Vaccines Cause Autism?

This has been a debated topic for many years. We have the pro vaccinators and those against vaccinations. For years many people have believed the vaccines were the cause for children having autism but there is more then ample evidence that refutes this absurd thought. This article explains the stories of multiple children who have been vaccinated and who are autistic and how their siblings who have not been vaccinated are not. It continues to falsely accuse vaccinations for the cause of their child’s illness. 

There have been multiple studies that have done research on if vaccines really do cause autism with the same continuous outcome that it does not. The article, “Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association,” states that their research does not support a causal relationships between vaccines and autism. They go on to say that; “There was no difference in age at diagnosis between the cases vaccinated before or after 18 months of age and those never vaccinated. Also there was no temporal association between onset of autism within 1 or 2 years after vaccination.”  This and many other articles go to dispute the false accusations that vaccines cause autism.

In another article in the Australian Vaccination-risks Network Inc., a mother tells a story about how she vaccinated her child and found him dead in his cot the next work. This mother also bases her opinion that the vaccine killed her child on the medical opinion of Dr. Kalokerinos, who had been know to support many controversial issues over his years. He believed that vaccines were used in the genocide of indigenous Australians and the spread of HIV in Africa. Off the bat a man with such controversial opinions should not be a trusted source for information about vaccines. The moms who speak out about their children becoming autistic after receiving vaccinations support their claims from very biased doctors and uneducated websites. 

I think that people who decide to not vaccinate their children should have copious amount of evidence as to why they aren’t doing so. They should also look into the multiple cases of scientists and doctors refuting their earlier work that vaccines are unsafe, as more evidence has come to light about vaccines in recent years. There is a great deal of evidence to support that everyone should vaccinate their children, not only for their health but the health of everyone around them. 

https://avn.org.au/information/vaccine-injury/vaccinevictimsofaustralia/

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(99)01239-8/fulltext

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Kalokerinos

Posted by: Katarzyna Mosio (3)

The Sushi Scare

       Sushi, one of millennials favorite foods, was put on the chopping block by the media in early 2017. A (not so) shocking case study was published in the British Medical Journal, which provided a detailed report of a portuguese man who acquired a parasitic nematode, in the genus Anisakis, from eating sushi! He was diagnosed with a disease called anisakiasis, which was caused by consuming the raw tuna. As is common knowledge, sushi is not cooked, therefore there is high risk of it containing bacteria and even parasites. This is simply because these types of organisms tend to reside in the tissue of animals which humans consume. Although we are extremely familiar with this risk when we are eating chicken or beef, it seems to somehow have been lost when we are consuming seafood. 

       Despite the fact that this should not be shocking news, the media plastered the story all over the internet fully knowing millennials intimate relationship with this foreign food. After the story was posted and shared, it quickly found itself in every corner of the internet. However, it was not the case of anisakiasis that was fabricated, but rather BMJ's fear-mongering twist on it. The BMJ article, which told of the singluar portuguese case of anisakiasis, references an additional study that had detailed 25 other gastrointestinal diagnoses of anisakiasis. BMJ used this study as evidence to warn the public about the dangers of consuming sushi, and to be very cautious when eating it. However, the 25 diagnoses of anisakiasis that were detailed in this study had absolutely no connection to consuming sushi whatsoever, and rather, was caused by anchovies! Furthermore, an additional article was published recently revealing that there has only ever been 60 reported cases of anisakiasis in the United states, none of which were found to be caused by the consumption of sushi. This article also confirms that the majority of diagnosed cases of anisakiasis, in the America's and Europe, originate from marinated anchovies. 

       False information can be spread so easily and can even originate from sources which we believe we can trust. Situations such as this are an important reminder that within the scientific community it is vital to ensure that the cited literature referenced in scholarly articles is not misleading. But also, as a consumer, it is important to always verify the validity of other's cited sources. 

Posted by: Hayley Fecko (2)

A Change in Climate and Attitude

A Change in Climate and Attitude

In this age of modern media, we see thousands of news article, videos, and images every single day. They can be funny, serious and informational but they’re often misleading and opinionated; loosely anchored in fact and heavily anchored in emotion. As we can see from this Life Site article, Global warming is fake science, promoted by biasedscientists, an almost disgruntled and angry writer tries to defend the point of view that global climate change is not occurring at all.

               He begins the article with a disgruntled reasoning as to why the we changed the terminology of climate change from global warming as something scientists did to mask the fact that the world wasn’t actually getting warmer. He explains that these scientists say that it’s affecting more than just temperature but precipitation and other climate factors, but to him this can’t be true because storms have always been detrimental and there isn’t anything new or worse about the more recent storms such as Hurricane Sandy. His claims are made without the consideration of the actual science of water and climate, because as water, especially form the oceans, becomes warmer it is more likely to evaporate and become trapped within the atmosphere causing more rain and increasing the likelihood of hurricanes and typhoons, according to NASA. Just because a worse hurricane occurred in the past does not mean it was too wasn’t linked to the increase in global temperature ands sea level as the example he gives us of the hurricane of 1938 Boston was still post-industrial revolution where the levels of CO₂ were just beginning to rapidly rise.

