where does the strongly negative labelling come from?
Quacks who want to push their nostrums, and ambulance chasers who want to sue for big settlements. Cranks who want to peddle their pet "theories."
what are the chances that all utterings that contradict common assumptions are wrong and even evil intended?
One does not have to be evil to be dangerous. Stupid is plenty sufficient.
what would be the agenda of these people;
Making money off nostrums, making money off lawsuit settlements, inflating their egos, making money off speaking assignments, pushing their crank "theories," making money by selling books.
Not really so different from the creationists, or the people who take issue with the germ theory of disease (and there's a considerable overlap with the latter group).
what's the agenda of the other side of the story; the corporations, governments
Preventing outbreaks of infectious diseases, expanding their power, prestige and prerogatives, obtaining reelection/promotion, and assorted similar motives common to any political organisation.
the downsides of not accepting injection, mentioned by DoDo, are true enough, but do not address the issue raised
And what issue was that again?
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
the label 'pet theory' doesn't help either. Using a particular theory can be labelled 'pet' anytime. Often the difference is the size of the organization associated with a theory and the interest one has in accepting or rejecting it and not it being non-pet = true
the label 'stupid' is not confined to the people presenting dissenting opinions and mostly adds little to efforts to clarify matters
to how much % of the dissenting opinions would the agendas you indicate apply?
could organizations (corporations, NGO's and nation states) be able to perform stunts above, beside, below the traditional ones you indicate? When watching 'The corporation' and reading about the Gulf of Tonkin incidentor start of the 2nd Gulf wa, I tend to answer this in an affirmative way
the issue was and is: how can one determine what's true and what's not when the call comes close to home, when there's a reluctance by main stream actors to investigate and publicize outside of official, power backed up statements
Often the difference is the size of the organization associated with a theory and the interest one has in accepting or rejecting it and not it being non-pet = true
But more often, the difference is in the amount and quality of the data behind the model in question.
How many papers do these "dissenters" have, again?
the label 'stupid'
Is not being applied here. I didn't call anti-vaccers stupid (some are simply misinformed, after all).
You asked ceebs why he thought erected a straw man that all vaccine scaremongers are evil. I replied that they do not have to be uniformly evil (although some of them undoubtedly are). Being stupid is sufficient.
the issue was and is: how can one determine what's true and what's not
I have scientific papers. You have Andrew Wakefield and Rudolf Steiner. I'd say that's as good an indication of what's true as any you're likely to get.
Even allowing for the fetishisation of the scientific paper process - which is hardly infallible - big pharma has a long history of distorting it for profit.
Fortunately, when all the anti-vaxers have is a bought and paid for "study" by Wakefield and a couple of conspiracy theories, you don't need a serious index to debunk it.
If you want to discuss the many and varied faults and crimes of Big Pharma, then I'm also game. But then I'd suggest that you look at the failure to do anything serious in the way of malaria research, the absolutely criminal crusade against generic drugs in developing countries, or the aggressive way over-the-counter drugs (and even a few prescription drugs) are being marketed as lifestyle accessories.
Vaccines are a no-show in that game: Low markup, comparatively low volume, adequate R&D, relatively unaggressively advertised and fairly widely available outside the first world.
