On a lighter note - numerology

I caught a few minutes of Kerri-Anne this morning. She was speaking to a numerologist and seeking insights into what the future holds in store for a few people.

In the segment we learned, solely from the numbers, that Kevin Rudd, a seven, is prone to jumping the gun and making unpopular decisions without due consultation. And that things will get tough for him.

And, again derived only through the cosmic science of numbers, that Julia Gillard, a three, is a popular leader who might lead the Labor Party before too long.

The numbers also informed us that Prince William, a one of course, is generally a nice, level-headed guy with spectacular leadership qualities like his Gran.

I was impressed. I didn't know any of these things about these people before but now I do. I'm going to keep an eye on Rudd and Gillard to see if there's any hint of these prophecies coming true. Who would've thought, before today, that Rudd sometimes makes impetuous policy announcements and that Gillard might take his job?

I am gobsmacked by this new science with which I was previously only vaguely familiar. If these personality profiles turn out to be true, I think we have a contender for Randi's million.


Note: I've paraphrased from memory. I might have assigned the wrong numbers but it wouldn't really make any difference. They're just numbers.

Alternative Medicine: Kind and Gentle?

Found this. Seemed appropriate...

Perth Vaccination Seminar

The Telethon Institute has announced a seminar for parents wanting the facts about vaccination.

Date: Thursday, July 1, 2010
Time: 6:00pm - 9:30pm
Location: Telethon Institute for Child Health Research
Street: 100 Roberts Road
City/Town: Subiaco, Australia

Hosted by Professor Fiona Stanley.

If you are wondering about the public fuss that sometimes surrounds vaccination, go along to this seminar.

If you wonder why we vaccinate healthy kids, go along to this seminar.

If you heard Meryl Dorey on Howard Sattler's radio show, go along to this seminar.

If you think the world is run by lizard people who use vaccination to control the population via microchips, stay indoors fashioning much-improved tinfoil hats.


via Podblack

Hayabusa re-entry fireball

EDIT: Why do Channel 7 keep calling this a "crash landing"? They did it in yesterday evening's news, hours before the event, and they did it again this morning on Sunrise, after a successful re-entry. Do QANTAS "crash land" their planes dozens of times a day at airports around the world?

Youtube vid (click here to go to larger original)

 

Astonishing!

Meryl Dorey: "I'm sorry if I've misinformed you"

This has already been covered by EoR but it's worth pursuing here too.

Prior to last night's "seminar" on vaccination, host Meryl Dorey appeared on Howard Sattler's 6PR radio show.

Sattler's first question to Dorey was whether "her group" is "anti-vaccination".

Dorey responded "No, we are not anti-vaccine and we say that all the time...".

Indeed they do. But it's just not true. The AVN is anti-vaccine. They sell t-shirts on their website printed with the plea "love them, protect them, never inject them". They do not sell any pro-vaccine merchandise. If this is a neutral position then the rest of the world needs new dictionaries.

Dorey goes on to say "all we do is provide a balance..."

Almost a year ago, Dorey posted an item on the AVN blog where she uncritically linked to an article written by author David Icke. The article said, among other things...

The Illuminati plan for the world includes a mass cull of the population and the microchipping of every man, woman and child. Microchips would allow everyone to be tracked 24/7, but it goes much further than that.

Computer technology communicating with the chips has the potential to manipulate people mentally, emotionally and physically. This could be done en masse or individually through the chip's unique transmitter-receiver signal. Killing someone from a distance would be a synch [sic].

This is "balance" AVN-style. Once again, the rest of us may need new dictionaries.

The AVN blog article is still there, even today, though the link to the Icke article is broken. However, you will find the original Icke article here. Note too that David Icke believes the world's leaders are actually shape-shifting reptilian overlords.

This connection between the AVN and the Icke article is hardly a secret. It was noticed when the blog item was posted and has travelled the blogosphere since. You would think Howard Sattler would know about it by now but, if he does, he's apparently not concerned about it.

