Madeline Kara Neumann

227 comments on “Madeline Kara Neumann”

1. Sorry for the triple post, my machine is doing strange things…..doobeedooodoo doobeedoodoo.
   Extra to what I said anyway, the u/v in the sunlight also kills virus particles – mucks up their DNA.

2. I haven’t seen anything yet that suggests that we can even say with certainty that vitamin D prevents influenza, much less argue about how much is needed. It’s an interesting hypothesis and would explain the seasonal variations in influenza outbreaks but until there is a controlled scientific study to compare rates of infection among those who are taking high dosages of the vitamin and those who are taking the vaccine or nothing at all, it’s way too early to make these claims. I recall much the same being said about vitamin c and colds, claims that haven’t stood up well in the light of research.

3. All I can say is how awful I feel for the little girl. No child should suffer like that. It just breaks my heart…
   I’m so hurt by this, I can’t even get angry at the parents. None of the other points matter right now. I just can’t stop crying…

4. Me: “Myself, were I parent in such a situation I’d try to explain to the child that different people have different beliefs and that none is the “one true religion…”
   PAD: “Which is great if you’re explaining it to a philosophy major. When it comes to parenting, however, I don’t see the need to overexplain. Your explanation is the equivalent of, “Daddy, where do babies come from?” “Well, honey, it begins with a man being in a state of arousal…”
   I don’t think your analogy works. I don’t see my hypothetical statement (or the alternative I provided parenthetically that since we don’t know which is the one true religion we should respect them all) as “over-explaining.” Nor more so than your hypothetical answer would be. Either way, the child in question will ask most likely ask “Why?” or “How come?”, leading to a re-casting of the answer.
   What’s more, I was more or less summarizing the point I’d try to get across, rather than the actual words I’d use. Though if those words were to pop into my head should a child to ask me such a question, that might be how I’d answer. I guess it’d depend on whether I felt I should give an immediate reply or could take a moment to formulate one.
   But anyway, suppose I did say: “Different people have different beliefs, but none is the one true religion.”? I might very well get this back:
   “Why believe in something if it’s not true?” or “How do you whether it’s true or not?”
   Likewise, were you to answer a question from Caroline with your statement about Joshua bar Joseph and how he helped people even though you and Kathleen have different beliefs about whether God was his father, would it surprise you if she asked why? It seems a natural enough for a kid to ask, “why does Mommy believe that?” or “Why don’t you believe that?”
   On the other hand, sometimes kids can surprise you with how they react to an answer you might think would lead to more questions. About a decade back, when my young cousins were big into Shania Twain, they were listening to a particular album one day. One song had a line about PMS. The eldest of these girls, then 7 or 8, asked, “what’s PMS?”
   I said, “it’s something that happens when you’re older.”, half expecting her to follow up with something like, “how much older?” or “But what is it?”
   Her response?
   “Oh.” And she ran off and played with her sisters and cousins. Apparently, the fact that it’s something that happens when she’s older (and I don’t know whether she understood that its exclusive to women or assumed that anyone could have it) and thus wasn’t anything she needed to concern herself with at 7 or 8 satisfied her.
   So who knows? When it comes time to explain to Caroline the differing views of Jesus you and Kathleen have, she might pepper you with more questions, or she might say, “oh”, and run off and play.
   Rick

5. Regarding my first post in this thread, that should have been, “I shook his hand.”
   Ðámņ. I just noticed that. And I must have re-read and fine-tuned that entry at least a half a dozen times before I clicked the “post” button.
   Stupid, stupid me creatures.
   Rick

6. The Catholic church has had a lot of trouble recently with the shaking of heads.

7. >Extra to what I said anyway, the u/v in the sunlight also kills virus particles – mucks up their DNA.
   And, according to some, risk skin cancer. If they don’t get you one way … 😎
   As for Coil’s comments, of course one needs repeated shots. Two reasons:
   1 – they help keep the immune system exercised and strong,
   2 – viruses mutate all the time so what works against them one year won’t necessarily do the job the next and one needs t be covered for that version, too.

8. ARGH! Nothing gets me madder than when people blame vaccines for autism. I have more than 20 years experience working with hard-core autism, with more than 100 different cases. Autism is committed to the neural wiring in the 21-28th day of gestation, LONG before people know they’re pregnant, let alone born and vaccinated. You can’t “catch” it in one fast incidence. No. Does not happen. If there’s a coincidence of vaccine and onset of behavior, it may simply be a trigger that made the parent finally wake up and admit the problem they’d been missing signals on all along.
   I can, however, give you horror stories of the disabled kids I’ve worked with who were the result of some of those vaccinatable diseases.
   My kids are vaccinated against anything they can possibly be vaccinated against, and as early as 1990 I was pleading for smallpox vaccine, and told even for cold cash it just wasn’t available; fast forward 10 years and that lack of vaccine was suddenly a real worry. We as a people have little cultural memory of what damage and fear and death polio, measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox, and meningitis caused just 50 years ago. Do I think the current schedule of vaccines is too much at once? Absolutely. Things definitely need to be spaced better, but that’s a different fight. Best of luck to your kids, Bobb, but that’s a gamble I myself would never take.

