Police Brutality

Conspiracy - Vaccines Have Toxins in Them!

One of the most persistent claims made by anti-vaxxers is that vaccines have "toxins" in them and hence you should not get vaccinated. The two most common substances referenced by these fear-mongers are mercury and formaldehyde. 

The conspiracy has duped a lot of people as both mercury and formaldehyde are known by the public for their bad effects on health.  Once you do a little research you find that the claims related to these two substances can easily be refuted. 

So why is mercury in vaccines? Well this is a bit deceptive as mercury is not contained in vaccines on its own. It is instead part of a compound called thiomersal, which is perfectly harmless in the quantities found in vaccines. The problem is that most people don't understand that when you put an element into a compound, they have wildly different characteristics. You would be ill advised (to say the least) to consume pure chlorine, but when it's in the form of table salt I'd advise having some on your chips. As the fear of mercury in vaccines rose, the European Union and the United States removed thiomersal from routine childhood vaccines. As it was only used as a preservative this had little effect on the usefulness of the vaccines (thankfully). The fact that mercury is no longer in vaccines means that this can no longer be used as a reason not to vaccinate, even if thiomersal was a problem. 

Formaldehyde is the other frequently referenced "toxin" that vaccines contain. Formaldehyde is used on certain vaccines to inactivate the virus as a means to give people immunity. It is not in most vaccines, but those that it is contained in, have  just more than trace amounts of it. For example the polio vaccine contains 0.02mg/kg of formaldehyde. Obviously just giving you the concentration says nothing about whether or not it's dangerous in vaccines. However, the amount of formaldehyde is tiny compared to many common foodstuffs; for comparison (on average) bananas contain 16.3 mg/kg, potatoes contain 19.5 mg/kg and pears can have up to 60 mg/kg! The levels of formaldehyde in those foodstuffs are 815x, 975x and 3000x as high as in the polio vaccine, respectively. In light of this, not vaccinating because of formaldehyde seems pretty ridiculous. 

Conspiracy - Vaccines Cause Autism!

The idea that vaccines cause autism is probably the most infamous conspiracy when it comes to vaccines. In 1998 Andrew Wakefield (at that time a doctor) published a 'study' in the Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, that linked the MMR vaccine (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) to autism. The study sent shock waves throughout the world as parents began to stop vaccinating out of fear that it would cause their children to have autism!

Almost immediately doctors and scientists called into question how the study was carried out. The study had a very small sample size and mostly relied on what parents could remember and what they personally believed. The paper was later retracted by the Lancet and all his co-authors took their names off it. The General Medical Council in Britain revoked his right to practice medicine and described the paper as "an elaborate fraud". Since then Wakefield has refused to replicate the study, and although others have tried, they have been unable to replicate his claims.

Yet unfortunately Wakefield's damage is done, and many people continue to believe that vaccines cause autism. Anti-vaxxers love to point out that a vaccines have become more widespread, so have diagnoses of autism. This is, of course, a logical fallacy. Just because their is a correlation between two variables, it does not mean that there is a causal link between the two. It is interesting to note that there is a very similar correlation between organic food sales and diagnoses of autism in the United States, but you don't hear many conspiracy theorists claiming organic food is the problem.

Reversing the damage that Wakefield had caused will never be complete, but we can try. All we can do is flood the internet with facts and hope people come to the right conclusion. 

Conspiracies surrounding vaccines

The internet is a treasure trove of information, you can access numerous reputable organisations on any topic you desire. Unfortunately there are some people who ignore facts and would rather get their information from the darker parts of the internet. There are numerous websites that dedicate themselves to promulgating conspiratorial nonsense such as Infowars, the Mind Unleashed and basically every website that includes the word 'truth'.

When it comes to conspiracies, few topics have become as mainstream as that of vaccines. Millions of people around the world honestly believe that there is something in vaccines that is going to do them harm. Most of these people live in western countries, where the horror of diseases have largely been forgotten. Fortunately the fears surrounding vaccines are unfounded, over the next few posts I will endeavour to explain why. 

Note: I you want to avoid falsehoods on the benefit/risk of vaccinations then DO NOT visit these websites:

Mercola

PreventDisease.com

The Mind Unleashed

Natural News

 

I was wrong - Press regulation is not the answer

The British press can be extremely unethical at times, from the Daily Mail’s race baiting to the News of the World hacking the phone of a missing schoolgirl. The American media, for comparison, experiences far fewer accusations of unethical behaviour, certainly none on the level of the phone hacking scandal. Yet if I were given a choice of having either the British press or the American media, I would definitely choose the British press. Why? Well the primary job of the press is to hold the government to account, it is supposed to seek out corruption within our democracy and expose any corruption or unethical behaviour that they find. If the press does not do this, then it is not doing its job! The British press, for all its faults, does a reasonable job of this, the American media does not. There is a reason why it was a British newspaper, namely the Guardian, that revealed the information of the American government’s spying operations leaked to it by Edward Snowden, and not an American publication.

The conviction of Andy Coulson, and acquittal of RebekahBrooks, for phone hacking has brought the issue of press regulation back into the nation’s mindset. I used to support some form of press regulation as I felt that the actions of the press were so egregious that they simply could not be ignored. I honestly believed that regulation was necessary! But I was wrong. As terrible as the British press is at times, it does its job. Ian Hislop summed it up perfectly in an episode of Have I Got News For You.

