I don’t usually read any of the dozens of press releases that flood my inbox each day, but this one from the New York City Coalition for Vaccine Safety and Autism Advocacy Organizations had a long headline in BOLD CAPS, so of course, it caught my attention:

OUTRAGED AUTISM GROUPS AND LEADERS TO ANNOUNCE 50,000-PARENT PROTEST IN NYC AGAINST BILLIONAIRE AND MICROSOFT CHAIRMAN BILL GATES AFTER BEING CALLED “CHILD KILLERS”

Bill Gates called autism advocacy groups “child killers”? Wow. That’s outrageous. Except, in Gates’ defense, A) he didn’t call autism groups who advocate against childhood vaccines “child killers,” he said that they “kill children,” and B) autism groups who advocate against childhood vaccines are child killers.

I mean, setting aside the fact that no credible scientific study has ever proven a causal link between childhood vaccines and autism, and the fact that the original study that sparked all this anti-vaccine hysteria was recently retracted as an “elaborate fraud,” objectively, autism doesn’t kill children, but childhood diseases do. Some of these unvaccinated children will needlessly get sick and die, as will other children too young or immune-compromised to be vaccinated, who subsequently catch illness due to the lack of herd immunity. So yes, I think it fair to say that these anti-vaccine advocates are “killing children,” if indirectly.

And you know what else these vaccine deniers are? Fucking idiots who cannot accept that the “scientific” evidence on which their entire crusade is based simply no longer exists. You know what else doesn’t exist? The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and God. Believe in any or all of them if you please, but don’t claim your faith is based on science, because it’s not.

Now, I don’t mean to be insensitive to the parents of autistic children. I’m a parent myself, and I can imagine how devastated I would have been had my daughter been diagnosed with autism. But you know what? Just because something awful afflicts your child and your family, doesn’t mean it is somebody else’s fault. Bad things happen, sometimes with no explanation, so if you have a God, and it makes you feel better, blame Him. But don’t blame Bill Gates for trying to save millions of people through childhood vaccination; he’s already got enough blood on his hands for Windows Vista.

And for goodness sake, get your kids vaccinated already!

127 replies on “Outraged Child Killers to Protest Against Bill Gates For Calling Them “Child Killers””

  1. @33, I don’t think you’re a conspiracy theorist. I think you’re an environmentalist looking for something new to blame on chemical pollution and making a wild correlation.

    This whole thing is a problem with people not understanding that coincidences exist. Not everything is connected the way it seems to be in your head.

  2. @48

    Which is why the water we drink and the air we breath is so dirty compared to 50 years ago…

    oh wait…

    Now tell us about how 9-11 was an inside job…

  3. Spindles, do you have ANY idea how many people smallpox killed every year before vaccines were invented?
    Do you have any idea just how many people died of the flu in 1918? And how few die nowadays thanks to vaccines?
    Do you know how much longer and how much healthier we all live now as compared to people a century ago?
    Antibiotics and vaccines are the cheapest, most effective defenses we have ever created against bacteria and viruses, respectively.
    Your list of ancient articles was hilarious – (oh no, they looked at antibodies in FECES! Yup, we do secrete antibodies into our gut to protect us from viruses in our food, so it’s an easy place to see what antibodies somebody was making) And you DO know that Vaccinia is a poxvirus, not a vaccine, right?
    Let me guess – you think fluoride in our water supply is a Communist plot, too?
    Please get psychiatric help. Your paranoia seems limitless. You seem like someone who would benefit from having MORE chemicals in their bloodstream.

  6. @25: That is cuntpasted more or less directly from http://www.thinktwice.com, a website that is openly and unabashedly against any form of vaccination. Nice try.

    Spindles, if you stopped worrying about Big Pharma just a little bit, just enough to take your fucking meds, your quality of life (and the quality of life of those poor souls who have to deal with you) would skyrocket.

  7. @52 You obviously didn’t read my link so here’s some more.

    “Children with autism disorders in the San Francisco Bay Area were 50% more likely to be born in neighborhoods with high amounts of several toxic air contaminants, particularly mercury” -California Department of Health Services

    “Research supported by NIEH has clearly shown that it is not just genetics that causes neuro-developmental disorders such as autism but rather the interplay of both genes and the environment”. Dr. Linda Birnbaum, Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health

    Tell me how Global Warming is a myth.

