Lauer, and Stephanopoulos Adopt Skeptic Community/Science Media's Failing Tactics

January 26, 2011

" Pharma Co and their emissaries have launched an extended (and what

appears to be a) last ditch effort to bury the vaccine/autism story since

the beginning of the year. Two books on how vaccine safety advocates are

both ignorant and a threat to society, and an attempt to once again make

Wakefield a scape goat and sacrifice him at the alter of the

vaccine program. And, of course, various and sundry supporting

pieces hither and yon from the usual players.... "

http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/01/lauer-cooper-and-stephanopoulos-adopt-skeptic-communityscience-medias-failing-tactics.html

Lauer, and Stephanopoulos Adopt Skeptic Community/Science Media's

Failing Tactics

Managing Editor's Note: Below is an excerpt from Ginger 's

Adventures in

Autism.

A year and a half ago, my patience ran out with those in this debate

pretending to be earnest seekers of truth, but whose words and actions

revealed them to be closed and biased. I published an extensive piece

detailing the problems I saw in the Skeptic movement (which I really now

see as just the Contrarian movement, as they don't seem to be skeptical

of some assertions that someone from Missouri would demand proof of, but

merely oppose anything our community says no matter how reasonable) and

in " science writers " who act as mere functionaries of Pharma

and their friends/sometime employees in public health. It was

entitled:

Mooney, Sheril Kirshenbaum, Lori Kozlowski, Rosie Mestel,

Maugh, Gorski, Virginia , Science Journalists, The Dying of

the LA Times and an Angry Autism Mom*

It details my earnest attempts to get through to these skeptics/science

journalists, and an effort to point out that they are shooting themselves

in the foot with their actions, and that our children are collateral

damage in their efforts. Long story short... they are some pretty

myopic people and not open to self-evaluation, so their tactics continue

to loose them the vaccine/autism wars.

(*After I posted the piece, Dr. " Orac " Gorski sent me a

flattering email saying he had actually always respected me and asked me

to remove the piece. When I declined, he let the insults fly again. So...

not the most honest and straightforward guy.

A few months later, we learned that Gorski has spent the last several

years

developing a drug for vaccine maker

Sanofi, which he had some how forgotten to mention in his hundreds of

posts about these issues, so I do feel a bit the sucker for approaching

him as if he was actually a somewhat disinterested party in this debate.

Had I known I would not have wasted so many hours trying to have a real

discussion with him, but live and learn I guess.)

I hope you will take the time to read it, especially if you are someone

who believes the media on this issue and super especially if you

are Matt Lauer, Coooper, Stephanopolous or any other

major news personality who has been handed a press release labeled

" News " that was likely drafted in a Pharma conference room and

told to get really angry at some guy named Wakefield.

Pharma Co and their emissaries have launched an extended (and what

appears to be a) last ditch effort to bury the vaccine/autism story since

the beginning of the year. Two books on how vaccine safety advocates are

both ignorant and a threat to society, and an attempt to once again make

Wakefield a scape goat and sacrifice him at the alter of the

vaccine program. And, of course, various and sundry supporting

pieces hither and yon from the usual players....

Read the full post

HERE.

http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2011/01/matt-lauer-anderson-cooper-and-george.html

Also posting the rest of the post below (Sheri)

This is, of course, just more of the same transparent " killing the

messenger " tactic that has been losing them the vaccine/autism wars

for the last ten years. But since their only other choice is to admit

there are problems in the vaccine program and address them, no doubt

costing them billions of dollars and landing a few of them in jail, they

have decided to die with their boots on while taking a few doctors, lots

of parents and untold thousands of innocent children down with them. It

is pretty clear that the vaccine bubble is now deflating, but they are

pumping with all their might, influence and dollars to keep that thing

inflated. They seem to be telling themselves... " there are just two

big holes in this... Wakefield and McCarthy. If we can convince the

public that Wakefield is a crook and use the " Nuts and Sluts "

defense against McCarthy, we can plug them and our bubble can grow with

no end in site!! "

Yet they are astonished that bubble is still deflating.

