Debate: Are Vaccines Safe and Effective or Deadly and Unnecessary?
Dr Rima Debated Pro-Vax Skeptic – Live!
Are Vaccines Safe and Effective or are they Dangerous and Unnecessary?
Note: My personal opinion is that Mr Gassner is nothing more than a ridiculous clown who had absolutely no business participating in this debate. Mr Gassner not only made the pro-vax cult look foolish but was unable to offer anything credible or interesting here which is very typical behaviour in the pro-vax movement. I do not know what Mr Gassner’s true intentions are but i do know that he was utterly destroyed in this debate by Dr Rima, this was expected anyway.
Dear Nicholas,
I am writing an after-action report on the live stream 2 hour debate that we just concluded.
Nick, you seem like pretty much a “Joe Regular” [see below] but I have to wonder if you have some problems that we should take into account or if you are just deeply duplicitous and disingenuous, perhaps a liar or, sadly, an unscrupulous person as I understand at least some of the Australian [so-called] Skeptics to be.
During our debate, sadly, you did not produce any facts, only the old, unsupported bromides. The page you presented as the place to go for a balanced look at vaccines is filled with both lies and distortions. See my line by line deconstruction of it at LINK. There was nothing balanced and precious little that was accurate except a passing nod to the only things that actually HAVE reduced infectious disease morbidity and mortality, sanitation, hygiene, improved diet, clean water and education. But just a passing nod.
You see, here’s what you wrote to me when you complied with my request to give me a bio and tell me what you wanted to focus on after you told me you live in Canberra, you work with kids with disabilities and you are in graduate school:
“Nicholas has a twin brother who required substantial hospital care in his youth. This coupled with the contact he receives from parents and children in his occupation brought him into the vaccine debate. While he is a passionate pro-vaxxer. He wishes to promote positive discourse to help bridge the divide between two groups that both share an ultimate objective: the safety and safeguarding of children and adults from diseases that are in the process of being eradicate or have the potential too.” [Emphasis added – Dr. Rima]
Well and good, aside from the poor grammar, sentence fragments and such, but here is what you wrote on your FB page:
“I agree wholeheartedly that doing something like this gives people like her gives her exposure thats [sic] un-deserving.
I suppose my rationale is we get to expose the lunacy through another medium. I do not hold high hopes that this discussion will go to plan and for all intents and purposes could degrade itself into another fest of ad hominem remarks and whatnot. [Emphasis added – Dr. Rima]
Note from Dr. Rima: another fest? With whom have you had such fests and who was making the ad hominem remarks; what does ‘whatnot’ refer to here?]
“My contingency plan is to hold the high ground. If I frustrate them enough that they can only bury me by abusing me, I’ve won. And the discussion ends. There will be
no recourse for them to come back. If it acts unfavourably to them they may not even show the video. [Emphasis added – Dr. Rima]
Note from Dr. Rima: Just exactly how does this square with your letter to me which goes on to state
“My focus for this debate is to engage in a positive atmosphere with two sides of a very passionate and contentious subject.While we both come from opposite ends of the fence, it is not the aim to convert each other. Rather, I want to take it as an opportunity to hopefully prove to our respective communities that the argument does not have to be bridled with the toxicity that often comes with debating this topic. It is the objective of myself that both sides can outline our core points of the debate and to find a mutual understanding that even if our methodologies are stark in contrast; our ultimate aims are not. And if we can pioneer such an approach, we can use this as a landing point for future positive discourse.” [Emphasis added – Dr. Rima]
And you continue in your FB post:
“But I will have a master copy. We will have an on-air resource to prove to other people that AV-ERS and their honchos are not as balanced as they make them out to be.
And if Joe Regular thought they had any validity, it will burn with them.” [Emphasis added – Dr. Rima]
Note from Dr. Rima: Wait. So was your intention then not to have a respectful debate but to actually provide an atmosphere filled with rancor and to “burn” us and our validity? OOOOH, Nick! One would call that lying and entrapment, wouldn’t one? I would.
