupt government agencies and the pharmaceutical companies that pay their bills. Truth is dangerous to them, so censorship is their attempt to control the message. I'm so glad that the truth still lives on AoA. Thanks for all you do!
Posted by: Holly Riley | March 19, 2015 at 06:35 PM
I have unsubscribed from Daily Kos. In France, 15,000 people filed a class action suit against the Hep B shot. Here we give it on day one of life. I recently read a retired Harvard surgeon describe this as "preposterous." We are at the bottom of the developed world as far as infant mortality is concerned and yet no questions should even be allowed to asked due to "careful studies" that have been performed. This sounds like a bad joke to me. This website is really pathetic.
Posted by: Disgusted by Daily Kos | March 19, 2015 at 05:33 PM
I published this on daily kos a while ago. It got dozens of comments. Then I was shut down and could not defend myself Check out the quiz. I think it woke some up.
D R and her minions found it joined the discussion baited me to mention Wakefield and I got banned not only from that discussion and any way to rebut but from daily kos. So did a reader who defended me.
This scared and shocked me. And also---all the progressive kids will get autism etc due to their misguided doing "greater good" utilitarianism while our republican friends are getting veiled warnings from their leadership even if later "retracted".
It boggles my mind. And also the weapons of mass destruction involved a few higher ups lying to Colin Powell who innocently lied to us. Yes evil people or those who feel they should lie to us for our own good or because it is okay to have collateral damage do indeed use innocent trusted people to carry out their work. To be blunt they think our children's suffering is the price to pay for public health only they don't compensate us or acknowledge it and they aren't willing to fix it. To get profits and or keep their job and or keep the rest of us safe they think it's okay to lie. William Thompson had the courage to expose that the weapons of mass autism do indeed exist even though he skewed research to say the opposite.Get a few trusted folks the wrong data and you control the discussion. Some at the CDC and NIH know and they are lying to everyone. So it is not a vast conspiracy but it is a vast coverup. The fact it is such a big crime doesn't make it untrue. The victims are here you can talk to us. The smoking gun is here . Just because it is painful does not mean it did not happen. Once again the idiot media refuses to research and question. Here is the piece I wrote and I think it scared d r half to death. KOS you have a blind spot that boggles my mind here. Meet a few parents of autistic kids . Please.
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/10/1261733/-Beef-heart-human-diploid-tissue-air-bags-I-tie-it-all-together
Posted by: Caroline writer otherwise known as Anita Donnelly --banned from kos! | March 19, 2015 at 05:14 PM
I think I meant "increasingly increasing..."
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | March 19, 2015 at 05:07 PM
Gleaning real meaning from this (popped up in a Google search for "SB 277" today) is more than my wifi, heavy metal addled brain seems to be able to do, but it has me thinking of another trend of increasingly mass social media monitoring:
http://nodexlgraphgallery.org/Pages/Graph.aspx?graphID=41847
Speculatively, some forces might prefer less censorship as a means of insuring "better information?" But then maybe the above type of data is used to inform the censors.
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | March 19, 2015 at 04:54 PM
Since there seems to be such a heavy handed censorship and since baxter is working on a new lyme vaccine, possibly out soon? you might want to read pamela weintraub's article about the first lyme vaccine Lymerix, if you havent already. Before it is disappeared.
The Bitter Feud Over Lymerix.
Some were reported to suffer reactivation of lyme, new cases and miscarriages along with some getting strangely swollen hands.
Posted by: grey one | March 19, 2015 at 03:53 PM
This is awful: http://time.com/3714990/zuckerberg-vaccines-facebook/
I understand a response of hurt outrage, but to focus on it is a waste of time and energy. Ignore it (feign obtuseness) or have a reaction which does not display defensiveness or seek approval at this point in time. THE FACTS ARE WITH YOU. Let 'em rip.
Incidentally, the comments contain false and misleading information about Democratic Underground. It's a Democrat supporting discussion board where the members serve on juries to adjudicate posts alerted on. Factual posts generally survive this process. Opinion posts get mowed down. Are you up for the challenge?
