Diplomatic Immunity

Cornell and MIT educated Dr Kelly Brogan appears to subscribe to a range of standard anti-vaccination pseudoscience propaganda which is particularly disappointing considering the education she claims to have. This month The Healthy Home Economist published an article by Dr Kelly Brogan on Gardasil  who has recently produced a number of articles on vaccination in on-line forums. Read More

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Bit of a buzz on anti-vaccination websites about apparent court rulings in favour of MMR/autism cases. An example is  from a website called “why don’t you try this?” which cites as a source Whiteout Press (“if its blacked out, covered up of censored you can find it here”)  which in turn cites The … Read More

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It is not uncommon to find folks promoting breastfeeding as a way to boost their children’s immune systems as an alternative rather than an adjunct to vaccination. On the West Coast, this philosophy is hindering the regions efforts in achieving high enough vaccine coverage to prevent disease as noted in the Herald this week. When it comes to prevention … Read More

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It is a very sad day for evidence based public health in Hamilton today.  Council have voted to remove fluoride from the town’s water supply, 8/13 councillors voted on the matter and 7 voted to remove the fluoride.  It is also striking that councillors who served on the district health board and likely knowledgeable on the issue were directed to … Read More

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Persistent misuse of passively reported data – rat bags will always be rat bags but in the peer review and editorial process there is no excuse. The Annals of Medicine are the latest (vaguely respectable but not to be confused with The Annals of Internal Medicine) journal to publish the mischievous works of Lucija Tomljenovic and Christopher Shaw. Yet again the core tenet of the … Read More

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This week is World Immunisation Awareness week so it is obligatory to mention NZ have now achieved pretty good immunisation coverage of its infants and the gap between ethnic groups and rich and poor is all but shut. The good In December 2012 NZ European and Maori had 90%, Pacific 93% and Asian 95%. The gap between rich and poor … Read More

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Obama’s speech at the National Academy of Sciences in April 2009 in which he states that “Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been before.” A transcript can be found here. [vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/4512483[/vimeo] … Read More