               To make his argument even stronger he goes onto describe how scientists can be bought out and bribed into getting the results that the buyer wants, but the amount of money that it would take to make the majority of accredited scientists to fake data and science would astronomical. Also, most companies that would bribe scientist to fake data aren’t on the side of fixing climate change and acknowledging its existence, most of these companies would rather nothing be done about so they can continue to abuse the limitations set on CO₂ emissions.

               Towards the end of his rant he accuses the supporters of global climate change to have been using flawed data and incorrect science, yet he doesn’t cite a single scientific study in his entire article. His entire article consists of sensationalist statements that aren’t backed up with fact, science and in some cases logic.

               This article is a clear example of media that tries to discredit scientific work with statements made from opinion and emotion which is easily the most detrimental kind of media to our society, and it happens on all sides of the political spectrum.  As this media has become more and more popular in modern culture we have seen a rise in the belief of these statements, this has lead us to where we are now with our law makers being the ones making the ridiculous statements and believing in them as well.

Posted by Francis Hoey (2)

Anti-scientific “Research Journal” Explains Natural Events with Religious Thinking

“Answers in Genesis” is an website that tries to explain different natural events by using religious thinking. Generally, people in “Answers in Genesis” disagree with evolutionary theory, and believe that god made decisions about which species extinct and which species survive. They see themselves as Christianity defenders and denial scientists for not confessing that god created different organisms and continuously modified the whole world.

One of the “research journal” on this website, Living Evidence of a Global Catastrophe: How Microbial Biogeography Supports Noah’s Flood, indicates that the fossil record is one convincible evidence of the Noah’s Flood. This “research journal” says that the water accumulated from low elevation to high elevation, and eventually cover the whole planet. As the flood progressively increased in depth, animals living in the low elevation were drowned and buried first, and then the animals living in the high elevation were covered. As a result, now people can find fossils of different species under different layers of the stratums. It also states that the distribution of the fossils reflects the distribution of different species in different ecosystems. The reason why we cannot find fossils of human in the site where we can find fossils of dinosaurs is that human and dinosaurs lived in different habitats.

The “research journal” also tries to use Noah’s Flood to explain the distribution of microbes. It says that the Noah’s Flood covered the whole planet, and the microbes that used to live on the surface of the land were carried by the flowing water. Eventually, the water deposited the microbes everywhere on the earth. Fortunately, this article did no go too far. To explain the differences of the distributions of different microbes, the “research journal” uses an explanation that is similar to the natural selection. It states that different environments after the flood would make certain kinds of microbes survive better than other kinds of microbes did. As a result, some microbes may be abundant in certain environment, but never be found in other environment.

The whole article is based on an event that did not happen in the past. And there is no illustration, data or graph that support its ideas. Many of the sources of the article are from non-scientific materials such as Genesis, Scripture and other creationism articles. Moreover, the article attacks the modern biogeography and evolutionary thinking, but does not provide any useful evidence that could support its opinions. For example, it does not explain why we can find fish fossils beneath the soils and rocks on the top of the hills if the fossil distribution reflects the species distribution before the flood. According to their sources, the Flood lasted from “the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month” (Genesis 7:11) until “the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month” (Genesis 8:13), which is very short time for the formation of fossils, or even very short time for the formation of different layers of stratums where fossils were found. People in this website lack basic knowledges about the things and events they are talking about. Even though they try to write a research journal to support their idea, they fail to realize that research is something scientific, something that they do not trust and try to denial.

Posted by Muchen Liu (Group 2, Week 8)

https://assets.answersingenesis.org/doc/articles/pdf-versions/arj/v11/global_catastrophe_biogeography_noah_flood.pdf

Yes for Natural Remedies and No for Prescription Medications

Yes for Natural Remedies and No for Prescription Medications

  We are in 2018 where internet is taking over almost every person, place, job and homes. The primary source of information today that people use is the internet, especially google. Whatever people are concerned about, need to be informed or know about anything, they immediately search it on google where good and bad scientific information pops up and have easy access. An article talks about how bad prescribed medications are and how good natural remedies are.

