Saturday, October 31, 2009

Old Standby "Confusing Cause and Coincidence" Excuse Trotted Out in Advance of Adverse Events Following Swine Flu Vaccinations

"Confusing cause and coincidence" has been used by scientists for decades to explain away the onset of autism disorders in otherwise healthy children following vaccinations. The same people do not, however, bother to conduct credible studies to actually rule out a causal relationship in such cases.

Most notably, despite support for an observational study comparing autism rates amongst existing vaccinated and unvaccinated populations from credible sources such as Dr. Bernadine Healy, Dr. Julie Gerberding and Dr. Jon Poling, the IACC, under Dr. Thomas Insel, has engaged in procedural shenanigans and given questionable testimony to Senator Harkin's committee to prevent such a study from being done.

Now, the "confusing cause and coincidence" excuse is being trotted out to explain possible adverse events following H1N1 (Swine Flu) vaccinations BEFORE THEY EVEN OCCUR.

The Telegraph (UK) article People will die after swine flu vaccine - but it's just coincidence, Six people in Britain can be expected to die suddenly after having the swine flu vaccine but it will just be coincidence, researchers have said references a recently published article in the Lancet and contains prophetic gems of wisdom offered by super intelligent researchers to us, the lowly unwashed, who have such difficulty distinguishing between cause and coincidence.

Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, University of Cambridge and Co-Director of Straight Statistics, said: "What a fine paper. If millions of people are vaccinated then just by chance we can expect bad things to happen to some of them, whether it's a diagnosis of autism or a miscarriage.

"By being ready with the expected numbers of chance cases, perhaps we can avoid overreaction to sad, but coincidental, events. And why don't we ever see a headline 'Man wins lottery after flu jab'?"

Professor Robert Dingwall, University of Nottingham, said: "The difference between cause and coincidence is difficult enough for specialists to grasp, let alone the wider public.

"However, this paper is very important in spelling out the fact that just because two events happen at the same time, they are not necessarily related. There is a background rate of death, disease and accidents that happen all the time regardless of what medical interventions are going on."


Perhaps Professor Spiegelhalter can explain why we never see headlines like Vaccine Researchers Make Fortunes Successfully Predict Winning Lottery Numbers. And perhaps Professor Dingwall can someday come to believe that we, the great unwashed, drooling, ignorant public do in fact understand the difference between cause and coincidence and that we have heard that argument before in connection with vaccines and autism.

If the learned professor can get his head around that one perhaps he can convince the other members of his club that research confirming or refuting their prophecies would be appreciated by those of us in the Ignorance R Us Club.

Based on prior history of the IACC refusal to conduct credible studies of possible vaccine autism connections I have my own prediction to make: no credible follow up studies to determine actual causes of deaths and other adverse events following Swine Flu vaccinations, including autism onset, will be done by the members of the We Are Smarter Than The Dumb Public Club.




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5 comments:

farmwifetwo said...

Don't you love it when anything to do with vaccine safety is due to "underlying conditions".

But when someone dies with "flu like symptoms" it's always H1N1.

Us over-educated types understand the hypocracy just fine thanks.

Marni Wachs said...

There is apparently no such scrutiny over "confusing cause and coincidence" regarding recent deaths in Canada apparently due to H1N1. It is a front-page foregone conclusion that the cause of death of recently deceased individuals is solely from H1N1, despite incomplete post-mortem analysis.

For the life of me, I can't understand how such obvious bias goes right over people's heads.

Anonymous said...

both of these Professors are well conected to the science media Centre and the Pharma funded sense about science "charity"
from Prof David Spiegelhalter home page
"I have acted as a paid statistical consultant to a variety of organisations, including the Healthcare Commission, World Anti-Doping Agency, Novartis, and GlaxoSmithKline."
we have no free press in the UK god help us.

navywifeandmom said...

I love how medical professionals always use the ridiculous "pirates and global warming" and "crime and ice cream" comparisons to adverse events after vaccination. As if those moronic comparisons are even equal. Let's see, you inject someone with something that stimulates and immune response, and within days they have an AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE or a neurological condition? Yeah, comparing ice cream with crime rates and immune system dysfunction after something stimulates a person's immune system makes a hell of a lot of sense@@.

Happy Halloween!

Dawn said...

Neurotoxins do not cause Autism. They simply act as carriers so that vaccine contaminants can cross the blood-brain barrier. Vaccine contaminants are the true cause of Autism and most diseases. Read "Fear of the Invisible" by Janine Roberts. The people that claim vaccines are safe have no idea that these contaminants are sexually transmitted and genetic. It is just a matter of time before we are all infected. So, the saying "What comes around goes around"....could not be more true.