9. PREFACE: I make no judgments here on whether someone believes in a God or not. Whatever someone believes is fine with me, as long as they’re not hurting anyone else.
   Now to business. Someone noted, “Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test. What part of that was unclear?”
   The part where the lord God demands the life of an eleven year old child – and not just her life, but an ending of that life in excruciating agony, horrid confusion, and the (probable) comprehension by that eleven year old that there are doctors and medicines – but Mommy and Daddy DIDN’T WANT her to go to a doctor, DIDN’T WANT her to get medicine, DIDN’T WANT anything that could heal her – except for an imaginary being (to an eleven year old, at least) Who probably wanted her in such agony.
   But the little girl could take comfort in the fact that this God probably wanted her to die so that she could be with Him. After all, that’s why God kills so many children, right? [/sarcasm]
   If there is a God, he provides us with the [i]tools[/i] for miracles – or if there is no God, such tools are created by men, and miracles still occur.
   As PAD noted, we get radio warnings, boats, and helicopters. There are medicines, there are doctors and practitioners, there are tools and there is knowledge. Should it REALLY be expected that God would directly intervene with a miracle by a celestial gigantic hand, haloed in light, coming from a glowing cloud? Or is it more realistic to ascribe to His motives that He has ALREADY worked his miracle – there are people who KNOW what to do when someone is sick, and God’s intent is for people to take advantage of the miracles that way?
   If we don’t take advantage of these miracles – in the form in which they are offered to us, and especially if we don’t use them for those for whom we are responsible – then are the consequences STILL God’s will?
   If one believes in predestination, then nothing anyone says to them will ever change their mind about “the will of God”, and such people are free to do whatever they desire – since, according to their beliefs, no action occurs of their own desire.
   If one believes in free will, then every action one takes has consequences – even if one believes in God.
   And letting a little girl die in an era of God-given medical miracles… well, that’s criminal no matter how one looks at it.
   Eric L. Sofer

10. Tim Lynch,
    Almost all the reported cases of autism state that the child was normal, then the shots were given and there were major changes.
    20,000 cases a year may only be anecdotal to some, but is definitely close enough to be called the truth.

11. Megan of the triple posts (I tease, I tease),
    Agreed that one gets Vitamin D from sunlight. One needs a large area of skin exposed to get enough in just a few minutes. Just the arms and face is not enough exposed skin.
    In addition, I challenge you to get enough sun here in southeast Michigan, where we are shoveling 2-4 inches of snow this morning. Or perhaps Seattle where it rains quite often. In some years, bathing suit season ends here around mid-September. Even most of the boaters have their boats out of the water before October 1. That is why it is best to just take Vitamin D orally here in the Great Lakes states and other not-so-sunny places.

12. Susan O, Bill Mulligan, Tim Lynch, and others—
    I realize many are skeptical about the role of vaccinations re: autism. I ask that you go read the following article:
    “On Tuesday, March 11, a conference call was held between vaccine safety officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, several leading experts in vaccine safety research, and executives from America’s Health Insurance Plans…”
    In the article, it is suggested that vaccines DO play a part.
    http://tinyurl.com/2cepy9
    I also realize my one lone voice isn’t going to change your opinions, but please, at least read the article. Thank you.

13. If we don’t take advantage of these miracles – in the form in which they are offered to us, and especially if we don’t use them for those for whom we are responsible – then are the consequences STILL God’s will?
    If one believes in predestination, then nothing anyone says to them will ever change their mind about “the will of God”, and such people are free to do whatever they desire – since, according to their beliefs, no action occurs of their own desire.
    If one believes in free will, then every action one takes has consequences – even if one believes in God.
    And letting a little girl die in an era of God-given medical miracles… well, that’s criminal no matter how one looks at it.

    There are ads in newspapers accepting money to chlorinate polluted water in third world countries while we keep money in bank accounts. Going by what you say, you’re dragging yourself across your floor like Liam Neeson going on about how your vacuum cleaner could have saved a schoolhouse full of children somewhere.
    The British navy sat on the knowledge 3 spoonfuls of lemon juice a day could have held-off the scurvy that was killing maybe ¼-½ of a ship’s crew at a time — for 150 years. That’s 5 generations as we know it today that they did nothing.
    I’m not trying to excuse these parents from criminal prosecution. But the notion of prosecuting them as some kind of last obstacle to living an ideal is kind of chilling. Something like that is usually the excuse for the most insane intolerances.

