Shame/Sham on Twitter
AI startup Dataminr helped law enforcement surveil the ongoing protests against police violence by analyzing tweets about the demonstrations, the Intercept reports. The company accessed the data through Twitter‘s “firehouse,” a real-time stream of all tweets on the platform that’s rarely provided to tech firms. The alerts were sourced from both news reporters and bystanders watching or attending the rallies. According to internal documents reviewed by the Intercept, Dataminr also kept records of upcoming protests to help staff prepare their monitoring plans. Twitter prohibits the use of its data and APIs for surveillance, but it appears that Dataminr has exploited a semantic loophole…

This story continues at The Next Web

If you have a blog on Google‘s Blogger site in India, you might want to check it. Millions of blog pages are inaccessible at the moment as Google seems to have lost control of “blogspot.in” URLs. To be clear, the blogs are still online, and you can access them by changing ‘blogspot.in‘ to ‘blogspot.com‘ in the URL — currently, your browser won’t be automatically redirected to the working URL. Running a WHOIS query for the URL reveals Google no longer owns the domain. We’ve contacted the National Internet Exchange of India, which controls the “.in” registry for comment, and will update…

This story continues at The Next Web

Or just read more coverage about: Google

Why do some folks think that the 2019 novel coronavirus is a man, made patented virus that is being spread to push a mandatory vaccination program?

Robert F Kennedy, Jr leads Children’s Health Defense…

Yup, the usual suspects.

Anti-Vax Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories

As you are likely aware, the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was first identified in the city of Wuhan, China. It has since spread outside Wuhan, including at least one case in the United States.

Why is this a concern?

Some of the other human coronaviruses that have been recently discovered cause severe disease, including MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV.

So what’s the new conspiracy theory?

A patent for a poultry vaccine is not evidence for a conspiracy theory about the 2019 novel coronavirus.

That someone attenuated a coronavirus (weakened it) to use it in a vaccine and that this attenuated coronavirus somehow became the 2019 novel coronavirus that started the outbreak in Wuhan, China.

How do we know that this isn’t true?

“Preliminary analysis showed that the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) clusters with the SARS-related CoV clade and differs from the core genome of known bat CoV.”

Cluster of pneumonia cases caused by a novel coronavirus, Wuhan, China

For one thing, it isn’t the same virus that is described in the patent!

Folks should also know that animal vaccines for coronaviruses aren’t new. Why didn’t any of them revert and cause outbreaks?

“In the early 1950s, the first IB vaccine was developed in the USA using the van Roekel M41 (Mass) strain.”

Cook et al on The long view: 40 years of infectious bronchitis research

What about the idea that we will soon be getting a new Chinese coronavirus vaccine?

Here’s how the game is played. It is all about conspiracy theories with these folks…

Several biotech companies have already said that they will be working on a 2019-nCoV vaccine, but it is important to note that despite years and years of work, we still don’t have vaccines for MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV.

SARS-CoV has been around since 2002…

While development of a quick 2019-nCoV vaccine will be great if this virus gets out of control, that doesn’t seem to be the way things happen…

Know what else isn’t new?

Anti-vaccine conspiracy theories…

More on Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theories

• Is the Samoan Measles Outbreak Fabricated?
• The Moral Responsibility of the Anti-Vaccine Movement
• What Are the Greatest Tricks Anti-Vaccine Folks Use to Persuade Parents to Skip Vaccines?
• More Questions to Help You Become a Vaccine Skeptic
• The Fatal Flaw in the Anti-Vaccine Movement
• CDC – 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), Wuhan, China
• ECDC – Cluster of pneumonia cases caused by a novel coronavirus, Wuhan, China
• WHO – Q&A on coronaviruses
• Animal Coronaviruses: Lessons for SARS and MERS Human Coronaviruses
• The long view: 40 years of infectious bronchitis research

The post Anti-Vax Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories appeared first on VAXOPEDIA.

In our age of social media, we have gotten used to hearing from the Surgeon General and most everyone else in our government.

The Surgeon General had to address misinformation and propaganda about vaccines nearly 100 years ago.

Folks likely weren’t as used to this back in the early part of the 20th Century.

Surgeon General Letter to All State Health Officers

At the time, because of a return of smallpox, H.S. Cumming wrote this letter:

To all State Health Officers:

The neglect of vaccination in many districts of certain sections of the United States has led to a recrudescence of smallpox, with the corresponding suffering experienced by its victims and a wholly unnecessary sacrifice of human lives in the years 1922 and 1923 amounting to 967 known deaths from smallpox and possibly a number of others which were not reported. During the first six months of 1924 an additional toll of at least 200 human lives has been taken every one of which deaths could have been prevented by vaccination and revaccination.

