Gates Foundation Funds "Altruistic Vaccine" 259
QuantumG writes "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a $100,000 grant to the University of Queensland, Australia to develop a vaccine against dengue fever, a disease spread by mosquitoes. Unlike other vaccines, the 'altruistic vaccine' doesn't specifically protect the individual being bitten, but instead protects the community by stopping the transmission of the pathogen from one susceptible individual to another. The hope is to do this by effectively making their blood poisonous to mosquitoes, either killing them or at least preventing them from feeding on other individuals. Professor Paul Young explained how his work fell outside current scientific traditions and might lead to significant advances in global health — he said he could envision the vaccine being used around the world within 10 years, and it would be designed to be cheap and easy to implement."
A vaccine? (Score:4, Funny)
Is this a vaccine that prevent you from getting infected with that anti-captialist altruistism?
Is this yet another attempt for Microsoft to destroy the Free Software movement?
The Giving Plague (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this a vaccine that prevent you from getting infected with that anti-captialist altruistism?
Hey, altruism is serious business [davidbrin.com].
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For those who find Brin's writing style tiresome to wade through: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Plague [wikipedia.org]
On another note... my first thought about Bill + "Altruistic Vaccine" was the same as the GP's --- that he's probably attempting to vaccinate against altruism. At least on some subconscious level. On a conscious level, he probably just thought, "Well, if I can't DRM software yet, I'll DRM people."
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Um. I think I'll wait for version 3 of this vaccine.
--
Slow Poke [pair.com]
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3.11 to be exact. And for Workgroups too.
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I really hoped I could make it at least past at least the first post in this thread without someone bashing Bill Gates for the COMPLETELY UNRELATED practices of his software company.
But, since we're on the subject, what the fuck has the heroic Steve Jobs or Linus Thorvalds ever done for poor villagers in Africa? Gates is at least giving these people vaccines and drinking water (en masse), while all the idealists do is give them a few (very few) laptops.
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If you read, even the summary, much less the article you'll see that the quotes have nothing to do with the fact Gates is involved The "altruistic vaccine" works in a fundamentally different way than a "normal vaccine" and the quote are being used to highlight the difference. It's a perfectly acceptable grammatical structure.
Is that really enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't want to sound ungrateful or anything but is $100K really all that much considering how expensive it must be to do this kind of research?
I could presume it is enough money to pay for the salary of the one researcher that was awarded this grant. It's not a lot of money, but Microsoft has spread their grants to other researchers working on other projects as well.
Re:Is that really enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bill Gates != Microsoft
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Bill Gates != Microsoft
In VB6, it it might well be!
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He may as well be, what with Paul Allen barely ever mentioned. Seeing as about all he's done with his wealth is buy a bunch of sport teams... oh and establish a foundation for his charity work years before Bill ever did.
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Re:Is that really enough? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Is that really enough? (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly,
Unlike other grants such as the NFS, the Gates foundation is very results driven. In essence Bill Gates is using the money just like in a business with the only exception the goal isn't to make more money to to have the best effect on humanity. So 100k grant to do some research (And this guy probably has other money, Money from the university that pays his salary and facilities) The 100k pays for tools and grad students (Who work cheap) to help with his research. Now with further study if it shows more of a success then he may get more. But if it is a dead end research the Gates Foundation is only down 100k vs. More.
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YIDRC (Score:5, Informative)
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The BMG is giving out trucks of money to people investigating diseases. If this project got 100k, then most likely it is not worth more.
j.
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I don't want to sound ungrateful or anything but is $100K really all that much considering how expensive it must be to do this kind of research?
I feel somewhat qualified to answer this accurately as I've been in the throes of grant proposal writing over the past six months, and have put together 4 large proposals, along with 6 smaller ones, all with budgets. I would not refuse $100k if someone were to offer the sum; far from it, as I would accept $100k with grateful humility. However, that does not mean it's a very large amount of money.
$100k of direct costs gets you almost nothing. It's a pittance. It will cover the salary of one researcher for
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Actually, it's $100k for first round, and the researcher can get another $100k in 6 months (up to 2 100k grants per year). That should be plenty to pay a researcher and his lab and overhead costs for a year. If his work shows promise, then he can recieve much more the next year. It's results driven.
Re:Is that really enough? (Score:5, Funny)
Really he should up this to 640K. That should be enough for anybody.
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This message has been sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
There goes another five bucks.
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2.) Assuming that he really doesn't care about malaria? So what?