14. Likewise, were you to answer a question from Caroline with your statement about Joshua bar Joseph and how he helped people even though you and Kathleen have different beliefs about whether God was his father, would it surprise you if she asked why? It seems a natural enough for a kid to ask, “why does Mommy believe that?” or “Why don’t you believe that?”
    I’m raising my fourth child. Very little a child says can surprise me at this point. The odds are that if she asked that–presuming she was fairly young–I doubt I’d need much beyond a simple shrug and say, “Because we don’t. If everybody believed the same things, life would be pretty boring, wouldn’t it. What do YOU believe, honey?”
    PAD

15. Alan,
    Almost all the reported cases of autism state that the child was normal, then the shots were given and there were major changes.
    And as I said, correlation does not imply cause. There’s reporting bias, self-selection effects, and everything else that can magically “inflate” an effect.
    I’m open to the possibility of a connection and certainly think such things should be checked out, but the number of urban-legend horror stories out there connecting object X to condition Y (antiperspirants and breast cancer, for instance) always makes me extremely skeptical about those claims, particularly when it’s presented in a scare-tactic kind of way. (I’m not saying you’re doing that, but lots of people out there do.)
    I appreciate the article you forwarded, but an article on the Huffington Post does not, alas, qualify as something I’d consider peer-reviewed and really definitive.
    This article at http://www.healthandenvironment.org/autism/peer_reviewed
    seems a bit less inflammatory and more balanced. They’re actually including references, for one thing.
    I’ve never taught kids with full-fledged autism, but I have taught kids with Asperger’s, and there are definitely a lot of ways in which their path is extremely difficult. Believe me, if I thought this connection was likely to be true I’d be jumping up and down demanding that actions be taken. I remain unconvinced.
    TWL

16. Susan O, your decision to vaccinate your kids is based on your experience, and made after reasoned thought. You are aware of the dangers and risks, weighed them, and made a choice.
    Bear in mind, I don’t go around telling anyone not to get their kids vaccinated. I don’t tell them their kids are going to develop autism, or anything else. What I tell them is they need to do more than listen to what their pediatricians tell them, and do some research on their own, THEN decide. Actually, this is something everyone should do any time they get advice from their doctor. All you need to do is review the news for a week, and you’ll see some instance of a medical prediction that turned out wrong, or see how some line of thought in the medical world has turned around or is being debated. Doctors aren’t mechanics…every body is different, and every medical decision should be made by the individual (or their parent/guardian) and only after as much information as possible is gathered.
    Bill, I didn’t know vaccines went back that far…I forget which Museum we were at had a big polio exhibit that made it sound like that era was the beginning of the vaccine. But looking at the history, you can see an interesting change over the past 2 decades. Prior to that, vaccines that were sought after were for truly serious, dangerous, and fatal things. I’d include polio in that, although I do think that the risk of life-altering or fatal conditions are lower than people would expect to find. BUt starting about 20 years ago, you find practically a vaccine explosion. Sure, the flu vaccine might not net a lot of $ at $10 a shot…but aren’t those shots subsidized by the government? People may not pay a lot for them, but that doesn’t mean the company that makes them isn’t turning a tidy profit. And don’t forget that (thanks to the preservatives now being put into the shots) any unused doses can now be sold overseas months and even years after their initial market launch.
    Look over the past couple of years at the push to get the vaccine for cervical cancer forced onto the public. Prior to that, can anyone remember cervical cancer being a widespread, common, or even talked about issue? Can anyone think about an outbreak of cervical cancer that caused panic in a community? Why, then, is there this push at the state level to make the use of this vaccine…which has barely been tested…a requirement for teenage girls? The type of cervical cancer this vaccine protects against can easily be avoided through regular good hygene, and generally is only caused through sexual activity. So, either our state governments think that our teenage girls are literally dirty skanks, or there’s something else going on.
    And given those facts, it’s hard to draw any other conclusion than that it’s a money/profit issue. Sure, the government can claim the additional benefits of general health, reducing the risk of a community crippling outbreak of something serious, etc.
    Other factors that we considered were that past outbreaks came at a time when general knowledge of just what amounts to good hygene and medical care were different. We’ve made large advances just over the past 50 years in knowing how germs and bugs get passed around, how to treat them, and generally how the body works. We know more about the importance of good rest, a good healthy diet, excercise, stress relieve, ect.
    We’ve got reminders all around us that drugs and medicine can hurt us. We’ve got the recent case of Heath Ledger, taking several different drugs, who’s body just gave out under the combined effects of those drugs. There are lawsuits all around the country involving drugs changing how people act, think, feel (or don’t feel), drugs that increase a person’s suicidal tendencies, etc. And these are full grown, normal, healthy adult bodies, not a tiny, developing child. Why is it that people can accept that idea that an adult might be harmed by some drug, but when it comes to vaccines…which at the end of the day are just a type of drug…might be having negative, serious, even fatal consequences to their use?
    Finally, there’s this: Clinton passed a law that insulated vaccine manufacturors from lawsuits charging them with responsibility for any negative consequences. Again, you can rely on the idea that there’s a greater good involved in protecting the population overall. But the law extends to all vaccine makers, even for those vaccines that address things that are not a community concern, like cervical cancer. Is anyone really comfortable with the idea that our politicians have decided for us who we can find liable for damage done to us?