You continue, “One other thing: I charge a vaccine a minute for my time. If they want to mess me around with Gish gallops, ad hominems, appeals to nature, various logical fallacies” and etc. then at least some good will come out of the nonsense when MMR vaccines get donated in NSF/ Rima’s name. Maybe Ill do that on air too.” [Emphasis added – Dr. Rima]
Note from Dr. Rima: Um, how did that go for you when your vaccine donation was identified as a crime against humanity? Not quite the impact you were looking for, I would wager. But you know, it actually is, whether the vaccine is polyvalent or not. Check out the CDC: vaccines cause the diseases they are supposedly designed to prevent. I did not put that on their website. They did. Check the Polio Vaccine page.
Then, in your letter to me, but not, of course, your FB post, you say,
“It is hard to find resources that are not biased one way or another but I feel a website that targets the benefits and realistic expectations and limitations of vaccines
is. http://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/understanding-vaccines/vaccine-myths-debunked/”. I am afraid you failed miserably to find a resource that is not biased in one way and one way only. I do not know who put that site up, but it is filled with errors and lies.
Tell me, was it the Australian Skeptics or some other similar group because it really is embarrassingly inaccurate. Were you/they on such a low level financially that no one was available to do the basic research or were you/they on such a low level ethically that lying is perfectly acceptable as long as you make your point, by whatever strategy justifies the desired means, which is to distort the truth about the dangers and problems with vaccines? Your site, the only reference you provided, is beyond woeful. It is actually embarrassing.
You know, I fully expected you to have at least SOME references and at least a fact or two. You did not. Perhaps you are so busy with your job and graduate studies that you did not have the time to muster them.
Or perhaps you knew that the bought-and-paid-for science and cherry-picked facts are very exposed and easy to dispute and dismiss so you were looking for some way to bate us into a low road cat fight. Were you then surprised when I said that I had a huge number of references to your none?
So which is it, Nick? Were you hoping to draw us down or were you not prepared with anything to bolster your side? Or are you really two people and Mr. Nice Guy All In for Reasonable Discourse was the alter writing the email while Mr. Rip Their Heads Off, Take Them Down in Flames was the guy doing the FB posting?
Have you thought about getting some help?
Your FB self goes on to state, amazingly and narcissistically, “She is also not expecting my voice. Which apparently, is a real radio-voice so coming on with that pitch might make her think this isnt some anti-social Internet lurker she thinks Im going to be”
Um, Nick, I really hate to break it to you but you do not have a particularly swoon-worthy voice. It did not convey to me that you are not the anti-social Internet lurker that I thought you were going to be because I actually did not expect you to be an anti-social Internet lurker.
I was, however, wrong. You ARE an anti-social Internet lurker.
I think you need some help and I do hope you get it.
One final thing, Nick, I really like the shade of blue on your headphones. Very pretty. Your behavior, on the other hand, was not very pretty at all.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
For your convenience, Nick, my response to the [un]unbiased website you provided as your sole reference to bolster your contentions that vaccines are safe, effective, necessary and must be used to protect us from the unvaccinated and their filthy diseases:
[Note: The original text is quoted verbatim. My comments are in blue]
http://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/understanding-vaccines/vaccine-myths-debunked/
Myth #1: Vaccines cause autism.
The widespread fear that vaccines increase risk of autism originated with a 1997 study published by Andrew Wakefield, a British surgeon. The article was published in The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, suggesting that the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine was increasing autism in British children.
- Vaccines cited by Leo Kanner, 1943, in first paper every to use the term “autism”, as a possible cause of the condition he was describing
- Wakefield’s paper said MMR measles virus strain persisted in gut walls of 12 children with autism, not that autism was caused by vaccines.
The paper has since been completely discredited due to serious procedural errors, undisclosed financial conflicts of interest, and ethical violations. Andrew Wakefield lost his medical license and the paper was retracted from The Lancet.
- Wakefield, like his coauthors on the paper in question was totally exonerated (February 15, 2105) by the British Court and then promptly sued British Medical Journal and the British Medical Licensing body.
Nonetheless, the hypothesis was taken seriously, and several other major studies were conducted. None of them found a link between any vaccine and the likelihood of developing autism.
- Many major studies have found that autism is directly connected to vaccination. Seehttp://www.dr-king.com and http://mercury-freedrugs.org for hundreds of studies and the bibliography section of the slide show presentation of the debate for many, many more.
2 http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2897%2911096-0/abstract
3 http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2015/02/18/breaking-news-vaccine-researcher-dr-andr
5. Madsen and Thorsen stole more than $1M US in CDC grant money and published an unscientific study “showing” that vaccination was not correlated with autism by distorting and cherry picking data.
“His study has long been criticized as fraudulent since it failed to disclose that the increase was an artifact of new mandates requiring, for the first time, that autism cases be reported on the national registry. This new law and the opening of a clinic dedicated to autism treatment in Copenhagen accounted for the sudden rise in reported cases rather than, as Thorsen seemed to suggest, the removal of mercury from vaccines. Despite this obvious chicanery, CDC has long touted the study as the principal proof that mercury-laced vaccines are safe for infants and young children.”
The study has been repeatedly debunked and indictments brought against both researchers.6. Whistleblowers Stephen A Krahling and Joan Wlochowski took evidence of fraudulent data created by Merck about the effectiveness of its Mumps vaccine to the FDA showing that it had been adulterated with dog and rabbit antibodies to manipulate the test results. They were threatened with jail time for stepping forward.Thompson was granted official whistleblower status by President Obama.
7. Whistleblower William Thompson, PhD, asserts that the 2004 study of which he was a senior author was published with corrupted data manipulated to show that there was no connection between autism and vaccination when, in fact, there was a strong connection in babies vaccinated before 36 months of age with Merck’s MMR vaccine, especially black male babies. 8. Thompson was granted official whistleblower status by President Obama. -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/central-figure-in-cdc-vac_b_494303.html
6 http://www.reuters.com/article/health-vaccine-idUSL1N0YQ0W820150604
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- The CDC’s Simpsonwood documents make it clear that CDC has been suppressing data substantiating the vaccine/mercury/autism connections for decades with active malice aforethought. Full transcript
- Brian Hooker, PhD, obtained the raw data from this study and published it stating that CDC knew for more than 10 years that vaccines cause autism.
Today, the true causes of autism remain a mystery, but to the discredit of the autism-vaccination link theory, several studies have now identified symptoms of autism in children well before they receive the MMR vaccine. And even more recent research provides evidence that autism develops in utero, well before a baby is born or receives vaccinations.
- Autism develops in utero when babies are vaccinated in utero. If it were true that autism was a non-vaccination-related event, the rate of autism would not be proportional to the number of vaccinations received, nor would it have risen from 1/10,000 in 1970 to 1/48 in 2016
- Many major studies have found that autism is directly connected to vaccination. Seehttp://www.dr-king.com http://mercury-freedrugs.org for hundreds of studies and the bibliography section of the debate presentation for many more.
Myth #2: Infant immune systems can’t handle so many vaccines.
Infant immune systems are stronger than you might think.
- Not based on the increasing number of dying and chronically ill infants and children seen today with current vaccination schedules. The US, the most heavily vaccinated country in the world, is also the highest in infant mortality, 5 day mortality and 1 year mortality of any industrialized country in the world and ranks well behind many third world countries.
Based on the number of antibodies present in the blood, a baby would theoretically have the ability to respond to around 10,000 vaccines at one time.
- This is a totally unscientific claim perpetrated by vaccine-enriched Paul Offit, MD. It is absurd even to the totally vaccine and scientifically illiterate.
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http://vaccine-injury.info/vaccine-autism-link.cfm
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Even if all 14 scheduled vaccines were given at once, it would only use up slightly more than 0.1% of a baby’s immune capacity. And scientists believe this capacity is purely theoretical.
- In this case, the scientists are right: the “capacity” IS purely theoretical. Vaccinate babies and they have adverse reactions and, tragically, some die. Give them more vaccines and more of them will have adverse reactions and more of them will die. This is NOT theoretical.
The immune system could never truly be overwhelmed because the cells in the system are constantly being replenished.
- This supposes that the immune capacity of a healthy adult and that of a newborn or infant are equivalent.
- They are not. Adding heavy metals and a host of foreign proteins and other toxins to the baby’s body while bypassing the protective layers of skin, gut and lungs while damaging the blood brain barrier at the same time is not physiologically normal and normal function cannot be presumed under those conditions.
In reality, babies are exposed to countless bacteria and viruses every day, and immunizations are negligible in comparison.
- In reality, babies should be breast fed by non-vaccinated, well-nourished mothers. That is not the common reality. Babies have immature immune systems and their detoxification systems, including the essential Cytochrome P450 enzyme system, is not fully developed until about 36 months of age IF they have not been immunocompromised by vaccines.
This may account for the findings that Whistleblower Thompson brought forth: children vaccinated with the MMR before age 36 months are many-
http://kellybroganmd.com/driving-epidemic-sudden-infant-death-sids/
15 http://www.activistpost.com/2015/01/cdcs-own-data-vaccine-infant-death-link.html
16 http://www.vaclib.org/basic/sbsindex.htm
17 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21880755
18 http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/study-links-vaccine-induced-immune-overload-autism-diabetes-obesity
19http://www.vaccinationnews.org/DailyNews/February2002/ChallengingTheoryArtImm.htm
20http://www.vaccinationnews.org/DailyNews/February2002/ChallengingTheoryArtImm.htm
21http://www.vaccinationnews.org/DailyNews/February2002/ChallengingTheoryArtImm.htm
22 Infant-mortality-study.aspx.pdf
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- times more prone to develop autism than their unvaccinated peers, especially male children.
Though there are more vaccinations than ever before, today’s vaccines are far more efficient. Small children are actually exposed to fewer immunologic components overall than children in past decades.
- According to Analytical Chemist Paul G. King, PhD, because vaccine vials are washed with thimerosal and retain a residue, and because the FDA does not require the declaration of mercury as an ingredient if it is used in processing, not preservation, there is more mercury in today’s vaccine schedule of mercury-containing flu vaccines and supposedly mercury free vaccines than found in the thimerosal-preserved vaccines of 2000.
Myth #3: Natural immunity is better than vaccine-acquired immunity.
In some cases, natural immunity — meaning actually catching a disease and getting sick– results in a stronger immunity to the disease than a vaccination.
- In all childhood diseases this is the case with life-long immunity being conferred. Vaccination does not confer long-lasting or powerful immunity, perhaps because the immune system is damaged and the organism against which the antibodies were developed is not the same as the infectious agent of the disease.
However, the dangers of this approach far outweigh the relative benefits. If you wanted to gain immunity to measles, for example, by contracting the disease, you would face a 1 in 500 chance of death from your symptoms.
- Nonsense. There has not been a measles death in the US in 10 years. There have, however, been 180 measles vaccine deaths according to the VAERS system which records between 1-10% percent, meaning that there have been between 10 and 100 times as many measles vaccine related deaths. That would be zero measles deaths and somewhere between 1800 and 18000 deaths from measles vaccines in that time.
In contrast, the number of people who have had severe allergic reactions from an MMR vaccine, is less than one-in-one million.
- But the number of people who develop measles is much, much larger, the number of people who dies is huge compared to the risk of the disease and the number of people who do not develop the immune protection against cancer in their 30’s. 40’s and 50’s because they did not develop measles in childhood is massive.
Myth #4: Vaccines contain unsafe toxins.
People have concerns over the use of formaldehyde, mercury or aluminum in vaccines. It’s true that these chemicals are toxic to the human body in certain levels, but only trace amounts of these chemicals are used in FDA approved vaccines. In fact, according to the FDA and the CDC, formaldehyde is produced at higher rates by our own metabolic systems and there is no scientific evidencethat the low levels of this chemical, mercury or aluminum in vaccines can be harmful.
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See section III of this guide to review safety information about these chemicals and how they are used in vaccines.
- This section is breathtaking in its mendacity. There is vast evidence that all of the adjuvants used, all of the preservatives, the proteins and DNA as well as the stealth viruses, like the cancer-epidemic-causing SV-40 that the FDA and CDC knew contaminated more than 310 million courses (not doses – multi dose courses!) but permitted to save the manufacturers from the expense of less than a dime a course, which accounts for the world wide epidemic of childhood leukemia and brain tumors, are toxic, damaging and inimical to good private health or good public health.
Myth #5: Better hygiene and sanitation are actually responsible for decreased infections, not vaccines.
Vaccines don’t deserve all the credit for reducing or eliminating rates of infectious disease. Better sanitation, nutrition, and the development of antibiotics helped a lot too. But when these factors are isolated and rates of infectious disease are scrutinized, the role of vaccines cannot be denied.
- This is another lie. When you consider the official statistics from England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada it becomes quite clear that ONLY sanitation, hygiene, better diets, clean water and education produced the decline in infectious diseases. In diseases like pertussis, measles and smallpox, among many others, the increase in the then-declining incidence and death rate occurred when the vaccines were introduced.
In the case of smallpox, the incidence increased a horrifying 275%!
One example is measles in the United States. When the first measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, rates of infection had been holding steady at around 400,000 cases a year. And while hygienic habits and sanitation didn’t change much over the following decade, the rate of measles infections dropped precipitously following the introduction of the vaccine, with only around 25,000 cases by 1970. Another example is Hib disease. According to CDC data, the incidence rate for this malady plummeted from 20,000 in 1990 to around 1,500 in 1993, following the introduction of the vaccine.
- Given that mothers would put their children together to make sure that they got the measles, the rate is not surprising until they stopped doing so.
But the incidence rate for this malady is NOT found primarily or solely in infants. It is found in all population members and there are a variety of other factors which appear to explain the decrease, which is an adult phenomenon and beyond the scope of my response to this site.
Myth #6: Vaccines aren’t worth the risk.
Despite parent concerns, children have been successfully vaccinated for decades.
- Not so. See Dr. Andrew Moulden, MD, PhD on precisely this topic. His scientifically supported contention is that there is no vaccination without damage to the brain and immune system. I believe that he is correct.
- The fact that children have been vaccinated for decades and that children are now sicker individually and collectively than they have ever been at any time in recorded history must be laid directly to the doorstep of the procedure that repeatedly damages the immune system.
- Studies have demonstrated over and over that vaccinated children are sicker and have a higher morbidity and mortality rate for serious and chronic diseases than non-vaccinated children.
- The actual vaccination may kill only a few children, but the vaccines do immense harm to huge numbers of people.
In fact, there has never been a single credible study linking vaccines to long term health conditions.
- What does “credible” mean? See above and containing debate.
As for immediate danger from vaccines, in the form of allergic reactions or severe side effects, the incidence of death are so rare they can’t even truly be calculated. For example, only one death was reported to the CDC between 1990 and 1992 that was attributable to a vaccine. The overall incidence rate of severe allergic reaction to vaccines is usually placed around one case for every one or two million injections.
- Placed by whom? The exclusion criteria used by the VAERS system, which recently “lost” all relevant vaccine injury data for the last several years, are designed to make accurate reporting impossible. See above and containing debate
Myth #7: Vaccines can infect my child with the disease it’s trying to prevent.
