Numberwang! Child Health Safety On Measles

November 12, 2013 at 7:43 pm (Anti-Vaccination) (, , )

Here, Child Health Safety tackles the fascinating topic of measles incidence and mortality. CHS refers to “grossly false claims by the US Centers for Disease Control [‘CDC’] – vastly exaggerating the threat measles as a disease poses” and accuses them in the title of lying.

CHS quotes (accurately, surprisingly enough) the CDC as stating that:


He then cites a figure from the World Health Organization that there were 226,722 reported cases of measles worldwide.

What happened next?

Did CHS mention the time difference between the two sources referred to? No. (The CDC page states that it was last reviewed in 2009 and the WHO figures cited are from 2012.)

Did CHS tell readers that there might be a difference between estimated actual cases and reported cases of measles that might at least partly explain this huge discrepancy? No. The possibility of under-reporting is not mentioned. In spite of the fact that there are gaps in the table linked to (not many in 2012, but including France, which reported 15,000 cases the previous year), and some columns where a zero might raise some eyebrows (for example, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea had 3,550 cases in 2007 and zero in every other year, except where there were gaps).

Did CHS cite a WHO figure for worldwide deaths from measles? No. Interestingly enough, there is a figure for worldwide deaths from measles in 2011 here. That figure is 158,000, which isn’t that far removed from the 164,000 cited on the CDC page which CHS claims “vastly exaggerates” the dangers of measles and makes “grossly false” claims. How odd. CHS was very keen to compare the CDC’s estimate of worldwide cases with the number of cases reported to WHO, but neglects to compare the CDC estimate of deaths with figures from the WHO. Very strange.

Instead of comparing the CDC figures for deaths from measles with the WHO figures, as he did for cases, he compares the CDC figures for worldwide deaths with a hypothetical number of deaths based on the WHO figures for worldwide reported cases and the mortality rate in England. I don’t think I need to point out that England is not the world, or that there might be reasons why England might see a lower mortality rate than developing countries (but I will, apart from anything else: Measles case-fatality rates have declined in association with economic development and associated decreased crowding, older age at infection, improved nutrition, and treatment for secondary pneumonia).

Brilliant. Take the estimated cases and deaths figures from the CDC. Take the reported cases figure from the WHO. Ignore the deaths figure from the WHO. Pretend that the mortality rate in England will reflect the mortality rate elsewhere. Then simply call the CDC liars, accuse them of making grossly false claims, and assert that they have vastly exaggerated the threat of measles.

There were one or two other slightly odd things in the CHS post.

One was the mortality rate figure that ranged from 1 in 25,000 to 1 in 5,000 (which doesn’t match the DH figures I’ve seen or the Miller paper that CHS cites – I presume it should be 1 in 2,500 and CHS has copied and pasted a figure from the DH website without spotting the error).

The other was the figure of “162,000 more deaths”. CHS seems to think there should have been 2,000 deaths rather than 164,000 but I can’t see how to get to 2,000 from the figures used in the post. Using the WHO reported cases and the English mortality rate I get 45-90 deaths and using the CDC estimated cases and the English mortality rate I get 4,000-8,000. 2,000 deaths from 20,000,000 cases would be 1 in 10,000, which is not a figure referred to by CHS. I’m guessing what CHS has done is to divide the number of worldwide deaths estimated (according to the CDC) by the number of worldwide cases the CDC reported and multiplied it by the number of reported cases from the WHO table. CHS seems to have taken various figures that cannot be meaningfully combined and stitched them together to weave a misleading narrative based on inappropriate calculations that are not made clear to the reader.

And that’s numberwang!


  1. dingo199 said,

    It is very much like an exercise in Bible numerics.

    1. Input (Imagined or tortured data).
    2. Wave magic wand.
    3. Output (Inane drivel).

    Oh, and yes you are right “CHS” did get his numbers wrong (how surprising). The death rate for measles was never cited by Miller as 1 in 25,000.
    But since when has the odd decimal point or two ever bothered him when there are tales that need spinning and children to harm?

  2. dingo199 said,

    Also it is clear he hasn’t even bothered to read Elizabeth Miller’s paper, merely scanning it for the occasional number he can mis-cite when it suits his purpose.

    CHS claims that the mortality rates from measles “have fallen dramatically since the 1960s”, immediately after quoting Elizabeth Miller (who says: “The annual number of deaths attributed to measles on death certificates fell from 39 in 1970 to 17 in 1983, but the ratio of deaths to measles notifications showed no declining trend over the period.