17. It seems a natural enough for a kid to ask, “why does Mommy believe that?” or “Why don’t you believe that?”

    Well, if you’re asking for your own navel-gazing, we all have our own unique experiences. The food you eat nurtures no one but you. No two people see the same phenomena identically. For the classic “My Wife and my Mother-in-Law” drawing, you can see either a young wife or an old crone, and there’s nothing inherent in the drawing to direct you when to see which one. The larger divergences in experiences shelter larger divergences in our calibration of reality.

18. Eric – I think you might have misread the meaning behind quote “Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test.” It was not endorsing the suffering of the girl. It’s just another biblical quote to refute their prejudice against medical intervention.
    The parents were putting God to the test pretty much by saying that if He is there that the child would be cured.

19. Christine, you may be right, but it’s so hard to interpret what some people think with such phrasing – and in any case, I’m sure the parents thought that there was no test, but that they would get a very specific miracle, instead of the one available. However, I will certainly allow that I could have misinterpreted it. I’m not quite a genius yet… I AM taking night classes to be an idiot, though.
    Mike – everything you noted may be correct. And my reply is that it’s still not right. Unless, of course, you’re objecting to my thought of people taking advantage of the available gifts around them, and condoning these occurrences – but I could easily be misinterpreting what you said. It seems rather vauge, I’m afraid.
    I would not prosecute the parents – first, I’m not nearly wise enough to judge, let alone to hand out an appropriate punishment; and third, they must live with the consequences of their own actions – the death of their child. What punishment could possibly surpass what they’ve visited upon themselves?
    I remain,
    Sincerely,
    Eric L. Sofer
    The Silver Age Fogey

20. You referred to criminalizing a negligence we normally tolerate when it’s secular. Thank you for clarifying.

21. I’m not quite a genius yet… I AM taking night classes to be an idiot, though.
    Ahh… I’ve been to a few of those classes myself. They helped me understand my “Idiot’s Guide to {fill in the blank}” books. 😉
    As for the quote, I used it in an offline debate with my coworkers about the news story; so I’d had it planted in my mind already.

22. I am reading an excellent book entitled “God v. the Gavel” by Marci Hamilton, which shows how we have stupidly allowed harm to children to be protected by the First Amendment. Ms. Hamilton is a frequent commentator on FindLaw about all matters where we have let religious organizations run roughshod over neutral laws.

23. Look over the past couple of years at the push to get the vaccine for cervical cancer forced onto the public.
    I was reading an article the other day that said about 3/4th of women in this country will at some point get some form of HPV – some strains of which which can lead to cervical cancer, as well as cancer in men.
    Here’s a note from Wikipedia: “Of the more than 100 known HPV types, 37 are known to be transmitted through sexual contact. Infection with sexually transmitted HPVs is very common in adult populations worldwide.”
    1 in 3, bobb. That’s a communicable disease that doesn’t just deal with “skanky women”.
    This wasn’t some overnight thing that drug companies are just forcing upon us because they want to sell us vaccines. This is a serious threat that has not gotten the attention it has needed because there are dozens of other cancers and hundreds of other diseases out there. It has been years in the making.
    A vaccination that can prevent cancer, and there’s a conspiracy theory about it’s value. Go figure.

24. Sure, the flu vaccine might not net a lot of $ at $10 a shot…but aren’t those shots subsidized by the government? People may not pay a lot for them, but that doesn’t mean the company that makes them isn’t turning a tidy profit. And don’t forget that (thanks to the preservatives now being put into the shots) any unused doses can now be sold overseas months and even years after their initial market launch.
    From what I’ve heard there are fewer and fewer companies willing to take the risk and swallow the costs.
    I would also add that if profit were the sole motivation they should just forget vaccines entirely–doctors and drug companies make a lot more money off of a sick person coming to the office with the flu and having to get drugs to treat each of the many symptoms.
    Of course, there are those who insist that doctors HAVE the vaccines against cancer, AIDS, the common cold, etc and are keeping it a secret because they can make so much money on it. Ðámņëd if you do, dámņëd if you don’t.
    Other factors that we considered were that past outbreaks came at a time when general knowledge of just what amounts to good hygene and medical care were different. We’ve made large advances just over the past 50 years in knowing how germs and bugs get passed around, how to treat them, and generally how the body works. We know more about the importance of good rest, a good healthy diet, excercise, stress relieve, ect.
    True enough but we also have a buttload more people squeezed ever tighter together. A repeat of the 1918 pandemic would not take a fraction as long to go global as it would if it happened now. There might not be time to ramp up vaccine production (Not as great a concern for me since teachers are usually one of the first groups to get access to vaccines, given our vulnerability of having to face 100 odd faces sneezing in our general direction on a daily basis.).
    Seriously, I’d advise everyone to store a few weeks supply of canned food, just in case.
    We’ve got reminders all around us that drugs and medicine can hurt us.
    And yet it’s the countries with easy access to medicine that have the highest standard of living. Doesn’t that suggest that they do more good than harm?