The increasing number of cases of smallpox and the continued spread of this disease from city to city and from State to State will, if not checked, not only augment the number of victims but may bring about a condition which would seriously interfere with the movements of passengers on trains steamers, automobiles, and other carriers. It is conceivable that this interference might be of a degree that would involve the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in quarantine, a contingency which might easily be avoided provided our people can be induced to protect themselves by vaccination and revaccination.

The Public Health Service is being importuned at the present time to exercise its authority in enforcing interstate quarantine to prevent the migration of the unvaccinated when there is danger that these persons may have been exposed to smallpox.

It is particularly desirable that the Federal Government may not be forced to interfere in interstate travel and it is earnestly hoped that the authorities of all States, counties, municipalities, or other units of government will immediately begin campaigns to secure the vaccination or revaccination of all persons who have not been recently successfully vaccinated particularly in those States where smallpox is prevalent.

Vaccination and revaccination being a perfect protection against smallpox it might be argued that protection against the disease is a matter which should be left to the discretion of the individual, but there is no more reason for leaving the defense against an enemy of the State, such as smallpox is, to the discretion of the individual, than there would be in leaving the defense of the State against an armed invading force to the individual. These enemies are equally dangerous. Furthermore there are a large number of persons who are otherwise good citizens who because of indifference, carelessness, and lack of information, and oftentimes because of having been deceived by false propaganda and deliberate misinformation, either fail or refuse to protect themselves and their trusting but helpless children until it is too late. These same children of misinformed or irresponsible parents being too young to judge for themselves are entitled to the protection of the State and certainly the State is derelict in its duties if it allows such unprotected children to be exposed to smallpox.

Respectfully HS CUMMING Surgeon General

The response to the foregoing letter has been very gratifying. At the same time, much still remains to be done in the way of vaccination and revaccination of our nonimmune population if a recrudescence of this disease is to be forestalled.

Does any of that surprise you?

Talk of “enforcing interstate quarantine?”

People being deceived by “false propaganda and deliberate misinformation?”

Folks skipping vaccines and allowing a vaccine-preventable disease to return?

Unnecessary sacrifice…

Why?

What were they worried about?

It wasn’t autism!

And it couldn’t have been that they were getting too many vaccines…

But they were still led to believe that vaccines were dangerous and they let that misinformation influence them, putting their kids at risk, with tragic results.

One hundred years later, folks shouldn’t still be making these same mistakes.

More on Misinformed and Irresponsible Parents

• The Plano Smallpox Outbreak of 1895
• Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated – Smallpox Edition
• The Leicester Method and Smallpox Eradication
• Is It Rational to Be Anti-Vaccine?
• Ask 8 Questions Before You Skip a Vaccine
• More Questions to Help You Become a Vaccine Skeptic
• Public Health Reports. Vol 39. No. 37. September 12, 1924.

The post How Misinformed and Irresponsible Parents Led to Outbreaks of Smallpox appeared first on VAXOPEDIA.

We are in the middle of the largest measles outbreaks in over 25 years.

Measles cases and deaths are on the rise all over the world.

Much of that rise, especially in the developed world, is because parents believe the misinformation that the vocal anti-vax folks are pushing.

Why Is Lying About Vaccines Not Criminal?

Which has to make you wonder – why is lying about vaccines and scarring parents into skipping or delaying vaccines not criminal?

A sociopath wrote this… Is that the one true statement in Kennedy’s rant?

For example, take the above Instagram post by Robert F Kennedy, Jr.

His claim that the “guidelines stipulate that a child would need to experience anaphylactic shock — a life threatening reaction — to EVERY vaccine-requiring eight near death experiences — to qualify for an exemption” simply isn’t true.

If a child had a severe allergic reaction, anaphylaxis, to a previous dose of any vaccine or to a vaccine component, then they would get an medical exemption to that vaccine. They could also easily get a medical exemption to all other vaccines that used those same components, such as gelatin, eggs, or yeast, etc.

It is silly to think that you would have to have an anaphylactic reaction to each and every vaccine, as Kennedy claims, to get a medical exemption to getting vaccinated.

Did the CDC publish new guidelines in 2019 changing what is considered to be a contraindication, another Kennedy claim?

Mild to moderate local reactions and low-grade or moderate fever were removed as a condition commonly mispercieved as a contraindication or precaution, but that was done last January. There were no big changes recently!

Nope.