Posted by: Reader | March 19, 2015 at 03:52 PM
It is indeed sickening about daily kos, along with others heavily censored.
And i have to wonder how much goverment "grant" money
created it or if there were subtle threats?
Having grown up in the sixties, a push for civil rights, women's rights, movement against reckless war that decimated the young men of my generation i am floored by what has become of our country.
That the voices of those disabled by vaccine damage and by borreliosis and those who care for them are experiencing such a pushback is shocking. Autism, alzheimer's and borreliosis are important medical issues of our times.
I was taught that there was such a thing as progress but i think that in the end it is an illusion, just yin and yang, push and pull.
And now fighting not even for compassion but for a simple recognition of the truth and basic freedoms.
Astounding.
Posted by: grey one | March 19, 2015 at 02:43 PM
Minor correction...the NSA was formed in 1952, not 1953.
Posted by: Bayareamom | March 19, 2015 at 02:39 PM
I tried reading the Daily KOS terms of use...I think I was hoping they might list the viewpoints they prohibit so one can understand up front what they are participating in while on their forum, but maybe in the wisdom of understanding they might not foresee all they want to foresee, or maybe because the list would be rather unwieldy in length, but certainly not because they want to hide (in secretive "conspiracy" whispering behind a curtain or cape, evilly laughing while twirling mustaches type mode, not an open often "breathing" comfortably "together" type mode--because I'm sure a type of conspiring that doesn't involve saying "keep it quiet" occurs all the time) what viewpoints they are closed to:
http://www.dailykos.com/terms
"We May Discontinue or Suspend Our Site or Terminate Your Use: Daily Kos features may be changed or removed at any time. We aren’t legally liable to anyone if we do so, because really, why would we be?
"We also have a right to ban and block your from the site at our discretion, and will do so if your actions and/or behavior negatively impact the site or its community. So please behave. This applies to subscribers too."
though later we get...
"4. We are an Internet Service Provider, e.g., We are Not Responsible For and Do Not Necessarily Hold the Opinions Expressed by Our Content Contributors
"It should go without saying that with hundreds of thousands of registered users, and tens of thousands of diarist/bloggers, there is great diversity in thoughts and opinions. So just because you read it on the site doesn’t mean 'the site' said it or thinks it. That would make for a very schizophrenic site.
"Content created by non-staff bloggers is the sole responsibility of those individuals and its accuracy and completeness is not endorsed or guaranteed. By enabling grassroots publishing on the site, Daily Kos is not adopting any obligation or liability from that content.
"Daily Kos has no obligation to monitor the site for inappropriate or unlawful content.
"Daily Kos has no responsibility or liability from community-produced content."
So they seem to believe they are a pretty open discussion forum...but obviously they can't demand that everyone express the same view of them out here, off their forum, where one might argue we are still in some sense or other "breathing together," though sometimes not in sync.
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | March 19, 2015 at 02:11 PM
The series quickly went from describing "soft" censorship (Google's search ranking by what it dictates as "fact") to Kos's hard, no-bones-about-it censorship. And I frankly feel sick.
Within the data are broken bodies. Burying the truth here buries human beings.
Posted by: Pravda | March 19, 2015 at 01:49 PM
How many of the Bill of Rights have to be suppressed for the vaccine industry to function ???
Let’s see…. day of birth, suspend …Trial by Jury…and inject the infant with a prostitute, IV drug user vaccine.
Freedom of the Press…. the press is owned by the drug industry.
Freedom of Speech…. note how Dr. Wakefield is treated by the media anytime he is interviewed, he is hardly allowed to complete a full sentence.
Basically the “American vaccine industry business model” is for a mandate of a “liability free product” that works so poorly that 3 to 4 doses are needed, and for those who cannot afford them, the industry will simply inject 7-9 vaccines at a time and send a bill to the government.
Posted by: cmo | March 19, 2015 at 01:44 PM
It's the box of doom: the Left loves government bureaucracies and the Right loves corporations. Occasionally, someone on one wing or the other will question the received wisdom but such people are strictly white crows (they tend to be those whose lives have been touched by autism and are thus less enslaved by ideology).