    So not only did CHS not read the article he cites from, but he doesn’t understand how to calculate a mortality rate.

    In more recent outbreaks (Europe 2010 onwards for example, including France 2011, Germany 2011, Wales 2013, Holland 2013) the mortality rate has been around 1:2000 cases.

    Seeing as how the mortality rate 40 years ago was the even less than this (Elizabeth Miller actually cited 1.5 deaths per 10,000 cases) perhaps we can conclude that measles is becoming more virulent?

  3. dingo199 said,

    I’d even go further.

    Since it is CHS’s contention that there never was a significant measles outbreak in Wales this year (and there were only a handful of cases and not the 1400+ cases that were actually notified), the fact that as many as one of the afflicted few died of their disease must mean measles mortality rates have absolutely rocketed.

    Does this mean the mortality rate from measles in Wales is one in 20, or one in 50? After all if it really is that horribly lethal, then we should all ensure everyone is vaccinated against it.

  4. Mikeh said,

    Measles deaths worldwide (and general burden) are coming down, so i’d be surprised if the WHO 2012 figures were correct compared to the lower CDC figure from three years earlier (albeit any estimate will have wildly wide confidence intervals attached). Suggest the most reliable estimates come from the Global Burden of Disease study figures, see

    They do also refer to the difficulties in classifying cause of death by some diseases, including measles.

    Figure 6 in that paper shows that measles declined from being the 12th leading cause of death in 1990 to 38th in 2010. A triumph of vaccination campaigns being rolled out / expanded in many low- and middle-income countries.

    CHS does go to extreme lengths to suit his own personal agenda.

  5. Chris Preston said,

    CHS also goes to tortuous lengths to deny there is anything wrong with his posts. Instead of agreeing that his claim about the rate of measles deaths does not match the figures in Miller et al. He writes a long screed on a whole lot of other irrelevant points.

    I probably should avoid poking him with a stick, but …

  6. jdc325 said,

    You appear to be the only person who has commented on CHS’s boring and unpopular blog post:

    Or, rather, not commented. You seem to have been pretty much edited out of your own comment. I also noticed that CHS is no longer accepting trackbacks from posts I write that link to his site. It looks like he doesn’t want people to see the criticism of his posts. He’s also omitted any link to my post above in his response to it on his blog. Maybe he’s afraid of what will happen if he allows his readers to make up their own minds having read both sides?

  7. jdc325 said,

    Spot the difference: cache from 20th November & current.

    CHS’s post has doubled in size since I wrote about it. For some reason, this substantial amendment to his post doesn’t seem to have been acknowledged.

    I wonder why it was edited – perhaps CHS decided the original was inadequate?

    I also wonder why the edit was not acknowledged.

  8. Chris Preston said,

    The edit happened after I commented on the article. You will have to guess what my comment was about, becuase none of the original text still exists in the comment.

    Perhaps CHS worried I had identified a whole in his argument that others would see, so added to the post to make it more confusing.

  9. mythbuster said,

    Did you know that the ‘placebo’ used in at least one MMR study to show above all spins the ‘healthy effect of measles vaccine’ was actually the adjunct in the vaccine it was tested against. The trial also disallowed the reporting of GIT effects, was done on twins who had already had either measles or the MMR prior to the study.

    How do they redefine placebo to include signal red and aluminum salts and a bit of mercury too. Does that mean if both groups get meningitis they can say ‘ there was no more meningitis than in the control’?

    It was funded by Merck, this is the kind of evidence that supporters of this non science regularly quote.

  10. dingo199 said,


    Nice to see we can teach CHS a bit of epidemiology!

    After a comment that CHS read on Badscience forums about “case fatality rates” being the correct term for what are often called “mortality rates”, I see that his first post which highlighted the measles “Mortality Rates” for England 1993-2008, has now been revised to measles “Case fatality rates”.

    Surely you could have given us a bit of thanks for helping educate you CHS…?
    And thanks for showing how diligently you read Badscience as well as JDC’s blog. Keep up the good work! Perhaps you are not such a lost cause after all, and in the fullness of time we may further enlighten you in the ways of science, which seem to be so hard for you to grasp.

  11. mythbuster said,

    He is probably having a belief system collapse, it often happens when people who used to think vaccines worked find out that the stats and ‘EBM’ is all bollocks.

    Good luck

  12. mythbuster said,

    This study is a complete farce. Later on they do bigger studies and had measles outbreaks in the vaccinated groups and decide that so much of it was happening that ‘diagnosis was difficult’. Oh yey, when the facts go against the Lord the facts are wrong!