25. A vaccination that can prevent cancer

    AND OTHER DISEASES.
    Don’t forget that.
    And also don’t forget that a lot of the push isn’t coming from drug companies; a lot of it is coming from public health professionals.

26. Sure, the flu vaccine might not net a lot of $ at $10 a shot…but aren’t those shots subsidized by the government? People may not pay a lot for them, but that doesn’t mean the company that makes them isn’t turning a tidy profit.

    Um, not necessarily.
    I’m a little flabbergasted that there’s so much anti-vaccination woo around here. Then again, the right wing has their creationists, and….

27. “The major source of vitamin D and its circulating form, 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25OHD3), in children and adults is the skin. It is estimated that exposure to sunlight for 15 minutes three times per week normalises 25OHD3 levels.8 Dark skin, increasing age, sun protection agents, and the angle of the sun in winter will attenuate this increase in 25OHD3.8” MJA 2003; 178 (9): 467-468

28. Bobb,
    If memory serves: diptheria, tetanus and whooping cough (pertussis), are serious diseases that can kill. Even if they don’t kill you, they are very nasty and still around. Measles can result in measles encephalitis. Mumps can lead to sterility in males, rubella can cause a variety of birth defects if contracted by pregnant women. Yes there will be people who suffer from the immunisations, this has to be weighed against the risk of the more serious consequences of allowing your child to catch the wils strain.
    Yes, my 4 had all their scheduled childhood immuniations. maybe spurred on by knowing rellies who had suffered whooping cough, diptheria (my mum and aunt), and polio (my aunt).

29. Those who checked out Alan’s linked article may want to look at http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/03/vaccines_and_autism_the_incredible_shrin.php
    for an alternative take.
    The writer for the Huffington post article has, if his critics are correct, a habit of moving the goalposts in his desire to implicate vaccines for autism. Faced with the reality that autism rates have not, as he predicted, tumbled following the elimination of most Thimerosal in childhood vaccines, he keeps trying to come up with some explanation–everything from forest fires in China to cremation of people who had mercury dental filings. I get the same vibe Roger does–this reminds me of the creationists who will throw out 100 pieces of evidence that contradict them while grasping at the 1 piece that supports them.

30. I don’t agree with Moleboy’s conclusions, but PAD’s reaction isn’t at all responsive. PAD has four children, so I must respect his experience; Apparently none of his children (and he will surely be glad of this) was particularly like me. From a very early age I always wanted to know “Why?” and was dissatisfied by anything that was logically inconsistent. He is free to feel differently, but I have never felt that religion had any personal value if one didn’t believe one’s own theology was really true. Regarding Christianity, as a subject closer to me than any other religion, if one says “Well, I don’t know whether this immaculate conception, son of God, Messiah, sole means of redemption stuff is real, but I like this Christianity stuff: It’s neat.” that’s ignoring everything important about the belief. If Jesus was not who he said he was, he wasn’t a nice fellow with a good philosophy, but either a liar or a lunatic. If Buddha was not enlightened, but said he was, he was a liar. It’s the same with Muhammad, Moses or Elijah: You think it’s either an essential truth or a cruel lie, or one doesn’t really see it as anything important. A good Catholic believes he knows the right formula. A good Jew believes the Catholic is seriously mistaken. Although it’s nice to be polite about it, anyone who truly believes his religion is true must also believe people with other theologies have been misled.
    I’ve disagreed with bobb alfred many times before, but this is probably a particularly stark disagreement. I expect his intentions in raising his child are very positive, but his understanding of disease is terribly wrong. I can’t say anything definitive about the risks of the DPT and other vaccines, but can about those of diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, typhus, typhoid and other formerly epidemic diseases. It’s true that not very many Americans currently die of these illnesses, but foolish to believe they aren’t deadly. My own father nearly died of pertussis when he was about 4 years old, and he would have been glad to have been spared its effects – which included a severe malformation of both of his eyes causing near-legal blindness. He also would have been glad to have been spared the pneumonia which took his right lung in his early teens. The value of automatic and mandatory childhood vaccination is not just the personal welfare of the vaccinated child, but much more that of elimination of an epidemic contamination from the total environment: Just about nobody gets smallpox, and let’s keep it that way.

