As ever, in the cause of promoting skeptical thought and critical thinking while on the internet, I've been out there on the tubes causing trouble. The campaign to put Dr Rachael Dunlop into the lead of the Shorty Awards Health category has been very successful.
Very successful indeed.
Of course, during the making of this very successful campaign, it's become clear that not only is Mike Adams a quack, but he's also a
mass-email marketer and colluder with big business,
a supporter of Scientology and their front-group CCHR, and a general
butthurt whining hypocrite.
He's also the originator of a
$10,000 "challenge" to anyone who can prove that the H1N1 Swine Flu vaccine is safe.
Thing is, as with all things HealthRanger, once you scratch the surface a little, the challenge is revealed to be an impossible to meet rhetorical trap designed to portray Mike Adams as a crusader willing to put his money where his mouth is, and the scientific community as unwilling to back the vaccine.
Here's a few of the problems with this challenge
Firstly, $10,000 is not a large amount of money as a reward for a challenge which would likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to meet
I quote from Mike's conditions:
A scientific paper, published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, describing the results of a minimum of two Phase III trials structured as randomized, placebo-controlled scientific clinical trials of an FDA-approved H1N1 vaccine currently in distribution, carried out on a minimum of 1,000 people (for statistical significance) for a duration of at least 90 days
So we're looking at a total prize pool of $10 per participant, possibly less, for a 90-day trial. This is pretty small beer.
Secondly, Mike's demands cannot be met within the bounds of medical ethics. A doctor undertaking the type of study that Mike demands would be struck off for malpractice, and would deserve it.
Mike demands a Phase III placebo controlled trial. Inherent in these trials is the application of a placebo to a proportion of the participants, who will subsequently be exposed to disease risk in order to test efficacy. Medical ethics rightly state that exposing placebo groups to severe medical risk is unacceptable. Utterly unacceptable. Mike knows this, Mike's been told this repeatedly. Still, he uses it, because his followers are ignorant of this fundamental ethical restriction.
Here's how vaccines are actually tested. Don't be fooled.
Third, Mike's "conditions" specify long-term side effects. While he appears magnanimous in only demanding one year of followup, this is still a significant cost, and the vaccine has not existed for a year yet, as Mike himself admits
Because vaccine promoters describe the vaccine as "safe enough for children and expectant mothers" and because vaccine promoters insist that there are absolutely no risks of long-term side effects, the study must demonstrate that the vaccine causes no statistically significant increase in side effects of any kind for a minimum of one year following the vaccine injection. You might think this is impossible to produce since the vaccine hasn't even existed for one year and couldn't have possibly been tested to see whether it produces neurological side effects in the one-year timeframe. That is exactly my point.
However, the vaccines that the H1N1 vaccine is based on certainly have been tested for longer. But Mike doesn't permit this as part of his conditions. I personally also think that it's likely that should Mike ever be challenged with evidence, the loaded status of "long term" will be employed to best effect, and no money will be paid.
Ultimately though, the ethical hurdle cannot be crossed. Mike's money is entirely safe, and he knows it.
Mike knows full well that this "challenge" is nothing more than a sop to his acolytes. No serious scientist will give a stuff about it, but his credulous audience are lapping it up, and using it as ammunition in internet debates. Luckily, there is a group of part-time internet superheroes who are aware of the fraudulent status of this challenge, and are willing to fight back.
Smoke us a kipper, we'll be back for breakfast.