    It goes on to point out that kids died in the vaccinated group! what are you telling us here Chris! Or are you blind to the massive holes in your EBM!

    One up the arse for medical science!

  13. mythbuster said,

    So let me get this right, the reason they don’t do studies like this anymore is because they show us that measles vaccine is crap!

    Brilliant, sorry I thought you were a pro vaccine crank, I take it all back.

    Happy Xmas

  14. mythbuster said,

    Hey Chris you took the paper down! Is that a septic backtrack. Just so that all of you who are still laughing out loud at his paper ‘measles efficacy 1962’ here it is again:

    Basically this paper shows us that when the vaccine starts to fail massive that the diagnostic criteria change to fiddle the results in favour of the vaccine group!

    This is a common theme in vaccine mythology – the other paper I posted showed us that the placebo against the MMR in the study was actually almost the same as the vaccine!

    For some reason Chris still thinks it is about pro and anti vax. It is actually an issue about the kind of evidence that is used to fraudulently make the case for vaccination.


    So why did you remove your silly 1962 paper Chris rather than admit you had posted a chocolate teapot? Don’t you read your own paper – maybe that’s the problem with vaccine belief! Once it is exposed as bullshit it just puffs into the wind.

    Best LOL this year, well done.

  15. mythbuster said,

    Hey Dingo what do you think, Chris is removing his own posts once he has read them and realised they were high school!

    Can’t wait for another paper showing how crap vaccination is!

  16. Chris Preston said,

    The troll has gone completely off the deep end and is babbling inanities.

    It is not possible for a poster to remove a post.

  17. dingo199 said,


    1. the correct term is vaccine “adjuvant”, not “adjunct”.
    (Helpful free tip: If you are going to try and mislead people, at least get your terminology correct. People then may actually think you know something about the subject that you are pretending you know about that under discussion).

    2. You claim the “paper” indicates there were deaths from measles in the vaccinated group.
    It says no such thing. Did you even read it?
    It says there were 17 deaths overall – 11 from measles in the unvaccinated group versus no deaths from measles in the vaccinated group. (There were also some deaths in both groups which were NOT from measles (but this was Africa half a century ago, in case you hadn’t noticed)

    3. In the other paper you claim ” the placebo against the MMR in the study was actually almost the same as the vaccine!”
    That paper, let me remind you, was a double blind comparison of MMR vaccine versus placebo looking at side effects from the vaccine. Nowhere in the paper does it claim the vaccine was “almost the same”.
    It found certain side effects were commoner in those who had MMR (eg fever).

    4. Do you think people reading this blog will be taken in by your lies? If anything is up anybody’s arse I suggest it’s probably your head up your own.

  18. Chris said,

    Troll: “Hey Chris you took the paper down!”

    What is the troll babbling about? The post is right where I put it here. I can’t help if you don’t keep track of which year old posts you decided to troll. I also can’t help you with your problems in reading comprehension.

    Though it is quite amusing.

    If anyone is interested, a full description of the vaulted “vax vs. unvax” has been posted at The “One Study,” or why the anti-vaccine movement doesn’t really understand science. Yes, it is pretty horrific as you can see what would be needed to make the troll and his friends (like those at CHS) happy, though that may still not work:

    1. Eliminate the use of all vaccines immediately in every country on the planet. Immediately — regardless of any public health concerns that exist.

    2. Randomly sample an acceptable number of children with similar characteristics for an experimental group and a control group for each of the group configurations discussed below (in #4).

  19. mythbuster said,

    Weasel words indeed from the chosen people. Amidst the screaming from the Jehovah two we have quite a few smoke bombs hiding the facts and some very creative writing too.

    In this 1962 paper on measles vaccine it states the first trial was not a blind trial because the investigators knew who had received the vaccine!

    Historically medical trials have suffered from bias on reporting, this first measles vaccine trial was with only with 26 children. The ‘placebo’ was the Pertussis/tetanus vaccine, hardly a placebo. This first trial was reported that no deaths from measles occurred in the measles vaccinated group but 19 deaths from measles occurred in those given the Pertussis vaccine.

    So the researchers knew who got the ‘proper vaccine’ do you not think this was unethical with regard to reporting? Well later on when they test bigger groups and blind the trial, the results get ‘harder to interpret’ with all sorts of weasel excuses for the failure of the vaccine to follow the remarkable 100% success of the preliminary bias.

