Rejected
This is my own little page of my rejected and deleted comments and nagging emails I’ve sent to people that have been ignored. This page is inspired in part by the likes of Free From Censorship (see this post for more details) and the Nadine Dorries Feedback blog. Someone once came up with the idea of a ‘Comment-Rejected’ dot com and if I knew what “coding” meant I’d have offered to help. It’s at http://commentrejected.com/ and http://groups.google.com/group/commentrejected/ if you’re interested.
I’ll start with the homeopaths and the Hpathy forum. Here’s a couple of pages I saved on JKN along with the amended pages on Hpathy. JKN: Cancer & Homeopathy Hpathy: Cancer & Homeopathy. One of my deleted comments included the line “Why are you so utterly opposed to debate and discussion?”. The ironing is delicious. Here is my JKN verion of Homeopathy & AIDS and here is the current Hpathy page. Homeopaths love deleting comments and ignoring evidence that doesn’t fit their own peculiar world view. Funny how many are HIV/AIDS denialists and anti-vaccination fanatics too. Here’s a old post relating to some homeopathic blogs: Homeopaths, Debate and Truth. Here’s a very short piece pointing to the Hpathy forum (Heh. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose) and a thread on the Laughing My Socks Off blog. The LMSO blog post is up to 450+ comments now and the homeopaths remind me somewhat of the tales of Japanese soldiers still hiding in the jungle years after the war had ended (see link in del.icio.us). More from Hpathy here: JKN.
Who next? The anti-vaccination lobby? Nutritionists? Depends who’s been ignoring, deleting, rejecting and censoring. Although I do have some archived JKN stuff that JABS deleted – so that might be a goer. Weirdly, there was some HIV/AIDS denialism on JABS – as there was on the homeopathy blogs (LMSO) and the Hpathy forum. There are also homeopaths posting on JABS. It’s a circular little Woo world isn’t it? Homeopathy-HIV/AIDS Denialism-Anti-vaccination. All they need to do now is hook up with the nutritionists and reiki practitioners and we’ll have Woo bingo.
If you have any rejected comments, feel free to post them below.
Stuff And Nonsense 
jdc325 said,
August 19, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Sue the Young Homeopath has, unsurprisingly, twice failed to publish a comment from AP Gaylard. Click the linky for more details.
jdc325 said,
October 8, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Dumping this here for safekeeping: “I think it’s pretty disgusting that Peta are using misinformation about autism to push their own agenda. There are surely other arguments in favour of veganism that are of greater merit, do not rely on exploiting a group of individuals with a development disability, and do not rely on use of misleading information or outright untruths. If there are then perhaps Peta should use them. I doubt it is the dairy industry that is complaining about this ad – more likely the complainants are those with family members who are autistic and are therefore offended by misinformation about the condition and exploitation of the sufferers.”
As posted on this Peta blog: Here
jdc325 said,
January 26, 2009 at 5:38 pm
One from the “GoodScience” blog, dumping here for safekeeping as people seem to be having trouble getting comments through there:
I’ve written about homeopathy on many occasions on my blog. I’ve discussed the unwillingness of practitioners, organisations and advocates to meaningfully discuss the evidence regarding homeopathy or criticism of their ethics (the Society of Homeopaths have some history here – people may remember their symposium on “the role of homeopathy in treating HIV/AIDS” or them breaking their own code of ethics, as covered by the excellent Gimpyblog). Jeremy Sherr has cropped up on a couple of occasions – first when he appeared on a website supporting a bizarre video being made to promote the idea that homeopathy may be a cure for autism. Now, I’ve written about Sherr again. The proposed research plan was poorly conceived and had no adequate control group. It is considered unethical to give placebo treatment in Aids patients, and some people believe that a trial of an implausible remedy that lacks good evidence of any benefit over placebo and which is being given to patients who are not receiving ARV treatment would therefore also be unethical. Sherr responded with a rant about the “Pharmaceutical Inquisition […] squawking away in a hysterical frenzy”. All that had happened was that bloggers had commented on the shockingly poor design of Jeremy’s proposed trial. To call this a “Pharmaceutical Inquisition” was, as a response, hysterical rather than measured and was an inaccurate characterisation of the comments. Your referring to the comments on Sherr’s blog as “vicious” is, frankly, laughable. Instead of you and Sherr making up childish insults for people who disagree with his ideas or wrongly referring to the criticism as “vicious” when it is clearly nothing of the sort, wouldn’t it be better to engage in serious discussion? After all, we are talking about Aids here – not something trivial.
http://goodscience.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/gimpy-at-it-again/
bill said,
June 16, 2009 at 3:05 am
You are very confused. There is no such thing as an ‘antivaccine lobby fanatic’. What we have is: on the one side, the VACCINATION LOBBY thrusting vaccinations on the population, and on the other, those who do not believe in vaccination simply trying to say ‘no thank you’ but being stripped of their basic human rights as a result. Now you tell me, who are the fanatics?
The vast majority of those opposed to vaccination are not fighting against vaccination, they are fighting for their right to refuse vaccination. Two very different things.
jdc325 said,
June 16, 2009 at 9:26 pm
“You are very confused.”
I beg to differ.
“There is no such thing as an ‘antivaccine lobby fanatic’.”
Perhaps you haven’t been looking hard enough?
“The vast majority of those opposed to vaccination are not fighting against vaccination, they are fighting for their right to refuse vaccination.”
