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Monday, February 09, 2015

Bill Maher debates vaccinations with three non-scientists ... what could possibly go wrong??

If you've ever had any doubts about Bill Maher then watch this video and read Orac's takedown at: After five years, Bill Maher lets his antivaccine freak flag fly again.

Bill Maher is a kook. Nobody should listen to him about anything because he's blown whatever credibility he ever had. Just look at the sycophants he lined up for this show broadcast on Feb. 6, 2015.




6 comments :

Petrushka said...

Spelling in the title? Self answering question.

Diogenes said...

Unnhh... Infuriating. Maher starts off as just an arrogant @$$h07%, not so kooky, and then has he goes along, he winds himself up into full kook. He's incapable of critical thinking. Maher just goes off the rails near the end, apparently reading off some notes he has on the desk, his big list o'gripes. A long string of non sequiturs. "I don't trust Monsanto, therefore GMO's are harmful if you eat them."

And his panel! Arrrgh! Too right-wingers who are sooo angry that Gov. Christie and Sen. Rand Paul were exposed as hypocritical opportunist and full-on KOOK, respectively, and their main concern is not to protect us from diseases, but to protect Rand Paul from exposed AS THE KOOK HE HAS ALWAYS BEEN!

And the third panelist, a smug, arrogant, new age ooga booga witch who tells us science has proven that prayers get you out of the ICU faster! If she's talking about the study I'm thinking of, the Targ study, that was based on scientific fraud-- they first unblinded the data, then went hypothesis fishing until they found something "statistically significant":

...her [Targ's] study had been unblinded and then "reblinded" to scour for data that confirmed the thesis - and the Western Journal of Medicine did not know this fact when it decided to publish.

Her famous study was not, as its reputation suggests, designed to measure the number of AIDS-related illnesses. Targ and Fred Sicher had targeted their study to measure mortality but were caught off-guard by triple-drug anti-retroviral therapy, which became common practice one month into the six-month trial. When biostatistician Dan Moore broke the randomization code to unblind the data, it told them nothing - since only one patient had died, the data was meaningless. Moore brought Targ and Sicher into his office and showed him the data on his computer. Moore thought this new triple-drug therapy was nothing short of a medical miracle, the triumph of science. It was saving lives! But Targ and Sicher didn't want to see it that way. Targ asked him to crunch the numbers on the secondary scores - one a measure of HIV physical symptoms, the other a measure of quality of life. These came out inconclusive; the treatment group didn't score better than the control. Not what they wanted to find. In dismay, Targ called her father. He calmed her down, told her to keep looking. She had Moore run the mood state scores. These came out worse - the treatment group was in more psychological stress than the control group. Same for CD4+ counts. Targ flew down to Santa Fe to attend a conference at a Buddhist retreat run by her godmother. When she called back to Moore's office, Sicher answered. Moore was crunching the last data they had, hospital stays and doctor visits. "Looks like we have statistical significance!" Moore announced. Sicher told Targ, who turned and yelled out to her friends and the conference.

Bingo.

Later that week, Moore met with an AIDS physician at California Pacific Medical Center. This doctor thought distant healing was bogus but agreed to give advice. He remarked that the length of hospital stays wasn't very meaningful. Patients with health insurance tend to stay in hospitals longer than uninsured ones.
[A Prayer Before Dying. Po Bronson. Wired.]

Sean Boyle said...

I almost threw my remote through my TV watching this episode. He usually has a decently funny monologue and makes a few bad points during the panel (which can be forgiven when the "New Rules" segment is particularly funny) but this week was just awful. He came out swinging with the stupidest anti-science arguments anyone could make, only to be backed up by a panel of cranks and idiots. Here's a hint, Bill: when you agree with Marianne Williamson and some hack from The Blaze you should probably rethink your position on the topic. My favorite part was when Bill starts slandering GMO's and John McCormack (unfortunately the closest thing to a voice of reason in this whole debacle) asks for studies that show that GMO's are in fact harmful. Williamson lets out this obnoxious dramatic and patronizing sigh that Bill quickly uses to segway into more science bashing. They never did provide any evidence for their stances, which appeared to be the theme of this episode

Robert Byers said...

he is a kook and , hate to accuse, but a bad guy in the world for many things said in the past. I never watch him these years and repent that I did once.

Unknown said...

I am definitely not a fan of this guy, but I also grew up in a time when advertisements by pharmaceutical companies for vaccines (and other prescription drugs) was not allowed. Our parents saw, first hand, the results of smallpox, polio, etc. and they knew that the small risk of the vaccines was well worth it. But nobody younger than fifty in North America has seen the consequences, until recently.

But I must admit that I am skeptical of the pharmaceutical companies. I don't believe that they are evil, but I do believe that they will oversell a drug if it puts money in their pocket.

This being said, if one of my kids suggested not vaccinating their children (still in the future, but not as far in the future as I would like) I would slap them up side their head.

Robert Byers said...

I saw on cp24 some prof was fired or something for saying vaccines were wrong and another case of some group coming out against vaccines and being investigated by the gov. Thats all i know by watching their clips.