    So the study got bigger, researchers warned the parents ‘it would only work in half the children’, how is that ‘pre-empt ethical? Who decides whether the vaccine has failed or its just one of the 50%? What research told them that the measles vaccine failed 50% of the time?

    The interesting point is that in this bigger trial the ‘control group’ got gamma globulin and ‘inert material identical to that used in the cultural of the ‘measles’ virus! They don’t list this inert material Chris, do you not think we should be told?

    Should they not at test this inert material against a real placebo to see if it is making one more susceptible to measles?

    Then they tell us in the larger blind trial that measles was frequently seen, diagnosis was difficult with no serological testing available, how convenient Chris. The trial went tits up and no one could confirm failure, it actually says ‘no reason to believe that that vaccine was a failure! Unless you are a vaccine believer of course.

    Love the conclusion on this “It seems probable that the occurrence of so much measles like illness in the vaccinated group was a reflection of the difficulty of making a firm diagnosis in the African child at one visit”!!!!!!

    So in the first study the diagnosis of total success was firm, but in the larger one suddenly the plethora of measles in the measles vaccinated group was put down to ‘diagnosis failure’, because it was run by vaccine believers! I suppose that was easy in the first trial because it wasn’t blind – you can just see the junior doctors telling the professor ‘but sir look at the measles in the measles vaccinated group’ reply from boss ‘shut the fuck up if you want promotion’.

    This is currently going on with Merck in court in the US for telling its scientists to fiddle MMR efficacy and nothing new is going on really.

    So to conclude, there is no evidence that the kids in the first non blind trial were not killed by the Pertussis/tetanus vaccine either directly on indirectly, or weakened so that they were more susceptible to measles, there is no evidence that the first result of 100% efficacy is true because it would seem the results were based on anecdotal obs rather than serological testing to prove the groups were either with measles or not.

    Certainly obs of measles was good enough in the first trial which was non blind but mysteriously the obs were not good enough when the vaccine failed to work in the larger and statistically more significant blind trial!

    How did the doctors ‘know’ the measles vaccine would not work in 50% of the kids, they told the mothers this ‘fact’, was that the bullshit get out of jail card they could play if the kids died from the vaccine? Hi mum here is an anecdotal stat on success, would you like to put your kids at risk in this guinea pig trial that we can only do on black Africans because back home we would not be allowed to do it!

    This paper is so full of anecdotal British empire doctor tosh its tiresome to catalogue, when they decide to look at weight gain/loss as a factor in the vaccinated an unvaccinated they state ‘……….145….as compared to the vaccinated group that were presumably protected against measles!’

    For fuck’s sake Chris, they are now extrapolating on a presumption – are you really serious that this is the acceptable face of vaccine research! It says on the weight gain ‘not statistically significant’, so why report it!

    Well well boys, what a waste of my time – you did remove your post, where did I get this paper from then?

  20. Chris said,

    Still, troll, the kids who did not get the measles vaccine tended to suffer and die more frequently from measles than those that did get the vaccine.

    This is what will happen if silly people like you, Cliffy Miller and Johnny Stone get their way and stop vaccination. The little coffins will be your fault.

  21. mythbuster said,

    Another medical anecdote from Chris and a classic septic tactic of ‘appeal to emotion’.

    Because no stats are kept on vaccine failure, your quoted ‘placebo’ trials are bullshit because they never ever use a real placebo. I lie, the only double blind real placebo RCT trial ever done on a vaccine was the BCG for tuberculosis. In 1980 in the Indian Lancet the report on a 20 year follow up field trial with 265,000 in both the vaccine and placebo control began:

    ‘bad news from India – shows not only no evidence of a protective effect whatsoever, more people got TB in the vaccinated group than the control with (real) placebo!

    Germany banned the TB vaccine after this, what do we do today to the Asian community? Vaccinate every child on the day of birth, maybe that is why TB is still an issue in the Asian community Chris – because assholes like you are keeping the flag flying for vaccination with medical anecdotes.

    The world Health org tells us that presently 8 million people get TB every year with 2000 deaths but interestingly 90% of us are vaccinated!

    Now we know 2 facts, not medical anecdotes – 1. There is currently no data that can prove that vaccination protects anyone against any disease process because the proper trials with placebo are not done. 2. The reason they don’t do proper RCT placebo blind trials on vaccines is because when then do it proves vaccines are fucking useless.

