What the Papers Don't Say About Vaccines 737
jamie tips an article in The Guardian's "Bad Science" column which highlights recent media coverage of the MMR vaccine. A story circulated in the past week about the death of a young child, which the parents blamed on the vaccine. When the coroner later found that it had nothing to do with the child's death, there was a followup in only one of the six papers who had covered the story.
"Does it stop there? No. Amateur physicians have long enjoyed speculating that MMR and other vaccinations are somehow 'harmful to the immune system' and responsible for the rise in conditions such as asthma and hay fever. Doubtless they must have been waiting some time for evidence to appear. ... Measles cases are rising. Middle class parents are not to blame, even if they do lack rhetorical panache when you try to have a discussion with them about it. They have been systematically and vigorously misled by the media, the people with access to all the information, who still choose, collectively, between themselves, so robustly that it might almost be a conspiracy, to give you only half the facts."
Negative headlines sell better (Score:5, Insightful)
No one is interested in reading positive news like the fact the vaccine isn't actually harmful so there's no money in printing it.
Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to something that may seriously harm your child, whether it be vaccines or the illnesses the vaccines prevent against, it is your responsibility as a parent to not go off half-cocked and to make extremely sure that you have all the facts before you make a decision regarding the welfare of your child. If you're not up to that responsibility, then you shouldn't have custody of your kids. Plain and simple.
*Father*
Err... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no "The Media" (Score:1, Insightful)
Contrary to popular opinion, newspapers, radio stations, television stations, news sites, podcasts, and blogs are ALL in competition with one another. Each of them tries to find the stories that sell best to their readers. Its called a free market.
I know its popular to blame everything on "the media" (or here in North Carolina, "The Liberal News Media"), which apparently includes everything from Slashdot to FOX to the BBC, but it is simply bullshit. It is as realistic as saying that icecream makers insist on making unhealthy foods. No... They make what people BUY.
Doctors != Scientists (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to something that may seriously harm your child, whether it be vaccines or the illnesses the vaccines prevent against, it is your responsibility as a parent to not go off half-cocked and to make extremely sure that you have all the facts before you make a decision regarding the welfare of your child. If you're not up to that responsibility, then you shouldn't have custody of your kids. Plain and simple.
*Father*
Or why not ask your physician who, I would think, knows a bit more than a writer who does the bare minimum of research, if any, to meet his deadline.
Props to the author (Score:5, Insightful)
In the face of the standard shrill anti-science which permeates western media, he's a guy who tells it straight. A high class myth-busters, if you like.
A geek. The man.
That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Make extremely sure that you have all the facts"? I'm a continuous skeptic about everything, and from what I've read, I'm 99.99% sure that autism and vaccines are not linked in any way - but the cause of autism is not known, so it would be irresponsible for me to run out and declare that I'm 100% sure. I'm not sure, and neither are you, and if you claim you're 100% sure, then you're being religious instead of scientific.
A parent who is less sure, say 90% sure, now has to balance the effects and probabilities that on the one hand, that the kid will get the almost-never-lethal-or-disabling measles; and on the other hand a minute chance that the kid will get the disabling malady of autism. It's their kid, so I find it unsurprising that parents are simply skipping the vaccines as long as there's the shadow of a doubt.
The only way to get the parents back on vaccine schedules is to determine the cause of autism.
Re:Doctors != Scientists (Score:3, Insightful)
In that, medical doctors are scientists, trained in the medical sciences, which act as technicians on the human body.
Amateur physicians?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Err... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem here is that many British newspapers have spread wholly-untrue scare stories about the MMR injections, largely based on erroneous analysis by descredited scientists, Andrew Wakefield.
No-one can be be expected to follow every major medical story by reference to the original papers (and despite your noxious smugness, you don't either). We all rely on the media, both to alert us to potential medical risks, and to give accurate and even handed treatment to medical stories.
The papers and journalist in question (and. Melanie Phillips, I'm looking at you) have put sales-grabbings scare stories ahead of providing actual information -- acceptable if you're just gossiping about celebrities, but children have lost their lives because well meaning parents have been swayed by newspaper medical stories written with scant regard for the truth. Like people who shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre, they should be held to account.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you happen to be a medical expert of sufficient calibre to run the experiments yourself, you rely on others to supply you accurate knowledge about the subject. Unless you are an expert in every subject, there are bound to be potential decisions regarding the welfare of your child where you have little choice but to go off half-cocked, since you simply have no way to know for sure what the results of each choice might be, and at what probability.