Posted by: Ted | March 19, 2015 at 01:41 PM
..."Hoover used to tell the country the Mafia didn't exist and after Kennedy's death-well, there isn't enough memory on my computer to go into that one. Hoover actually was CYA with the use of conspiracy theory..."Sounds a lot like what's going on with the vaccine makers."
Reminds me as well that back when the NSA was formed (1953 if memory serves), that organization's existence was not acknowledged on the record for many, many years. We all know of its existence now, but back then...it was a conspiracy theory to even suggest an organization of this type even existed.
The term conspiracy theorist was concocted to shut down all the naysayers to any mainstream theory, be it somewhere in the medical realm, paranormal realm, etc., so forth. Marginalize the so-called conspiracy theorists and your propaganda remains safely intact.
Posted by: Bayareamom | March 19, 2015 at 01:09 PM
I think it's also worth mentioning that that particular site is very much involved in gatekeeping across all fronts; political, policy, ethical.
The founder 'applied to the CIA' shortly before he decided to start the website. That this fact is bandied about there as a positive, impressive anecdote is really all you need to know about these self-proclaimed 'progressives'.
Posted by: Joy B | March 19, 2015 at 01:04 PM
It's funny, because at the "Daily Kos", there are a few new (registered within the past year) "science experts", and the one they put in charge of shilling for vaccines/GMOs/nuclear power has very recently been getting some pushback for their GMOs-are-gewd stance. But it was many months before a critical mass showed itself. Sadly, these same brave posters who clearly see the revolving door in the Big Ag, Big Finance, MIC, you name it, still hold vaccines separately. As if they are somehow created independently of Big Pharma and its interests.
Over there they truly believe there still exists a benevolent little branch of government which oversees and ensures the Really Impotant Stuff gets done right.
Some weeks ago, a long time, respected poster there called out one of these new "experts"(Skeptical Raptor, who frequently links to Orac et al) because his personal blog was linking to some corporate foundation or other. Well, before the proof could be confirmed, it was scrubbed, and said poster was nearly flayed alive for false accusations of 'shilling'(another bannable offense, only waived with 'proof').
For the past year or so there - interesting time frame, coinciding w the anti-Wakefield/outbreak!/Dorit Reiss-isms trifecta - you absolutely will get banned for mentioning vaccines in an even questionable light.
I rarely comment there but have had an account for many years. (The person who called out the astroturfer has been there for 10 years.) Anyway, I just had to call out Dorit's shadiness because this astroturfer kept using her as an authority. I was immediately "hide-rated". And Dorit created an account there within the hour to dismissively address me(I couldn't reply because I was on a 'time-out'). So 'she' definitely has an alerting service or whatever. Or as I also suspect, since Daily Kos is considered one of the most valuable public forums, the resident astroturfers probably have her on speed dial.
Posted by: Joy B | March 19, 2015 at 12:55 PM
@Danchi, the sites you named are known propaganda. Others like Infowars are more calling it like it is. You may not agree with every article but at least they are really supporting vaccine choice.
Posted by: @Danchi | March 19, 2015 at 12:29 PM
In my second ever article for AoA back in 2008 I said about Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet:
"And cleverly nuanced as Horton’s argument is for a liberal readership, his decision to turn on Wakefield has behind it a highly illiberal and authoritarian basis, in which the interests and voices of the patients and their families are to be finally stamped out. It is ultimately just stage management, and a stab in the back for open debate."
'Truth is hard to come by' - great quote from Harry Truman.
Posted by: John Stone | March 19, 2015 at 12:14 PM
But is a reasonable vaccine policy conducive to the public good? Since all vaccines can cause encephalitis and autoimmune disease by the very fact that they do what they are supposed to do, and abnormally stimulate the immune system into reacting, not only by producing the desired antibodies but by provoking encephalitic brain damage and autoimmune disease, I would argue that it is not. And by the fact that vaccines then prevent the immune system from normal, healthy development and education by fighting the formerly universal, nearly always mild childhood diseases, vaccine actively prevent normal, healthy immune system development.