    Happy new year asshole

  22. mythbuster said,

    Aberdeen university did a 30 year linear study on the illnesses and diseases people may or may not succumb to. One, among many interesting observations was that children who had had wild measles as a child invariably did not go on to develop atopy as an adult.

    Atopy costs the NHS billions and you can fxxing google how many deaths.

    Considering the utter misery atopy gives as a life long condition, assholes like you are allowing this to happen by supporting vaccination with anecdotes.

    It is amazing that your only response is still trying to resurrect some crap using an anecdote, ‘the kids who got the vaccine tended to suffer less!’ Considering the paucity of evidence for efficacy how the fuck did you find this gem!

    Another known fact is that having mumps as a child is considered protective against developing ovarian cancer for wormen, how many women have died from ovarian cancer because assholes like you support routine vaccination with nothing but medical anecdotes to support your position. Google it, you need to get out of your hole and look about.

    So the NIH tell us it’s true, what do you think or not Chris?

  23. dingo199 said,

    Chris, the troll doesn’t even know which thread he is on, or where your posts are.
    He has become an utterly predictable, mindless antivaccine propaganda parrot, and as boring as hell, with lie following bare-faced lie.

  24. Chris said,

    Right now he is just babbling to himself.

  25. Chris Preston said,

    The troll is really scraping the bottom of the barrel now with the mumps vaccine causing ovarian cancer trope. The evidence for childhood mumps being protective against ovarian cancer is pretty thin really. Of course if it did protect against ovarian cancer it would be obvious in the statistics now that the incidence of mumps has reduced by 99%. In the US where the mumps vaccine was introduced in 1969 has there been an increase in incidence of ovarian cancer?

    The answer is no: Incidence rate of new cases is falling at about 1% per year.

    What a complete fool the anti-vaccine troll is.

  26. mythbuster said,

    “The troll is really scraping the bottom of the barrel now with the mumps vaccine causing ovarian cancer” Chris misquoter

    The vaccine doesn’t cause cancer you dolt, it is known that having mumps as a child protects the adult against developing ovarian cancer! That is what my post said, interesting you have to re edit it to diss it. But I suppose that is what we are used to with medical science, they never play by the same rules as anyone else.

    I love vaccine believers, they can’t even read a post properly, they then rant off into vaccine failure denial, straw men, appeals to emotion. Meanwhile the failed ‘vaccine science’ slips further on like some snake.


  27. mythbuster said,

    So when you were a kid, how many kids in your class had atopy? Now thanks to medical science most classrooms have a shoebox full of inhalers.

    So if wild measles protect against atopy what’s your view on this vaccine disaster?

  28. Chris Preston said,

    The troll is clearly an idiot. If having mumps protects against ovarian cancer, then vaccinating should result in more ovarian cancers than there would otherwise occur.

    Logic is not one of the troll’s strong points.

  29. Chris said,

    Mr. Preston, just has logic is not one of the troll’s strong points, neither is reading comprehension. And to top it off, he thinks that only one person on this planet is called “Chris”.* Obviously it is not worth trying to discuss anything with the troll.

    * Though he may be the mail clerk at my brother’s office building. Apparently the clerk thinks everyone with the last name is the same person, despite different first names. So my brother’s mail was being held for someone who was no longer even in the country.

  30. Chris Preston said,

    As the troll can’t seem to keep track of which posts it is spamming on this blog, it is no surprise that it has trouble with the concept that more than one person in the world could be called Chris.

  31. mythbuster said,

    You can always tell when a vaccine believer is rattled, they spume and vent all sorts of blaspheme smokescreens, but refuse to discuss what has knocked holes in their vaccine belief. Appeals to emotion, straw dogs, all sorts of silly pif paf, but no discussion on the facts.

    You can find plenty of your medical peer reviewed evidence telling us there is a correlation between having mumps as a child and not developing ovarian cancer as an adult.

    Just in case you didn’t read it the first time, lots of big words and some rather large holes in the ‘you need your MMR to be safe’ vaccine believer point of view.

    Don’t you think under the Asfar ruling on informed consent that all parents should be told about this correlation ie do you want a fairly innocuous childhood illness or a terminal adult condition?

    How many people die from mumps each year Chris? How many women die from ovarian cancer? How many of those had been given the mumps vaccine? Oh dear they don’t keep data on that, wonder why?

  32. Chris Preston said,

    The troll is truly an idiot. One piece of weak evidence does not make a theory.

    In the UK in 2008, 4369 women died of ovarian cancer who had not received the mumps vaccine. At most 4 women who had received the mumps vaccine died from ovarian cancer. I wonder what the troll will make of those statistics.