That may be true – but it doesn’t mean that there is no such thing as an antivaccine lobby fanatic.
PS: you have misquoted me and the “fanatic” comment I made actually referred specifically to those rabid anti-vaccine homeopaths. Thinking about it, though, there could be anti-vaccine fanatics who aren’t homeopaths but are vocal in the anti-vaccine lobby. (I’m thinking whale.to and the weirder end of the JABS spectrum here.)
PPS: at no point have I stated here that I am in favour of compulsory vaccination. This seems to be something that you have assumed to be the case without having any evidence. FWIW, I’m unsure that compulsory vaccination would be beneficial and I think it would be ethically dubious.
bill said,
June 19, 2009 at 2:10 am
Vaccination is already compulsory in many states and any nation that doesn’t allow a child to attend school without a full vaccination history effectively has a policy of compulsory vaccination. The UK is now (sadly but predictably) going in this direction. Mass medication should always be considered both ethically and medically dubious (we are all different!), particularly where it is made compulsory.
I am totally and utterly against vaccination. I have never had a single vaccination myself and have not allowed my children to be vaccinated. I have never been ill in my life (except for all the childhood diseases which helped me developed my strong immunity.) Does writing this on your blog make me a fanatic? I could not be any more passionately against vaccination than I am. Please tell me what I have to do to become a fanatic? If I set up my own website and told people why I felt this way would I then be called a fanatic? Perhaps it is me that is confused.
jdc325 said,
June 19, 2009 at 12:36 pm
“The UK is now (sadly but predictably) going in this direction. Mass medication should always be considered both ethically and medically dubious (we are all different!), particularly where it is made compulsory.”
I agree that compulsory mass medication is ethically dubious and I believe that, wherever possible, informed consent should be obtained prior to any medical treatment being administered. It is arguable whether there should be exceptions to this – for example, there are already people that we forcibly administer medication to (patients who are deemed to be mentally ill, a danger to themselves or others and who meet the criteria for involuntary hospitalization). Whether this is the right approach is debatable. Whether mass medication is medically dubious depends upon which medication is being discussed, although it is likely that there would be exceptions to mass medication anyway – there are people who cannot receive vaccinations because of existing medical conditions and they must rely on herd immunity.
“I am totally and utterly against vaccination. I have never had a single vaccination myself and have not allowed my children to be vaccinated.”
Are you against vaccination because you believe it is harmful or on a point of principle?
“I have never been ill in my life (except for all the childhood diseases which helped me developed my strong immunity.)”
That you have never been vaccinated and “never been ill” is neither here nor there – there are plenty of people who have never been vaccinated and have been ill. In Duisburg in 2006, there were 614 cases of measles. 3 of these cases had the complication of encephalitis. 2 of the 3 young people with encephalitis died. The 2 children who developed encephalitis and died were aged 2 months and 2 years. The infant was too young for vaccination and would have relied upon herd immunity for protection.
Regarding my use of the term “fanatic”:
I had some very specific people in mind when I wrote this comment. I considered that they were fanatical in their views. They are very strongly pro-homeopathy, they deny that HIV can lead to AIDS, and they are against vaccinations and other conventional medical treatments. Their enthusiasm for homeopathy, their denial of the link between HIV and AIDS and their anti-vaccine stance was akin to a kind of religious fervour. Perhaps my use of the term “fanatic” is unhelpful, but I considered it to be an apt description of these individuals.
jdc325 said,
December 13, 2009 at 8:54 pm
One I’ve left on Iain Dale’s Diary:
“Perhaps all those who have been blocked should form a mutual support group.”
Not a bad idea. There is already a “blocked by Nadine Dorries” group on Twitter – don’t see why you shouldn’t start a “blocked by Kerry McCarthy” group.
Funnily enough, I recognise this description: “…people actually elected this woman to represent them, yet she seems incapable of rational argument or debate. If you disagree with her she cries foul and accuses you of being nasty. And yet she doesn’t understand it’s her own brand of nastiness which causes people to react badly to her.”
If I hadn’t known who you were writing about, I would have assumed it was Nadine Dorries.
[Dumped here in case it doesn’t make it through moderation – http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/12/blocked-by-kerry-mccarthy.html%5D
jdc325 said,
May 20, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Comment left on this ridiculous post: linky.
jdc325 said,
July 8, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Comment left on Iain Dale’s blog: http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/07/graham-evans-mp-hero-to-parliamentary.html
(Note: I do expect my comment to get through moderation, but I’ve had to prod Iain Dale before. I suspect I managed to trip his spam filter somehow. Fingers crossed it doesn’t happen again.)
jdc325 said,
February 22, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Translation: don’t take Big Pharma’s ‘serotonin boosters’, take Little Pharma’s ‘serotonin boosters’. St John’s wort and 5htp are obviously better than SSRIs because, er, they’re more natural. Or something. Try and find one with my face on the pill bottle. They’re the best ones.
jdc325 said,
April 13, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Comment left here: linky.
jdc325 said,
April 13, 2011 at 7:48 pm
Oh, they’ve published my comment. And someone’s responded by asking (not directly – but it’s implied) if I’m a Pharma shill. This is full of win.
Here’s my reply:
ETA: in reply to another comment –
Still making it through moderation at the moment. One last comment before I stop my internettery for the evening:
ETA: bizarrely, AoA haven’t published my comment pointing out that I don’t work for Maxam. How odd.