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Originally Posted by peacegirl
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Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin
Well now, there's a spirited defense! "Yeah, the statements are false. All right, they're mostly false. Hell, they're almost totally false. However, they're not completely false so give the guy a break!"
Yes, they are indeed completely false. O'Shea wrote that "There's no blood-brain barrier in infants." Not "the blood-brain barrier isn't fully developed until X," not "the blood-brain barrier is more permeable until X," but instead the blood-brain barrier doesn't exist at all in infants.
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I think the following statement comes close to what he meant to say when he said the BBB doesn't exist. |
You're trying to defend the indefensible with made-up
ad hoc rationalizations. The only evidence we have of what O'Shea meant was what he wrote,
i.e., "There's no blood-brain barrier in infants." That's a false statement, plain and simple.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
I don't believe he was wrong when saying this, especially when it comes to the purpose of his statement which is that metal ions can get into an infant's brain.
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What you believe is bereft of consequence. He wrote that "There's no blood-brain barrier in infants," which is wrong as a simple matter of fact.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
If this is true you are splitting hairs.
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Pointing out that the statement "There's no blood-brain barrier in infants" is false does not qualify as "splitting hairs" under any meaningful understanding of that term.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
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Anything posted on Whale.to is inherently unreliable. Remember, you're citing as authoritative people who think
Protocols of the Elders of Zion is for real.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
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Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin
O'Shea also wrote that "Infants don't produce bile." Not that "infants have a poor biliary excretion of mercury" but rather that infants don't produce bile [U]at all. Both claims, as O'Shea presented them, are 100% false. Infants do in fact have a blood-brain barrier. Infants do in fact produce bile. Not even the whale.to crazies cited in your response say otherwise.
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You are catching him on a technicality. The excretion rate of mercury is much slower than adults. That means that an infant's biliary system for all intents and purposes does not work well, and could contribute to thimerosal poisoning. |
O'Shea wrote that "Infants don't produce bile," period. he did not qualify the statement in any way, shape or form. The undisputed fact that the statement is false is not a mere technicality.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
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Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin
Take Ranger Mike, for instance. He's a birther, a 9/11 troofer, a Sandy Hook denier, etc. The pig farmer who runs whale.to believes in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and a barrelful of other loonery. In an sane wold, such people wouldn't get the time of day from anyone. However, this is not a sane world. There's a huge market for fear mongering and other forms of irrationality, and clowns like these are more than happy to serve as suppliers.
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But you're entire argument hinges on anything but the facts.
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Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin
It's not an argument; it's an approach, and it's served me quite well.
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I don't see how it has served you well if your goal is to be unbiased. |
My goal was to develop an approach to use in determining which claims warrant further investigation, given the virtually infinite number of claims out there and the very limited investigation time. The approach I use works extraordinarily well in that respect.
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Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin
I don't know anything about Mike Adams other than what I have read on his website.
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The odious nutjobbery I was talking about is all posted on his website. It ain't like he's ashamed of it or anything.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
But what if your metholodogy is wrong?
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As previously mentioned, it's an approach and it works very well.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
What if you first read what a person has to say before condemning him by searching out the gossip. Maybe in so doing you would find a mountain of truth atop a "nugget or two of shit".  |
Possible, but so exceeding improbable as to render the effort unjustifiable.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
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Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin
Oh man, don't get me started. My loathing of the FDA knows no bounds. |
Yes, get started. Prove to me that you don't side with the FDA. |
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Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin
And I'm obliged to provide this proof because ... ?
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Because it would help me to know where your allegiance lies.  |
Oh, all right.
Much like federal regulation of the scuzzball financial/lending industry, regulation of the drug and medical device industries is all too often illusory. Most of the time, the FDA serves as little more than the bought-and-paid-for toadies of the very industries it's supposed to regulate. That, of course, is bad news for drug and medical device safety.
The surest way to make drug and device manufacturers stand up and take notice is very large adverse money judgments in civil lawsuits. In that regard, however, Congress, the FDA and the federal courts combine to set preemption, procedural and substantive law hurdles so high that few can clear them. Again, it's all about protecting the status quo.
So yeah, fuck the FDA.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
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Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin
The guy's making overblown claims directed to frightened and grieving parents, and supporting them with patent falsehoods. That's contemptible. It warrants all the written derision we can send his way, and maybe a whole lot more. I'm certainly not going to hunt O'Shea down, drag him from his house into the street, and beat him with a baseball bat until he shits himself, but I wouldn't shed any tears if someone else did.
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You're being too hard on him. |
Nope, not at all.
However, I'll retract the "dumbass" allegation and substitute "liar." O'Shea's had sufficient training in human anatomy that the only reasonable supposition is that he had actual knowledge his statements about infants, the blood-brain barrier and bile production were false. Despite that knowledge, he made the statements anyway. Again, that's contemptible.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
There is a nugget of truth to these two statements, even though they were exaggerated.
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No, that's incorrect. The statements "There's no blood-brain barrier in infants" and "Infants don't produce bile" are entirely false. Your eagerness to defend O'Shea's false statements by positing meanings not even remotely suggested by the words he used doesn't bode well for your credibility.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
The anti-vaxers are drawing in more and more adherents. Are you going to beat them all (figuratively) with baseball bats, or are you going to take time to see why this issue is not going away?
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I already know why the issue isn't going away.
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
Your dogs are very sweet. Yes, we're both kindred spirits in this regard. My dogs come first. If they weren't well taken care of, I wouldn't be able to have a good time. |
Yep, few things improve quality of life as much as sharing your home with a good dog or three. Got any photos of yours?