  33. mythbuster said,

    “in the UK in 2008, 4369 women died of ovarian cancer who had not received the mumps vaccine. at most……” Chriss

    Well lets see the reference for this biblical septic tosh then Chris, if it was true we would be able to check that out.

    The paper I cited was, so does that mean these nasty anti vaxxers will be burned?

    I have removed the pop up hack in your last post.

  34. mythbuster said,

    I think we should rename you Rumpelstiltskin Chris, it’s more fitting.

  35. mythbuster said,

    Oh look these people are the national institiute for health, are you going to write to them and tell them they are trolls then Rumpelchristian?

  36. mythbuster said,

    Come on you arse give us the reference so we can read it. The last paper you cited that was supposed to tell us measles vaccine was the second coming actually showed up a total measles vaccine disaster with proper science in the larger study. I am still laughing at that cock up.

    Bring on the next one Rumplechristian!

  37. mythbuster said,

    Chris and Chris, who cares, you are still the same head on the same septic turd.

  38. Chris Preston said,

    More waffling from the troll.

    The data on deaths due to ovarian cancer in the UK can be found here

    From there it is a simple exercise to work out how many of the women who had died could have received the mumps vaccine – given it was introduced into the UK in 1988.

    Shooting fish in a barrel really.

  39. Chris Preston said,

    I see the troll can’ keep track of the posters on this blog, let alone which threads they are posting on.

    It is a pretty pathetic effort for a troll.

  40. mythbuster said,


    There you go, you made it up. “could have received”. I love this, when discussing medical opinions on vaccinations for some bizarre reason medical anecdotes are admissible as ‘evidence’. So in order to have your narrow opinion on health and disease it is logical to assume you could have had a lobotomy!

    Go on Rumplechristian, post one of those mmr type papers that have a juicy title but are full of the medical anecdotes you seem to spend a lot of time chanting over.

    yes fish barrel was a disaster too, so overloaded the ASA and TS with utter drivel that they have told you all to fuck off!

    Well done that foot shot, don’t hear much from the nightypants org anymore, do they still exist?

  41. dingo199 said,

    Mythspreader, if I didn’t know better I’d say you are channelling cybertiger.

  42. Chris Preston said,

    It is not cybertiger, more like childhealthsafety that is being channelled. The delusion and lack of numerical ability is the same. I suspect the reality is that it is just a homeopath with a homeopathic dose of evidence.

    The troll doesn’t understand the difference between anecdote and statistics. If you include all the individuals in a set of those treated it is a statistic. So in 2008 of the 4373 women who died of ovarian cancer a maximum of 4 could have been vaccinated – given their ages. However, over 3,700 of these women would have had mumps as a childhood disease. But the troll was asking a pointless leading question.

    I had previously linked to the US data (where mumps vaccination has been used much longer then in the UK) which showed both a drop in incidence of ovarian cancer in women and a reduction in deaths due to ovarian cancer – despite women living longer. There is simply no evidence to support the notion that vaccinating for mumps is increasing the incidence of ovarian cancer or the number of deaths due to ovarian cancer in the population.

  43. mythbuster said,

    “So in 2008 of the 4373 women who died of ovarian cancer a maximum of 4 could have been vaccinated – given their ages. However, over 3,700 of these women would have had mumps as a childhood disease.” ??????

    How on earth do you make this up, considering MMR has been on the table for a lot longer than 2008!

    Vaccinating for mumps is not the issue, it doesn’t work! Because we keep getting outbreaks in fully vaccinated groups.

    God, it is like talking to MOoonies!

    I can guarantee that reading your paper, above, cover to cover will out yet another vaccine fiddle stat or 10 and it will all come crashing down. It is so tiresome pointing this out. Maybe one needs to leave this dogshit blog and just start an evidence trial somewhere else.

  44. dingo199 said,

    Let us take a hypothetical population where 100% have been vaccinated with a vaccine which confers 90% protection against a highly contagious virus.
    Now if this population is exposed en masse to the infection, and 10% develop the infection, what conclusions should we draw?

    Myth spreader will have us believe the answer is that the vaccine is utterly useless.
    However the appropriate conclusion is that the vaccine is very protective, just not fully effective.

    What myth spreader and his fellow anti vaccine conspiracists never accept is that without any vaccination! then 100% of the population would become infected.

  45. Chris Preston said,

    As I predicted, the troll is truly an idiot. The answer to his first question is that MMR is not on the schedule for 60 year olds. It is given to children, usually under the age of 4.