And the thing is, these things are incorrectly perceived as contraindications or precautions to vaccination because they are not a problem with vaccination!

You would have to be a sociopath to put kids at risk for a vaccine-preventable disease for no good reason!

For example, why skip the HPV vaccine just because a child is already infection with HPV? Are they infected with all of the strains of HPV that the vaccine protects against? There is no extra risk of cervical cancer from the vaccine if you are already infected, just the fact that you might get cervical cancer because you were already infected before you got protected from the vaccine!

Why is it not homicide to scare someone away from getting vaccinated and protected with a vaccine that prevents cancer by spreading this type of misinformation?

Why is lying about vaccines not criminal?

More on Why Is Lying About Vaccines Not Criminal?

• Why Is RFK, Jr Pimping out the Kennedy Compound to Anti-Vaxxers?
• What Happens If You Get Gardasil and Already Have HPV?
• I’m Not Anti-Vaccine, I Just Don’t Believe in the HPV Vaccine
• What is the risk of anaphylaxis after vaccination in children and adults?
• Autoimmunity as a Contraindication to Getting Vaccinated
• Don’t Skip Your Baby’s Hepatitis B Shot
• Ask 8 Questions Before You Skip a Vaccine
• WHO – Vaccine Anaphylaxis Information
• Adverse reactions to vaccines practice parameter 2012 update
• ACIP – Preventing and Managing Adverse Reactions
• CDC – Possible Side-effects from Vaccines
• RFK Jr.: So antivaccine that even his family calls him out on it
• No, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is NOT a “vaccine skeptic.” He is antivaccine. So is Donald Trump.
• Robert Kennedy’s Dangerous Anti-Vaccine Activism
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his World Mercury Project: Antivaccine, NOT “fiercely pro-vaccine”
• More Anti-Vaccine Nonsense from Trump and Kennedy
• CDC vaccine patents – Robert F Kennedy Jr gets this one wrong too
• Lying About Vaccines
• Mr. Kennedy, if you know the science, why did you claim that the MMR vaccine contains mercury?
• Salon retracts Robert Kennedy’s “Deadly Immunity”
• Why Does Robert F . Kennedy Jr . Get Brain Science So Wrong?
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Still an antivaccine crank after all these years

The post Why Is Lying About Vaccines Not Criminal? appeared first on VAXOPEDIA.

There is no debate. Pigs can’t fly just because you want them to. People who believe pigs can fly, are grifters, people who “feel” everything is out of their control, and deluded, fearful people who think they have found a truth that others want to take away from them.

Need some advice about preparing for a public debate about vaccines?

That’s easy.

“If you are invited for a public discussion you must first decide whether or not to accept the invitation.”

How to respond to vocal vaccine deniers in public

Don’t do it.

Preparing for a Public Debate About Vaccines

Wait, why wouldn’t you want to have a debate about vaccines?

Remember, a good debate implies that there are two valid sides to the issue. Or at least that one side has some arguments that aren’t based on myths and misinformation.

What are you debating?

That vaccines are safe, with few risks, and that they are necessary.

What’s there to debate?

Don’t allow false balance to create a fake debate.

Think about it.

Should Robert F. Kennedy, Jr be given an opportunity to tell folks his opinions about the “perceived dangers” of vaccines, when those perceived dangers include that vaccines are associated with autism, have been untested on pregnant women, are sold by the CDC, and a lot of other conspiracy type stuff?

“They get the shot. That night they have a fever of 103. They go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone. This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.”

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

Remember, Kennedy is the guy who published the retracted Deadly Immunity article. And he continues to focus on the dangers of mercury in vaccines, even though only a very small minority of flu shots still contain thimerosal and studies have shown that the thimerosal that kids have been exposed to in vaccines is not a danger.

He’s an environmental lawyer who continues to focus on vaccines in the age of climate change and as EPA regulations are being rolled back.

Neither Kennedy nor anyone else in the anti-vaccine movement should be given a stage to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

