And my final comment on this issues. Sheldon from "vaccineswork" will be writing a blog about this blog, to discuss his version of the difference between the ethics of provaccine people, and the lack of ethics of anti-vaccine people. For those new to this particular post, please see the original post and then the first post after Sheldon contacted me before reading any further.
The correspondence speaks for itself. Neither Sheldon, nor my emails have been touched beyond "copy and paste", reformatting to reflect the original or to provide emphasis where marked: and embedding of one URL. All typo mistakes were in the originals.
From Sheldon: Wawa Wawa [wawa10101@gmail.com]
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Remember what I wrote about vaccination supporters being honest. Well, here you can see it in action . After you last response, I took another look at your posting. I realized I had made an error. I thought that posting ended at the end of dashes. Your concern about seasonal vaccine as you had written it, made no sense, so I missed the rest of it..
So now I've read the entire article. Not only are my original comments correct, but you misunderstood the article in your eagerness to attack vaccines and vaccination.
"Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, a Flinders University immunologist, says an experiment he carried out indicates that large amounts of viral genetic residue created by the vaccine's manufacture were overloading infants' immune systems." (Hilary - my emphasis re question below)
The professor is developing cell cultured vaccines that use a different technology so that this cannot be a problem.
The problem referred to is not the number of strains in the Seasonal flu shots or the number of diseases in MMRV (four) compared to MMR (three). It is that there is too much unneeded stuff in the vaccine. If it is a real problem, then the problem is probably limited to CSL as each vaccine maker has its own production process.
According to the professor, the amount of RNA residue varies from vaccine to vaccine. Professor Petrovsky said it was ''amazing that the regulatory system still doesn't require manufacturers like CSL to measure the amount of contaminating RNA, despite 50 years of data showing that RNA levels can vary greatly from vaccine to vaccine''. ''It's a nonsensical way to make a reliable product for human medical use,'' he said.
If you were t ask which egg culutred flu vaccines would have problems with RNA residue, my guess (I very well could be wrong) are split virion vaccines, such as CSL's, rather than sub-unit vaccines. Suppliers to the US use both technologies. http://microvet.arizona.edu/courses/mic419/tutorials/vaccines
But here is what I think we can be pretty sure of. The concern raised about viral genetic residue will be addressed by the time the vaccine is ready for the 2009-2010 flu season. If worse comes to worse, a monovalent 2009 H1N1 vaccine can be made, because there is very, very little of other strains circulating.
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Blog Question not in correspondence: Which vaccine companies are actually required to measure and state, contaminating RNA in any vaccines?
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I replied to Sheldon, with four short replies so will put them all up my replies in the order in which they were sent:
1) If you had waited until you had read my reply which has been up for nearly 20 minutes now, you would have seen that I’d just said that in my reply to you.
Now, would you like to apologise to me for jumping the gun?
If you don’t reply within half an hour, I will be posting your email below and my reply as my NEXT blog.
2) A second thought. Why do you assume I misunderstood the article? I highlighted the key points in my blog. Did you suddenly not see them either?
You say: Those who advocate vaccinations come out of the scientific method way of thinking or in my case and others such as Dr. Steve Novella, from the skeptical and critical thinking method.
So scientifically, that you didn’t read the blog and jumped the gun at Huffpost to the person who posted it, , and neither did you bother to follow the embedded URLs throughout the post.
Neither did you follow all the red links to the linking documents before you assumed what I was saying.
If you had applied accurate scientific, critical and careful skeptical thinking you wouldn’t be continuing to dig yourself into another hole.
You talk, but don’t walk the talk, Sheldon.
3) Come on Sheldon… the dashes are followed by READ FULL BLOG. Surely, someone who adheres to scientific method and critical thinking can’t be that silly.
4) Um… I thought that posting ended at the end of dashes. Which dashes? I’ve just been to Huffpost to find said dashes and in the quote that person put up there are not dashes. In my post there are no dashes. There is a watery underlining in grey to define the start of the actual article in which I highlight key parts, and there is a solid underlining in grey to mark the end. This defines what the professor said, as opposed to what I said. There are no large spaces, before or after, or dates, or other formatting which would indicate another item, and it’s very clear from the format of my blog that each post is a separate entity – one post only.
Seriously, Sheldon, your “critical” thinking is in critical need of a reboot.
The number of mistakes in your both thinking, and your ability to follow what you read is astonishing.
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Sheldon replies:
I get it. Just another anti-vaxer. Facts are of little interest to you. Just anything you can find to trash vaccines and scare parents.
Your first paragraph of your posting was all about changing vaccines. Your first example was MMR to MMRV. The second was adding to the seasonal vaccine. I'm not surprised that you can't admit that you should have written replaced instead of added. Somehow or another anti-vaxers never learn to admit error, even the small ones.
There is a good reason for this. Somewhere, can't remember where, I read about the best way to persuade others. Those who are not experts do best if they are as definitive as possible and as strong as possible. Experts, on the other hand, are more persuasive with nuanced and qualified arguments..
In reading you latest response, I find that you now are throwing in lots of information that was not on the posting you made. (Hilary - my emphasis, as I want to address this below) Foolish me, I thought that this was a self-contained article. Apparently, everyone is supposed to know that just recently you put up the product inserts.How was I to know that I have to read everything on your site to understand you? Perhaps you should add instructions.
Me, I'm satisfied with what I wrote. I wish I had read the full article earlier, but that was an honest error, which I admitted. If the professor is correct, then we need to add additional controls to egg cultured vaccines. You know, to make them safer. I'm sure you are a vaccine safety advocate. So you should be happy. Aren't you?
You write:
If I had REALLY made a mistake, and apologised and changed it (which I've done in the past), what then would YOU have done? Gone running back to Dr Offit, Orac and Novella, and written another of your smarmy posts somewhere, with snide remarks and gleeful rubbing hands, about how you'd set another one of those idiots straight.
That's amusing. You give yourself way too much credit. I don't care enough about this to take it anywhere except to my blog www.vaccineswork.blogspot.com as an example of anti-vaxer ethics.
You, I'm sure, are satisfied with what you wrote. But there is still a difference between us. I made an error, because I thought your posting was much shorter than it was. I admitted it and moved on. You, on the other hand, can't bring yourself to even admit that you might not have been clear in what you wrote. Thanks again for proving my generalization about the ethics of both side of this issue.
And by the way, I would appreciate if you put up each email in its entirety, rather than breaking them with comments in between. If you wanted, turn my emails into comments and then reply after each one.
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Sheldon: On this point here:
In reading you latest response, I find that you now are throwing in lots of information that was not on the posting you made. Foolish me, I thought that this was a self-contained article. Apparently, everyone is supposed to know that just recently you put up the product inserts.How was I to know that I have to read everything on your site to understand you? Perhaps you should add instructions.
All that information in my previous post to you, such as the panvax study and basic discussion of the issues, were repeats of information in other posts, prior to the one in question. No, you wouldn't know that, since I don't leave instructions.My repeating information, for your benefit, would not be "new" information to regular readers.Blogs here, often build on information in previous posts, otherwise they would become books.
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