We have to be willing to look at the facts, remember how healthy and robust nearly all children were in the '60s before the MMR, etc., and even in the '70s, after the MMR. Remember how Sweden completely eliminated brain damage and death from the pertussis vaccine in the seventeen years between 1979 and 1997 when it stopped giving the pertussis vaccine. Pertussis DID come back, vaccine journalist Arthur Allen reports that 60% of Swedish children in those years DID get pertussis, but there was an average of only one death a year from pertussis, again, because pertussis is no longer a dangerous disease to any but a small percentage of the youngest newborns.
Once you accept that the only epidemic diseases we're talking about are measles, mumps, pertussis, and chickenpox, the idea that it's necessary for public health to try to prevent these diseases, and also prevent the permanent immunity and immune system strengthening they provide, it's hard to see why we need any vaccine program. I would probably except the DT vaccine after the age of two, but since even at its height, there were only 120 deaths a year in the U.S. from tetanus, and with the knowledge that IV vitamin C will cure it, it would be a reasonable decision to go either way on that.
Posted by: cia parker | March 19, 2015 at 12:07 PM
Last Tuesday (March 10) Lawrence Solomon reported a small victory over "anti-vaxxer" censorship at the University of British Columbia which (gasp!) defended the academic freedom of one of its profs to conduct research on the possible connection between vaccines and autism. A good bit of Canadian press heat suddenly turned cold when the university issued a strong statement in support of the research.
Makes you want to give those UBC folks a hug: http://bit.ly/1Gus6am
Posted by: David Taylor | March 19, 2015 at 11:56 AM
The willingness of the public in the 70s as a huge number of damaged kids from the DPT shot - showed up (never mind the huge numbers that did not show up untill they reached their teens - showed Pharma and the CDC (cause they have always been in it together) a weakness in the public.
For the public and the COngress it was unintended.
Pharma and the CDC worked on it hard all through the 70s and 80s. Always in hopes of getting a free pass for anything they did when it came to vaccines. They began in the Universities - teaching (thought control) through education. My professor was touting hard back in the 70s.
Dan Burns was right - that was just good bussiness.
Which Holly Wood has had the bad guys saying in a lot of movies just before they get their come uppings.
But we have to appear reasonable - to wake up the public.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 19, 2015 at 11:45 AM
March 16th-22nd is Brain Awareness Week, according to The Society for Neuroscience. http://www.sfn.org/baw/. So there will be plenty of lessons like the following. This is how a Richard Pan is created. See this lecture by Christopher A. Walsh, MD PhD, chief of the Division of Genetics and Genomics at Boston Children's Hospital. Watch him, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, desperately attempt to put to rest once and for all, the idea that there is any connection between vaccines and autism, while at the same time agreeing that mercury exposures may play a role.
I only listened to parts: 6. Possible causes of autism, and
7. There is no evidence that vaccines increase risk of autism:
http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/decoding-autism-puzzle
People like this need to be challenged.
Posted by: Linda1 | March 19, 2015 at 11:32 AM
All the so-called progressive sites define progressive by the standards their funding source demands. Daily Kos, HP, Raw, Daily Beast(ugh) Salon, Mother Jones, Democratic Underground -are just fronts to lure progressives and liberals into a false sense of security when they set up accounts on their sites. Years ago all topics were acceptable and abusive trolling was kept to a minimum. Once their numbers went up and they begin to need funding to stay online the censoring begin. HP & Democratic Underground always censored the topic of 911. A commenter could only post about 911 if they followed the governments explanation. Anything outside it got you banned. When the Autism controversy became a hot topic and commenters begin to provide verifiable data that vaccines were causing harm to children, abusive trolling increased 10 fold to discourage others from posting information that TPTB didn't want known.