  8. Autism rates have not been “skyrocketing”. When my daughter was diagnosed 43 years ago, most autistic kids were called mentally retarded, emotional disturbed, or childhood schizophrenics. Doctors hardly knew about autism. They’ve since learned, and kids are being diagnosed. And I’m not talking about Asperger’s, I’m talking about standard Kanner Syndrome autism, the bad stuff. More kids are being DIAGNOSED, not being born with autism.

    Spindles and other parents like him will not be convinced because they are devoting their lives to their belief in the vaccine conspiracy. Doesn’t matter if 50 researchers are found guilty of fraud. Don’t waste your breath trying to talk sense to them, and don’t paint all parents of autistic kids/people with the same brush. Some of us do have sense.

  10. I think I can summarize Spindles’ argument more succinctly, as I am fairly familiar with it:

    You know who have sometimes been wrong? SCIENTISTS!!! Therefore the crackpot social meme I’ve embraced against all the evidence is TRUE, and all that sciencey, controlled study, overwhelming evidence, health researches around the world stuff is just OPINION!

    Oh, and don’t believe people who tell you otherwise — they’re all Jews.

  11. Well, Spindles, you stated this: “Bill Gates is a eugenicist and should be scorned for the racist, sterilization programs his tax shelter foundation is running all over the globe.”

    Since you believe this to be true, and you have no fear of providing links, would you be so kind as to provide us proof of your statement?

    Personally, I’m with Goldy.

    I will never forgive that Rat-Bastard for Vista….

  12. To go along with what 58 said, the rates for several other disorders have gone down over time. Particularly the disorders that children with autism used to be classified into when most doctors were unfamiliar with autism and bad at diagnosing it. It’s not actually clear that there is any increase in autism rates at all.

    However, if there is an increase beyond better diagnosis and a wider spectrum for diagnosis, then it is quite possibly due to the cultural influence that it is easier for people who are mildly on the autistic spectrum (possibly not even diagnosible with Asperger’s themselves, but further along the spectrum than average, as it really does seem to be a spectrum of traits) may be more likely to breed with other people who are a bit on the spectrum, causing a greater funneling of those genes to create an increase risk. People with some traits on the spectrum would be likely to be attracted to others also with some traits as they have more in common, and with greater mobility, communication, and later age before breeding people tend to be able to choose a partner from a wider pool rather than just whether or not anyone else in their home town had similar traits. If so, an increase in autism is a small price to pay for greater mobility and communication while living in a free society.

  14. I have a theory about autism that is just as plausible. I propose that it is eating that causes autism! Every single child that developed autism had a history of eating food. So if we stop children from eating food all cases of autism would end. We all know that food is but a plot that our government supports with “Big Farm.” right?

    Well it is equally as valid as the claims made about vaccines. Perhaps those who fear vaccines should stop eating as well, just to be on the safe side.

  15. @61 and Goldy:
    You are spreading misinformation and lies. Bill Gates effectively checked out of Microsoft after the DOJ anti-trust suit, long before the Vista development cycle was in full swing.

    Vista is the fault of Steve Ballmer, not Bill Gates.

  16. 58 makes a very good point. Autism is only more recently being identified more and more. When researchers go look at past cases of mental retardation they are finding more misdiagnosed cases of autism. People also seem to forget that scientific research is not to be taken as fact at the first research paper, it must be replicated many times over before it can be deemed scientifically relevant. What Wakefield did was a unethical to the highest degree, but the damage was already done before he was shown for the hack he is.

    Another point to make is that most cases of autism are diagnosed around the same time that many vaccines are given, specifically the MMR vaccine is not to be given until at least 12 months. Just because the time lines are similar, it does not mean vaccines are the cause. Also, the preservatives in vaccines are in trace amounts or have been removed entirely in many modern vaccines. We are exposed to far more toxins in far greater quantities each day. The amount found in vaccines is not enough to do any damage at any age. Hell, we probably consume more mercury from the fish we eat than from all of the vaccines we get our entire lives.

