The Snake Oil Bulletin: Gardasil Prevents Cancer, So Anti-Vaxxers Figure It's Poison
Good day to you, fair readers! It's time once again for the Snake Oil Bulletin. This week we shall be taking a gander at lady parts and diseases thereof. Oh no, you rakish rapscallions. We shant be spying any actual quivering quims nor heaving bosoms. This is a family blog, afterall, though with significantly less swearing than your last family Thanksgiving.
Our subjects for today are deeply, deeply concerned for our dear ladies and the fates of their lady parts. They take a dim view to our female friends' attempts to protect their lady parts with drugs that will no doubt harm their precious ovarians or turn them into wanton slaterns and harlots, the likes of which only dwell within these stunted manboys' fantasies. Which is to say, today we'll be examining Gardasil woo.
Gardasil Still Doesn’t Cause Ovary Failure, Infertility, Or Turn Girls Into Mega-Whores
If there's one thing guaranteed to send wrinkly old ballsacks into a tailspin hissy fit (an ugly thing to contemplate), it's bringing up the fact that women have sex. Not only do they have sex, but they (VERY FREQUENTLY) have sex without immediately getting pregnant and locking themselves in the birthing hut. This overriding fear of women banging is the only logical reason that people continue to spread crockery about Gardasil, a vaccine against designed to protect against the Human Papillomavirus so that girls don't develop cervical cancer.
[contextly_sidebar id="qJl0JS0GygYk2SNpY8sCWVa61MOYOpQ9"]We've seen Gardasil hysteria before, with One-L Michele claiming that it gives girls the dumb-dumbs , or crackpot lying liars like Belle Gibson who claimed it gave her the squishy skull lump cancer , or anti-vaxxers who claim that Gardasil will just straight up off a bitch . If the hysterics were to be believed, Gardasil is made of equal parts cyanide and chewing tobacco, with some asbestos thrown in for texture.
Except it isn't. Study after study proves Gardasil to be incredibly safe and astoundingly effective at preventing people from developing cancer (yes, men can and should get the vaccine too). So what fresh ingrate would continue to disregard science over and over and over again just to spread mass panic about a vaccine?
Oh right, this asshole:
[contextly_sidebar id="ytpcIWRJcDWHCTCEY4D6SbpTPxzzjuc5"]Remember Mike Adams, the self-proclaimed "Health Ranger"? He's the founder and proprietor of the multimedia "Natural News" empire. He's the same anal fissure who thinks calling someone an "anti-vaxxer" is akin to calling them a faggot (or in his words, a "f@@t") and who believes that religious freedomshould be extended to people who intentionally expose their kids to measles and such. He also put tried to get a bunch of GMO scientists murdered because he's such a nice guy.
What could such a reasonable creature have against a safe and effective vaccine, you naively ask? Everything, apparently. Hell, Mike has previously claimed that Gardasil caused a woman's ovaries to explode among other claims. In a recent piece on Natural News (note: the above article has a tendency to redirect elsewhere because Natural News' programming is just terrible), Adams cites an incredibly dubious report from the right-leaning American College of Pediatricians (not to be confused with the mainstream American Academy of Pediatrics) claiming Gardasil has been linked to Premature Ovarian Failure (POF). In other words, Mike and the ACP are saying Gardasil may not turn you into a hooker, but it blows up your ovaries so you can turn into a MEGA-hooker with the powers of never getting pregnant ever.
As outlined by the Respectful Intolerance blog , the studies cited by the ACP are dubious at best and thoroughly debunked at worst, and the ACP in their own statement admits they can't determine causation. That doesn't stop them from trying to sound an imaginary alarm bell over a vaccine whose most serious side-effect studied is a brief feeling of light-headedness or fainting that many people experience because they're scared of needles. Read the blog yourself to get a blow by blow of the ACP's evidence. Spoiler: it's mostly anecdotes, not evidence.
Mike and ACP cite the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) database of vaccine injuries, a database that anti-vaxxers see as a sacred text despite the fact that it was set up and maintained by the very Big Pharma FDA and CDC which, in all other instances, can't be trusted. Put simply, VAERS is a database of people who have claimed reactions or injuries from vaccines. It's a useful tool for researchers to track reactions across a wide area without having to individually contact patients, but note the key word in that sentence: claimed. Just about anyone, and we mean anyone, can submit a claim to the VAERS database, whether it's backed up by data, evidence, or even a doctor's note that the patient was a very good boy and got a lollipop. In fact, the system is so easy to manipulate that an anti-woo autism activist named Jim Laidler once submitted a claim to the database that vaccines turned him into the Incredible Hulk and it was still accepted .
