Sandy's Column - Shining a light on the vaccine debate

Past and current columns by Sandy Gottstein

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10-16-13 - Risky Business

10-03-13 - Let there be sunlight! Is sunscreen implicated in the development and rise in the incidence of autism?

06-20-13 - HPV Vaccine – What Will It Take?

04/16/13 - Vaccine Injury Anecdotes Are No Joke

04/09/13 - Autism and Alzheimer’s: Matching bookends?

04/01/13 - Gladness Reigns in Autism-Land

09/21/11 - The Attempted Hijacking of “Science” by the Ultra Pro-Vaccine Crowd

07/22/11 - Ghostwriting in the sky?

03/21/11 - The Boy W.H.O. Cried Wolf

03/16/11 - Has Thimerosal Been Absolved of Causing Vaccine Harm?

03/09/11 - Who’s On First? The Sometimes Zany World of Twitter

02/23/11 - Can and Should We Try and Eliminate Disease? Part 1 – Can we?

01/24/11 - Evidence-based medicine: What’s not to like?

01/19/11 - Does Vaccination Play a Role in the Incidence and Apparent Rise of Epilepsy?

01/18/11 - And They Wonder Why We Don't Trust Them

01/12/11 - VAERS - I'm Not Laughing

06/17/10 - Forced Vaccinations: Musings on what the road to Hell is paved with - update

04/12/10 -  Friendly Fire in the "War on Disease" - Blog at Age of Autism

04/08/10 -  Breast-feeding: When Mother Nature Really Does Know Best

03/09/10 -   VAERS - Is the Joke On Us?

03/05/10 -   Sleepwalking Through Vaccine-Land

02/08/10 -   Political Science and You!

02/02/10 -   The GMC Scores a Victory! “Religion” 1, Science 0!

04/11/08 -    Is Changing The Vaccine Schedule Enough? 

03/11/08  -   The Shots Heard 'Round the World 

02/18/08  -   On cheating "the other guy"

02/11/08  -   The Power of Fear 

11/26/07  -   A Half-Truth In The Vaccination Era - Serious Measles and the Role the Measles Vaccine Plays in Preventing It 

11/21/07  -  Forced Vaccinations - Musings on what the road to Hell is paved with 

11/19/07 -   Flashback - Reasonable People Can Disagree:  The rationale for allowing philosophical exemptions to vaccinations - POSITION PAPER ON MANDATORY VACCINATIONS 

11/17/07 -   An Uncommon Cold and Global Warming - Ties That Blind? 

11/15/07 -   Should we believe the latest CDC vaccine study? 

04/15/06   - Is the recent mumps outbreak really such a mystery?  

04/10/06 -  Introducing the American Academy of Pediatrics’ new “Two Wrongs Make a Right” policy!  

04/05/06 -   Are vaccines involved in Gulf War Syndrome, autism and other chronic diseases? 

02/06/06 -   Ethylmercury Shmethylmercury 

12/23/05 -   The Perfect Business Plan 

10/31/04 -   Warning:  Vaccine Sacred Cows May Endanger Your Health 

10/22/04 -   Has Dan Rather Once Again Failed To Responsibly Investigate An Important Issue?

Note:  This column and all future columns will be dedicated in loving memory to Nicholas Regush, my mentor, my adviser, my inspiration, but most of all, my friend. 

02/17/04 -   The Irresponsible Media Coverage of the Institute of Medicine Meeting on Autism and Vaccines 

02/05/04 -   Concern About Bird Flu But Indifference to Using Avian Cell Cultures To Create Vaccines, Including Flu Vaccine 

01/07/04 -   Another Unnecessary Vaccine?  Here Comes the Hype for a New Meningitis Vaccine 

01/02/04  -  On "mad cows" and sick monkeys: From the people who brought you SV40 in vaccines.... 

12/22/03 -   Senator Frist Frivolously Dismisses Vaccine Damage 

12/2/03  -    Is Rubella Vaccination Playing A Role In The Rise In Autism? 

09/12/03 -   Shoot First, Don't Ask Questions Later 

09/05/03 -   Adding Insult to Injustice to Injury Redux 

06/27/03 -   BMJ Tackles Conflict of Interest 

05/23/03 -   Something Rotten In The State Of Research - The Twisted Tale Of Pneumonia Vaccine For Adults 

04/25/03 -   Whose job is it, anyway? 

04/04/03 -   Advice Worth Following - Be Wary of "Experts" 

03/14/03 -   Adding insult to INJUSTICE to injury - Senator Frist is at it again 

03/07/03 -   "But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last." - Thomas Moore - update and "flashback") 

02/28/03 -   Death By Lethal Injection - From The Heart Of One Mother to Another ("flashback") 

02/14/03 -   Avoidance Of Vaccine Truth But Not Consequences -  Are We "Knee Deep in the Big Muddy"? 

