What I meant was that that article wasn't talking about the suppression of unwanted results, it was talking about publication bias. It's an unfortunate side effect of the fact that there is a large amount of pressure to publish, but replicated studies that consistently find the same results removes the effect of publication bias entirely.
If this were true, then there would be no need for this paper to be published in the first place. We could all rest assured that the publication bias would vanish as more papers were published. Unless of course there haven't been enough papers published yet because of lack of research. Thoughts? If you still believe that there's no issues with our current medical system and that all discrepancies can be attributed to “publication bias”, then I present this publication.
It's not at all valid to say that vaccines are an accepted medical practice because of the factors discussed in that article, which is what I meant.
I'm unsure how you got that impression, but I'm glad it's cleared up now.
Did you read that whole book? Instead of cherry-picking a few sentences try taking a look at the "Conclusions and Recommendations" section.
No, I did not read all 200+ pages of this book; I read the beginning, end, and some pages (mostly chapter 5) in between to get a better understanding of the message. Apparently, according to you, this is insufficient which I couldn't disagree more with unless I was attempting to critically analyze every detail of their study, which I wasn't. As far as I'm concerned, the “Abstract” is the “Cliff Notes” for the entire publication. The Authors have “cherry-picked” major talking points in order to entice the reader to continue (this is my approach to writing Abstracts; I'm sure you're inclined to disagree), which is why this is shown to you even if you don't have access to the full publication. I'm not sure why you're up-in arms about presenting a major talking point from the Abstract that I found worrisome.
The subject appears to have been public perception of the safety of vaccination schedules, which is a different matter entirely from their actual safety, but in any case that is not a research publication.
Not entirely; chapter 5 is titled “Review of Scientific Findings”. In my opinion, I find this publication no less credible than a research publication given the organization who structured the review and the members (Berkeley, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, etc.) who oversaw this study.
It is actually very much unethical to perform a blinded study of vaccines with unvaccinated controls.
There are groups of people who don't vaccinate their children for various reasons (religious, ethical, etc.) and could be used in case control studies.
Yes, the Center for Disease control employs doctors who are active in their field. This is a good thing. Who would you rather have working for the CDC than doctors and researchers specialized in epidemiology? Honest question.
Clowns, vagabonds, scallywags, pirates.....I would rather have know one else other than Doctors and Researchers specializing in epidemiology.
All researchers in any science are very much aware of how important the disclosure of conflicts of interest are. Evidence is evidence, and if a study that shows that product X is great was published by someone who stands to benefit financially from it doesn't automatically mean that the results are false. To suggest that the CDC is somehow faking studies (for whose benefit? They aren't a for-profity entity) or have tainted their results due to conflict of interest is pretty ridiculous.
The conflict I was referring to was that of employment (financial gain in a different sense) given that the CDC is a federal agency, but this is just speculation on my part. I would have liked to see academic institutions involved as well, but that's just preference (a diverse research team; institutionally speaking).
I never said that the results were false; I voiced my concern of the possibility of a conflict that I believe should be taken into account. My main reason for disappointment was that it was a secondary analysis of data from the 90's instead of current data. But thank you for “cherry-picking my words” around that.
How many people cited that paper? Have you read any responses to it?
Please elaborate? The paper has been cited 13 times according to Google Scholar. I haven't read any responses to it because I couldn't find any responses. It doesn't seem that anybody cares, but why? Shouldn't somebody replicate the study to verify that these people are nuts? Candidly, I can't imagine somebody becoming a pariah of the scientific community unless they absolutely believe in what they're doing and are willing to do anything to make sure that it was heard.
Let's talk about preponderance of evidence here.
The study that you linked to is once more a secondary study of data that's at least 20 years old. Also, in the “Eligibility Criteria”, it states that “Papers that recruited their cohort of participants solely from the Vaccine Adverse Even Reporting System (VAERS) in the United States were not included due to its many limitations and high risk of bias including unverified reports, under-reporting, inconsistent data quality, absence of an unvaccinated control group and many reports being filed in connection with litigation.” You stated that to have an unvaccinated control group is highly unethical which is why this practice is not used. However, this group of researchers used this as a factor for eligibility, which means that it could basically exclude whichever studies it wanted because none have unvaccinated control groups. Please tell me I'm wrong about this and that I'm reading it incorrectly.
Last, I've never seen an “Epilogue” in a publication before which was unusual. Moreover, it appears as though it is an attempt to appeal to the emotions of the reader, which is highly suspect in my opinion. Ergo, it hurts the credibility of this publication.
I never said that vaccines don't cause autism. What I said was that currently there is absolutely no reason to think otherwise. Science can't prove anything -- it's the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning
What about studies out there that say otherwise (if you look, they're there; start with the 13 references of the paper I provided)? Are they all bad studies? Maybe there would be more studies if other researchers attempted to replicate the data or conducted research of their own along these lines. Maybe other researchers do, but they are unable to attain funding for it because that area is deemed unworthy. Thoughts?
The Russel's Teapot analogy is probably illustrative here.
Informative.......thank you
In science it's good practice to research all sides of an issue and try to prove yourself wrong before making claims about anything. Much better to realize one's own mistake than get a scathing review back from reviewers later.
Why do you think I'm here wanting to discuss this documentary? I'm attempting to look at the other side of the issue even though I'm told that the “preponderance of evidence” points to safety. This dialogue is nothing more than an exercise in sanity.
I'm not sure why you would take that as an insult but I didn't intend it that way :)
I didn't find it insulting, it was a joke, which is why I through the ;) on the end.
My point was that most of the things you brought up are extremely common vaccine myths that have been covered extensively both in the popular science/medicine blogging community as well as by organizations like the CDC, NIH, and in the peer-reviewed literature. There are hundreds of publications that specifically address these myths.
noted......