Opposing views on vaccines weren't censored originally on HP but what they would do if the trolls didn't scare you off (AH admits to encouraging troll to sign up on HP when she was in charge),they would hold the comment for a day, especially if it was a response that discredited a pro-vac comment. By holding it a day or two, the comment would not be seen by a significant number of readers because it was buried. This way a person couldn't say they were censored. I don't know what they do now. Once they insisted on a Facebook account I kicked them to the curb. With the exception of Daily Kos & DU, the other sites would find fault with something in a commenters post-so they wouldn't post it. You'd never know it. The most used reason not to post which when I asked the moderator was, moderator discretion, was the posting of links. As the vaccine debate heated up because the CDC/vaccine makers corruption had gotten so bold because Kathleen Sebelius told the media not to give equal time to experts with opposing views, push back from the "anti-vaxxers" became more aggressive rather than caving in. Donations began to dry up on these sites that allow abusive trolling and censoring and because of this, these sites needed to get more money to stay active from some subsidiary of major media. I detached from each of those sites years ago but I still get their fund raising emails. It's becoming clear to people of good conscience, these website have been bought by big pharma. The hypocrisy I find with these sites is they can post stories on the dangers of every drug big pharma makes, post how many people die from prescription drugs overdoses, post articles on the side effects and how corrupt the pharmaceutical industry & the CDC are BUT post how wonderful vaccines are, how vaccines saves millions of lives, how vaccines are safe & effective yada yada yada. Vaccines are drugs. What a disconnect!!!!
Control of the message to the populace is what's going on now. People have began to see that Autism is not the only consequences of vaccines. Vaccine damage manifest in many ways and it doesn't happen immediately which is what the trolls put out there. If a child is going to have a reaction it happens immediately. Now they've flipped the script and if a child has a vaccine reaction within 24 hours it's not the vaccine, it's a myriad of other variables. Two stories of vaccine damage on VacTruth demonstrates the repugnance of trolling behavior in response to the death of a child and the permanent damage of another-within 24 hours. I think one of the requirements to be a troll is, in addition to being complete heartless is to also be schizophrenic.
What needs to be done is to create a finely crafted message to diffuse the often thrown out construct "conspiracy theory". I tell people the origins of "conspiracy theory" was used regularly by J. Edgar Hoover and than by the CIA/FBI/MSM after the Kennedy assassination. Hoover used to tell the country the Mafia didn't exist and after Kennedy's death-well, there isn't enough memory on my computer to go into that one. Hoover actually was CYA with the use of conspiracy theory. He was seen cross dressing by mob members who said they would go to the press with that infor if he didn't get the government off their backs. Sounds a lot like what's going on with the vaccine makers.
Posted by: Danchi | March 19, 2015 at 11:23 AM
Actually, maybe Twyla got off a little easy with The Daily Kos only rebuffing her posts. They could've turned them over to the FBI, who may've invoked the Patriot Act and declared her 'anti-vaxx' position terrorist in nature. Then --who knows--she could've been subjected to serious talks with security agents, possibly resulting in her incarceration. And, Dan, you being declared the ringleader could've fared a lot worse. Not to mention, all us AoA commentators may've found ourselves also having to answer to some stiff allegations. Actually -- maybe I will gingerly wrap things up here!
I joke -- but with the way things are heading, is such a scenario really that far off?
Posted by: Greg | March 19, 2015 at 10:55 AM
Harry Truman once said, "once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
I found this quote on an article about women's rights in India and the unwillingness of the government there to admit to the problems. Unfortunately it fits the path America seems to be heading down. Sad because I thought we were a country based on the principles of freedom of speech and religion. Not so much anymore.
Illegal now to use the words "climate change" in Florida (if you work for the state anyway). No doubt it will soon be illegal somewhere to use the word "abortion." Shall we ban the words and discussions about auto-immunity, toxins, GMO's, pollution, illiteracy, racism, fracking, police brutality…..anything anyone disagrees over--isn't it all just conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists run amuck? The world around us is all just one big rose garden with thornless roses and the sooner we all see that, the happier the corporations will be. Just shut up and do your jobs--exactly the way you are told to do them--no questions allowed.
I always wondered where they came up with that name "The Daily Kos"--it somehow reminds me of the Soviet Union.