02/07/03 -   "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."  - George Bernard Shaw - Musings on the heavy burden that taking responsibility 
entails

01/31/03 -   Vaccine Effectiveness - An ineffective argument 

01/17/03 -   Vaccinations  - Garbage In/Less Than All The Garbage Out? 

01/03/03 -   Prescription For Disaster - Is Vaccine Policy A "House of Cards"? 

12/13/02 -   Run, Don't Walk 

12/06/02 -   No Better Friend - A Special Thanks to Congressman Dan Burton 

11/29/02 -   The Homeland Security Act - The Aftermath 

11/22/02 -   The Homeland Security Bill - Is It Being Used As An Excuse To Federalize the Model (State) Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA)?  

11/15/02 -   Why We Won't Take No* For An Answer (*No relationship between MMR and autism) 

11/01/02 -   Changing Disease Epidemiology Via Vaccines - Are We "Robbing Peter To Pay Paul"? 

10/25/02 -   The Institute of Medicine Review Of SV40 Contamination of Polio Vaccine and Cancer 

10/18/02 -   Vaccine-related infant deaths - When is enough, enough? 

10/11/02 -   "Too much medicine? Almost certainly " ("Flashback") 

10/04/02 -   Vaccine Shortages: It's hard to know what to believe 

09/27/02 -   Thank You, Congressman Shays 

09/20/02 -   For No Good Reason: The Utterly Misguided Universal Infant Hepatitis B Vaccination Policy 

09/13/02 -   Measles In The Vaccination Age:  Is It Now Deadlier? 

09/06/02 -   Don't Worry, Be Happy 

08/30/02 -   Tiptoeing Through The Minefield of Possible Vaccine Reactions - Mainstream Media's Sins Of Omission 

08/23/02 -   Look Who's Paying OR Why the Insurance Companies Might Want to Consider Investing in Vaccine Safety Research  

08/16/02 -   More Hepatitis B Vaccine Reactions Among Children Reported Than Cases Of the Disease - NVIC ("Flashback") 

08/09/02 -   Contemporary Legends - How To Lie With Statistics I 

08/02/02 -   Stop the Frist Bill 

07/26/02 -   Whooping cough vs. whooping cough vaccine-associated infant deaths 

07/19/02 -   Does rubella vaccination prevent congenital rubella syndrome?    

07/12/02 -   The real scandal of the MMR debate - by Walter Spitzer, Ph.D. ("Flashback") 

07/05/02 -   Is the theory of "herd immunity" flawed? 

06/28/02 -   Are wolves in sheep's clothing trying to pull the wool over our eyes? 

06/21/02 -   Important and Timely 1962 Congressional Testimony concerning Health Freedom ("Flashback") 

06/14/02 -   Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me. 

06/07/02 -   Playing With Fire - It's Not EASY To Fool Mother Nature 

05/31/02 -   "Knowledge being to be had only of visible and certain truth, error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment, giving assent to that 
which is not true." (John Locke) /"Appearances often are deceiving." (Aesop) 

05/24/02 -  "But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last." - Thomas Moore 

05/17/02 -  On Falsely Reassuring The Public - Safe Minds' Response to the AAP Press Release Concerning the IOM Report on Thimerosal in Vaccines  
("Flashback") 

05/10/02 -  When is an oops not really an oops?  When you get to solve the problems you cause, and make money doing both! 

05/03/02 -   The Ivory Tower: Not So Lily White 

04/19/02 - “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts—for support rather than illumination.” - Andrew Lang - More confusing disease stats 

04/12/02 -  How much anecdotal evidence does it take to change a.......make a light bulb go on? "Why are my five children autistic?" - Mary Robinson's story 
("Flashback") 

04/05/02 -  Wanted: Dead or Alive? Is IPV really safer than OPV? 

03/29/02 -  The CDC and “The New Math”, where 1 + 1  does not equal 2 

3/22/02 -  "There are no secrets that time does not reveal" (Jean Racine) - What time and the legal system are beginning to reveal about what vaccine 
manufacturers and the CDC know 

03/15/02 - The Thimerosal/SV40 Connection  - Public Health's Ongoing Scandal 

03/08/02 - The more things change, the more they stay the same - School Nurse Congressional Testimony on Hepatitis B Vaccine ("Flashback") 

3/01/02 - “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” 

02/22/02 - Infant Vaccine Deaths - But Who's Counting? (No news is NOT good news.) 

02/15/02 - A Scandal of Epidemic Proportions: The media and government on autism - asleep at the wheel or in bed with the drug companies? 

02/08/02 - MSEHPA - Why Government and Medicine Shouldn't Mix 

02/01/02 - What Is Wrong With This Picture? 

01/25/02 - What Do We Really Know About Polio and the Polio Vaccine? and Pediatrics Peddling Vaccines 

*All columns, with the exception of certain "flashbacks", by Sandy Gottstein