Respectful Intolerance, who is far more knowledgeable in the field of medicine and biology than we, goes on to eviscerate the rest of the ACP's concerns, before reminding us that the American College of Pediatrics is actually a front group for some anti-gay fuckfaces with NARTH , the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality. The ACP broke away from the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2003 because the AAP didn't hate those f@@ts enough:
In February 2003, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a policy statement declaring its support for homosexual parenting. The statement urges the states to extend the status of legal parent to same-sex partners, as well as marriage-equivalent status to homosexual and lesbian couples.
However, a new group -- the American College of Pediatrics, a Tennessee-based alternative organization headed by Dr. Joseph Zanga -- has just responded by requesting that its fellow organization reverse its stand.
Zanga's group was formed by 100 dissenting members of the AAP. His organization disagrees with the AAP's point of view on gay parenting, as well as numerous other social issues.
In a recent interview with NARTH, Dr. Zanga said that the policy statement did not have the support of the AAP membership as a whole. In fact, the position paper -- entitled "Co-Parent or Second Parent Adoption by Same-Sex Parents" -- was released to the public despite the objections of one-third of the committee which drafted it, he noted.
The ACP has a history of completely twisting people's research in order to support their agenda, in one case citing a study that they claimed showed that teens who identify as gay eventually grow out of it, when in fact the research showed that teens who identify as gay eventually come to accept themselves as gay . It got worse:
The ACP also claimed that the longer you can keep kids from identifying as gay, the less likely they are to kill themselves. Again, Remafedi's research was footnoted.
In this case, Remafedi says, the ACP missed the larger point: Kids who come out at a younger age are more likely to kill themselves because they are less able to deal with the stigma and isolation of being gay. If anything, the research shows the need for more support.
"It's obvious that they didn't even read my research," Remafedi says. "I mean, they spelled my name wrong every time they cited it."
The ACP also has a history of ripping off their more reliable counterparts in the American Academy of Pediatrics in a bid to inflate their own legitimacy:
The two groups clashed again when the AAP published Just the Facts , a handbook for schools on teen sexual orientation. Written with the national associations of psychologists, social workers, and teachers, Just the Facts collected up-to-date research to debunk restorative therapy and offer schools advice on how to help gay students feel safe.
In March, the ACP fired back with its own publication for schools, Facts About Youth . Mimicking the rival publication, the ACP filled its handbook with more than 100 footnotes citing studies. The difference is that some of the researchers, like Remafedi, say the ACP cherry-picked, manipulated, and misstated that research.
In other words, the ACP is a hate group masquerading as a legitimate medical association, just like how Mike Adams is a paint-snorting duff-weasel who masquerades as a journo-healtho-activista. How else do you explain a breathless screed like this further down his article:
Systematic vaccine violence against children is covered up by every institution in America.
...the vaccine industry, the CDC and the mainstream media are all deliberately pushing an epidemic of vaccine violence against children. That violence against children is not merely ignored but even condoned by the CDC, drug companies, doctors, hospitals, universities, media outlets and lawmakers. The systematic maiming of children has become the mantra of modern medicine, where countless children now suffer under a medical dictatorship that demands the sacrificial destruction of children in order to appease the profit gods of Big Pharma.
There is not even a shred of legitimate science to be found in the vaccine industry. It is nothing but vaccine voodoo and medical mythology carried out by the Church of Medical Mysticism where all "evidence" is faked in order to support the faith-based beliefs of the devout followers who profit from harming children. Far from "evidence-based medicine," today's vaccine industry makes a mockery of science and obliterates any possibility that vaccine risks vs. possible rewards might be assessed through rationality and critical thinking. Instead, vaccines are pushed under a totalitarian demand of absolute, mindless obedience... a position that stands in utter contradiction to the very principles of scientific discovery.
As children continue to be maimed and murdered with vaccine injections, the conspiracy of silence across every institution in America reveals what can only be called a modern-day medical holocaust. Yet those who are the most seriously injured by these vaccines are so damaged that they cannot speak for themselves anymore. Who will speak for them if not us?
And if "science" is whatever we are told it is by health authorities -- but it cannot be questioned or challenged or even validated by independent scientists -- then it isn't really science at all, is it?
Go huff a chemtrail, Mike.
So, to reiterate, Gardasil does not make your ovaries explode, nor does it turn you into a digivolving Giga Gold Diggermon like the religious whackjobs would have you believe, though we are using their breathless nonsense as the backstory for our upcoming Gardasil-powered superhero variety show: Six barely legal teenage aliens beamed down to earth. They were captured by the secret shadow government and injected with radioactive mega cancer vaccines in the hopes of making their alien ovaries explode. But the procedure backfired, transforming our nubile Neptunian Nancies into the all new Superpowered Sluts from Planet Sexalon 6 ! Premiering next week on XHamster.