Do you actually know what it is to live in poverty? With malaria and other infectious diseases around you? I HAVE. If help (medical or monetary) were to come my way, however little and in whatever form, I would accept it. I would not care the ulterior motives.
Now, as for you, as you feel so grand and awesome for the diatribe against the evil Bill, what are you doing? If you are so disdainful of what you
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Please, go on. Tell me precisely how market dominance in a desktop computer operating system has kept the desperately poor of Africa from becoming "not poor". Perhaps it has to do with increased electrification of the African countryside? Brought computers and wireless connections to those people?
Basically, Windows design is so poisonous, it rots brains of people who are trying to advance science and technology whenever they try to build anything that has to work under Windows and therefore they have to internalize this insane design. With progress in technology being slowed down and misdirected, the whole world does not get benefits of better technology, medicine, infrastructure development, art, etc. that would be developed if Windows did not exist.
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Your last post hasn't answered the question: how did Windows domination has caused these people (we are talking 3rd world people) to be poor?
It did not make them poor, it prevented them from ceasing to be poor. The same way how Catholic Church kept European peasants poor over Middle Ages -- by shitting up and suffocating all scientific development.
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So, 2 decades of non-windows usage would have had reversed centuries-old poverty?
Of course. In the rest of the world it already happened at various points in history, so there is no reason to expect that it wouldn't be the same in Africa. We see it as "centuries-old poverty" only in comparison with our own societies' conditions, however not long ago our societies were at the same level, just without a point of comparison to make them look this bad.
Explain me the economics of it, IN DETAIL, not with slogans passed as hypothetical.
The whole study of economy is basically a set of slogans, so I would rather omit it altogether and focus on things that are comparable and me
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FWIW I don't like Bill Gates or Microsoft much, but they haven't done even half as much damage to the world/USA as a few people in the US Gov or even in the finance industry.
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You exhibit the common symptoms of an idealog. This is probably something that someone should invest some money into curing.
Whether or not you believe Microsoft did not earn their money (i.e. stolen it) is irrelevant to the money in Bill Gates personal fortune. His money came from sales of stock, which are all completely legitimate. Yes, those sales were based on the performance of Microsoft stock, but the stock sales themselves are completely above board.
To put this another way. Let's say a football te
And 20 years from now... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:And 20 years from now... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it is also possible that evolution will take another path and mosquitos stop feeding on humans and switch to animals, but not any more possible than the prospect of mosquitos becoming vegetarians.
Re:And 20 years from now... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know, mosquitos has many other food sources than humans. Resistance to humans might not be important enough to give potentially immune mosquitos an evolutionary advantage.
Re:And 20 years from now... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Considering the rate at which mosquitoes breed and die anyway I'm with the gp in that it wouldn't be a big enough advantage for natural selection to win out.
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They can do that a million ways: body temperature, smell, etc, etc
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Problem is, for mosquitos to stop feeding off humans would mean developing some sort of mechanism to differentiate between a human and an animal.
Uh, how did you infer that was the goal from the GP's post? The point isn't that mosquitos will evolve to avoid humans. The point is that they probably *won't* evolve a resistance to this "vaccine" because it won't act as a sufficient evolutionary pressure to select mosquitos with that resistance, as the ability to feed on humans isn't sufficiently advantageous.
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Uh, how did you infer that was the goal from the GP's post?
Simple: I misunderstood :)
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On a more serious note, though. Some time from now, if this vaccine is developed and becomes widespread, the mosquitos will adapt to the poison in it (this is what evolution is all about), and we'll have mosquitos that are resistant to the poison.
This is probably true, as it is with antibiotics and bacteria. But just like we can't stop prescribing antibiotics for certain infections, we can't just not explore the possibilities of this vaccine.
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Yeah, but we will have poisonous blood! Next on the project wishlist: radioactive spiders.
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Just wait until Bill Gates releases those into the audience.
Why a 100K would be needed from Bill to fund this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why a 100K would be needed from Bill to fund th (Score:5, Informative)
-- Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766
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A whole two of them.
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England, Scotland, at least two states (then separate countries) ... I make that more than 2?
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England and Scotland merged into the United Kingdom as of 1707, so they were a single state with one government and Parliament. They're still separate countries, though - Scotland's banks even issue their own currency, the Scottish pound. I believe they're perfectly legal tender in the rest of the UK, but you get funny looks from people anywhere much past north England.
