Out comes the Septic Self-Righteousness for Dummies book.

I got all my medical education from this passage:

" [Picture: Man reading book] I remember going to the British Museum one
day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a
touch—hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I
came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the
leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget
which was the first distemper I plunged into—some fearful, devastating
scourge, I know—and, before I had glanced half down the list of
“premonitory symptoms,” it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.

I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of
despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever—read the
symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months
without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s
Dance—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested
in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started
alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and
that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright’s
disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so
far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with
severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I
plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only
malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.

I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a sort of
slight. Why hadn’t I got housemaid’s knee? Why this invidious
reservation? After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed.
I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and
I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid’s knee.
Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me without
my being aware of it; and zymosis I had evidently been suffering with
from boyhood. There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded
there was nothing else the matter with me.

I sat and pondered. I thought what an interesting case I must be from a
medical point of view, what an acquisition I should be to a class!
Students would have no need to “walk the hospitals,” if they had me. I
was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk round me,
and, after that, take their diploma.

Then I wondered how long I had to live. I tried to examine myself. I
felt my pulse. I could not at first feel any pulse at all. Then, all of
a sudden, it seemed to start off. I pulled out my watch and timed it. I
made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute. I tried to feel my
heart. I could not feel my heart. It had stopped beating. I have since
been induced to come to the opinion that it must have been there all the
time, and must have been beating, but I cannot account for it. I patted
myself all over my front, from what I call my waist up to my head, and I
went a bit round each side, and a little way up the back. But I could
not feel or hear anything. I tried to look at my tongue. I stuck it out
as far as ever it would go, and I shut one eye, and tried to examine it
with the other. I could only see the tip, and the only thing that I
could gain from that was to feel more certain than before that I had
scarlet fever.

[Picture: Man with walking stick] I had walked into that reading-room a
happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck."

Jerome K. Jerome

Gosh don't some of us have a lot of time on our hands. This old lag still has to work for a living. And nobody biting on returning to windows either. Ah well.

nbw: Me? Simply a professional hypochondriac I'm afraid. Steamy nailed me in one... And fortunately for us, MDs don't have exclusivity on the ability to think.

Tom: Not familiar with that one. You clearly are - may I borrow your copy when you've finished with it? Any news on the safety studies of the modern vaccination schedules I asked about?

Joiner: If you were around when an old thread ran its course and included this subject, you may remember that the personal stuff comes as part of the package when people feel threatened by someone disagreeing with their dearly-held views, instead of answering legitimate questions such as....'where's the safety record?'

IMHO when the ad-hominems start, at that moment that's when those people start losing the argument. But thanks for your attempt at moderation nonetheless. I shan't mention your police record again, honest!

For those ignorant of Jenner's record, he bought a medical degree, and on the basis of one experiment, sold vaccination to the world. The young boy who was so innoculated died age 21 of TB. Unconnected I hear you cry. Jenner also innoculated his own son, who died, age 20....of TB. Hardly an auspicious start, and it goes downhill from there.

To be clear crusoe, are you saying vaccination is bunkum, amongst other things?

Rgds

Damon

OK, a nosegay with every upvc window. That should do it.

I'm mainly right behind you crusoe.

Characteristic of such conversations is premature resort to 'where's the proof' or even the 'peer review' requirement. Much too soon usually, designed to disarm any worrisome call for open minded speculation about alternative conceptual systems. No heretical brainstorming please, until our scientific elders and betters have given the green light.

Posted By: DamonHDimmunity/vaccination is not a simple boolean effect

Now they tell us

Posted By: nbwildingWhen I form an opinion on scientific matters it is based on my reading of peer-reviewed scientific literature and talking to expert colleagues

Only a partial view then

FT: it's clear that the human immune system is pretty complex and understanding of it continues to improve and change, eg has moved on a lot since I studied it at uni. And no one then thought it was simple or binary, but the relative risks of vaccination or lack thereof have been fairly clear for longer.

As to your statement to nbwilding: speculation in the absence of understanding of the facts as best understood is rarely helpful, especially if those speculations are by someone who hasn't spent a lot of time studying the field in depth and breadth and would require vast amounts of well-understood and empirically-supported stuff to be overturned. It is breathlessly conceited to confuse 'I don't or won't understand the detail' with 'it must be trivially wrong because I can't instantly understand it'. Ignorance is not the same as genius. And that's without misusing the art terms and cherry-picking bits of science that you want and ignoring the rest and stirring in conspiracy/fantasy.