Posted by: Truth is hard to come by | March 19, 2015 at 10:16 AM
So many catch phrases, 'sound bites' and derisory aphorisms, promulgated by the media, are latched onto by a lazy and uninformed public. It's a form of intellectually bankrupt linguistic shorthand, time and limited concentration being of the essence. Good article Dan.
What bugs me the most is the fact, not a theory, which a large percentage of the US and UK population either cannot, or do not wish to register, and that is the drug companies now own both our Governments. Why would that NOT invite conspiracy and cover up?
Posted by: patricia | March 19, 2015 at 10:01 AM
When I worked for a publicly traded oil and gas company, let’s call it Shymond Damnrock, we partnered in a $140 million dollar exploratory well in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea. It was a gamble. If we lost, our stock price would tumble and the company could be sold for scrap. What photo to put on the cover of the soon-to-be-published annual report?
Our public relations department was tasked to develop several scenarios -- from dry hole to gusher – and to create a playbook of messaging strategies for each scenario. Was this a conspiracy? No, it was smart PR.
The Rebel Alliance should develop a playbook for Autism Awareness month. No doubt in my mind that the Vaccine Zealot empire has one.
Posted by: Dan Burns | March 19, 2015 at 08:59 AM
Thanks Dan fr another great column.
Since your interviewer brought up your dog, he opened the door on the conspiracy theory of "vaccinosis." Veterinary medicine actually is having the same vaccine battle and it it is very acrimonious, The veterinarians managed to push back on the vaccine lobby and actually ramped down the shot schedule for dogs and cats.
"Vaccinoisis" is not conspiracy theory stuff- check out this article from Washington Post:
"Some dogs, especially those of certain breeds such as yours, seem especially prone to develop vaccinosis. The adverse reaction to vaccination can get worse when subsequent vaccinations are given, indicating a sensitization process that can culminate in anaphylactic shock or autoimmune disease."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/certain-breeds-of-dogs-are-prone-to-vaccinosis/2013/07/24/b42c2caa-e7fe-11e2-aa9f-c03a72e2d342_story.html
The fact that one cannot research vaccinosis on the web is a leading indicator of where this is going. Define vaccine brain injury in humans away. Lie and deny.
We saw Dr. Anne Schuchat (Senior US VFederal Vaccine official) Feb 10 2015 deny to a sitting US Senator (Sen Warren) the fact that vaccines are known to cause brain injury.
Except: "ADEM often follows viral or bacterial infections, or less often, vaccination for measles, mumps, or rubella."
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/acute_encephalomyelitis/acute_encephalomyelitis.htm
And: "An increased risk of narcolepsy was found following vaccination with Pandemrix, a monovalent 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine that was used in several European countries during the H1N1 influenza pandemic. Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological disorder"
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/h1n1_narcolepsy_pandemrix.html
No wonder people are staying away in growing droves. The Director of the National Immunization program at CDC is openly ignorant and/or lying to the American public about vaccine brain injury. She wants to "define away" vaccine brain injury.
Perhaps if Senator Warren had qualified her question- "Do vaccines cause brain injury in dogs and cats"- maybe Schuchat would have answered: "Of course! Vaccinoisis has been recognized for decades in veterinary medicine."
CDC and NIH, along with Dr. William Thompson, are fanning the flames of the "conspiracy"
The Fourth Estate, present company excepted, is not holding our government officials accountable.
If the rapists defense bar got together and said rape does not exist, that anyone claiming to have been forced into non consensual sexual contact is lying or hysterical, we would recognize that as nonsense. This is an exact analogy for how our federal health policy officials, most elected representatives, and the press, is handling iatrogenic vaccine induced brain injury. Lie like hell it does not exist.
Posted by: ottoschnaut | March 19, 2015 at 07:46 AM
Birth Certificates of future generations will probably have Father Anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Mother Anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist ...
But we, the generation here, weren't born, anti-vaccine, the Pharma, the Big Business few at the top, m-a-d-e us the way we think, write, and eat now.
They cant hide the damage they have caused now Dan hence the coercion. Good interview in a calmer tone than I would have been able to project for sure. Thorson probably smoking, the sun up whilst he can.
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | March 19, 2015 at 06:46 AM