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That isn't entirely correct, although in practice that is pretty much how it works. From here [bankofengland.co.uk]:
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Yeah, could be. I know I've paid for drinks at bars in Leeds and York with Scottish pounds and not had it be a problem, but was told (by a Scottish friend) not to try it further south.
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Actually, I'm pretty sure Benjamin was talking about "public provisions made for the poor" and not merely public provisions made for the commonwealth.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225113&title=the-stockholm-syndrome [thedailyshow.com]
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225126&title=the-stockholm-syndrome-pt.-2 [thedailyshow.com]
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I don't see why people give so much credence to the opinions of the 'founding fathers'. These were ultra-wealthy politicians who lived in their own world. Of course they didn't want things done for the poor, then the poor wouldn't have to work from the age of five to death in the mills and factories for just enough money to keep themselves alive.
Re:Why a 100K would be needed from Bill to fund th (Score:5, Insightful)
A reason that the Founding Fathers get so much credit is because there was another group around the same time with similar ideas who launched a revolution and set up a government based on those ideas as well. That group didn't work out so well (it was the group behind the French Revolution). So, the Founding Fathers of the USA obviously had some insight or something that the leaders of the French Revolution didn't.
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So, the Founding Fathers of the USA obviously had some insight or something that the leaders of the French Revolution didn't.
They had an existing working local government that never was destroyed. The American revolution got rid of the authority of a non-local governmental entity, but by and large left the day-to-day governance intact. The French revolution did not. There, the whole of the government was destroyed, leaving a power vacuum that was not truly filled until Napoleon managed to get a firm enough grip to keep the country together.
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Yeah I think 100K is a pretty weak figure. I think 640K should be enough for anyone.
Isn't this what governor huey did.. (Score:3, Interesting)
in Distraction?
Made genetic modifications to the humans to make their blood poisonous to the mosquitoes..
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in Distraction?
Made genetic modifications to the humans to make their blood poisonous to the mosquitoes..
Maybe Bill is really looking for a new angle on multi threaded software.
Re:Isn't this what governor huey did.. (Score:4, Funny)
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Will this help? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if it won't help against infection it's little consolation that you won't spread the fever.
Of course - it's better than nothing, but even better would be to figure a way to take out diseases like Dengue Fever completely.
Many diseases are spread by mosquitoes and if you can take out them from the equation it may help against several diseases. Pheromones are one important factor when the mosquitoes are mating and if you can attract the males to a trap you can either kill them or replace them with genetically modified ones that are less able to spread diseases. The modification may range from sterile offspring to offspring that aren't able to work as a carrier or even offspring that are shunning humans as blood source.
Re:Will this help? (Score:5, Informative)
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Mosquitoes certainly have their role in the ecosystem and killing them will certainly have unforeseen consequences. More like in the Mao and sparrows story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sparrow_Campaign [wikipedia.org]
And besides, Sparrows are too cute to kill.
Re:Will this help? (Score:4, Insightful)
Mosquitoes certainly have their role in the ecosystem and killing them will certainly have unforeseen consequences. More like in the Mao and sparrows story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sparrow_Campaign [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org]
Humans are part of the ecosystem, and not allowing natural checks and balances to occur on the human population also has devastating effects on the environment. I'm not advocating culling humans however.
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Pakistan. The religious zealots are only 60 miles or so from capturing nuclear warheads. There is a full blown war being fought in that country right now, and if the "freindly" government falls, it doesn't look real good for Israel, and western civilization. The apocalypse COULD BE only a year away.
Re:Will this help? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't live in the USA, and I don't live in Israel. If they "got ahold" of some nukes, how many does Pakistan have? Last I read, about 60, and they aren't all on missiles, and the military people in PAK have enough sense to no let these lunkheads get access to the codes. So, they would have to use them as something put on a boat and floated into a harbour. Let's pretend that they do get some missiles with nukes, do you think they're going after Western Civ first? No. They'll go after Western Civ's proxy, India (IND). Let's further pretend that they get as many as 20 (roughly 1/3 of the stockpile) in usuable order on missiles, which AFAIK, is extremely unlikely even for PAK today.
So, they use some nukes on IND first. Bombay, New Dehli, a few other big cities disappear. Grossly wounded, there are still hundreds of millions of Angry Indians left, and they collectively march across the border and commence slaughter, with the approval and sanction of the UN. Game over. Did Western Civ end? No.
So, let's say they go for another Western Proxy, Israel. Let's say they dump all 20 on Israel, somehow (even though they don't have a delivery system). What happens? A devastated Israel responds with its own nukes and it has dozens more than PAK and PAK is reduced to a glowing parking lot. Game over. Did Western Civ end? No.
