Thimerosal

The first claim I will address is that vaccines contain poisonous mercury in the form of thimerosal, that can cause severe brain damage, particularly in infants. First, it must be noted that we are not really talking about pure mercury. Rather, there are two types of mercury – ethylmercury(referred to from now on as EM), and methylmercury(referred to as MM). EMs are “organic mercury compounds in which the mercury is attached to an ethyl group”, and MMs are the same, but attached to a methyl group.  EMs and MMs have the chemical formulas C2H5Hg+ and CH3Hg+, respectively.[¹] To show why this is important, look at the formulas for water, H20, and hydrogen peroxide, H2o2. Both have the same elements, but in different amounts. So, we can see that ethylmercury and methylmercury will have different effects on the body, just as water and hydrogen peroxide do.

Why is this important? It shows that one just cannot say “mercury in vaccines is bad”. Any harmful effects that MMs have cannot be applied to EMs. Of course it is still possible at this point for EMs to be harmful. But is it? No. Let’s look at some numbers.

The half life of EM in the human body is less than a week, compare this to the half-life of MM, 1.5 months.[2] This means that within a week, half the mercury will no longer be in your body.

The lethal dose of thimerosal for 50% of the population (this study was done in rats) is 98 mg per kilogram.[3](thanks to RoaringAtheist for finding this!)

Each 0.5 mL dose of the H1N1 vaccine contains 24.5mcg of ethylmercury. That’s 0.0245 mg.[4]

What does this mean? It means that a lethal dose for 50% of the adult population is ~4,000 H1N1 vaccinations per kg. I weigh ~90 kg. So, for me to die from mercury poisoning, I would have to get 360,000 doses of the vaccine in less than a week.

Of course, none of this matters at all, because there is also a thimerosal-free version of the vaccine.

The vaccine makes you sick/Live virus

Here is another ridiculous claim I have often seen about the vaccine – it will in fact give you the very illness it is supposed to protect against! Of course this is absurd.

There are two types of the flu vaccine: Inactivated vaccine, and Live attenuated vaccine. The inactivated vaccine is also known as the “killed” vaccine, with good reason. The viruses in the vaccine are dead![5] The live attenuated vaccine, on the other hand, contains a version of the virus that is alive, although weakened to the point that it is not pathogenic. Such viruses will cause an immune response while not causing illness.[6]

It’s My Choice

So, it is now apparent that the vaccine is not dangerous, and that there is no harm in getting one. But even so, why should you bother? The obvious answer is that so you don’t get the flu. But there is a second reason – herd immunity. This is the resistance of a group to attack by disease to which a large proportion of the members are immune.[7] To put it simply, the higher the percentage of people in a community who have gotten the vaccine, the less vulnerable the community is to suffering a pandemic. Every individual who gets the vaccine slightly lowers the chances of a pandemic. By getting the vaccine, you slightly lower the odds of other people getting sick or even dying.

These are the main reasons for not getting the vaccine that I have seen. If you have any further objections, please explain and I will attempt to answer.

[1] http://www.reference.md/files/D005/mD005035.html

[2] http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/topics/thiomersal/statement_jul2006/en/index.html

[3] http://infao5501.ag5.mpi-sb.mpg.de:8080/topx/archive?link=Wikipedia-Lip6-2/221998.xml&style#1.4.

[4] www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/…/UCM182401.pdf

[5] www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/downloads/vis-flu.pdf

[6] http://virology-online.com/general/typesofvaccines.htm

[7] http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/herd+immunity

Over the years, I have observed many things about the creationist movement that seem to be recurring; recently I joined several atheist communities, and found that there too, the arguments for Creation where by and large the same, and the people involved using the same questionable sources to support much of what they stand for. I’d like to touch upon a few of the major ones I run into regularly.

Firstly, it seems that Creationism, though usually strongly opposed to the modern theory of evolution, is going through a bit of evolution of its very own. Creationism at large seems to be adopting various new types of evidence into itself, even if there is nobody who actually agrees with their interpretation, purely to try and keep the layman convinced that their version of history is correct. I will touch on this later, but many creationist leaders seem to be ignorant or deceitful, as they support creationism by building an elaborate mockery of that which they are trying to go against. In recent years, creationism has adopted various scientific theories to call its own, as well as reinterpreting evidence to support creationism where it previously didn’t. A clear example of this is the adoption of many creationists of the Big Bang theory. Most creationists, Young Earth and other alike, now claim that the ‘beginning’ of the universe is a clear-cut proof for the existence of a creator, since everything needs to have a cause, including the universe. Similarly, transitional fossils such as Tiktaalik (Fish to Tetrapod) and the recent Ida (Split between Lemurs and other primates) are ignored, or interpreted as clear evidence that they were fully formed species, and therefore not transitional. Furthermore, many finds in quantum physics and various other fields are twisted into an unrecognizable mess, to try and support a predetermined world-view.

This touches upon a second comment I’d like to make : ignorance. Many Creationists have a very poor grasp of the topic they are attacking, often conflating many different fields of science (including the Big Bang, Abiogenesis, Evolution, the formation of the Earth) under one header, so if any of these fields shows even one shortcoming, they can wipe it all off the table. Most creationists, especially Young Earth ones, tend to lack a total understanding of even the most basic of evolutionary theory, preferring to base their judgement on a layman’s grasp of a very simplistic version of evolution. For an example of this : many creationist seem to think that the theory of evolution states anything between dogs turning into cats in one generation, crocodiles and ducks having a ‘crocoduck’ transitional species, where this creature looks something like a chimera of different bodyparts, and let’s not forget the idea that the human species is ‘more evolved’ than other animals on this world. (Or in some cases, being classified outside the animals!)

Kent Hovind

Much of this is deceit, manipulating the public with made-up versions of the opposing theories, fictional evidence for your own theory (for lack of real evidence) and excessive mischaracterization of everyone involved. Kent Hovind is a clear example: in his own words, he claims to have been a science professor for decades, and yet he demonstrates he knows absolutely nothing about any scientific theory, recent or otherwise. In lectures, he extensively misrepresents everything he’s against (which is pretty much all of modern science) by blatantly lying and making things up. To support his own claims, Mr. Hovind uses a great amount of fictional data, often straying deeply into pure fantasy. Most of his theories (including his famous ‘ Ice Meteor’, known generally as the Hovind Theory) don’t even work in the realm of natural laws, and need divine assistance constantly, making them entire speculation. And all of this is delivered with a straight face, to an audience of people that are largely clueless on scientific issues, and will take this man’s word for it. Dishonesty to the utmost degree. And that’s one. I can name Ted Haggard, Ken Ham, Ray Comfort among many others as similarly inclined.

As said, I despise the ‘evolution’ of creationism, as a subtle attempt to worm creationism back into acceptable territory; let them come with their own predictions and tests, and fight the battle with evolution on even ground. I loathe the dishonesty and ignorance of people dealing with this issue: they are fully aware of what they are doing and deceiving other people, or they are so ignorant on the topic that they should not be claiming knowledge.

There are many other reasons why I dislike creationism, but most of those are generally towards one or the other subgroup. Arrogance is one, as well as appeals to numbers, loyalty, false promises and their regular claims of the negative nature of anything that doesn’t agree with them.