    There are also no completely safe medications or vaccines on the market for anything. Even aspirin and Tylenol (two drugs widely considered to be harmless when used properly) have been documented to cause liver damage when used as directed. Everything we consume has the potential to cause some harm to our bodies, we just neglect to see it. Even if vaccines were causing some side effects, they are minimal in comparison to the number of lives they save each year.

  18. In January I went back to South Ozone Park, NY because my father passed away. After the funeral it was decided by my two sisters and brother that the house needed to be sold…a two family brick with no tenant upstairs that my parents bought in 1974.

    While I was there we excavated all the debris of the families past 50 years…one thing that was found was a little blue book that looked like an old bank savings passbook. It was my childhood immunization record from our first family doctor. I was born in October 1960 and it listed the record of early immunizations and subsequent major diseases up until about 1970 when those things called com-pu-ters presumably took over.

    Looking through the book, although I, and my siblings, had gotten all the traditional vaccinations, there was a period around 1968-69 when we all got hit hard with each of a combination of them…chicken pox, measels and mumps. I also had a nasty strep throat that kept me out of school for two weeks…I remember distinctly being brought in to see Dr. Mazzone and after taking my temperature, he lambasted my mom as it had gone up to 102F and was continuing to rise toward the brain baking zone.

    Looking at the immunization passport, I thought…what was the point of it all if we kids all ended up sick as dogs with these things. My brother still has a little indent scar that he got from the chicken pox (or was it the measels…not sure) near his right temple.

    I also remember being ravaged by quite a terrible case of acne during the teen years…the class “crater face” (which doesn’t seem to occur as much it seems)…I remember reading accounts of smallpox back around the Civil War…sothern belles would melt wax on their faces as a makeup because of the pock marks being so severe. I sometimes wonder if what was called “acne” then was some type of smallpox….what was the relation of vaccines.

    I have no idea what these tales mean.

    Just something from long ago.

  19. Spindles counts on our not actually reading through that list of studies, just counting it as a substantial body of clinical evidence that supports his/her point of view.

    Count how many of those papers are twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years old–when vaccines were composed very differently, when safety standards in manufacturing and clinical practice were more lax, when autism was less precisely defined. (I spotted one article from 1938. Were doctors even washing their hands in those days?)

    Count how many of them are actually from reputable medical journals (eg, JAMA, Lancet, Pediatrics) and not niche journals with less exacting standards (eg, Iowa Med). Singh et al, one of the few of these that contains original data on autism, is from a journal that would cease publication permanently a mere two issues later–if they had good data on a then-hot topic, wouldn’t they have been able to get it into the big leagues?

    Count how many of them contain original data (the ones with cutesy titles are generally opinion or review pieces that don’t add to the evidence, and there are even a couple of letters in the editor responding to the original Wakefield paper).

    Count how many of them are actually germane to autism and not to other side effects. (Yes, it’s cause for concern that a fraction of children might develop a serious adverse reaction–but it’s clearly dwarfed by the well-documented improvement in childhood mortality. Moreover, the fact that we’re not talking about any other potential side effects speaks to an a lack of confirmatory data. The question at hand is autism.)

    Count how many of them are direct responses to Wakefield, before he’d been discredited.

    If you came up with even one study that hasn’t been eliminated, you win a cigar. I came up empty-handed.

  20. Spindles counts on our not actually reading through that list of studies, just counting it as a substantial body of clinical evidence that supports his/her point of view.

    Count how many of those papers are twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years old–when vaccines were composed very differently, when safety standards in manufacturing and clinical practice were more lax, when autism was less precisely defined. (I spotted one article from 1938. Were doctors even washing their hands in those days?)

    Count how many of them are actually from reputable medical journals (eg, JAMA, Lancet, Pediatrics) and not niche journals with less exacting standards (eg, Iowa Med). Singh et al, one of the few of these that contains original data on autism, is from a journal that would cease publication permanently a mere two issues later–if they had good data on a then-hot topic, wouldn’t they have been able to get it into the big leagues?

    Count how many of them contain original data (the ones with cutesy titles are generally opinion or review pieces that don’t add to the evidence, and there are even a couple of letters in the editor responding to the original Wakefield paper).