31. Dustin
    How can a child develop beliefs without the influence of parents?
    Well, first off, I’m not advocating that parents not try to instill their values in their children.
    That said, unless you raise your child in a bubble, literally, then you are but one of a long list of influences on your child.
    Here’s a few
    1. friends
    2. teachers
    3. personal experiences
    4. media
    5. physics
    Yep, those are all influences on kids. But, studies have shown that the one thing that influences kids far more than any other is their parents. Why? Because in early childhood, they are interacting with the child on a far more frequent and intimate level than any of those other things. Once they become old enough, the child uses what he/she learned to filter and adjust to those other influences.
    A parent choosing (somehow) to not pass on any kind of belief system will not end up with some sort of automaton.
    No, I think the brat “expressing himself” I referred to earlier is more likely. If no belief system is taught, the default almost always comes up as selfishness and self-centeredness.
    Of course, just to make it clear, a belief system does not require a transcendental being to be a belief system. “All persons are equal” is a belief, as is “Helping others is good” or “Other people deserve respect.” If you eliminate these types of teachings from childhood, you get a child with a lot of issues to face when the real world comes along.
    Nor is teaching a religious belief any worse, on an objective level, than teaching them to respect other people. The child at the ages these lessons are being taught is usually accepting of what those in authority say. The ability to question and analyze the world around you is something that develops over time. Without the basis of their parents early teachings, though, they will have far more to figure out than others.
    I repeat my previous point that even that absence of lessons are lessons in and of themselves. Children will learn to believe in something, based on how their parents act and respond to them. Dodging the questions that invariably come up teaches as much as answering the question based on your beliefs. All that changes is what lesson has been learned. Unless they are removed, they are teaching something (and even if removed, their absence will teach something).
    Funny, we hear all this talk of how video games and movies and TV are taking kids away from their parents values. Or those kids who are ‘bad influences’. It seems odd to think that, in the absence of parental teaching, that kids wouldn’t use these same sources.
    again, not advocating this, just saying that you don’t raise a child in a box.
    Yeah, you hear that alot. 95% of the time, it’s pure bunk. I’ll end on a line from Blame Canada, from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, which I think sums up better than I can where those arguments come from:
    “We must blame them and cause a fuss
    Before somebody thinks of blaming us!”

32. While it’s certainly possible that one religion has it right and all the others have it wrong it’s also possible that all of them have it wrong to one degree or another. Assume that God is real–it’s probably impossible for beings of finite perception to truly understand to any real degree an entity so beyond us. Should God deign to show Himself to us it’s pretty much a guarantee we would grasp only a small part of His reality.
    So who’s to say that Joseph Smith, Mohamed, Buddha, Jesus, and the guy with the multi-colored hair and the John 3:16 sign have not all demonstrated some aspect of God? Evenm if one accepts jesus as the genuine article I would have serious misgivings about dismissing all other purported manifestations–why would God have limited salvation to only those who were within western civilizations reach?
    But there is nothing wrong with thinking that one’s religious beliefs are better than others, any more than thinking that one’s political beliefs are correct (if you aren’t convinced of that, change them!). Just stay a little humble, since there can be no certainty about either.

33. Bobb, the issues you mention with vaccine liability did start with Clinton, but it had nothing to do with vaccine quality. It had to due with the fact that we were desperately short of tentanus vaccine in the US because no company here wanted to manufacture it because there was no money in it, and foreign companies didn’t want to supply because US consumers sue for billions if a toenail so much as falls off following a vaccine. Tetanus is grown slowly in chicken eggs, and it’s slow and expensive to manufacture, and then there’s the people allergic to eggs…
    This situation was made far worse under the bush Homeland Security, who *did* have to suspend company liability for the rush to reinvent and stockpile new Smallpox vaccine, because although the disease has a 30-50% fatality rate, the vaccine can be particularly nasty as well in a larger-than-normally-acceptable number of people. People can be scarred, blinded, or killed by the vaccine (even I, although originally vaccinated with no side effects, would be at higher risk of a booster vaccine, because I have rosacea, and any skin condition can put you at high risk of complications). Therefore, no company would touch the production due to the high normal risk of complications, and bush had to absolve them of responsibility of those known and troublesome effects (smallpox is so contagious that even those who have just been vaccinated must be kept isolated until the scab of vaccination is gone) so that we could stockpile vaccine in case of bioterrorist attack. In this case, that waiver of liability was reasonably justified. It didn’t have to do with vaccine quality, but well-known and potentially dangerous complications.
    The CDC has a very comprehensive – and frightening – pamphlet on the vaccine.
    So, you’re going to say, why in (anyone’s) name would I want to expose my child to such a demonstrably dangerous vaccine, that has yet to be made safer?
    1) in 1990, I was unaware how dangerous it was
    2) neither I nor my husband, nor anyone in our family, nor even anyone we know has had problems with the vaccine, and the problems tend to follow family patterns.
    3) none of my children has a condition known to cause complications
    4) in peacetime, yes, I might now choose no, but I will always be uneasy. If there’s even a hint it’s gotten loose on the continent, I will be first in line with kids in tow. It’s that deadly, and in a country where there have been no cases in more than 40 years, and no vaccines in more than 35 years, and vaccines that we now think aren’t valid after 10 years, you have the conditions for a plague-type epidemic in a population with no immunity like we haven’t seen since we deliberately infected the Native Americans of both North and South America with the same germ.