    In 1988, 85% of adults in the UK carried antibodies to the mumps virus indicating exposure as a child.

    See, I told you it was channelling CHS.

  46. dingo199 said,

    I also note that the paper cited on mumps was purely speculative, suggesting that infection “might” have a protective effect against ovarian cancer.
    But if one looks at the rationale behind the hypothesis, one can also conclude that since it is a live vaccine, that mmr “might” be just as protective.
    Since ovarian cancer rates have declined since vaccination against mumps has become universal, perhaps this is the explanation?

  47. mythbuster said,

    “Let us take a hypothetical population where 100% have been vaccinated with a vaccine which confers 90% protection against a highly contagious virus.” A day in the life of medical anecdotes masquerading as facts!

    This is lovely, no science, just pure speculation – it gets better-

    “the appropriate conclusion is that the vaccine is very protective, just not fully effective.” Dream science at its best

    It wasn’t the fall off the cliff that killed her, it was the sudden stop at the end, it wasn’t the vaccine that made the kid ill, it was the process of vaccination or “doctors tell us we are all going to die”

    “What myth spreader and his fellow anti vaccine conspiracists never accept is that without any vaccination! then 100% of the population would become infected.” save the best till last, pure religious delusion!

    So Poland officially refused to join the sheep train on pandemic flu/swine flu mass vaccination and anti virals because it saw no evidence to support it. They were more than right boys, their flu stats were better or no different to a normal flu year.

    There has never been a vaccine for Scarlet fever, there used to be quite big outbreaks of this in the UK and elsewhere. I haven’t got the time to correct your delusions, judging by the content of this site it would be futile to try.

    Still my day started with so much laughing I have to thank you for that boys.

    It is time for a site that highlights the twit face of septic so keep up the priceless woo.

  48. mythbuste said,

    Oh we can test your hypothesis dongo. Whooping cough vaccine failure in populations with 96%+ uptake, well reported in the US and Uk even though they had the highest uptake of vaccine for decades. Researchers even discounted the non vaccinated they said it was primary vaccine failure. Does this mean systemic worldwide bad batch syndrome or collapse of believe system?

    I can see you are still stunned by the utter boobs in your post on vaccine mythology – look it up – increased vaccination = increased disease it’s only media style marketing that sells this shit to people who haven’t got the time to research it.

    Either you are totally thick, just believe anything you read in a peer reviewed medical paper or you are an arsehole.

    Please advise.

    by the way your site is full of virus hovers, can you clean it up.

  49. jdc325 said,


    I have written posts pointing out that, while imperfect, pertussis vaccine reduces incidence, mortality, and morbidity. While this isn’t one of them, if you have knowledge of a case where the proportion of those with pertussis who were vaccinated is greater than the proportion of the population who were vaccinated then do please feel free to share it.


    It’s fine on the computer I’m using. Perhaps you have malware? Tell me, do you use anti-virus software or do you not believe in that sort of thing?

  50. mythbuster said,


    Can you explain what this means?

    The outbreaks in both the US in recent times have been at a time of the highest uptake of the vaccine. It doesn’t work.

  51. jdc325 said,

    Can you explain what this means?

    I’ll try…

    If in an outbreak 78% of people with the disease have been vaccinated and 82% of the population as a whole has been vaccinated then the proportion of vaccinated people in the population is higher than the proportion of ill people who were vaccinated. What I’m asking for is an example where this is reversed and the proportion of sick vaccinated people is higher than the proportion of the whole population that has been vaccinated. If you can’t find such an example, then a case where the proportions are equal would do.


    Not quite – it doesn’t work well enough. Those vaccinated against pertussis have less chance of catching the disease and pertussis is less severe in those who are vaccinated but catch the disease.

  52. Chris said,

    Even getting the pertussis does not mean you stay immune: Duration of immunity against pertussis after natural infection or vaccination. It is rather silly to think that the vaccine should provide perfect immunity, when it does not even happen with the actual bacterial infection.

    Some community immunity arithmetic:


    950 vaccinated persons (assuming full schedule)
    50 unvaccinated persons


    760 protected persons
    190 vaccinated but vulnerable persons
    50 unvaccinated persons


    760 protected persons without pertussis

    38 vaccinated persons get pertussis
    152 vaccinated person who may still get pertussis

    10 unvaccinated persons get pertussis
    40 unvaccinated persons who may still get pertussis.