So, let's say they go for the gusto, and somehow get all twenty - fuck it - ALL SIXTY nukes into the USA and set them off. The USA military responds and with one submarine turns PAK into a glowing parking lot. Millions die, in the USA and PAK. But not in Europe or Japan, or Germany or France or Italy or Finland or Russia. Did Western Civ end? No.
So, kindly quit with the fear mongering bullshit.
The apocalypse is NOT a year away. There will be no apocalypse. There is way too much money to be made and too much power to grab for something as self-absorbed and self-indulgent as an apocalypse to occur.
The USA is bankrupt, and will have to retreat from unipolar status fairly soon. When that happens, it will become less of a target.
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Sparrows are mainly seed-eating, but Swallows are insect-eaters.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/558300/sparrow [britannica.com]
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/576163/swallow [britannica.com]
Mosquitoes are only one type of insect that they may feed on, but the amount of nourishment in a mosquito is lower than in a fly, which means that they are more likely to select flies for food.
But the point is more to adjust the mosquitoes than to eradicate them.
As for diseases keeping humanity under control you should note that the w
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Mosquitoes certainly have their role in the ecosystem and killing them will certainly have unforeseen consequences. More like in the Mao and sparrows story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sparrow_Campaign [wikipedia.org]
Unlike you, I am perfectly willing to take my chances with life in a world in which mosquitoes have been eradicated. Unfortunately for me, I seem to hold a minority opinion on this. It seems to me that if malaria and other mosquito borne diseases were a bigger problem in North America and Europe that people wouldn't be suggesting that eliminating them might be a bad idea but instead would be focused on killing them all.
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Sparrows kept their insect prey in check; eliminating the sparrows caused an increase in insect population.
Mosquitos keep their human prey in check; eliminating the mosquitos would then cause an increase in human population. Isn't this the intended consequence?
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Because if it won't help against infection it's little consolation that you won't spread the fever.
In a population of 100 with one infected individual this approach is 1% worse than a treatment which cures the disease in all individuals.
On a personal note if I was infected but could prevent infecting my family that would be a big advantage for me.
Re:Will this help? (Score:5, Informative)
Useless (Score:5, Interesting)
This won't do much good unless all warm-blooded suppliers of the mosquitoes are so treated. A handful of humans killing/disabling a few thousand mosquitoes every year won't put a dent in the total population. This kind of thing tends to have unfortunate side effects as well. A similar treatment for dogs and cats to kill fleas has been around for years, and I don't see any reduction in the flea population. I have had a couple of really sick animals as a result of the treatment before I gave it up, though.
Re:Useless (Score:4, Insightful)
If every human with dengue fever is so treated, the mosquitoes will not have a chance to spread the fever any further if they do bite you. I don't understand the disease, and the article itself was light on detail, but if the disease spreads from ...mosquito->human->mosquito->human..., you would be removing the human->mosquito leg of the cycle.
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It may be impractical or implausible to vaccinate a major city. However, it may be possible to 100% vaccinate the populations of isolated villages and towns. With fewer people to locate and administer the drug to, the vaccinations could result in a dengue free-area!
While it would be possible for mosquitoes with the disease to come in from other areas, most species (though not all) don't migrate very far and tend stay close to their food source.
Problem (Score:2, Interesting)
I believe that for this to work, a very, very high % of the population would have to be inoculated.
I hope we are not risking creating a "strand" of mosquitoes that can "smell" the poisonous blood from a human and prefer to feed on the next one that is safe.
Re:Problem (Score:5, Informative)
You can eliminate it if you hit the herd immunity threshold: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity [wikipedia.org]
That requirement is essentially the same as for regular vaccines.
As for risking mosquitoes evolving to smell the poisonous blood -- isn't that a best-case scenario? Where the immunity to spreading the disease is converted to an immunity to getting the disease because the vectors avoid the innoculated.
The worst-case scenario basically leaves us back at square one with no loss and only a temporary gain.
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Can please have the one that does protect? (Score:2, Informative)
I don't know about you, but if you're going to vaccinate me, it sure would be nice if I was protected too. It might even provide an incentive for the not so altruistic.
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Well, the problem is that people have been trying for years to make standard vaccines against Dengue, and failing. If I remember properly, there are several different subtypes of the virus, and protecting against all is difficult, while protecting against only some has turned out to do more harm than good (Dengue is a disease that is more likely to have serious consequences the second time you get it, and an incomplete vaccine was found to function like a first infection in this regard).