Let's not go down this path again.

Rgds

Damon

Posted By: joe90research is always funded by drug companies

therefore

Posted By: Seret"There's a word for "alternative medicine" that actually works

and can make a lot of money for someone

Posted By: Seret: medicine".

Posted By: nbwildingthe only way to refute that vaccines work

Is anyone saying that? Isn't it more that vaccines have deep-reaching unintended effects on populations? Which show up in individuals, which are not just isolated therefore unimportant cases, but are pointers to widespread debilitation.

Dear god, let us not go down this path again with this man. Crusoe will move from vaccines to aids denial, and then to his favourite, alternative cancer cures.

We've been here before, it's tedious and repetitive, and leads precisely nowhere. This is a Green Building Forum. let's stay on topic and not offer a pulpit to an alt. med. crank.

I KNEW I should have resisted the temptation to kick the sleeping dog and just let it lie there.

Joiner - dog? Moi? You can go off some people you know. And I had one eye open, honest injun. And be fair, I have been trying to bring it back to windows...the record shows all.

nbw: Desist with the ad-hominems please, or marktime will be wishing me dead from a.n other disease again. He gets excited when he's let out for the day and is on a yellow card from a previous incident. Please don't encourage him. Last time he said he was father Christmas, just because Brightgreen disagreed with him and then confirmed that he (brightgreen) WAS a geneticist. Confusing for my simple brain. I don't believe he's father Christmas at all, btw, but then I have always believed I have a faulty logic gland - and you can quote me on that.

I should point out that holding a chair - honorary or otherwise - does not confer exclusivity in the thinking stakes - I suspect many of us think for a living, whatever sphere we roll around in. British mensa tell me I can think, ergo I believe them...why shouldn't I? So unless your own background is in medical research, I don't understand what relevance your professorship has - or why you mention it, as it appears to indicate that others can't or don't cogitate themselves, or that this is the sole preserve of professors? Not sure if that was your meaning, but it comes over that way.

Where exactly did I say vaccines don't work? I quoted a journalist above (complete with hyperlink) who believes they don't work effectively or long-term, which he believes proves they dont work, and many share his view. I believe they work (at least in the short term and to some degree) some (and this brings in Damon's point) - better than others, and in different ways. I think they have to be taken on a case-by-case basis.

Tom at least is reading as well as commenting and nailed it when he said my belief is that we are swapping one disease for another.

I don't have to prove vaccines don't work to my satisfaction to anybody, although proof is mounting that they are less effective than touted. Proof of efficacy - and more importantly safety - is required of the person sticking the needle in - which is why no doctor, when trying to insist you have your shots, will sign a waiver to guarantee your safety if you do. I've tried it.

Thanks for the study. As this is turning into a minor debate, let's exercise basic debating protocol, including keeping the insults to a minimum. I've asked a prior question, viz: Can you, or anybody, supply the basic studies, even by biased manufacturers, showing that the current vaccination schedule has been tested for safety and efficacy? Cos obviously you wouldn't give it to your children unless you had checked that...would you? Not given the research fraud and $3 billion fines floating around by these same manufacturers....

Once we have those studies, a reasonable prerequisite for anybody, even a very pretty nurse, sticking me in my glutes or elsewhere, I'll be happy to spend the time reading what I suspect I have already read many times before, an industry in crisis' defence of an unreasonable practice.

james: That was funny, but not so good the second time round....

Posted By: DamonHDTo be clear crusoe, are you saying vaccination is bunkum, amongst other things?

Posted By: nbwildingCrusoe seems to be claiming that they don't work.

Crusoe has in fact said things like:

Posted By: crusoeI challenged anybody ... to find the ... safety studies for the vaccination schedule youngsters were being put through

Posted By: crusoeif you can point me in the direction of vaccine safety studies done to reflect the current vaccination schedule

Posted By: crusoethe rise of non-infectious, chronic disease, as triggered by interventions to the immune system such as vaccination

Crusoe did say

Posted By: crusoeIf vaccines "fade out" then they don't work!

- but note the 'if'.
Anyway, why the instant fury, making it look like there's a fragile superstructure of vaccine dogma and public trust to be defended. Why no engagement with what Crusoe actually said, his alternative suggestions about what vaccines do, the broader consequences of vaccines, beyond the narrow criteria that are tested?