A free press is necessary for a fully functioning democracy, if you start regulating the press you jeopardise one of the core tenets of democracy. If you don’t have a free press, then you don’t have a functioning democracy.

What I am not saying is that if we have press regulation, then Britain is suddenly going to become North Korea. What I am saying is that by regulating the press you have a government that is less accountable to its citizens and that won’t represent you. This means that public opinion will have even less influence over government decisions. We have seen what happens when governments get too close to the journalists, and it is not something that we can allow as a country. As horrific as the British press can be at times, regulating it is not the right answer. 

Civil War Returns to Iraq

Civil War has returned to Iraq as the sectarian and ethnic conflict between Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and the Kurds, takes a turn for the worse. The Jihadist organisation ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq andthe Levant)* has taken large portions of the north and west, including Iraq’s second city Mosul.

So far ISIL has encountered very little resistance from the Iraqi Army, when ISIL came to take the city of Mosul the Army fled so quickly that they left behind all of their equipment! This becomes even more shocking when you realise that the ISIL contingent had less than 1000 men andthe Iraqi Army had over 60,000! They ran away so fast that they left behind tanks and military jets! So why on earth did the Army run away when they outnumbered the enemy 60:1 and has massive technological superiority? The answer lies in the sectarian makeup of Iraq, and its institutions. The army, like the government, is mostly Shia, whilst Mosul is dominated by Sunni Muslims.

The soldiers had no interest in defending Mosul from a Sunni organisation like ISIL. They are not going to risk their lives ‘protecting’ people who at best, they don’t care about, or at worst they hate. That is why the fighting so far has produced fewer casualties than you might expect. The bloodbath will truly begin when ISIL attempts to take territory that is disputed or majority Shi’ite. This could come sooner than you think. ISIL is less than 50km from Baghdad and Baghdad is mostly Shi’ite. When the Battle for Baghdad starts you will not see the army fleeing, instead they will fight and thousands will die.

The ethnic/sectarian divisions of Iraq
source: The Economist

Another piece in this complex puzzle of Iraq are the Kurds. The Kurds are an ethnic group in the region that have been persecuted for a long time. Although they are Sunni, they are often thought of as being primarily Kurdish and secondarily Sunni. They form a majority in north eastern Iraq, and for the past several years have had some de facto independence. They have their own army, the Peshmarga, which has over 200,000 soldiers which is why ISIL has not tried to take Kurdish territory. In fact this has worked out well for the Kurds, so far, as the Iraqi Army flees the north, they have been able to capture more territory that was formerly in dispute, including the oil rich city of Kirkuk.

There is no easy solution to the chaos that has engulfed Iraq. What I currently favour is sending UN peacekeepers to Iraq to split the country into three new countries, Sunni Iraq, Shi’ite Iraq and Kurdistan. Obviously this is easier said than done, and will involve blood being spilt on all sides. I do believe that the partition of Iraq holds the best hope of achieving some form of peace and stability in the country.

*sometimes referred to as ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria)

UKIP in the Ascendancy?

Nigel Farage has called the result an “earthquake in British politics” as his party charges into first place with almost 30% of the vote and 24 seats. Yet is this result, in a European election with a 34% turnout, an indication of the 2015 General Election? The answer: Not if history is anything to go by. Nobody is claiming that UKIP will beat the Tories or Labour in next year’s election, not even the party itself, the question is will it gain any seats, and if so, how many?

Remember back to 2009 when UKIP placed second in the European elections with 16.5% of the vote? Everyone predicted that in the 2010 General Election that UKIP would gain some seats in the House of Commons, especially considering voter hostility to both Labour and the Tories. Well in 2010 UKIP didn’t gain any seats and only received a paltry 3.1% of the vote. Obviously a lot has changed in five years, but I doubt Farage will cause an earthquake when the results of the 2010 election are revealed.

There was some good news though, support for the BNP crumbled into nothing! In the 2009 European elections the BNP managed to gain two MEPs, Nick Griffin in the North West and Andrew Brons in Yorkshire and the Humber. This time around both MEPs were handily defeated.

The Greens had a reasonable night, although their share of the vote actually decreased slightly they managed to gain one seat. This is particularly th

anks to the implosion of the Lib Dems, who slipped into fifth place and lost 10 of their 11 seats. This result, along with their obliteration in the council elections has meant many in Nick Clegg’s own party calling for his head.

Party	Vote	Change	Seats	Change	Pro or anti EU
UKIP	27.49%	+10.99%	24	+11	Anti
Labour	25.40%	+9.67%	20	+7	Pro
Conservative	23.93%	-3.80%	19	-7	Mixed
Greens	7.87%	-0.75%	3	+1	Pro
Liberal Democrats	6.87%	-6.87%	1	-10	Pro
SNP*	2.46%	+0.34%	2	0	Pro
Plaid Cymru*	0.71%	-0.13%	1	0	Pro
BNP	1.14%	-5.10%	0	-2	Anti

*The percentage of the vote is when you take all of Great Britain (not Northern Ireland). In Scotland the SNP got 29% of the vote and in Wales Plaid Cymru got 15%. 

Undoubtedly Eurosceptics did quite well, but the result was not as Eurosceptic as you might have been lead to believe. 42% of people voted for pro-EU parties, 31% for anti-EU parties and 25% on parties that have mixed attitudes to the EU.