More on Preparing for a Public Debate About Vaccines

• The Modern American Vaccine Debate
• VAXOPEDIA – Anti-Vaxxers Should Be Able to Answer These Questions Correctly
• VAXOPEDIA – Ask 8 Questions Before You Skip a Vaccine
• VAXOPEDIA – False Balance about Vaccines
• VAXOPEDIA – Why Is RFK, Jr Pimping out the Kennedy Compound to Anti-Vaxxers?
• VAXOPEDIA – What Happened to Kennedy’s Vaccination Safety Committee
• VAXOPEDIA – Doing the Math on Kennedy, Vaccines and Mercury
• VAXOPEDIA – Does the CDC Own Any Patents on Vaccines?
• VAXOPEDIA – Did the FDA Admit That the Government Is Recommending Untested, Unlicensed Vaccines for Pregnant Women?
• VAXOPEDIA – Did the US Government Lose a Landmark Vaccine Lawsuit?
• VAXOPEDIA – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Vaccines
• VAXOPEDIA – How Do Anti-Vaccine Folks Think?
• VAXOPEDIA – Dear Anti-Vaxxers,
• VAXOPEDIA – This Is the Modern Anti-Vaccine Movement
• VAXOPEDIA – The Moral Outrage of the Anti-Vaccine Movement
• VAXOPEDIA – Answers To Frequently Asked Questions About Immunizations
• VAXOPEDIA – 100 Myths About Vaccines
• VAXOPEDIA – Making Sense of Anti-Vaccine Arguments
• VAXOPEDIA – What Are the Pro and Con Arguments for Vaccines?
• VAXOPEDIA – Challenging the Concept of Herd Immunity
• VAXOPEDIA – Vaccine Analogies and Metaphors
• VAXOPEDIA – Show Me the Vaccine Insert!
• VAXOPEDIA – Personal Stories About Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
• VAXOPEDIA – The Myth That Measles Isn’t Deadly
• VAXOPEDIA – What Are the Demands and Goals of the Anti-Vaccine Movement?
• VAXOPEDIA – How to Become a Vaccine Advocate
• VAXOPEDIA – Answers to Anti-Vaccine Talking Points
• VAXOPEDIA – 50 Ways to Get Educated About Vaccines
• VAXOPEDIA – Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times
• How to respond to vocal vaccine deniers in public
• Science deniers use false equivalence to create fake debates
• Avoiding False Balance: Vaccines in the Media
• The So-Called Vaccine Debate: False Balance in The San Diego Union-Tribune
• False Balance in the Media
• False balance about vaccines rises from the grave…again
• The effect of falsely balanced reporting of the autism-vaccine controversy on vaccine safety perceptions and behavioral intentions.
• Another Outbreak of ‘False Balance’?
• Jenny McCarthy’s Vaccination Fear-Mongering and the Cult of False Equivalence
• No need to offer ‘false balance’ to anti-vaxxers
• There is no other side to the vaccine debate
• For Our Family, There Is No Debate
• Vaccines cause autism debate – it only exists in the minds of vaccine deniers
• Facts vs. opinions: Beware of false balance in your reporting

The presence of oral bacteria in so-called cystic pancreatic tumours is associated with the severity of the tumour, researchers report. It is hoped that the results can help to improve diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Believe it or not, measles isn’t the only vaccine-preventable disease that is still around.

While you likely aren’t too surprised about the flu deaths and the cases of meningococcal disease, did you know that kids still get Hib, babies still get hepatitis B, and that there were three cases of human rabies and a case of diphtheria in the United States last year?

When Was the Last Case of Diphtheria?

Yes, diphtheria.

That’s despite the fact that the diphtheria vaccine has been around for over 100 years, long before it was combined with the first whole cell pertussis vaccine and the tetanus vaccine to form the DPT vaccine.

A vaccine that helped control respiratory diphtheria, which could lead to the formation of a pseudomembrane in a child’s airway, giving diphtheria the nickname of the “strangling angel.”

The last big outbreaks of diphtheria in the United States occurred in the 1970s, although sporadic cases had continued since, albeit at lower and lower levels each year. Eventually, endemic respiratory diphtheria was declared eliminated in 2009.

Still, we know that there have been some recent cases of diphtheria in the United States.

In April of 2014, a teen from Montgomery County, Ohio developed diphtheria.

And again in April of 2018, someone in Oklahoma developed diphtheria.

Why do we care about a few isolated cases?

Because we know how quickly diphtheria can come back if we stop vaccinating our kids!

Just look at what is happening in many other countries that once had these diseases under good control:

• a 22-year-old unvaccinated women who died in Australia (2011)
• an unvaccinated 3-year-old who died in Belgium (2016)
• a family that became infected in South Africa in which at least one child died (August 2017)
• at least 7 cases of diphtheria in Ukraine (2018)
• an unvaccinated man in Australia who died (2018)
• a case in Canada (2018)
• 8 cases and 3 deaths in Columbia (2018)

Not to mention the large number of diphtheria deaths in Yemen, Venezuela, Haiti, and among Rohingya refugees.

Let’s not bring these diseases back. Vaccines are safe, with few risks, and obviously necessary.