34. The link I gave was a report on a meeting, not an article created by the writer.
    Thimerosal is mercury. Mercury is a heavy metal that should not be in humans, let alone injected into tiny, defenseless babies.
    Note that most of the newer dentists no longer use mercury fillings in cavities.
    Mercury poisoning is the same as lead poisoning. We legislated against lead paint, but not mercury fillings. Why? Because the ADA owns the copyright/trademark to the mercury based filling material and they lobbied against the legislation.
    It’s all about who has the largest purse for lobbying. Our health as a nation is poor because of lack of intelligent regulations.
    The US ranks around 35th in health care among larger nations of the world, yet spends the most money per person.
    As to Vitamin D, the Canadian government has recently suggested that all its citizens should be taking oral doses of Vitamin D. It is just IMPOSSIBLE to get enough Vitamin D year round in northern climes.

35. While it’s certainly possible that one religion has it right and all the others have it wrong it’s also possible that all of them have it wrong to one degree or another.

    The second commandment invalidates divine representation. And the opening line of the Tao te Ching — which has overlapping values with, and is highly influential on Buddhism — is that the way that can be spoken is not the true way. Religions have at their core meta-references to their own deadness.

36. I must disagree with Mike that ALL religions have at their core meta-references to their own deadness. Some of what he says is specific to Taoism, rather than general to all religions. Abrahamic religions are particularly different, because each of them cites specific supposedly historical figures as personally instructed by God with a religious pronouncement. The Tao is far less concrete than the pronouncement that Adam, Moses, Jesus or Mohammad has been given a message. Lao Tse recounted his understanding of the world, rather than claiming a revelation. Moses, Jesus and Muhammad either spoke for God, were so insane as to think they did, were con men, or never existed. Saying what you think is a very fluid thing, while claiming to speak for God presents more extreme possibilities: Truth/Insanity/Lie.
    I have no idea which, if any, religion is true – but can’t see them all being interchangeable. For some religious doctrines to be true, others must be denied. The person of Jesus is a good example: To a Jew, he was a man making false claims; To a Christian, he was God; To a Muslim, he was a great prophet (but certainly not God) who was misunderstood. No two of these can be believed simultaneously. I won’t try to speak for Judaism, but Christian an Muslim doctrine don’t make their central doctrines optional. Christianity = Jesus is God, and what he says is true. Islam = Mohammad is the greatest prophet of Allah, and what he says is true. My understanding of Judaism is a bit more unclear, but it’s something like this: God has a special relationship with the people of Israel, he has promised that a Messiah will come but has not yet, and neither Jesus not Mohammad is that person, so what they said is “inaccurate,” to be polite.

37. …in peacetime, yes, I might now choose no, but I will always be uneasy. If there’s even a hint it’s gotten loose on the continent, I will be first in line with kids in tow. It’s that deadly, and in a country where there have been no cases in more than 40 years, and no vaccines in more than 35 years, and vaccines that we now think aren’t valid after 10 years, you have the conditions for a plague-type epidemic in a population with no immunity like we haven’t seen since we deliberately infected the Native Americans of both North and South America with the same germ.
    Susan, the good news is that the immunity may last longer than we’d thought. I recall a study that suggested that even those inoculated decades ago had a pretty high likelihood of successfully warding off an attack.
    The bad news is a librarian found an envelope that contained smallpox scabs–why anyone would save this is beyond me–from the civil war, raising the possibility that an epidemic could be triggered by pure chance. Considering that smallpox may well have killed more humans than anything else in history–a reported half billion in the 20th century alone–you have to be nervous.
    Incidentally, the stories about deliberately infecting Native Americans has little basis in historical evidence. There is only one account of it, during the Siege of Fort Pitt which occurred during Pontiac’s rebellion. British officers discussed the idea in letters but there is no proof that they actually carried it out. The story has become so ingrained into legend that most people assume this was a common practice but that does not seem to be the case. Like the tales of sharks that still swim the waters of the Atlantic looking for slave bodies, this seems like a case of taking an already bad situation and trying to make it even worse.
    Thimerosal is mercury. Mercury is a heavy metal that should not be in humans, let alone injected into tiny, defenseless babies.
    No it’s not. That’s like saying that salt is sodium or that salt is chlorine, either of which would kill you if placed on your potato chips. That’s the fun of chemistry, it can make dangerous substances safe once they combine. It may well be that substances other than the various mercury compounds should be used but simply saying mercury is bad, anything that has mercury in it will hurt you the way pure soluble mercury can is incorrect.
    The US ranks around 35th in health care among larger nations of the world, yet spends the most money per person.
    And yet, I’ll bet if you break down the population of the United States you would find that the healthiest people are the ones who are more likely to have mercury amalgam fillings, been vaccinated up the wazzoo, and had easy access to medical drugs, the same drugs that some people are fingering as doing more harm than good. The health problems in the United States don’t seem to be from too much medicine but from those who have access to too little.