Because they have incorrectly diagnosed the bubble's aliments. The

hundreds of thousands of pin holes in it. The epidemic of autism, add,

asthma, diabetes, allergies, developmental disability and delay... and

all those other neurological and autoimmune disorders running rampant in

our children. And the millions of people who are seeing it happen to

children they love... seeing how it points back to the vaccine program

and other toxic injuries... coming to ask all those unanswered questions

and discovering all those unsupportable safety claims.... and knowing

that whether or not some doctor they never heard of in the UK is or is

not a big fat liar, has nothing to do with their concerns. Nor do

McCarthy's boobs.

But still PharmaKorp trudges on in their ineffectiveness.

But now they are working to enlist some high profile media types to adopt

their attack dog tactics, and the little backfires that they have been

experiencing in the vaccine safety debate circles are now becoming big

backfires on a national level.

Last year before Wakefield's book " Callous Disregard " came out,

PharmaKorp launched an out of the blue attack on him, and Matt Lauer was

awful to him on the Today show. Rather than having the intended result of

finishing off Wakefield (because yanking his license four months

earlier during his previous public execution had not quite done the job),

the assault put Wakefield's book on the Amazon top ten list and Lauer's

popularity took a hit. The autism and vaccine safety communities were

angry at the unfairness of his interview, and the wider public saw the

assault on Wakefield as unprofessional and their suspicions were raised

(and they clicked on Amazon). The tongue in cheek " Land of the

Lost " tribute facebook group called,

"

Matt Lauer Can Suck It " was even taken over by people upset with

Lauer about the interview, who proceeded to tell Matt Lauer that he could

actually " Suck It " .

Yet despite how badly these tactics bomb... over and over and over...

THEY still just up the ante? Why?

Now they have dragged and Stephanopulos into it. I

am curious as to how they pull this off. I assumed that after the

Snydermand/Matt Lauer tiff where she got mad at him for insisting

that vaccines were still contriversal, that she brought down heat on

Lauer at NBC and he was told to put the screws to Wakefield. After all,

Lauer's ex wife is the mother of a child with autism who believes that

vaccines and gut issues are a factor, and it is rumored that Lauer and

his current wife selectively vaccinated their own children. Add in NBC/GE

ownership of large medical corporations and you can see how that

happens.

But what were the conversations that had to take place with and

Stephanopulos to make them behave like jerks and go hard on Wakefield?

Who is the person that talked to them to get them all hyped up? That kind

of aggression and " combativeness " , as Stephanopoulos admitted

to engaging in, doesn't just come from no where. What were they told, and

by who, that would make them stick their necks out this far on a story

that they don't even follow?

When Shephard got pissed at the Bush administration for stranding

thousands of people in a sinking New Orleans, he was not sticking his

neck out or making assumptions or taking the word of someone in another

country that people in need were being neglected to their detriment. He

was standing in the middle of them, filming an abandoned dead body. He

had all the facts and knew he had the high ground. Anger

justified.

But Lauer, and Stephanopoulos? They don't actually know jack. So

how exactly were they tricked into making asses of themselves and losing

the trust of some of their regular viewiers?

And why? At this point, every journalist who actually has a career to

care about (not talking about writers with no serious credentials like

Trine Tsouderos or Seth Mnookin who are brought into to write hit pieces

that elevate their profile) must know that the public is taking this

issue very, very seriously. Even if they think that there is nothing to

the vaccine/autism debate, don't they wonder why despite all the stories

that they see coming across their desk declaring the debate over... that

it only grows? Does the last guy to do it even take a look at the outcome

of the previous guys to do it? Did Stephanopoulos even check reaction to

's interview to see how badly it went over? And if so, did he care

that his

went over even worse?

So the point of this whole piece that I am writing is to, once again,

with feeling, declare to the Pharma stragetists and media heads out there

who are attacking our community in order to defend their over-zealous,

under tested and destructive vaccine program and its profits...

IT DOESN'T WORK!

