But possibly you could add a head and subhead to the above, could you? Admirers of your grasp of this particular paradigm squabble and its cast of grubby minor defenders need to have such as the tiny tots of daily errands and responsibilities elsewhere tug at their sleeves.

“Soon, I am sure, one of our denialist friends will rise to the occasion and educate us on how a squalene- and mercury-free DNA injection boosts anti-SIV immunity, and on how full-length SIV DNA, injected with nothing but the buffer it’s resuspended in, can cause AIDS.

Until then, I am left with nothing to do but retrieve my ugly pedant’s cap (which I tossed into the umbrella rack after Pat’s English lesson) and ponder the merits in the work of a professional “medical writer/researcher.”

This yawn-inspiring task began with an email I received last night from someone apparently operating under the mistaken assumption that I was interested in learning the identity of “Cathy.” Attached was a Word document with the text of a May 14, 2007 opinion letter from a New Zealand publication called “Scoop,” playfully entitled, “Gardasil: The Mercky World of Anti-Cancer Vaccines.” The author, it was claimed, is the same Cathy who posted here of late.

The letter-writer’s name, I soon found, is also present on David Crowe’s famous list of 2500 renouned scientists and doctors as a “medical writer/researcher.” Because of these impressive denialist credentials (and since she had recently criticized my admittedly middling English skills), I decided to read her “Scoop” op-ed.

As I recently reminded Pat, it’s best to criticize the writing of others from a position of strength. Imagine my surprise, then, (assuming Cathy is, in fact, the “Scoop” Cathy) to find numerous errors in the first few paragraphs of the piece.

In the letter, the author smears Gardasil as being a brand, “much like Coca Cola or MacDonalds”. “Coca-Cola” is of course hyphenated, and the fast-food giant with the golden arches is “McDonald’s” not “MacDonalds”.

The writer asks, “Were Ministry of Health officials asleep when this one [Merck’s assertion that Gardasil protects against HPV-associated cancer] snuck under the radar?” Really, Cathy: “snuck”? In the Queen’s English, “sneaked” is the correct past tense and past participle of “sneak”. Some American English speakers use “snuck,” but, really: it’s substandard.

Several sentences on: “Rather than rely the emotive (but no less important) anti-vaccine arguments this writer would like to bring a little logical perspective”. One can “relay” arguments or “rely on” arguments, but hardly “rely” them.

(As for “logical perspective”, the article is fairly devoid of it. For example, the author writes that a genetic predisposition is needed for scc of the cervix, and that Gardasil is therefore useless. Not necessarily so. Eliminating one factor in disease could help lower incidence, even if that factor is not found in all disease or sufficient on its own to cause disease.)

“Viral particles”, contrary to the author’s claim, are not found in Gardasil. Rather, “viral-like particles”, VLPs, shells of recombinant protein, are there.

As for “adenomcarcinoma”–well, the author got that one right elsewhere. Still looks a bit silly, though, for a self-proclaimed “medical writer/researcher”.

“A Medline search with the limit “randomised clinical trial” and the key word “Gardasil” returns nothing.” My search returns four hits from before the publication date of the “Scoop” article–two if we exclude the two NEJM reports from May 10, just a few days before the “Scoop” press date. We haven’t heard from mathematician Dr. Darin Brown recently, but I’m sure he could confirm that two is greater than zero.

And so on. For reasons of time, language, and science, I couldn’t read more than the first half or so of this lengthy (and, I admit, extensively if “activistly” researched) article, but the density of errors was striking.

I’m confident this op-ed is not representative of the no doubt excellent and voluminous work of the “medical writer/researcher” in question. In fact, if she doesn’t mind, I hope she will send us some references to her better pieces, which I am sure exist although my quick internet search was unable to turn them up.”

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | April 3, 2008 6:48 PM

“Pat, immediately after you had assured us that Sir Elkie’s English lesson was well taken you wrote “cought” in between a string of consonants. If that’s an allusion to the poor quality of your teacher’s teachings I shall not argue.

Soon, I am sure, one of our denialist friends will rise to the occasion and educate us on how a squalene- and mercury-free DNA injection boosts anti-SIV immunity, and on how full-length SIV DNA, injected with nothing but the buffer it’s resuspended in, can cause AIDS. (EMM)

Sir Elkie, tsktsktsk! Let me repeat it for you and your Poodle: you don’t have an animal model of AIDS. No matter how many diversions you come up with, or how often you change the topic, that’s the fact of the matter. Get over it.

Now you claim that Cathy or her computer made a numerical mistake when googling “randomised trial gardasil”. Quite frankly Sir Elkie, I think most people would be more interested in who made this particular error, and how:

In New Zealand, Merck seem rather more brazen than their US counterparts in the claims being made for Gardasil. On their website – gardasil.co.nz – information is provided for both patients and health professionals. Both are informed that HPV causes all cervical cancer. It appears that our cervixes (or our litigation laws) are different to those of the rest of the world! The information provided for doctors makes even more bizarre claims; “Gardasil is 100% effective in protecting your patients from diseases caused by HPV 16, 18, 6 and 11″ including cervical cancer!”

Sir Elkie’s “defence” of this massive misinformation campaign was to point out that Cathy had used the word “snuck” in the next sentence. I’m sure Noble and Poodle were impressed.

In reponse to this,

Merck state repeatedly on their promotional material that cervical cancer is not heritable.

Sir Elkie presented this argument from Cathy:

For example, the author writes that a genetic predisposition is needed for scc of the cervix, and that Gardasil is therefore useless.

This happens to be pure invention. A bald-faced lie. Ten out of ten on the classical smear test. Either that or Sir Elkie’s mytho-virus infection has advanced to the final stage. Cathy nowhere makes that argument.

The result, for those of us who do not consider essential an “a” too many in “McDonald’s”, or one too few in “relay”, is that Sir Elkie’s most substantial critique of a long article,
systematically exposing massive fraud and disinformation from vaccine-makers, was that his medline search had turned up two hits for “randomised trial Gardasil”, whereas Cathy claims she had none.

This is such a perfect example of right-wing gutter politics-style smear, obfuscation and lies coming from an anonymous “scientist” that it deserves to be archived on Newaidsreview (hereby done).

Speaking of NAR, Sir Elkie, this was submitted a couple of days ago – looks like Elks are wonderfully predictable animals:

Cathy, they are now playing their favourite game at Aetiology, which is “guess who”. They want to find out who you are, so they can start the ad hominem (. . .) They will search through everything (they think) you or your pastor ever said to bring up against you and avoid the substantive issue. It doesn’t matter who you are. If you’re a nobody, they will use that against you.

Now who’s “cought”?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | April 4, 2008 5:01 AM

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2008/03/objection_to_vaccination_they.php#comment-819134

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0705/S00287.htm