More on the Last Case of Diphtheria

• VAXOPEDIA – Eradicated Diseases
• VAXOPEDIA – Diphtheria in Canada
• VAXOPEDIA – Grave Reminders of Life Before Vaccines
• VAXOPEDIA – When Was the Last Time Someone Died from Being Bitten by a Rabid Dog in the United States?
• VAXOPEDIA – When Was the Last Measles Death in the United States?
• VAXOPEDIA – Milestones Towards the Eradication of Polio
• VAXOPEDIA – Should I Be Worried That My Kids Didn’t Get the Smallpox Vaccine?
• DOH: Increase in diphtheria cases seen in Bicol, Davao regions, Soccksargen, ARMM
• Jakarta to vaccinate 1.9 million children against diphtheria outbreak
• AAP – Diphtheria: A largely forgotten disease because of a vaccine
• AAP – 14 Diseases You Almost Forgot About Thanks to Vaccines
• CDC – What Would Happen If We Stopped Vaccinations
• Ask the Experts about DTP
• 2014 Annual Summary of Infectious Diseases Ohio
• Selected Reportable Diseases, 2018 Oklahoma
• MMWR – Notes from the Field: Respiratory Diphtheria-Like Illness Caused by Toxigenic Corynebacterium ulcerans — Idaho, 2010
• MMWR – Fatal Respiratory Diphtheria in a U.S. Traveler to Haiti — Pennsylvania, 2003
• Study – Respiratory diphtheria in the United States, 1980 through 1995.
• MMWR – Epidemiologic Notes and Reports Fatal Diphtheria — Wisconsin
• Study – Diphtheria in the United States, 1971-81.
• MMWR – Diphtheria Epidemic — New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union, 1990-1994
• MMWR – Diphtheria Outbreak — Russian Federation, 1990-1993

A compound used to make car bumpers strong and protect wood decks could prevent return visits to the dentist’s office. A team of researchers has created a filling material that’s two times more resistant to breakage than standard fillings. The team also has developed an adhesive that’s 30 percent stronger after six months in use than adhesives that are currently used to keep fillings in place.

You may have heard of the Polio Pioneers, the kids who got Jonas Salk‘s original inactivated polio vaccine in 1954.

They were part of a large clinical trial, getting either the polio shot or a saline placebo, and helped prove that the vaccine was safe and effective.

Do You Remember Sabin Sundays?

Of course, that wasn’t the end of the story though.

After the Cutter Incident, Albert Sabin soon proved that his live, oral polio vaccine was better than Salk’s inactivated polio vaccine.

And it was first given in the United States on April 24, 1960 – the first Sabin Sunday, when 20,000 children came to Cincinnati Children’s to receive his sugar cube vaccine.

“On three consecutive Sundays — “Sabin Sundays” — in 1960, millions of families lined up at churches and schools across the country to swallow a spoonful of pink syrup or a sugar cube treated with a life-saving polio vaccine, developed by UC researcher Albert Sabin.”

Sabin Sunday, 1960

Sabin Oral Sunday immunization programs continued over the next few years all over the country as kids got caught up on their polio vaccines.

Can you imagine taking your kids to school to get them vaccinated on a Sunday?

Millions of parents did it!

Newspapers urged folks to attend the Sabin on Sunday clinics to help end the threat of “crippling poliomyelitis.”

They lined up to get their kids vaccinated and protected.

More on Sabin Sundays

• VAXOPEDIA – Milestones Towards the Eradication of Polio
• VAXOPEDIA – Why Do We Still Vaccinate If Polio Has Been Eliminated?
• VAXOPEDIA – What Is the Morbidity/Mortality Rate of the Polio Vaccine vs the Wild Virus
• VAXOPEDIA – Myths About Polio and Acute Flaccid Paralysis
• VAXOPEDIA – Polio Survivor Stories
• VAXOPEDIA – How Quickly Can You Debunk Anti-Vaccine Propaganda?
• VAXOPEDIA – Is the Polio Vaccine Linked to Outbreaks of Hand Foot Mouth Disease
• VAXOPEDIA – Is There a DDT-Polio Connection?
• VAXOPEDIA – John Salamone and the Oral Polio Vaccine
• VAXOPEDIA – Did Modern Ventilators Replace the Iron Lung for Folks with Polio?
• VAXOPEDIA – Why Are the DPT and OPV Vaccines Still Used in Some Countries?
• Remembering Sabin Sunday
• The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: Sabin Sundays
• Sunday Advertiser Polio Message Cruiser
• Sabin Sunday, 1960
• Sabin Oral Polio Vaccine Brochure