Homeopathic vaccine for swine flu

I've been getting really worried about the spread of swine flu around the world and the lack of progress being made for a vaccine. I want a vaccine now and can't wait for governments to get their respective acts together. Moreover, how can I trust "big pharma" to get the vaccine out on time. In order to make money - which we know is their real motivation - they need the flu to spread and are need people die from it. I have decided to do something about it!

I recently contracted H1N1. While I was ill, I flushed my snotty tissues down the toilet. By now they will have disintergrated and made their way into the Pacific ocean. I haven't calculated the exact dilution of the snot to seawater ratio - but it's got to be close to 15C, surely?

So - if you want to inoculate yourself against the swine flu - just pop in the Pacific Ocean for a quick swim and you'll be right. Give it another couple of weeks and molecules of my swine flu ridden tissue should have diffused throughout the world's oceans - then everyone will be sorted!

Go me and go Samuel Hahnemann!

Podcast: Tutorial 21 - Factoid Propagation

Factoid propagations can be harmless (like the Stella awards) and harmful (like the MMR Autism fraud/hoax).

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Notes:

1. Example - McDonnald's Hot Coffee and other "frivolous" law suits . The "Stella" awards. The fact  - youtube "Legal Minute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImaG1ugF5FM
   


2. Spot that fallacy with Jeni Barnett
   

1.       The notion that we’re all the same – “Straw man”  and “factoid propagation” – who says this?

2.       Drug company making money – impugning motives (as opposed to the vitamin company...)

3.       Having it both ways, carp, rise in asthma, obesity etc., outright falsehoods, non-sequiturs and red herrings.

4.      Back in the day, when children got Measles, mumps etc. “she’s not advocating that” she says, yet later on does exactly that. Internally inconsistent (note - this is one obvious case of this, there are others...)

5.      If as a human being, you decide, etc. In a democracy you should have the right to say no. This is where you can use the technique of Substitution. 

6.      We have evidence – no we don’t – demonstrably false. Factoid propagation of Wakefield's infamous and now utterly discredited MMR autism  

7.      Not part of the herd. Sanctimony and weasel words

8.      Information being withheld. etc. Paranoid conspiracy mongering. Other things withheld... Rotashield as an example of how evidence is not withheld - it's dealt with openly.

9.       The whole thing is Browbeating 

The harmful factoid is the now discredited Wakefield study. The media very much to blame for the initial and continued scare, though at least there's now been some coverage of the correction. Keith Olbermann's Worst Person in the World is my number one example... 

A false attribution comes back to bite

This is why lawyers (and everyone) should fact check - looking for False Attributions - especially of credentials. This is from Peter Bowditch @ The Millenium Project.

I must be an expert! (23/6/2007)
I mentioned last week that The Trial of The Century had started, where the parents of 4,800 autistic children are being encouraged to abuse the legal process in order to bolster the claims of the anti-vaccination liars. The witness for the plaintiffs called on the fourth day was brilliant, and she has decided that the first case was definitely caused by the MMR vaccine, plus thimerosal for good measure. Her name is Vera Byers, and the fun started when opposing counsel started asking her about her CV. It seems that she is "board eligible" as an allergist with the American Board of Allergy and Immunology, but unfortunately the board doesn't recognise the term "board eligible". Strike one. She says she is on the faculty of Nottingham University, but the University says this is not so. Dr Byers says "I think I dropped off". Strike two. She claims to have been the medical director at Immunex for the Biological License Application for the drug Emberel, but sadly her name does not appear on any documentation filed with the FDA. Strike three. The best, however, is her justification for including an affiliation with the University of California - San Francisco on her CV. I can do no better than to quote the words she said on the stand: "I use their library and I go to their parties". Is this woman a good witness or is she a joke? Even Dr Boyd Haley couldn't be as silly as this one. Read and enjoy here.

I checked my wallet and I found that I have the qualifications to be an expert witness in court cases such as this. The Westmead Hospital library is actually part of the University of Sydney's medical school, so all I need now to call myself "Doctor" is to go to a few parties.

Gold!