    Count how many of them are actually germane to autism and not to other side effects. (Yes, it’s cause for concern that a fraction of children might develop a serious adverse reaction–but it’s clearly dwarfed by the well-documented improvement in childhood mortality. Moreover, the fact that we’re not talking about any other potential side effects speaks to an a lack of confirmatory data. The question at hand is autism.)

    Count how many of them are direct responses to Wakefield, before he’d been discredited.

    If you came up with even one study that hasn’t been eliminated, you win a cigar. I came up empty-handed.

  21. Bill Gates’ serves on the board of planned parenthood as did his father Bill Gates Sr.
    http://www.naturalnews.com/029071_Bill_G…
    Gates claimed his dad was the head of Planned Parenthood
    in an interview with Bill Moyers.
    Planned Parenthood (formally know as the American Birth Control League) was on the ground floor of the eugenics movement in the early half of the twentieth century. Here are some quotes from its founder Margaret Sanger: “”The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
    Margaret Sanger (editor). The Woman Rebel, Volume I, Number 1. Reprinted in Woman and the New Race. New York: Brentanos Publishers, 1922.
    “Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need … We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock.”
    Margaret Sanger, April 1933 Birth Control Review.
    “The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind.”
    Margaret Sanger, quoted in Charles Valenza. “Was Margaret Sanger a Racist?” Family Planning Perspectives, January-February 1985, page 44.
    Ect…http://www.eadshome.com/MargaretSanger.htm

  22. Gates seems very interested in using vaccines to reduce the world’s population
    http://guerillamedia.co.nz/content/bill-…
    Gates funds gm mosquitoes or “flying syringes”
    to combat dengue
    http://www.activistpost.com/2010/11/bill…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcCnwPhGZ…
    background: dengue outbreak leads back to cia experiments
    http://www.truth-out.org/florida-dengue-…
    Funds GMO and biotech
    http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=227D7E…
    He is promoting a plan to use wireless technology to register every newborn on the planet in a vaccine database.
    http://www.naturalnews.com/031031_Bill_G…
    and Wants to spread GMO’s all over the world
    http://www.naturalnews.com/029071_Bill_G…

  23. Augh. Forgive the duplicate comment; it kept telling me I wasn’t logged in and I gave up. This system is buggy as hell.

    And Supreme Ruler, there’s a saying: “The plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data.'” You and your siblings were three children out of billions–if your decades-ago vaccines weren’t completely effective, it doesn’t exactly outweigh the fact that countless children lived who might otherwise have died. (Note that none of you died from a childhood disease or developed a serious side effect. Hmm.)

    Also: (1) acne and smallpox are not even in the same ballpark, and (2) Southern belles in the antebellum era were not vaccinated. Was there a point you were trying to make there?

  25. CDC on Gardasil side effects and related deaths
    http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccine…

    FOIA uncovers 16 new Gardasil-related deaths
    http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/belt…

    JAMA also published an article from Columbia University, questioning Merck’s marketing practices for the vaccine. It seems that the American College Health Association, the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, and the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists promoted Gardasil with the help of $750,000 provided by Merck. Lines seemed to have blurred between education and marketing that did not address the “full complexity of issues surrounding the vaccine” or “provide balanced recommendations” on the product’s risks and benefits. The associations’ officials denied this.
    http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/302/7/7…

  26. 74: I agree with respect to Flu-shots. A flu-shot I had in November 2001 triggered horrible neurological symptoms ( so bad that a leading neurologist in Seattle diagnosed a mild stroke, incorrectly ). Followed by years of decreasing aftershocks. Obviously I avoid the flu-shots now. As for the childrens’ shots – yes, it is babykilling to deny them. First & last time I agree with Bill Gates.

  29. @Spindles

    “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going into that cavity. That nerve’s already dying. A live, freshly-cut nerve is infinitely more sensitive. So I’ll just drill into a healthy tooth until I reach the pulp. That is unless, of course, you can tell me that it’s safe.”

  30. Here’s what I don’t understand. If the idiots who pray their children’s illness will go away, instead of taking them to the doctor where they can be properly cared for, and that child dies, they can be prosecuted. So why can’t these idiots who don’t get their children vaccinated be prosecuted? They not only endanger their own children but they endanger the lives of those around them. Vaccinations should be mandatory, by law.