Conspiracy Theorists Really Just Narcissists Who Need Hugs
What exactly causes someone like Mike Adams et al. to so feverishly promote conspiracy bull despite the no doubt constant dents he must have placed in his own skull? Luckily scientists are studying that exact thing! For our weekly dose of "No duh" news, studies now show that conspiracy theoristssufferfester from low esteem but extremely high narcissism . Throughout this piece, refer back to Mike's breathless rant and play spot the narcissist with us!
Research scientists from the UK, Poland, and Portugal conducted a series of studies published in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science examining some of the ways that conspiracy theorists define themselves. They then used those traits to map personality patterns consistent with conspiratorial beliefs. The researchers cited previous studies that showed that low self-esteem was a contributing factor to belief in conspiracies, but this was the first time that scientists examined the role of self-centeredness. Quoth the abstract :
We propose that conspiracy theories should rather be appealing to individuals with exaggerated feelings of self-love, such as narcissists, due to their paranoid tendencies.
Makes sense, really. If you have an inflated sense of your own importance, it just stands to reason that the Jews, the bankers, the Illuminati, the rap music industry, TV weathermen, and that snotty toad Linda in payroll would all be conspiring against YOU. Why wouldn't they want to take you down? You know too much, man.
In the first study, 202 participants completed a conspiracy beliefs questionnaire, a self-esteem scale, and an individual narcissism questionnaire. In the conspiracy beliefs questionnaire, participants rated the extent to which they agree with such statements as “A small, secret group of people is responsible for making all major world decisions, such as going to war” and “The American government permits or perpetrates acts of terrorism on its own soil, disguising its involvement.”
Scientists found that among participants, high individual narcissism and low self-esteem significantly predicted conspiracy beliefs.
These questions sound less like conspiracy beliefs and would more like a test to see if someone is a fan of Scandal .
After taking the first study, the researchers decided to control for collective narcissism , which is a sense of inflated self-worth of your own in-group. Ethnocentrism is a perfect example of collective narcissism. In this instance, a collective narcissist would readily believe that foreign governments are conspiring in diabolical cabals to steal our precious bodily fluids, but would consider their own government as above such behavior. A true narcissist, however, would believe that all governments are in the conspiracies:
Study 2 demonstrated that these effects were differentially mediated by paranoid thoughts, and independent of the effects of collective narcissism. Individual narcissism predicted generalized conspiracist beliefs, regardless of the conspiracy theories implicating in-group or out-group members, while collective narcissism predicted belief in out-group but not in-group conspiracies.
So if you believe that the Kremlin sent a Vatican hit squad of trained DAESH assassins to your door, the guys in your chemtrail awareness Facebook page probably believe the US government did the same thing.
Lastly, the researchers tested if the low self-esteem in conspiracists came from a general negativity about all things. If you see a pretty rainbow in your sprinkler, how likely are you to accuse HAARP of poisoning your water with aerosols ?
“The effect of low self-esteem on conspiracy beliefs can be largely attributed to the fact that low self-esteem predicts negative perceptions of humanity more broadly,” Cichocka reported.
In other words, a pre-determination for misanthropy, a pessimistic attitude, and just a general sense of being an ass makes you more likely to believe conspiracies. Paging Health Ranger.
So the lesson of the day is to seek out that conspiratorial cousin of yours, whether he be in his bunker, his condemned squatter's hovel, or locked away in the safety of his parents' basemen. Give him a great big hug to let him know he's important, but not so important as to have a hit squad after him. Just be sure when you hug him that you don't disturb his tinfoil beanie or rub off your morgellon nanobots. You wouldn't want them to turn out like these assholes.
Flotsam, Jetsam, and Hokum
A fond farewell to the First Lady of our Hearts and Penises, Nancy Reagan . May she be at peace with the crystal chakric auras she so brazenly strewn about the White House.
Mudslingers hate him! See how one stay-at-home dad ruined his entire political campaign by eating one weird, gross thing live on teevee.
An even fonder farewell to Ben Carson , America's favorite Droopy Dog impersonator. Good luck to you, Ben! Onward and upward to fleece more rubes in all your future endeavors!
We're not saying that our favorite short-fingered vulgarian, Donald Trump, has a shriveled up little baby dick , but if Grindr has taught us anything, it's that guys who really are hung don't talk about how YUGE it is every single sentence.
Chris Christie, blink twice if you are being held against your will . Thank you.
I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll run to the store now...
Kneeling in front of Ronnie, as in the final scene of "Airplane" with the inflatable automatic pilot.