Even if he did go searching for something and even if he did do it for fame (I dont believe so, given all he sacrificed. And his demeanor did not suggest that -- watch Laura Poitras' film.), he IS in fact a whistleblower who outed the US government for illegal activity. He did America and all Americans a favor.

It is strange that current republicans seem to like pollution, when it was a republican (Nixon) who created the EPA in the first place....

Yes! How do we mod this up to 6? I think this is the primary argument. Consider the difference between killing someone with a bayonet, and killing them with a gun at a distance. And just for extreme comparison, the job of ordering someone to do the killing. The less visceral and more game-like the experience, the easier and more frequently it will happen.

My comparison to religion was probably a tad excessive, but I wanted to make the point that there is a difference between trusting what someone else says and doing the science yourself (actually knowing the answer). For there to be a healthy discussion that arrives at the best answer, the discussion cannot be held with the tone of a witch hunt.

I personally would prefer the discussion around vaccines not be one about whether to vaccinate, but whether the vaccine is delivered as a good product. Cooking oils were hydrogenated as a preservative, and that hydrogenation is now understood to be harmful to body chemistry. I would like to see vaccines produced that are healthy without question, which is probably what the average person thinks they are already getting. I don't think that will happen as long as this discussion is one about the crazy parents putting everyone at risk.

I totally agree with your point about not needing to reproduce all of human knowledge. Unfortunately, it is a very untrustworthy world we live in and there is almost always someone who stands to make money off of 'either answer'. Its very difficult to know who to trust and experts very often are paid to voice their opinion. I think we should try to be at least open to the possibly that things we think now are wrong.....science does have a history of revising its facts.

I don't blame you for your fear-based response (who am I, right?), but you didnt provide support for your fear AND it is a straw-man argument. Yes, how bound the mercury is to the molecule you receive it in will vary (and how easy it is to metabolize that molecule will vary), but its not like we always get these things right (and mercury is probably more reactive than you think it is). Take mercury-amalgam dental fillings. These are still done in the United States. The mercury in these was thought for a very long time to be safely bound in the filling. Now it is understood that is not the case. In fact they are a significant source of mercury exposure. Don't trust me (which was kind of the point in my post)... read the information and research produced by the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology.

If you really wanted to make your point that mercury in vaccines might have no biological effect, you should have posted a link showing that the mercury in thimerosal has no biological effect. You could have at least pointed to the wikipedia page. Except that would have proven you wrong.

The problem with the 'anti-vaccine' group, IMHO, is that their concerns are rarely communicated well (or by knowledgeable people). I certainly won't claim to speak for them or all of them (I have no children, and have all of my vaccines), but I can shed a little light on some of the perspective. Many of those people are not anti-vaccine. Actually they fear the adjuvants and preservatives that come with it. Aluminum salts are a common adjuvant and mercury-based preservatives have been used. If you go to this cdc website ( http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/va... ) formaldehyde is listed as well. Mercury is an extremely potent neurotoxin, formaldehyde is a carcinogen, and there is no healthy level of aluminum for your body either.

Ability to metabolize toxins and excrete them varies widely between individuals, many people have deficiencies in their abilities. Children's ability to metabolize toxins are not the same as adults. To top it off, the resources in the body needed to metabolize them (antioxidants, enzymes, conjugating molecules) are consumed by many things in the environment --> Did the chem-lawn folks just spray your lawn? Did you recently repaint the infant's room before you brought the baby home from the hospital? New carpeting in the house? On a constant basis, you are breathing, touching, drinking and eating toxins -- everything is contaminated to some measurable degree today (with lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, etc)...usually in very very small quantities, but some of these things bio-accumulate. So how much stuff is your body dealing with when you get the vaccine and how will that affect development? The medications you might be taking all rely on the same chemical transformations and consume those resources as well.

In case you wonder if these toxins can have any effect, here is something produced by the United States NIH discussing the impact of environmental toxin exposure on children. http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/11041...

Clinical toxicology (understanding the effect of toxins on the body) is not nearly as advanced as many of you probably imagine it is. Much of our knowledge comes from the last 15 years and a great deal is still not known. By the way, knowledge of clinical toxicology is virtually absent from the MD curriculum (at least here in the US).

And one last point to everyone who is pro-vaccine and antagonistic to those who aren't, I would like to point out that if YOU did not do the science yourself, then these issues come down to who you trust (I wouldn't trust Jenny McCarthy either). I bet all of you have an opinion one way or the other about climate change, but almost none of you have actually looked at the data and models yourself. Claiming "its science you idiots" when you did not do the science is pretty similar to religion....belittling someone with a *belief* that differs from yours because yours must be the one true god.

Managers (and the managers of managers) create the environment that causes people to work when they are sick. At my company, sick time is separate from vacation time, and managers send sick people home if they come to work sick. If management fosters a culture where people fear for their jobs or dont care about their coworkers.....well then maybe spreading the flu is not the company's biggest problem.

The problem with the FDA comes from the legal definition of what a drug is. To quote an FDA website on the definition of a drug: The FD&C Act defines drugs, in part, by their intended use, as "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease" and "articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals" [FD&C Act, sec. 201(g)(1)]. This has some rather unfortunately consequences (besides the potential regulation of stem cells). It is why you will never see "nutritional supplements" marketed as having any specific effect on your health. And yet most of us know that vitamin C cures scurvy. I have seen a copy of a notice from the FDA warning a juice company to remove health claims because they would classify the juice as a drug. Compounding this problem is the usual ones of human nature -- the desires of members of the FDA to expand the size and power of their organization. While TFA may imply a conspiracy with big-pharma, you have to admit, the definition of a drug is rather convenient to the pharmaceutical industry and discourages the development of alternative approaches to 'popping a pill'.