    And the vaccination rates do affect infections rates. See:




  53. dingo199 said,

    I wouldn’t bother with the troll anymore Chris. I think it’s terminally unhinged.

  54. Chris said,

    Point taken. But that claim annoys me enough I figure to just post the numbers for lurkers.

  55. mythbuster said,

    Last year both the CDC and the FDA reported the highest ever outbreaks of Pertussis in the UK and USA. They also pointed out that we have the highest uptake ever of vaccine.They cite primary vaccine failure, if this was homeopathy you would say it doesnt work ie it is shit voodoo.

    Your previous post was pure medical anecdote

  56. Chris Preston said,

    The FDA don’t report on vaccine uptake or childhood diseases and the CDC is a US government agency and doesn’t collect figures for the US. In any case, the CDC is reporting a decline in uptake of pertussis vaccination among children from 96.2% in 2008 to 94.3% in 2012. That might have something to do with the recent increase in incidence in this age group

  57. mythbuster said,

    Here the FDA say the whooping cough vaccine may stop you getting sick but it doesn’t stop transmission. That’s weasel words for it’s bullshit Chris!

  58. mythbuster said,

    lovely article here Chris, may need 7 shots to ‘protect’ profits now.


    “. Two recent studies have found the majority of people getting sick are up to date with their immunizations.”

    Looks like the only thing keeping this woo going is vaccine believers!

  59. mythbuster said,

    Looks like prophet Offits predictions that children can have 10,000 vaccines is well on its way to proof. But hey that won’t stop transmission, is that FM or AM?

    What exactly do you believe Chris?

  60. Chris said,

    The basic mathematics and science that have flown over your head without ruffling one bit of your troll fur, it did not even cause an echo in the vacuum that exists under that fur.

  61. mythbuster said,

    Wow that’s septic weasel words by Christ for “I so can’t handle the holes in the ‘vaccines are holy’ sic, I’ll make up some Jehovah style reply that gives the impression I’m soo cool about it”

    Are you sure that you are not a devotee of Ofit the Prophet Chrissy? No comment on the CDC talking about primary whooping cough vaccine failure then, or is that too close to the nuts?

    Official CDC data tells us the US and UK have the highest whooping cough vaccine uptake ever and the highest outbreaks of whooping cough and also they tell us that non vaxxers are not to blame.

    How do you spin that into “non vaxxers kill babies”? or “its not the vaccine that is a failure its…………….”

    Was that your longest sentence or do you need to “try again”.

    LOL Chrissy, LOL

  62. mythbuster said,


    Here that Chris belief system come crashing down, well fall over.

  63. truthseeker said,

    Well another weak septic blog grinds to a halt, the shite seepith from the hole.

  64. Chris Preston said,

    Not so much numberwang as wordwang. CHS has a new blog post up where he rather strangely supports Jake Crosby’s contention that Walker-Smith’s High Court win means Andrew Wakefield’s paper in Lancet should be re-instated. Indeed, CHS goes as far as suggesting the failure to re-instate the paper “appears contemptuous of the legal process”.

    I have left a reply, that I append below as I know CHS will eviscerate it and post some rubbish in its place. I know CHS reads this blog, so he will get to read it twice.

    The judgement by Mitting exonerating Walker-Smith does not in fact provide any support for re-instating the Lancet paper by Wakefield et al.

    The retraction notice stated the following reasons for the retraction:


    Mitting’s judgement in fact confirms that both of these reasons remain true. He states at Paragraph 159:

    “In paragraph 34 of its determination, the panel found that Professor Walker-Smith was irresponsible and in breach of his duty to ensure that the information in the paper was accurate, because it stated that investigations were approved by the Ethics Committee. This finding was justified. Professor Walker-Smith should not have allowed a paper to be published under his name without ensuring its accuracy.”

    In the judgement Mitting discusses the situation surrounding the admission of each child in the study demonstrates clearly that they were not “consecutively referred” and indeed that Wakefield had actively recruited parents in the court action to refer their children for the study.

    Walker-Smith got off because he claimed his intention was not research but clinical and hence he did not need ethics approval. At Paragraph 16, Mitting makes it clear that Wakefield’s intention was undoubtedly research and he would have needed ethics approval, which he did not have. At several other points in the judgement, Mitting takes pains to emphasise the unethical activities of Wakefield.

    As a lawyer (and Wakefield’s UK solicitor), you should know all this, which makes it doubly odd that you would attempt to claim the opposite is true.

  65. Chris Preston said,

    Oh dear, CHS has burst a boiler.

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Google+ photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: