A few days ago a friend noted that this claim
which appears on this website
Children’s Immunisation Centre
looked almost like a warranty for their single measles vaccine. It’s also indirectly implying that MMR does cause autism. Continue reading
Peggy O’Mara, the founder of mothering.com is anti-vax and an HIV-AIDS denialist. She was referring to my science based vaccination search engine, vaxfax.me. Lulz.
A javascript implementation of a discrete cellular automata infection model, with user definable scenarios. Implementation here.
A HTML5 and javascript app to demonstrate correlation in an MMR/autism context. Implementation here.
A HTML5 and javascript app to demonstrate herd immunity. Implementation here.
Sailwave is a Windows sailing scoring program that I began developing in 2001. It is now used by thousands of clubs/events all over the world – and at all levels of the sport, including Olympic test events.
vaxfax.me is a project oriented around a google custom search engine. It searches hundreds of science/evidence based websites for vaccine information. It was created primarily with parents and parents-to-be in mind – to help them navigate past the mass of vaccine misinformation on the internet. Continue reading
Description of a simple epidemic and endemic compartmental SIR (Susceptible, Infected, Recovered) infectious disease model implemented here using javascript and HTML5.
The model implements these iterative equations for S, I and R:-
s’ = s – ic(s/t) – ds + bt – evbt + w(evbt)
i’ = i + ic(s/t) – ki -di
r’ = r + ki – dr + evbt – w(evbt) Continue reading
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, and not so very far away, there was a wonderful world called Cloud. At the centre of Cloud stood the great city of Ppouc and scattered around it were many smaller towns and villages.
This is a tidy-up of a comment I posted on homeopath Steve Scrutton’s blog.
Steve, you don’t seem to understand what a denial means.
Imagine somebody (a he in this case) who anecdotally helps people by playing the piano. This goes on for years. People listen to the music and often feel better – either then or a little while later. Every now and again somebody with a serious illness will get better – breast cancer say (relatively high remission rate) – and he makes sure the world knows about cases like that (selection bias). Continue reading
Originally a guest post in Vaccines Today.
Should pro-vaccination parents engage and debate with anti-vaccination parents who are posting misinformation in online discussion groups? Continue reading
It looks like Jake Crosby thinks spamming an online course discussion board with a transcript of one of his personal exchanges with Paul Offit is reasonable behaviour – presumably because Paul Offit is the instructor. Continue reading
for 100 > x > 0 : 100 – x = 0
for V >> U & Iu >> Iv : VIv < UIu
if p(x) > 0 : p(x) = 1
if p(x) < 1 : p(x) = 0
One thing antivaxers have going for them over a science based argument, is playing the emotive card. Consider this from a debate I was involved in tonight:- Continue reading
This is not really the way Bach should be played, but it was specifically a musical tribute, with much love to Lore Darche and her brave outspoken family.
Lore died from pertussis when she was 83 days old. Continue reading
It is not uncommon to see online discussions with arguments of the form “if your child is vaccinated, what risk is there from my unvaccinated child?”.
The fact is that while vaccines are generally very effective, they are not 100% effective. Some vaccinated individuals can still catch and transmit the diseases they have been vaccinated against, although often the symptoms are less severe than in the unvaccinated case. Continue reading
A javascript/HTML calculator to demonstrate how much human diploid cell content there is in a vaccine, depending on the disease and origin of cell culture etc. Implementation here.
Many vaccination resources are entrenched in ideology and bias. Some are easy to spot with their emotional but anecdotal stories, conspiracy theories, logical fallacies and downright misinformation. Others have in initial air of respectability and may even appear to be science based, until you dig a little deeper and reveal that the science is cherry picked with studies that are methodologically weak, have since been retracted, or have subsequently been shown to have reached false conclusions. Continue reading
Thimerosal is a mercury based organic compound that is used both as a preservative in vaccines and as a sterilising agent during the vaccine manufacturing process.
With the exception of some multi-dose flu vaccines, thimerosal was removed as a preservative from all childhood vaccines in 2001, with the last expiry date being Jan 14 2003. It is however, still present as trace quantities of mercury in some childhood vaccines (e.g. DTaP vaccines) due to the manufacturing process:- Continue reading
This is a slight modification of a comment I posted on an article about Meryl Dorey in the Australian Northern Star.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was once asked how to get through to Somali women that their life was one of total repression and she answered “dissonance”. Her idea being that if you repeatedly hit people with the truth, their beliefs may eventually crack – dissonance will accumulate until a point is reached that no amount of rationalising can support the root belief/bias/ideology. Continue reading