  31. @30 FTW

    @Spindles Hey, I survived measles, mumps, rubella and scarlet fever as a child, before there were vaccines. But, it doesn’t prove your point and wasn’t without a high cost. I’m sterile, and for the rest of my life have to take hormones for hypogonadism, and drugs for hypertension and hypersensitivity. Now shut your mouth and go get your children vaccinated, you stupid shit.

  32. @spindles I forgot to add, I was lucky enough to avoid polio long enough to be vaccinated against it, but others in my school were not so lucky. I had classmates in leg braces and crutches.

  33. 1.) What we’re seeing here is partially a consequence of scientism. Since people were taught to respect what science did, and even more so its technological fruits, without being adequately educated as to how it’s done and why, the false attitudes of worship and fear supervene actual understanding. Scientists have some responsibility for this in not explaining what we do adequately or insisting that it be adequately explained by others…this worked decently in a more intellectually top-down society such as we used to have, but exploding mædia (messy) and Authority’s record on (e.g.) Vietnam, CIA experiments, the Tuskegee affair, reduced people’s willingness to believe people notionally above them—an immune response. This is both a good to thing (healthy scepticism) and a bad (autoimmune overdrive: people being unable to distinguish reasonable authorities on particular subjects from unreasonable, making it all a matter of opinion, tilting the world toward those who scream loudest). People opposed to scientific naturalism are also to blame, though their ideas in light of the above may be seen as an opportunistic infection.

    2.) A funny thing about Margaret Sanger: she really, really, cared about the conditions in which the poor lived. When she published (I believe with E. Goldman) “The Woman Rebel” her comment about it being kinder to kill a poor child was hyperbole (and a half) designed to bring home how badly some of them lived. She wanted birth control spread because while working as a nurse she saw the damage that too much childbirth—and botched abortions—did to poor women. She never got a lot of funding arguing that way, so she switched to eugenicist arguments, because…

    3.) A funny thing about eugenicism: it was ubiquitous around that time, and definitely much more respectable than birth-control. Perfessor G. Beck is absolutely _right_ that the Progressive movement’s ranks were riddled with pro-eugenics types…but so were their opponents’, the only exception being the extremely religious. Ms Sanger probably believed in it to some extent, but I’m of the opinion that she believed in the work she was doing with the money she got from it more.

    4.) A funny thing about William Gates III: yes, he’s a rich kid who played fast-and-loose with the rights of the people who wrote CPM, yes his firm engaged in Mom-opolistic [sic…’Futurama’ made me do it] practices, yes the early 64k segmentation was major lossage, yes Win95/98/Mobile stank on ice…but at least he’s one of those who want to own relatively happy and healthy people, and on the scale of evil billionaires he is hardly our worst worry these days when Scaifes and Kochs and Murdochs roam free. I’m much more afraid of those who can’t enjoy being rich until the rest of us are miserable.

    5.) A funny thing about humans: many of us have a weird need to believe that we live in a comprehensibly just world, so that (for example) God or the Market demands that the poor starve and even as He/It blesses mine own prosperity, and any death can be traced to sorcery which can be balanced by killing the sorceror. When things go wrong, someone or something must be blamed…and once you assume bad faith in your target, no evidence will prove that (at least) they’re not _trying_ to do the Bad Thing.

  35. I’m in medical school. I would love to be a pediatrician when I finish training, but the thought of dealing with vaccine-denying parents day in and day out makes me want to run for the hills. So sad, because I love kids and treating them is a joy and a challenge.

  38. Look Goldy, just because nothing awful happened to your kid doesn’t mean that something awful didn’t happen to other kids. These scientific studies have disproven that vaccines are the direct cause of autism. They absolutely have not disproven that excessive vaccinations are ONE OF THE CAUSES (some others being environmental toxins, maternal stress and a genetic propensity). Do you really think parents of autistic kids have the time, strength or money to so vociferously oppose mandated vaccinations if they didn’t see their own children disappear into that hole of autism right after a round? So for goodness’ sake, THINK about your child’s unique biological history and characteristics BEFORE you get them vaccinated already!