Asked about tuberculosis, Dorey responds "well, TB we've never vaccinated against on a broad scale".

When Sattler points out that he was vaccinated for it, she repeats that it was never part of the schedule in Australia and asks him if it might have been for smallpox. He repeats that it was for TB.

Sattler isn't alone. I stood in a queue of high school kids to get my TB shot in the early seventies. My sisters and brothers had done the same in years before at different schools.

Still unconvinced (she's a vaccine expert remember) Dorey says that "a lot of people got the TB vaccine when they were travelling overseas but it's never actually been part of the schedule."

I don't think she's lying here. I do, however, think she has no idea what she's talking about. So, since we can't trust the AVN spokesperson to get the facts straight, what's the truth about TB vaccination in Australia?

In Australia, the broad-based BCG vaccination program originated at a time when the epidemiological circumstances of tuberculosis (TB) were quite different. Initially in 1948, vaccination targeted health workers, Aboriginal people and close contacts of active cases, especially children. In the 1950s the program was expanded to include all Australian school children except those from New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. This policy was discontinued in the mid-1980s (1991 in the Northern Territory) in favour of a more selective approach. [Tuberculosis vaccination schedule in Australia: Federal Department of Health and Ageing] - (my bolding)

I guess a thirty-year program is easily missed when you're busy looking for facts about the evils of vaccination so you can give people "balanced information".

Dorey goes on to try and discredit the Telethon Institute for using kids as vaccination guinea pigs without informing their parents. She's made this claim before and it's repeated across anti-vaccination websites but is it true or is it just another conspiracy theory like microchips and genocide?

The best I could find was a study involving adults, listed here. I imagine their parents weren't informed. On the same page you'll find "Influenza Vaccine Study in 6 month to 17 year olds" but this one requires parental participation. You'll also find "Children's Western Australia Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Study" but that one says...

Health Professionals involved in the study will be asking parents of children who present at their practice or participating hospital with an ‘influenza-like-illness’ eg a fever, chills, cough, sore throat, nasal congestion, and will be asked if they wish for their child to take part in the study.

So no conspiracy there either. Can someone please provide evidence of Dorey's claim that the Telethon Institute was involved in a convert conspiracy to test a vaccine on children without informing parents? Without evidence, and based on her efforts so far in this segment, I think we have to file that one with the David Icke theories.

Sattler invites callers and one woman, a nurse, challenges Dorey on her insistence that TB vaccination was never part of the Australian schedule, saying she remembers the program being rolled out. Dorey concedes defeat and says "I'm sorry if I've misinformed you"

Do you think she meant it?

Another caller mentions disgraced "doctor" Andrew Wakefield who implied there was a link between autism and the MMR vaccine and who was recently struck off the UK's medical register. Dorey defends him saying his data was published in The Lancet and that no one has ever said the information was incorrect. In the real world, most of Wakefield's co-authors abandoned him early on and distanced themselves from the study. The paper itself has since been retracted from The Lancet which is, as I understand it, the equivalent of it never having been published at all.

Dorey, of course, smells another conspiracy - presumably by the reptilian Illumanti?

On the issue of the polio vaccine, raised by another caller, Dorey just muddies the water. She claims that the vaccine uses a live virus and that Australia now uses an injectable form. She says the only recent cases of polio in Australia were caused by the vaccine.

Unlike Dorey, I don't claim to be an expert but the fact appears to be that polio can be contracted from the oral form of the vaccine but not the injectable form which contains an inactivated (dead) virus. None of this, by the way, is a secret. Even Wikipedia knows about the risks of oral polio vaccination.

Asked if she thinks polio would have eliminated itself without vaccination, Dorey replies "I can't swear to that". She should have stopped there but goes on to try and discredit the vaccine anyway. Remember though, she's not anti-vaccine.

