A Death, and Rebirth

This will likely be my last post in this blog. A lack of time on my part, plus a commitment to another on-line project, has left me bereft of the time I need to make this thing work.

I do have a new-ish blog, over at Molecular Station. If you like what you see here, you may like what I have over there.

Farewell

Brya

Anti-vaxer gets smacked down - hard!

As my one or two readers know, I am greatly opposed to the anti-vaxers and their lies. I've always found their promotion of unproven, often dangerous treatments to be particularity vexing - basically, they sell substances of little or no value (often harmful) to desperate parents. They are the snake-oil salesmen of our day.

Finally, the FDA seems to be cracking down on these thugs. Boyd Haley - second only in infamy to the king quack Andrew Wakefield has for the past few years sold an industrial chemical called N1,N3-bis(2-mercaptoethyl)isophthalamide (Boyd calls it ORS1 to make it less scary to his patients victims). OSR1 is an industrial chemical whose purpose is to remove certain metal ions from chemical preparations.

Boyd sells it as a mercury chealator - yes, Boyd is one of these "the mercury in vaccines cause autism" dudes, despite the fact that mercury has been removed from all childhood vax. He sells it despite the fact it has established toxicities beyond that acceptable for drugs, and despite the fact it has not ever been tested in a clinical trial for efficacy or safety. He tried to get around the law by claiming it was a "nutritional supplement".

The FDA shut him down this week. Orac, over at Respectful Insolence, has a detailed breakdown of why. But the long and short is:

1. OSR1 does not meet the definition of a dietary supplement, therefore it is illegal to sell it as such
2. Boyd makes specific biochemical claims (i.e. helps maintain a healthy glutathione level), and since the compound is intended to modify the bodies actions, is classified as a drug
3. This compound has not been tested as drugs need to be (clinical trials and all that), therefore it is illegal to sell it to people
4. Boyd claims OSR1 can treat a variety of conditions which cannot be self-diagnosed. Therefore even if OSR1 was a valid drug it would be illegal to sell it over-the-counter
5. Boyd conducted some animals tests, which showed OSR1 to be toxic to the immune system, pancreas, and to show general signs of whole-body toxicity. He falsely represents this in his adds, saying "OSR#1 is without detectable toxicity". It's illegal to lie about side effects.

Long story short - Boyd is illegally selling an untested drug for treating children, is illegally advertising it as a nutritional supplement, is illegally hiding known toxicities, and is illegally selling a compound by mail-order which if it functions as advertised would be a prescription drug.

With luck, he will go to jail for his illegal activities.

One down, 50,000 to go...

Genes ahoy!

It's been a while since my last blog post - in my defense She Who Must Be Obeyed is preggers, so my times been consumed prepping for the arrival of my son/daughter (by which I mean I've been freaking out - its scary, being responsible for someone other than yourself).

Despite that, a bit of science came out today that is worth spreading - we now have a detailed genetic map of autism - as in we've now identified most of the mutations which lead to autistic development of the brain.

I can hear the cries of dismay from the anti-vaxxers already. Let me pre-empt them - its all a conspiracy, aliens control the world, blah-blah-blah...

Now, for reality:

The cost of not vaccinating

Anti-vaxers have been trying to convince people not to vaccinate their kids over a range of made-up concerns - vaccines have been claimed to cause everything from autism to spontaneous combustion. Of course, they don't, but that doesn't prevent the faithful from spreading their lies.

And once again, we see the cost of listening to these anti-vax loons. There is an on-going measles outbreak here in Canada; the first in something like 30 years, and guess who is being infected...

...100% of infections are in those who have not been vaccinated.

Yep, not taking those vaccines sure worked out well for these patients...

The reality is...

Google is the closest thing to an omniscient entity in existence, which can be scientifically verified...

...and wikipedia runs a close second...

Great Vid

Everyone should watch this:



EDIT:

And this one too:

How could you go wrong with a video where the speaker say "Pope Bennidect, I carry condoms all the time and I NEVER get laid".

I'll be chuckling about that one all day long!

Damage Control! What about moral actions instead?

I'm sure everyone knows the catholic church is deeper into the shit than usual - a series of sexual abuse cases have broken across the world, revealing a systematic and widespread conspiracy by the church to hide paedophile priests from the law, and to ensure that the victems never recieve justice.

Needless to say, the discovery of decades of these sorts of cover-ups has - justifiably - pissed a lot of people off. And, as you'd expect, the church is in full-blown damage control. First they blamed the media, then it was the jews, now its the gays fault this occurred.

But notice whose not at fault - the catholic church itself. Yep, that's right, THEY hid the baby-rapers from justice, THEY moved the baby rapers around to avoid the law, but its NOT THEIR FAULT the baby rapers kept on a'rapin. Its pretty much everyones faults but their own - I'm surprised they didn't try to blame the victims themselves - that's probably next week excuse...

You'll also notice what is not forthcoming - either in the past or now - and that would be the only morally justifiable actions available to the church. Openness about their crimes and the crimes of their priests, and the turning over of all evidence and persons to the relevant police forces so that these criminals can be prosecuted.

Of course, those actions will never occur. This is, after all, a religion we are talking about here. For these organisations, moral actions always take a back seat to protecting ones organisation...

...now, if only politicians and the legal system would do the right thing, and declare the church a criminal organisation. It is, after all, what their coverup of crimes, and refusal to aid the police, makes them.