Call for review of
AIDS vaccine - More analysis - controversy for VaxGen - I can't help but
wonder whether or not the alleged difference between the vaccine's effectiveness
re:blacks and other minority groups vs. whites might not be wholly attributable
to the fact that there were actually two interventions in the study: 1) the
vaccine 2) education about safe sex practices. If minority populations
received less experience with this kind of preventive education prior to the
study, receiving such education during the study might well result in fewer new
cases of HIV+ individuals among those groups. This is an excellent example
of how what appears to be a poorly designed study (two, not one, interventions)
can produce confusing and/or meaningless results.
Contaminated
poliovirus vaccine not associated with cancer - Of course they don't mention
that it is now thought that SV40 is now being
transmitted beyond those
originally vaccinated. Nor do they mention that this fact, unless evidence
of exposure is controlled for, will contaminate and make meaningless, any
results.
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"A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth."
-- Albert Einstein, letter to a friend, 1901
"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William C. Jarvis, September 28, 1820
"What's the point of vaccination if it doesn't protect you from the unvaccinated?"
-- Sandy Gottstein
"Who gets to decide what the greater good is and how many will be sacrificed to it?"