  40. @88: Let’s just pretend that you’re not wrong about vaccines being anything to do with autism at all, despite the entirety of the scientific literature showing no correlation whatsoever. Would you find it more important to prevent one of the factors of autism, knowing it’s not a direct cause or to prevent the deaths of up to 3 in 1000 of all children due to preventable diseases? That’s where mortality of childhood disease was in the US and England before vaccines.

  41. Planned Parenthood is eugenics. So are attempts to reduce dengue fever. Vaccines kill children, while childhood diseases are proof of God’s glorious bounty. Spindles, your world is truly inside-out and upside-down. It doesn’t matter how many ancient or discredited studies you think you’re citing; you’re beyond wrong. Goo goo ga joob, brother, goo goo ga joob.

  42. You can have your pediatrician divide the shots up so they aren’t as large if you are worried.

    Autism may be a more diagnosed condition today. It may be environmental conditions. But it’s not vaccinations.

    My three older siblings all had polio. One of them was paralyzed when she was 4 years old. She had an operation and regained the ability to walk but it has weakened her for the rest of her life. She was separated from our mother for 3 months as the hospital where she was being treated was far away from where we lived. Many children weren’t so fortunate at that hospital.

    Consider the evidence and the ramifications of not getting vaccinated.

  43. @88, parents might be pretty good at noticing when something is wrong with their kid but they are terrible at determining why their children are sick compared to biologists. The experts have looked at all these claims of vaccines being dangerous for young children and dismissed them. They know what they are talking about. Why do you trust people who know relatively little about biology or the immune system over those who do?

    As someone who does know a little about the immune system, the claim that vaccines overload the immune system somehow is pretty laughable. Children are exposed to thousands of new bacteria and viruses every day of their lives and their immune system seems to handle the majority of those just fine. Vaccines simply introduce parts of a single organism their bodies should really know about into the body. It’s no different then what happens every time your child is cut or scraped by anything non sterile, in fact it’s more tame.

  44. @93: well, you’re obviously some damned Kenyan socialist élitist, because you’re claiming that someone could know something about a child his parents wouldn’t. His parents are hard workers, whereas this scientist type you’re trusting never did a lick of work in her life (what she calls the ‘work’ to master her field isn’t, because it isn’t something normal people do or understand, the latter not least because she’s not doing it primarily for the pay), and we TRUST hard work and gut-feeling more than so-called ‘expertise’ and ‘reasoning’ and ‘facts’.

  45. I believe in getting kids vaccinated, but it makes me cringe hearing the parents of these children with autism called assholes and idiots. These are desperate people who in many cases had what appeared to be perfectly healthy children whose health started deteriorating the day they were vaccinated. Imagine watching your child go through that and being powerless to stop it. I don’t blame them for wanting answers.

  46. @85: Do it anyway. There are plenty of rational people who might ask you questions and then actually take your advice. Really.

    I interpreted for a shitfuckton of peds appointment over the course of four years, and I never once saw a parent refuse a vaccine. In fairness, though, the Spanish-speaking population tends to elevate doctors and do whatever they recommend. Hey, maybe get a gig in a farmworkers community. Lotsa cute kids and parents who take your advice. Score!

  47. @95: I don’t blame them for wanting answers. I blame them for wilfully ignoring the anwsers when they get them and for continuing to promote a dangerous, harmful, and wrong campaign against safe, effective childhood vaccinations.

    Bad things happen. People get sick. People die. We don’t always know why. Seizing on a wrong-headed explanation and pushing it to the point where it is demonstrably harmful is not a constructive or healthy response to those facts.

  48. @90 You’re too kind to him. The 3 in 1000 figure is the direct mortality of children (and I suspect that doesn’t include all of the vaccine-preventable diseases). It doesn’t include morbidity, still births, or the devastating life-long and life-shortening debilities of congenital rubella syndrome. Nor does it address the staggering costs of nursing someone through polio or its crippling after-effects.

  49. @ 85: My friend’s pediatrician has a big sign in her office that says if you don’t intend to vaccinate your child then she recommends you find another pediatrician. You could do something similar.

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