I wonder if the Playboy model turned health advisor, Jenny McCarthy, reads this stuff and feels any responsibility. The story makes no mention of her or of the fraudulent study published in the British medical journal Lancet in 1998, later discredited. In that article, Dr. Andrew Wakefield made a false connection between autism and vaccinations for various maladies, including whooping cough. McCarthy, herself the mother of an autistic child, picked up on it and has not let go.
We’re now seeing anti-science bearing fruit.
I have no problem with famous people using that fame for causes. But fame carries enormous responsibility. Mistaken notions, even if well-intended, can turn into disastrous outcomes.
Johnson’s article also mentions the poor condition of public health in Washington state, with underfunded and understaffed hospitals struggling under the burden of new (and expensive to diagnose) cases. Doctors are advised to just start treatment when they see symptoms.
The uninsured population in that state is now 14.6%, compared to 11.6% three years ago, prior to reform. Along with McCarthy, Johnson makes no mention of Obama.
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As well-publicized, there was a horrible bombing in Syria that killed 55 people and injured hundreds more. There was a tiny story on a sidebar in the Denver Post, Page 18A, that a “shadowy militant group” claimed responsibility for the incident.
This is a situation where high skepticism is warranted. Syria is a country under attack by outsiders – never mind its lousy government, which is of no concern in Washington (DC).
A horrible bombing, some ragtags claiming responsibility on the Internet … removal of rose-colored glasses might lead to the culprits. I suspect name of that “shadowy group” begins with C and ends with A [or M and D or both]. It’s right out of their playbook.
Am I saying that Americans are involved in random murder, doing violent provocation to enflame an already dangerous situation?
Yes. Quite yes. Daily. Who benefits from continued violence? Just think of our guys as the “militants” or “terrorists” and it’s easier to see.
Piece of Mindful 
Must be another important congressional vote soon on defense authorization. Election years are particularly rough on perennial victims of our get-tough policies on crime (except in Washington D.C. and Wall Street) and terrorists (except North American state-sponsored varieties).
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You lost me after this, “the fraudulent study published in the British medical journal the Lancet in 1998, later discredited”.
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Hey, Mr. anti-science! You made it to the second paragraph. Your attention span is getting longer. Are you drinking acai juice these days?
If Lancet disavows the Hopkins study [as it did the Wakefield piece], you’ll read about it here. The fact that you don’t like what it says does not make it wrong.
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I guess I was speaking to the overall creditability of the journal in general. Which has “evolved” into a political mouthpiece.
But really Mark, you can’t say that this President hasn’t gone behind the scenes to embolden peace thru secret negotiations.
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That might resonate with me if I were an Obama supporter. Can you for one minute get your head out of the two-party same-financiers trough?
Regarding Lancet, your comments are rich. Our country invaded another based on lies, and refused to assess the human cost, saying “We don’t do body counts.” When another organization does body counts, they become “political!” Stop and ask yourself why the study, financed by an American institution, could not be published here in the land of the First Amendment.
Could it be, as Ron Paul says, that “truth is treason in the empire of lies”?
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You’re wrong about the bombing in Syria. First it wasn’t a bomb. It was a multi-beam particle accelerator mounted in a commercial jet airliner. At least four pluses hit the target area in less than 5 microseconds. Second the US had nothing to do with the attack. It was financed by Mick Jagger in retaliation for the Syria government allowing pirated copies of his albums to be sold in that country.
I’ll show you my sources if you show me yours.
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It’s mere speculation on my part, the point of which is that the assumption that our guys do not engage in terrorism is unfounded. In fact, our terrorism is of massive proportions, exists right out in the open, but is not recognized as such.
Would ‘our’ guys set off a powerful bomb and kill and maim hundreds of people for political purposes? Yes!!! A thousand times yes. I’ve seen it. But when the bomb originates on an F16, it morphs into something for good. It’s a perverted state of mind that distinguishes identical acts apart from one another based on the nationality of the person packing the bomb.
So tell me that the people who launch the F16’s would not resort to planting a bomb in a market square. Tell me the one about Alice, too.
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Oh yeah – Hi Max
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Well Mark, I’m back. I’m feeling belligerent, I guess. And I expected to be angry at the first thing I read. But I actually found some common ground here, for a second.
As relates to the autism study – indeed. It is absolutely absurd how many people have to fall ill and/or die because this false science is perpetuated, because people are ‘open-minded’ even when the scientific case is pretty well closed. This is an even bigger problem in other parts of the world – the case of Polio in Nigeria is especially tragic.