Vaccines can cause mild symptoms resembling those of the disease they are protecting against. A common misconception is that these symptoms signal infection.
- Yes, that is right. Vaccines can cause the illness for the prevention of which they have allegedly been given. That is on the Package Insert that comes with every vial of vaccine. If the disease is caused by the same organisms and has the same symptoms, wouldn’t you say the vaccine caused the disease? No, not if that is where your bread and butter is!
In fact, in the small percentage (less than 1 in one million cases) where symptoms do occur,
- This oft-repeated statistic is totally bogus and is a nostrum designed to lull the unwary into a complacency which vaccination does not deserve. The damage is not 1 in a million cases, it is 1 in 1, every 1, cases.
the vaccine recipients are experiencing a body’s immune response to the vaccine, not the disease itself.
- Based on just what science is this statement made? The body is developing a response to a toxic brew that includes items designed to irritate and inflame the immune system so it is only to be expected that toxic responses will occur. And occur they do!
There is only one recorded instance in which a vaccine was shown to cause disease. This was the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) which is no longer used in the U.S. Since then, vaccines have been in safe use for decades and follow strict Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations.
- This is a totally fraudulent statement. Swine flu vaccine in 1976 caused a huge number of Gillian-Barre cases. Vaccines have been shown to cause large numbers of diseases and harms to people or the Special Master’s Court would not have paid out more than $3Billion US.
Courts in France, Span, Italy, the UK and elsewhere have determined that vaccines cause disease and death and compensate the families for these tragedies, too.
Myth #8: We don’t need to vaccinate because infection rates are already so low in the United States.
- We don’t need to vaccinate because it is a dangerous, unnecessary and ineffective treatment that damaged everyone who receives it.
Thanks to “herd immunity,” so long as a large majority of people are immunized in any population, even the unimmunized minority will be protected. With so many people resistant, an infectious disease will never get a chance to establish itself and spread. This is important because there will always be a portion of the population – infants, pregnant women, elderly, and those with weakened immune systems – that can’t receive vaccines.
- Herd Immunity is an unproven, and, indeed, disproven theory in human populations, long abandoned by public health experts who are not financially or otherwise beholden to the vaccine industry.
At first a hypothetical number of 68% was suggested in herds of animals that move together throughout their lives (a condition which does not apply to human groups). Then the figure was raised arbitrarily to 75%, then 90%, the 95%, then 98% without a shred of evidence. - Initially the idea was to protect those who could not be vaccinated. Now the idea is that everyone, even the immune-compromised, needs to be vaccinated.
But if too many people don’t vaccinate themselves or their children, they contribute to a collective danger, opening up opportunities for viruses and bacteria to establish themselves and spread.
- It is the vaccinated who provide a danger, not the unvaccinated. If the vaccinated shed viruses, as in the Disneyland measles outbreak, then they need to quarantine themselves as hospitals ask them to do by posting signs and handbook information asking the newly vaccinated NOT to visit or work there until they have stopped endangering everyone else.
Not to mention, as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warn, international travel is growing quickly, so even if a disease is not a threat in your country, it may be common elsewhere. If someone were to carry in a disease from abroad, an unvaccinated individual will be at far greater risk of getting sick if he or she is exposed.
Vaccines are one of the great pillars of modern medicine. Life used to be especially brutal for children before vaccines, with huge portions being felled by diseases like measles, smallpox, whooping cough, or rubella, to name just a few. Today these ailments can be completely prevented with a simple injection.
So as science continues to advance and tackle new challenges, people should not forget how many deaths and illnesses vaccines have prevented, and how they continue to protect us from potentially devastating forms of infectious disease. The preceding 3 paragraphs are propaganda, nothing more, and do not deserve a response.
Please Find Dr Rima’s Final PDF Paper For This Debate Here: Vaccine debate final