Another caller says his vaccinated 12-year-old kid stood on a rusty nail and he didin't hesistate to get him to hospital for a tetanus shot.

Dorey, not anti-vaccination remember, and "vaccination expert" remember, senses an opportunity and jumps on it. She explains, with all the gusto of an irate professional, that tetanus boosters are usually given at five years of age and should then only be given every ten years. She says that under these circumstances the child should not have been given another tetanus shot because it might actually cause tetanus.

For simplicity's sake, I've gone to Wikipedia to see what general information is available (my bolding)...

Tetanus can be prevented by vaccination  with tetanus toxoid.[10]  The CDC recommends that adults receive a booster vaccine every ten years, and standard care practice in many places is to give the booster to any patient with a puncture wound who is uncertain of when he or she was last vaccinated, or if he or she has had fewer than 3 lifetime doses of the vaccine.

Okay, that's Wikipedia - but the Victorian government appears to agree...

In the event of a tetanus prone injury, immunisation with ADT Booster^® vaccine is recommended.

Seriously, this is tedious. I don't know if she's lying, deluded or just doing poor research but I can't imagine how genuine experts must feel when they hear this sort of nonsense on a ratings-hungry, shock-jock radio program.

Sattler finished by telling Dorey she seems to have all the answers.

It's true, she does have a lot of answers but answers are easy. It's getting them right that's difficult. Ask any school kid about that if if it's too difficult a concept to grasp. Dorey fails to get the answers right far too often and should surely not be taken seriously, or given uncontested air time, on something as important as the health - and lives - of our children.

In the interests of genuine balance, you can listen to the whole, unedited segment here.

I have to congratulate the callers who weren't taken in by Dorey's anti-vaccination diatribe.


VACCINATION FACTS 


Note: I am not a doctor or health professional - and neither is Meryl Dorey or Howard Sattler. I take issue with Dorey's public statements where I am easily able to find out the truth for myself (without resorting to conspiracy theorists like David Icke). If I am so easily able to find gaping holes in so much of what she and the AVN promote, there is no way I can have any faith in their claims about things that fall outside the general scope of the layperson.

Perth Anti-Vaccine Rally - "controversial"

Today's West carries a story about the "controversy" of the WA state government's decision to allow one of its venues to be used to promote an anti-vaccination message to parents.

Vaccination is hardly controversial in any real sense. The idea that vaccination is essentially harmful holds about as much water as the idea that smoking is essentially good for you.

In fact, the evidence that vaccination is beneficial probably outweighs the evidence that tobacco is harmful. There really is no controversy.

I wonder if the tobacco lobby could hire the State Library to promote cigarettes? I guess they could if they say smoking is controversial.

Those on the anti-vaccination side of the "controversy" like to point to simple correlations to support their case. They say things like "autism has increased since vaccination started, therefore vaccinations obviously cause autism". But here's the thing with simple correlations - 90% of Australian kids are vaccinated yet 90% of Australian kids don't have autism. So anyone who believes the simplistic correlation put by the anti-vaxxers must now concede the simple correlation that vaccination does NOT cause autism. Interestingly, anti-vaxxers are surprisingly able to apply "scepticism" to that simple correlation. It's bizarre.

The AVN is not a watchdog. It promotes the message "love them, protect them, never inject them". That is a clear anti-vaccine message, not a neutral position from an organisation promoting information, education or choice. They have also been caught promoting a theory that vaccines are part of an international plot of mass murder and mind control. The theory was put forward by a man who believes world leaders are actually shape-shifting reptilians.

The AVN is demonstrably (politically) anti-vaccine, anti-science and anti-establishment.

I wonder how much of my fast-increasing state taxes will be siphoned off to mount a public response to the AVN's nonsense delivered through a state-owned venue?

If you care about vaccination and live in Perth, you can join Podblack tonight at the Alexander Library and help to dilute the misinformation that is likely to be delivered in the anti-vaccination seminar.

VACCINATION FACTS