It has never worked! It didn't work when you started it in the

blogesphere, it didn't work in local news, it doesn't work in the

national news.

It didn't work when Skeptico did it.

It didn't work when Orac did it.

It didn't work when Mooney did it.

It didn't work when Sheril Kirshenbaum did it.

It didn't work when Lori Kozlowski did it.

It didn't work when Virginia did it.

It didn't work when Maugh did it.

It didn't work when Trine Tsouderos did it.

It didn't work when Gardier did it.

It didn't work when Snyderman did it.

It has never worked when Offit does it, as his new book, " Deadly

Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, " is

currently #8,277 on Amazon's best seller list.

And it is not working as Seth Mnookin is trying his hand at the same

failing tactics that all his predecessors have failed with. His book

kicking the vaccine safety community didn't break the #1000 mark and

continues to slide.

And you guys have been hyping the hell out of those two books!

It didn't work when Lauer did it.

It didn't work when Stephaholopoulos did it.

It didn't even work when and his

" national

treasure " baby blues did it.

So....

Whose up next? What media name will Pharma Co. forward scouts turn to

next to expose the vicious murders that are vaccine safety advocates and

parents of sick and dying children?

Or is the Old Stream Media taking note that doing Pharma Co's dirty work

is only further hobbling their struggling industry by further eroding

public trust in their reporting? Nah... probably not.

And what is the next story? A few months from now when this media

push falls flat, parents are purchasing even fewer vaccines and

Wakefield is still booking speaking engagements and publising, will he

fail to return home from work one evening only to be

" discovered " three days later, unconscious in a Mexican hotel

room filled with cocaine and under aged prostitutes, by a vacationing

Deer who is coincidently on holiday in Cancun? Exactly how far do

they plan on trying to get this Wakefield story to stretch?

Pharma Co, with all their in depth market strategery has to know that

this tac is not working on the public and is only losing the public trust

in vaccines. So have they just decided that the masses may be lost, but

at least they can keep doctors and researchers from questioning the party

line publicly by creating a hostile environment through the media crush?

That is not working too well either, but I think that might be the last

line that Pharma Co. is trying to hold in this war. Eventually docs get

pissed at being told what to do and what to think, so we will see how

long that one holds out.

Pharma... Deer (with your allusions to Wakefield's severed hand

crawling across the floor)... the reason Wakefield won't die is that...

please pay attention... that there are no real bullets in your

gun. You guys are just flicking pebbles at him. The guy published a

paper that says children with autism sometimes have serious GI issues and

that sometimes they both come on after MMR. This is hard to discredit as

it is also the active policy of the Federal Government of the United

States of America. CDC tells their docs to screen for GI issues upon

suspecting an autism diagnosis, because gastrointestinal distress IS

associated with autism. HHS lists the symptoms of autism as a reaction to

the MMR and DTaP vaccines on their

web site,

and they have paid many children for

MMR induced autism.

So you need to understand... if tomorrow you publish video of

Wakefield robbing a 7-11 with an AK-47 and taking a crippled 8 year old

girl as a hostage, while McCarthy drives the get away car... it is

not going to solve your vaccine sales problem. Because the vaccine

program is the problem. The people talking about the problems in the

vaccine program are not the problem. Trying to shut them up or shut them

down is not working.

McCarthy and Wakefield did not kill

Elias Tembenis. The DTaP vaccine did.

Any route Pharma Co takes ends badly for them. The vaccine bubble is

over. It is not bursting all at once, but as soon as SCOTUS renders their

Bruesewitz decision, bubble starts deflating in earnest. Because

either the law suits will start flying fast and furious, or the public

will finally understand that if they have a vaccine injury, they are on

their own.

Happy pumping Pharma.

Update: See... doesn't work.

Bloomberg Businessweek:

Nearly Half of Americans Still Suspect Vaccine-Autism Link

18% don't trust measles-mumps-rubella shot, and 30% are undecided,

Interactive/HealthDay poll finds

By

Gardner

Just a slim majority of Americans -- 52 percent -- think vaccines

don't cause autism, a new Interactive/HealthDay poll

found.

