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Roald Dahl’s Message to Anti-vaccination Groups
“Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ I asked her.
‘I feel all sleepy,’ she said.
In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.
The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was…in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunised against measles.
…I dedicated two of my books to Olivia, the first was ‘James and the Giant Peach’. That was when she was still alive. The second was ‘The BFG’, dedicated to her memory after she had died from measles. You will see her name at the beginning of each of these books. And I know how happy she would be if only she could know that her death had helped to save a good deal of illness and death among other children.”
– Roald Dahl, 1986
Published in General
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The JAMA study showed that elderly people died from the flu vaccine, or that they died after receiving the flu vaccine? Big difference.
Is there a big difference in that case?
The vaccine itself doesn’t have to be “toxic” in order for it to result in other complications that bring death. Just “overloading” the immune system would do it.
Mostly, if you have consistency across age groups, co-morbidities, etc, and the people who got the vaccine die as a much greater share than those who didn’t… well, what would your explanation be?
Did Carol cite the JAMA study or an article about the JAMA study? Because, while I like Sharyl Attkisson (and I’ve even heard her speak live and in-person), I wasn’t aware she’s a science reporter. And even if she was, the state of science reporting in this country is abysmal.
Yes, all else being equal (frailty, exposure to flu, etc), if way more elderly died after receiving the vaccine than those who didn’t receive the vaccine at all, that would indicate a problem with the vaccine in elderly patients. But, I don’t trust “science” reporters (let alone non-science reporters) to interpret the JAMA study correctly. But, that’s probably just me.
you mean she mischaracterized a JAMA study-the study only claimed “the mortality benefits of influenza vaccination may be substantially less than previously thought”. You get that? LESS BENEFIT not MORE DEATHS- a very different conclusion than what Carol wants you to believe.
Carol- you are getting tiresome- your claims are TOTALY FALSE-
1)the linked to Attkisson article NEVER STATES EXCESS DEATHS FROM THE FLU VAX. A JAMA article they cite does NOT CLAIM INCREASED DEATHS IN THE VACCINATED- it claims less REDUCTION in deaths than flu vax proponents claim -AGAIN IT DOES NOT SUPPORT WHAT YOU CLAIM-here is the conclusion:
“Our findings indicate that the mortality benefits of influenza vaccination may be substantially less than previously thought but for different reasons among different age groups…”
https://web.archive.org/web/20190417155410/https://jamanetwork.com
2)The absolute dishonesty in your claims are frightening-just like the COVID Pfizer trial where you made dishonest claims about deaths in the study (you loudly proclaimed there where multiple deaths in the study-unfortunately all the deaths were actually in the PLACEBO group) you are conflating deaths during a study with deaths FROM the study drug/vaccine. There where 23 deaths in the study that the New Punch article lists from the flu vax package insert(this was a group of 3,833 elderly people many with multiple medical problems) but NONE where judged to be due to the intervention and all occurred after 28 days post intervention-up to 6 months later. Carol, I am sure all those people will eventually die- are you going to blame the vaccine for the fact that we are mortal creatures?
3)You rely on Newspunch- a fake news website and anti-vax hoaxers (really check them out) and HeathImpactNews-which is a quack anti-vax site:
“In review, Health Impact News publishes health-related news stories that they state are alternative. Our analysis concurs that they are certainly alternative to conventional science and medicine. They are fiercely anti-vaccine with articles such as this: Dangerous Vaccines Found to Cause Symptoms of Shaken Baby Syndrome. This story comes from the discredited VacTruth website. They also routinely publish anti-GMO propaganda such as this. They are also purveyors of misinformation regarding Chemtrails and Geoengineering such as Covert Chemical Geoengineering Programs – A Real Threat to Public Health.
A factual search reveals an abysmal fact-checking record with IFCN fact-checkers. There are too many failed fact checks to list. Follow the factual search link for all of them
Overall, we rate Health Impact News a Quackery level pseudoscience website for the promotion of anti-vaccination propaganda as well as chemtrails, geoengineering, and false information regarding GMOs.”
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/health-impact-news/
4)there is a link to a news story 0f 5 deaths in a Georgia nursing home in one week post flu vaccine administration- with absolutely no information with which to ascribe the causes of death the article is absolutely useless. Any attempt to blame the vaccine is ludicrous w/o any facts to back it up. The fake news cite implies the deaths were due to the vaccine with NO SUPPORTING EVIDENCE. It is just as likely the deaths were a random event or that they died due to neglect -with the information provided there is no way to tell.
PLEASE STOP MISCHARACTERIZING MEDICAL STUDIES TO TRY TO SUPPORT YOUR ANTI VACCINE TINFOIL HAT VIEWS
“Liking” before redacted. :-)
Again here is the discussion about the JAMA report (a report that is actually 9 or ten years older than the 2018 citation) —
https://web.archive.org/web/20190501073703/https://newspunch.com/jama-study-flu-shots-killing-elderly/
And again this is a discussion about normal flu vaccination programs, as it was pre-COVID.
The statement in the article you strongly objected to was a qualifying statement pointing out that the researchers who were examining the situation of the efficacy and safety of the flu vaccines held a confirmation bias, and yet their collected data was so convincing that they had to change their minds.
After you read the hyperbolic statement: “Whereas the researchers had set out to prove that the push for massive flu vaccination would save the world, the researchers were “astonished” to find that the data did not support their presupposition at all,” you then suggested the JAMA study should be invalidated because as you put it: “The language here discredits the article. No decent scientist believes he’s “saving the world” with anything, let alone flu vaccines which have been shown to be between 40 and 60 percent effective at best. So much of this is the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.”
You failed to note that the researchers themselves were not stating that they “had set out to prove that the push for massive flu vaccination would save the world,” but the reporter of the article made the claim for them.
Again, the NewsPunch “article” (actually a totally bogus piece of garbage) provides NO PROOF of their ridiculous claims- they link to a JAMA article alright-but listing a link to an article is no guarantee it has any relevance to your claims. The JAMA article they link to only claims LESS REDUCTION in deaths-nowhere does it claim INCREASED DEATHS.
Here is the NewsPunch claim: “Senior citizens are being killed in record numbers as a result of the flu vaccine, a disturbing JAMA studyhas found”
here is the linked to JAMA article conclusion:
“We conclude, therefore, that there are not enough influenza-related deaths to support the conclusion that vaccination can reduce total winter mortality among the US elderly population by as much as half.”
GET THAT? -not enough deaths to prove the vaccine cuts deaths in HALF- not MORE DEATHS as claimed by NewsPunch.
AGAIN the NewsPunch article is a dishonest smear that purports to provide scientific evidence (by providing links to a JAMA article-looks impressive! They have science! Except the linked article states the opposite of what they claim) all the while misleading the reader.
You will get at least as much honest news from Pravda & Ivestia in the hey day of the old USSR than you will from NewsPunch.
Seems as if there is great difficulty demonstrating, statistically through testing, specific cause of death in a group of people who are clustered around the age when most people experience death.
Not the problem is this case- the websites Carol frequents (NewsPunch etc) will MISLEAD you by not providing the data when the cause of death is ascertained- HealthImpactNews misstated the deaths in the flu vax study (that was in the package insert) by not properly letting you know that all the deaths in the study where investigated and NONE were held to be d/t the vaccine.
How does clean drinking water come from a poisoned spring?
Nonsequitir .