38. anyone ever consider these people being jews? The names are jewish…

39. anyone ever consider these people being jews? The names are jewish…

40. anyone ever consider these people being jews? The names are jewish…

41. anyone ever consider these people being jews? The names are jewish…

42. anyone ever consider these people being jews? The names are jewish…

43. anyone ever consider these people being jews? The names are jewish…

44. No, they’re Christians…just not terribly smart ones. At least, they are Christian in religion, I have no idea what their ethnic heritage might be but that’s hardly relevant.
    You can keep up with this case at http://www.religionnewsblog.com/category/madeline-neumann/ where I found out that the other 3 kids are now out of the home living with relatives, the mother reports that she routinely has visions, and they frequented a site that blames doctors for sicknesses. I guess what makes me nervous about some of the anti-vaccine sites is that they don’t seem too terribly far removed from this kind of thing. Less religious claims, of course, but still way too much reliance on anecdotes and too little on research.
    I don’t mean to denegrate anyone who has posted here–it takes guts to do that knowing you are in the minority–but I have to ask; if you put so much weight on the unsubstantiated claims of someone who says their kid suddenly turned autistic right after a shot why not put similar weight on the (probably far greater) number of stories of miraculous healing after prayer?

45. “unsubstantiated claims”
    Agreed to this extent. 100 claims mean nothing. 1000 might indicate a trend. Thousands upon thousands of claims every year means something.

46. Thousands upon thousands of claims every year means something.
    Out of tens of millions of vaccinations every year? I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Alan.
    As an analogy: I’d wager that at least 75% of the adult population of the U.S. can think of a time when the phone rang and it was someone they’d just been thinking about calling. Is that evidence of some sort of low-level telepathy, or is it that people remember those occurrences and don’t stop to think about the dozen times per week that the phone rings and it’s NOT someone they were just thinking about calling?
    Humans are great at seeing patterns — it’s one of our strengths as a species, and also one of our weaknesses.
    TWL

47. Alan Coil: Agreed to this extent. 100 claims mean nothing. 1000 might indicate a trend. Thousands upon thousands of claims every year means something.
    Luigi Novi: Yes. It means that thousands of people can create anecdotes. But it doesn’t mean it’s empirically valid. Outside of proper controls, such anecdotes and assertions, no matter how numerous, are not scientifically reliable. If they were, how many other ideas that thousands, even millions of people believe in, but which you yourself do not, Alan, would be afforded this greater credibility you suggest?

48. Another factor in the vaccine scare is blame. Autism isn’t obvious when a kid is first born. The effects start becoming apparent around the time that kids start getting vaccinations. That makes it an obvious scapegoat for parents wondering why this happened to their kid.
    Meanwhile, certain diseases are on the rise because people keep repeating the unfounded rumors that vaccinations are dangerous. Good job, thousands and thousands of people, you just killed a baby with hepatitis.

49. The second commandment invalidates divine representation. And the opening line of the Tao te Ching — which has overlapping values with, and is highly influential on Buddhism — is that the way that can be spoken is not the true way. Religions have at their core meta-references to their own deadness.

    I must disagree with Mike that ALL religions have at their core meta-references to their own deadness.

    There’s no defense against you attributing things to me I never said. While I personally consider religions without meta-references to their own deadness inadequate to portray reality — just as I would personally consider a language ill-equipped to say that words are not the things they represent inadequate — I literally didn’t challenge anyone’s account of their own religious experience, which is what the absolute statement you’ve fabricated and attributed to me would have done. What I said is true for me, and true literally.

    If Jesus was not who he said he was, he wasn’t a nice fellow with a good philosophy, but either a liar or a lunatic. If Buddha was not enlightened, but said he was, he was a liar.

    Jesus left no documented personal account, all accounts of Jesus are hearsay, and believing the Buddha’s claim of enlightenment requires no suspension of disbelief because it wasn’t a supernatural claim.

50. …if you put so much weight on the unsubstantiated claims of someone who says their kid suddenly turned autistic right after a shot why not put similar weight on the (probably far greater) number of stories of miraculous healing after prayer?

    Who’s refusing a miracle?

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