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

As anti-vaccine folks get more attention because of the rise in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease, in addition to more folks getting vaccinated, we are seeing some of the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement get more vocal.

Are measles outbreaks a sign that the anti-vaccine movement is “winning?”

Meetings, dinners, rallies…

They are doing everything they can to get their misinformation and propaganda out so that you don’t vaccinate and protect your kids.

Ask 8 Questions Before You Skip a Vaccine

If you see any of these folks, ask them a few questions…

1. If Andrew Wakefield was right, and the MMR vaccine is associated with autism, then why are you worried about thimerosal? The MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal…
2. If Robert F. Kennedy, Jr is right, and it is all about thimerosal, then why are you worried about the MMR vaccine? The MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal…
3. If you are worried about thimerosal and aluminum, then why are you worried about the MMR vaccine? Not only has it never contained thimerosal, as a live vaccine, but it has also never contained aluminum.
4. If vaccines are associated with autism, then why don’t the counties with the highest immunization rates have the highest rates of autism?
5. If better hygiene and sanitation got rid of vaccine-preventable diseases, then why didn’t it do it for all diseases at the same time? And why hasn’t it gotten rid of RSV, Ebola, Zika, HIV, Norovirus, and all of the diseases that we don’t have vaccines for?
6. If measles is so mild, then during the measles epidemics from 1989 to 1991 in the United States, why were 11,000 people hospitalized and why did 123 people die?
7. If you are concerned about vaccines that have a distant association with abortion, then why don’t you vaccinate your kids with all of the vaccines that don’t use WI-38 and MRC-5 cells lines?
8. If your arguments are so solid, then why do you need to keep moving the goalposts (it’s autoimmune diseases they are worried about now, not autism) and why are they so easy to refute (vaccines aren’t associated with autoimmune diseases either)?

The answers will be predictable.

They will revolve around three basic core beliefs of the anti-vaccine movement.

• The belief that vaccines are toxic, full of poison, and always cause damage and injuries.
• The belief that vaccine-preventable diseases are mild and you are better off getting natural immunity.
• The belief that vaccines don’t even work.

Is that what you believe?

Will you let those kinds of beliefs scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids?

Are you going to put our kids at risk because you believe those things?

Are you really making an informed choice to skip or delay a vaccine when all of the scary things that people are telling you about vaccines aren’t even true?

More on Questions to Ask Before You Skip a Vaccine

• VAXOPEDIA – Anti-Vaxxers Should Be Able to Answer These Questions Correctly
• 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 – Answers to Anti-Vaccine Talking Points
• VAXOPEDIA – 50 Ways to Get Educated About Vaccines
• VAXOPEDIA – Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times

So Google will have a copy of your user name and this system will never be hacked or compromised – ROTFLMAO! Posted by Jennifer Pullman, Kurt Thomas, and Elie Bursztein, Security and Anti-abuse research

Google helps keep your account safe from hijacking with a defense in depth strategy that spans prevention, detection, and mitigation. As part of this, we regularly reset the passwords of Google accounts affected by third-party data breaches in the event of password reuse. This strategy has helped us protect over 110 million users in the last two years alone. Without these safety measures, users would be at ten times the risk of account hijacking.

We want to help you stay safe not just on Google, but elsewhere on the web as well. This is where the new Password Checkup Chrome extension can help. Whenever you sign in to a site, Password Checkup will trigger a warning if the username and password you use is one of over 4 billion credentials that Google knows to be unsafe.

Password Checkup was designed jointly with cryptography experts at Stanford University to ensure that Google never learns your username or password, and that any breach data stays safe from wider exposure. Since Password Checkup is an early experiment, we’re sharing the technical details behind our privacy preserving protocol to be transparent about how we keep your data secure.

Key design principles

We designed Password Checkup with three key principles in mind:

• Alerts are actionable, not informational: We believe that an alert should provide concise and accurate security advice. For an unsafe account, that means resetting your password. While it’s possible for data breaches to expose other personal data such as a phone number or mailing address, there’s no straightforward next step to re-securing that data. That’s why we focus only on warning you about unsafe usernames and passwords.

• Privacy is at the heart of our design: Your usernames and passwords are incredibly sensitive. We designed Password Checkup with privacy-preserving technologies to never reveal this personal information to Google. We also designed Password Checkup to prevent an attacker from abusing Password Checkup to reveal unsafe usernames and passwords. Finally, all statistics reported by the extension are anonymous. These metrics include the number of lookups that surface an unsafe credential, whether an alert leads to a password change, and the web domain involved for improving site compatibility.

• Advice that avoids fatigue: We designed Password Checkup to only alert you when all of the information necessary to access your account has fallen into the hands of an attacker. We won’t bother you about outdated passwords you’ve already reset or merely weak passwords like “123456”. We only generate an alert when both your current username and password appear in a breach, as that poses the greatest risk.

New science uncovers how an unlikely culprit, Porphyromonas gingivalis (Pg) — the bacterium commonly associated with chronic gum disease — appears to drive Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology.

A commonly held belief among the general public is orthodontic treatment will prevent future tooth decay. Research has found that this is not the case.

by O. Rahul Patharkar, Walter Gassmann, John C. Walker

Plants utilize an innate immune system to protect themselves from disease. While many molecular components of plant innate immunity resemble the innate immunity of animals, plants also have evolved a number of truly unique defense mechanisms, particularly at the physiological level. Plant’s flexible developmental program allows them the unique ability to simply produce new organs as needed, affording them the ability to replace damaged organs. Here we develop a system to study pathogen-triggered leaf abscission in Arabidopsis. Cauline leaves infected with the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae abscise as part of the defense mechanism. Pseudomonas syringae lacking a functional type III secretion system fail to elicit an abscission response, suggesting that the abscission response is a novel form of immunity triggered by effectors. HAESA/HAESA-like 2, INFLORESCENCE DEFICIENT IN ABSCISSION, and NEVERSHED are all required for pathogen-triggered abscission to occur. Additionally phytoalexin deficient 4, enhanced disease susceptibility 1, salicylic acid induction-deficient 2, and senescence-associated gene 101 plants with mutations in genes necessary for bacterial defense and salicylic acid signaling, and NahG transgenic plants with low levels of salicylic acid fail to abscise cauline leaves normally. Bacteria that physically contact abscission zones trigger a strong abscission response; however, long-distance signals are also sent from distal infected tissue to the abscission zone, alerting the abscission zone of looming danger. We propose a threshold model regulating cauline leaf defense where minor infections are handled by limiting bacterial growth, but when an infection is deemed out of control, cauline leaves are shed. Together with previous results, our findings suggest that salicylic acid may regulate both pathogen- and drought-triggered leaf abscission.