As to Syria – I’m not sure the US and Israel benefit from the car bombs and terrorism. If anything, it weakens their side, makes the anti-Assad movement look like terrorists. That’s exactly what they don’t want. The violence in Syria is a bit frightening to the US because it represents a wave of Sunni populism – the sort that lends support to al-Qaeda, fueled much of the insurgency in Iraq, and forms the basis for the popularity of the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Gaza (which has by the way said it supports to uprising), and Ergodan’s government in Turkey. This is not a secret for US policy makers, but they also wouldn’t want to emphasize it by making the Syrian resistance look any more similar to those other movements than it already is. If in a few months we wanted NATO to help remove Assad like it did Gaddafi, suicide bombings performed by our supposed allies would not make that an easier sell. So either the CIA is not involved, or we have no plans for future intervention in Syria. Since we would probably at least like to keep our options open, I doubt the CIA is involved. It is also unlikely that Mossad would put in that effort to try to bring about militant, populist Sunni rule in Syria, when it already faces the possibility of something similar in Egypt.
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Bear with me here, as this is not a frontal attack on you. Two themes that constantly repeat among people who consider themselves knowledgeable in foreign affairs, at all levels of education, are 1) We suffer bad outcomes despite good intentions, and 2) We’re rational, they’re not.
With you, these themes are minimized, which means I have to take you seriously. But they are still present. I picked up on it as you described potential enemies of US goals, Hamas, MB, “al Qaeda,” and Ergodan’s government.
I’m leery of the notion of “al Qaeda,” as I regard it mostly as a hyped-up propaganda vehicle, but that’s another contentious debate. The others are, in my mind, expressions of local ambitions for peace and solidarity among people of that region. Hamas, for example, has in it the aspirations of the Palestinian people, defending their dignity, building hospitals and food centers and schools. The Ergodan government is creating a force for anti-imperialist ideals in the region, and MB is a powerful force that constantly annoys imperialists – a new generation of nationalists.
In each case I presume that they are rational, and have good intentions (more than less), and suffer bad outcomes because of an irrational and bad-intentioned force in the region.
Re Syria, it is in US interests at this time merely to keep the violence going, to keep pumping arms into the country, to make the uprising seem indigenous … To what end? Intervention, establishment of a pro-Western government, which irrational forces, like Hamas, al Qaeda, MB and Ergodan would oppose.
In your case I see that you remove concepts of good/evil from the mix. That is a breath of fresh air. If in addition you reverse rational and irrational, we’re in complete harmony.
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Regardless of who is still actually firing the guns in al-Qaeda, the image they project is popular in some places. That’s why similar movements spring up in Somalia, Iraq, the Maghreb, probably the Sahel as well. The thing is, while those organizations do not enjoy majority support, their ideals do. Populism in any society increases the influence of religion in that society, the same in the Middle East as in the US.
Because that religion happens to be Sunni Islam, everyday Americans will associate it with terrorism, hence the consternation that was apparent among about Egypt and Libya – that somehow we were strengthening Sunni forces at work there. Which, ultimately, is what happened, because in the Arab world a decrease in autocracy is generally a decrease in secularism.
Currently, however, I don’t think the US security apparatus fears Sunni populism as much as the US public does. Ergodan and the MB will continue to be offered military aid if they continue to remain at peace with Israel, and because neither have anything to gain from breaking the peace, they will take that deal.
So, I agree that the CIA is probably taking actions to fuel the crisis in Syria. But I don’t think that means the uprising is non-indigenous. There’s certainly precedent – lets not forget how many Sunni populists (in the Muslim Brotherhood, largely) Hafez had to kill to stay in power. This appears to be round two – and coinciding with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Islamic political power in Turkey?
For several months there was little armed resistance to Assad’s government, and yet violence continued. That portion of the crisis was likely completely indigenous, because the US would have given them weapons if they were supporting the uprising at that time. The subsequent armed revolt, however, almost certainly is involving foreign weapons. But, to be fair, that doesn’t make it any less indigenous that the Assad government, which is also armed and funded largely by outside forces. But we have good evidence (from Lebanon) that Libya is arming rebels in Syria, and the Sunni populists in Syria (of varying levels of militancy) are fortunate in at least one regard – they are riding a wave of Sunni populism, gained by the ballot in Turkey, the bullet in Libya, and something in between in Egypt. If you want to find foreign powers to gain from continued violence in Syria and the overthrow of the secular autocracy, you don’t need to look far – Libya, Turkey, and Egypt. The connections between the populist Arab revolts are strong – look at how Tunisia aided Libyan rebels, and now we have Libyans aiding the Syrian revolt, and accusations from Syria that Turkey is doing the same.
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Not much to disagree with, but don’t confuse indigenous revolt with outside incentives. Of course there are people in Syria who want a new government. So also is that the case in Yemen and Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The US is aiding one but not the others. That’s the rubbing point, and not internal dissent. And while Sunni v Shiite has significance, Shiite majorities in dictatorships like Saudi Arabia are disenfranchised and kept that way with immense US support.
And don’t overlook a major US interest in Syria – removal of a Russian naval base at Tartus and Russian intent to assert their power from there, this year forward. That, more than any other factor, is on US radar.
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