           The easy access to information on google is dictated by how much money it was paid not by how correct the information are. A blog was written about prescription medications causing horrific health problems being worse than the condition treated. This subject was on naturalnews.com. I did not trust this website from the look of the page to begin with. No written source with author name, sources like health.harvard.edu page were listed that talks about similar subject but the content is way different. This is one way used to gain trust indirectly. The page has an overwhelming number and variety of advertising that distract you from the topic and sometimes are very big that take your attention from reading, and in the middle of the paragraph while being unrelated. By reading this article, i noticed how severe the talks against prescribed medications are. They are trying to convince people that the natural materials are way better and that doctors are prescribing these medications that are very unhealthy and makes things worse than it is. They said that nutritional classes were cancelled at medical colleges, which is a very inaccurate and incorrect information because doctors has to study nutrition and their content to know what can cause illness, what can be beneficial and the sources that food provides. This article is trying to show that their main concern is people's health by convincing them to think that doctors are the bad source of medications and their products which are natural are the best. They are pushing people indirectly to trust more their product and shop on the page. The main reason in fact for the whole website is to sell products that are organic, and super healthy. They also said that natural remedies are no longer recommended by Medical Doctors which is very wrong, i know myself that my doctor still recommend some good natural remedies but rarely, this is because medications are more specifically concentrated to be more effective and can be a mix of many natural ingredients which makes it more efficient, not necessarily have side effects and are really bad like the article shows.

At the end of this blog, this should be clear that incorrect and misleading information on the internet cannot be trusted, which focus more on marketing and less on science. Prescription medications are the most effective and used drugs to treat or cure illness and diseases.

Sources:

https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-11-07-prescription-medications-cause-horrific-health-problems.html

https://www.healthrangerstore.com/?utm_source=NaturalNews.com&utm_medium=MenuButton

Posted by “Jad Imad” (3)

Detecting Any Cancer with One Drop of Blood

     Cancer research is clearly at the head of science right now. It seems that everywhere we turn nowadays we hear of some new and upcoming treatment that could change the way we view cancer, so it can be hard to tell what's real and what isn't. When it comes to treating cancer, early detection is often the key to success. The earlier that treatment can begin, often the less intensive it has to be and the better the rates of remission. As we seek to find new treatments, research is often also looking into how to improve these early detection rates.
     In this article, a recent discovery is discussed. This article reports on a new use for a discovered heat shock protein that is a known hallmark of cancer, Hsp90. It states that scientists have now discovered a way in which to use the qualities of this protein to detect the presence of any cancer, and that therefore all that is needed is a single drop of blood. While this seems plausible in theory, it is not the case of the work being discussed. Luo Yongzhang and his team are working on using this protein, and blood samples in order to detect a specific kind of cancer, and to monitor this cancer's growth.
     As shown in this publication, Hsp90 is being looked into for use in specifically detecting liver cancers, but they are not discussing the use of it to detect any other types of cancer. The levels of the protein tend to correlate well with the size of liver tumors, again going back to its use in monitoring cancer. While it seems like a fairly similar conclusion to assume this new method can be used for detecting all cancers, it is rather detrimental and distributes false information. I think this was a genuine mistake as it can be rather confusing, but this information is misleading and could elicit some false hope in early detection methods of other cancers.

Posted by Alexandra McGuire (2)

“The Dark Side of Vitamin K”

Right off the bat by looking at this website, my mind already began questioning the credibility of this source. There was advertisements plastered on every open space and a pop up screen asking me if I would like to subscribe to the newsletter. “Newsletter” was the key word as this implied to me that this website was similar to a magazine. Spreading news in order to gain views. The author, Dr. Joseph Mercola, has been a longtime leader in controversial dietary supplements and alternative approaches to generic hospital practices. His website, mercola.com, has forever been debunked by other professionals in the industry, all pleading that he stop trying to influence people with his illegal and oftentimes incorrect ideas about health.

In this particular article, it deals with Vitamin K and the dark side when it comes to infants and whether or not they should be immunized. Immediately, one has to analyze the bias present here. Dr. Mercola is actively selling out alternative supplemental approaches to health and as such, him debunking the idea of vaccinations would only serve to increase the amount of people looking for these “alternative dietary supplements” he conveniently happens to sell. While he does admit that Vitamin K is a necessity for your newborn baby, he offers alternative ways for ingestion. He offers three main dangers of the shot that also serve to pave the way for this altered approach. He offers that you would be better off to give the vitamin orally and simply adjust the dosage for the baby. However, this alternative method has actually been shown to be more lethal for children when they are not receiving adequate levels of Vitamin K.

In a short project done completed in 2013, 3 years after the publication of Dr. Mercola’s article, it was seen that babies who were denied a Vitamin K shot had higher levels of VKDB (Vitamin K deficiency bleeding). The risk of succumbing to this as an infant is 81 times greater if you do not receive the intramuscular shot. Therein, why is this self-defined Dr. Mercola advertising something that will most certainly raise the risk of developing this bleeding? His only basis for the dangers of the shot was that it would inflict pain, was a higher dose than needed and could potentially become infected. However, do any of these outweigh the mortality risk associated with VKDB? The reasoning for the parents declining the injection? Because they did not want to expose their child to “toxins”, something that is practiced and preached by Dr. Mercola himself in an effort to promote his brand and reap the benefits of uninformed health customers worldwide.


“Posted by Lauren Hiller” (2)

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/27/high-risks-to-your-baby-from-vitamin-k-shot-they-dont-warn-you-about.aspx

https://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/k.html