Friday, April 11, 2014

#993: Raymond Obomsawin


Though Joseph Chikelue Obi bills himself as the “world’s top expert in nutritional immunomodulation”, and we have some duty to mention him, he is Dublin-based and as such strictly speaking disqualified for an actual entry.

Raymond Obomsawin is largely cut from the same kind of cloth. Obomsawin is a particularly dubiously honest anti-vaccine activist, most famous for his set of graphs for the Vaccine Liberation website purportedly showing that vaccines haven’t helped cure anything since the death rates of several vaccine-preventable diseases, including whooping cough, diptheria, measles, and polio were falling before the vaccines for each disease were introduced (curiously avoiding smallpox, presumably because even he was unable to mangle the data sufficiently for that one). The graphs are so staggeringly dishonestly put together that it is difficult to view it as an honest mistake. The graphs made a significant impact in the denialist community, of course, which – since these people are denialists and not interested in evidence – has continued to use the graphs despite the fact that their flaws and misleadingness were quickly and easily pointed out. Obomsawin himself responded to the glaring faults of his graphs that he had had problems doing the graph correctly in Excel and that he would correct the graphs. He hasn’t. So much for intellectual honesty.

Obomsawin likes to present himself as a scientist – he is a PhD who has produced academically and/or professionally over eighty-five (85) articles, reports, policy documents, presentations, and publications.” But a search reveals only a single published commentary, and he was, as of 2010, engaged with government funding as Senior Researcher relative to establishing a Public Sector Policy on Traditional Medicine in Canada,” which means that he is pushing for support of woo, and not doing science or affiliated with any real research institution at all (and yes, though he seems to be working in Canada, Obomsawin is American).

Apart from his anti-vaccine efforts, Obomsawin seems to have been toying with HIV-denialism and support for Royal Rife. He is also apparently a defender of brave maverick” Andrew Wakefield, which is another good indicator for how well Obomsawin understands intellectual honesty (the support is mutual, by the way).

Diagnosis: Intellectual dishonesty turned into a rather easily deconstructible art form. A bad person, but a frighteningly influential one.

13 comments:

  1. Fear in government. Wake up. This Dr speaks truth.

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    1. Fear of reason, logic, and evidence. Wake up. There are lots of people on Earth way smarter than you. With legitimate degrees from real institutions, professional experience, publications, and sense.

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  2. This article States a personal opinion not a well rounded persuasive one at that

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  3. this article is BS,I've heard this mans lectures and it was all disturbingly true,Yes there are a lot of "loons" out there but this guy is not one of them,sounds to me like whoever is in charge of writing this crap has a an agenda to follow from the dairy and meat councils and who knows what else

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  4. this blog needs to take a permanent break

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  5. Dr. Raymond Obomsawin is not a loon!
    Wouldn’t a loon be someone who entrusted his health to the third leading cause of death medical industrial complex? Or one who disregarded the many FDA. CDC. Etc. APROVED “lifesaving” Drugs’ that had to be pulled because they were killing too many people. [cough Vioxx’s 60K.dead]
    It is my opinion the modern for profit snake-oil industry misleads the gullible away from real Hippocrates [higher power based] “Let thy food be thy medicine” in favor of a Satan inspired Marxist socialized insurance / medicine control system. The only thing loon’s like Satan & his Marxist friends can bring you is Death!!! I.E. The wages of Sin.
    Good luck. Steve

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    1. Steve, can we take a moment and think this through...

      Pharmaceutical companies want to make money. They can't make money if their products are killing the people that would be buying their products. Yes, some bad products have made it to market and yes, those products have killed people, but you have to consider all the facts, not just a statistic. For example, did those people die because of a complication that would have been difficult to identify while the drug was being tested? Did they die because they didn't follow the usage instructions? There are numerous other circumstances that could cause a medicine that would otherwise be helpful to instead be lethal. Pharma companies aren't trying to kill anyone and aren't going to knowingly put a lethal product on the market because they will lose far more in the resulting lawsuits than they could ever hope to make selling the drug.

      The FDA and CDC conduct their own testing of products in addition to reviewing the results provided to them by manufacturers, but their funding is very limited, so the scope of their testing is much smaller and far more likely to miss something. They aren't getting paid off to let these lethal drugs go to market, they simply did not find anything in the drug that would be lethal during their testing. Both entities are very quick to withdraw approval for products that are found to cause more harm than good, and both have rejected numerous products that they have found to be harmful before they ever went to market.

      The pharmaceutical industry isn't out to get you, nor are the watchdog entities like the FDA and CDC.

      Your implication that Marxism is inspired by Satan is laughable, considering that true Marxism is all about a cooperative society striving for the betterment of mankind, which is exactly what the bible preaches, is it not? If anything, capitalism is the devil's playground, as the entire concept of capitalism is built upon greed and envy.


      Lastly, god isn't going to save anyone from disease. Either your body does its job and fights off the disease, your body gets assistance from a drug or similar source, or you die. There is no miracles involved in any of that, only natural processes that affect all life on our planet.

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  6. Nothing rich about Ray! He is a believer and vegan has been for a long time. I don't agree with his views and am not a vegan but I can vouch for his integrity. so talk about the facts! not ad hominem

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    1. You are free to vouch for his integrity as much as you like. The graphs affair (follow the links for extensive documentation) and discrepancy between how he presents himself and what we find when trying to go into details about his scientific production, talk rather loudly for themselves. These are, indeed, the facts. Your vouching doesn't change them.

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  7. He's a loon. Anyone saying different is a loon.

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  8. He mentions smallpox and other epidemics in this video I just came accross before googling who he was and got to this blog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtN0PMJOOjM&app=desktop

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  9. Dr Ray Obomsawinspeaks the truth. I had a problem from a vaccine at the age of 14, that was nowhere registered

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  10. Well, then, you will be glad to hear that Dr. Ray has passed on to his reward. Never to sully your world view anymore. Hallelujah.

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