Conversely, 18 percent are convinced that vaccines, like the

measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, can cause the disorder, and another

30 percent aren't sure.

The poll was conducted last week, following news reports that said

the lead researcher of a controversial 1998 study linking autism to the

MMR vaccine had used fraudulent research to come to his

conclusion.

The poll also found that parents who have lingering doubts about the

vaccine were less likely to say that their children were fully vaccinated

(86 percent), compared to 98 percent of parents who believe in the safety

of vaccines.

Still, the percentage of fully vaccinated children remains high, at

92 percent, the poll found.

" This sounds like a cup half-empty/cup half-full story, "

said Humphrey , chairman of The Poll. He noted that while

the number of people who believe in a connection between vaccines and

autism is " only 18 percent, " that nonetheless translates to

" millions and millions and millions of people, and it's clear that

in some cases that has led them to not vaccinate their

children. "

Vaccine safety has been a major concern for many parents since the

publication of the 1998 study, led by now disgraced British doctor

Wakefield, which concluded that the MMR vaccine caused autism. The

journal that originally published the study, The Lancet, has since

retracted the paper and Wakefield was recently barred from practicing

medicine in Britain.

In recent weeks, another leading British medical journal, BMJ, has

published a series of articles purporting to expose deliberate fraud by

Wakefield in his handling of the research that served as the basis for

the 1998 study.

In the new Interactive/HealthDay poll, 69 percent of

respondents said they had heard about the theory that some vaccinations

can cause autism.

But only half (47 percent) knew that the original Lancet study by

Wakefield and other researchers had been retracted, and that some of that

research is now alleged to be fraudulent.

" Forty-seven percent is a huge number and this is a relatively

new thing [allegations of fraud], so it's remarkable that they have heard

of it. But that still means that half the population has not, "

said.

Still, the retraction and allegations of fraud do seem to have

influenced public perception. Among those who had been following the news

about Wakefield, only 35 percent believed the vaccine-autism theory,

compared to 65 percent who had not kept up to date on the latest

developments.

" There seems to be reasonable support for vaccination and I

think this will increase with the revelation that a lot of this stuff was

based on fraud or bad science, " said Dr. Bromberg, chairman

of pediatrics and director of the Vaccine Research Center at the Brooklyn

Hospital Center in New York City.

Overall, 69 percent of adults polled agreed that schools should

require vaccinations -- including, interestingly, 52 percent of those who

believe that autism might be connected to vaccinations.

Sixteen percent of all adults surveyed said they knew of at least one

family whose children had not received all recommended vaccines due to

concerns about autism. One-quarter of those who believed the

vaccine-autism theory said they knew at least one family that had not

fully vaccinated their children.

Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine

Information Center, which supports more research into the safety of

vaccinations, said autism is just one concern linked to

vaccines.

" Parents have legitimate questions about vaccine risks and want

better vaccine science to define those risks for their own child, "

she said. " This concern long predated the debate about vaccines and

autism. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was passed by

Congress, in part, to address those concerns but has not done the

job.

" The poll points out the urgent need for a renewed effort

to conduct new vaccine safety studies that are methodologically sound and

free from real or perceived conflicts of interest, " Fisher added,

" or a significant portion of the public will continue to question

the conclusions. "

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an

estimated one in 110 children in the United States has an autism spectrum

disorder, part of a group of developmental disabilities that can cause

significant social, communication and behavioral challenges.

The Interactive/HealthDay poll was conducted online within the

United States from Jan. 11-13, and included 2,026 adults over the age of

18. Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household

income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their

actual proportions in the population.

More information

Read more about the poll methodology and findings at

Interactive.

Posted by Ginger at

Friday, January 21, 2011

Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian

Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Washington State, USA

Vaccines -

http://vaccinationdangers.wordpress.com/ Homeopathy

http://homeopathycures.wordpress.com

Vaccine Dangers, Childhood Disease Classes & Homeopathy

Online/email courses - next classes start February 4

January 26, 2011