Yet Dengue is a very
Teh horrors! (Score:4, Funny)
Wasn't there a Stargate episode like this? (Score:2, Interesting)
An enzyme is developed to make the wraith (blood sucking aliens) get sick and die when feeding off humans injected.
I know this makes me the worst kind of nerd for knowing this offhand...
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Antitrust Vaccine? (Score:2, Funny)
Oh, I misread that.
I hope it can be mixed in food (Score:4, Interesting)
Typically there are many more animal than human hosts, since the former usually do not go to hospitals or use cloth/house/DEET to protect themselves from mosquitos. So your altruism will likely protect a chimp or an antelope rather than another human. But mass vaccination of wildlife through baits dispersed from planes can really make a difference.
Repercussions? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd be terrified of the possible repercussions from this. In the more immediate, what does this do to your liver? Longer term, what impact might this have on other insect populations? And will this impact negatively effect human populations?
This approach is dangerous.
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Re:Repercussions? (Score:4, Informative)
> In the more immediate, what does this do to your liver?
Well I guess that is what the research is for, right?
> Longer term, what impact might this have on other insect populations?
Well, since mosquitos can also feed on animals, most of them will never come in contact with the poison. I don't know how this will affect their natural predators (eating multiple poisoned mosquitos might have a negative effect on them, depending on the poison), but I assume they will investigate that too before they start handing out the stuff to everyone everywhere.
> And will this impact negatively effect human populations?
Well I guess that is what the research is for, right?
> This approach is dangerous.
Maybe. If we don't research we'll never find out. The whole thing would be dangerous if we were to give this stuff to everybody before having some idea to what the answers to your questions might be. But since thas hasn't been the way to do these things in science for some decades now, your whole post seems somewhat overrated, this last bit in particular.
More on "altruistic vaccination" (Score:4, Informative)
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Since a lot of people think the whole mercury and autism thing was invented out of whole cloth because their government told them so, you might also talk about how in order to receive any vaccinations from the Gates foundation you have to provide patent protection to pharmaceutical companies. No IP law? No vaccinations. This would not be true if they were genuinely trying to stamp out certain diseases; you can't stamp them out as long as you leave ground unstomped.
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Since a lot of people think the whole mercury and autism thing was invented out of whole cloth because their government told them so
No, it was invented out of whole cloth because the guys propounding the theory have no evidence backing their assertions, while all studies in the topic have demonstrated there is no such connection.
you might also talk about how in order to receive any vaccinations from the Gates foundation you have to provide patent protection to pharmaceutical companies. No IP law? No vaccina
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No, it was invented out of whole cloth because the guys propounding the theory have no evidence backing their assertions, while all studies in the topic have demonstrated there is no such connection.
Today is my lucky day, and yours too. go here [sitestat.com] and you can read "Proximity to point sources of environmental mercury release as a predictor of autism prevalence".
Perhaps someone else will come in and cover the other claim, I've done it before here but I'm not a subscriber, so I don't have access to my full posting history, so I'd have to find it with google.
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Today is my lucky day, and yours too. go here [sitestat.com] and you can read "Proximity to point sources of environmental mercury release as a predictor of autism prevalence".
Hint: environmental, elemental mercury sources are not the same thing as thermerasol.
Meanwhile, study after study has eliminated the link between vaccinations and autism. I'd provide citations, but it's clear you've already consumed the kool-aid.
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Hint: Thimerosal contains approximately 49% ethylmercury. The mercury is only weakly bound the the ethyl, and becomes readily physiologically available in elemental form.
Firstly, there are studies that support both the harmless and harmful hypotheses. Hence, "eliminated" is a vast overrepresentation of reality. Secondly, given the endem
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Today is my lucky day, and yours too. go here and you can read "Proximity to point sources of environmental mercury release as a predictor of autism prevalence".
Why, then, have autism rates continued to increase as thimerosal has been removed from vaccines?
http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/65/1/19
Lets call this (Score:2, Funny)
Service Pack 2.
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I wonder if that will harm humanity more (Score:2)
Messing with Nature (Score:2)
100k is peanuts (Score:2)
If you are very lucky, it may fund a PhD student for 2-3 years, but that does not include any lab or experimental costs.
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The hope is to do this by effectively making their blood poisonous to mosquitoes, either killing them or at least preventing them from feeding on other individuals.
Sounds like this is a vaccine *against* a zombie horde.