No one is up to that responsibility. Nothing short of a god could possibly be. But don't let logic get in the way of making grandiose declarations - in the name of the children, of course.
Ah yes, that would explain it. There's something about children which seems to turn people's brains off, allowing them to both spout and believe unbelievably stupid statements without recognizing them as such. Must be some kind of hormonal thing.
Power Lines (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when power lines were giving our children cancer?
I'm glad they fixed that.
Re:well that's funny (Score:3, Insightful)
You can have a reaction to nearly anything you can stick in your body. So nothing's 100% safe. The debate is always at the "is it the norm of the exception" point.
Re:Doctors != Scientists (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a debate that's been going on for a long time (Score:4, Insightful)
The age old debate about whether the flu shot can give people the flu. And the odd reaction to other components...I'm looking at you, thimerosal. Most of the discussions tend to be more heat than light.
My opinion is the fear is far greater than the actual risk would indicate. Even if the reaction rate was extremely small, litigation and the internet are going insure the stories spread far and wide. Combine a very small number of actual problems with a lot of publicity, add a dash of anecdotal evidence and I think the fear factor of vaccinations is over done.
Complicating the discussions are the number of times we've been collectively lied to by big business and big pharma. Even if they were telling the truth, we have reasonable grounds to remain suspicious. And the Bush administration installing an incompetent religious frootloop as head of the FDA hasn't exactly inspired public trust that the safety of medications and vaccines are being adequately monitored. It's easy to suspect that oversight of medication safety is every bit as good as the SEC's oversight of the financial markets.
The Big Media Conspiracy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Amateur physicians?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I'd suggest not, but there are plenty of people who take their advice from 'alternative' therapies, from the internet, from their religion and from spam email.
Of course with so many of these things it's what people want to hear: People would like there to be magical cures. People like a conspiracy - to feel that they know something everyone else doesn't - such as that MMR is actually an overall negative and hence they won't have their kids vaccinated.
stupidity (Score:2, Insightful)
I would be a bit cautious about this part. As the saying goes, never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.
Lack of Interest in Science (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider the story about the dangers of germ-free environments [findarticles.com]. Specifically, excessive attempts to elminate germs can, in addition to creating super-bugs, cause our immune system to malfunction. Without the constant exercisng of our immune system by germs, our immune system goes into overdrive by generating an immune response to things (e.g., pollen) that are not germs.
The above story appeared for a brief moment in the news and then disappeared. Meanwhile, the quantity of advertisements for anti-bacterial products (containing triclosan) has exploded. The public prefers to watch pseudo-science commericials instead of genuine-science news stories.
The anti-science public does not care about science. If the public did care about science, it would have dramatically reduced its purchases of anti-bacterial products (thus protecting the health and lives of Americans). So, when the public does not care about science, science-related stories appear briefly in the news media and then quickly fade away in favor of stories about, say, Paris Hilton.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, because Western medical practitioners are conspiring against us, didn't you know?~
But a little more seriously, I think many people are getting suspicious of doctors who are too quick with the prescription pad, and don't spend much time actually doing preventative, or even curative, medicine.
Anecdotes factor in to the story as well. A friend of the family has a son who's autistic. The boy is 13 years old, handsome, has some artistic talent, and wears a diaper because he's totally incontinent. His mom swears up and down that she can trace the changes in him to the very day he got his 18 month MMR. Even if it's anecdotal, a story like that puts the fear into you when you have your own baby.
My wife and I thought about it carefully, and did consult with our family doctor, who is very strict about research-based medicine, and doesn't like to pull out the prescription pad for the least little thing. He recommended going with the shots, but also told us that he takes extra precautions with the vaccines (this was before the latest research). Him, we trust.
Also, and this really bothers me, many parents who don't vaccinate their kids are trading on the fact that the rest of us do. The risk of their kid catching one of the MMR diseases is much lower because everyone else has their shot. This of course eventually leads to a "tragedy of the Commons" situation where, as we see, those diseases become more prevalent.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:2, Insightful)
It was only a few decades ago that physicians were endorsing cigarettes, and sticking radium rods up kids noses [heart-dise...urgery.com] as a treatment for enlarged adenoids. Not to mention fun treatments like frontal lobotomies.
Certainly some contemporary common practices among physicians will be looked back with as much amazement. Not to say that current vaccination methods are or are not in that set, only that physicians can be very very wrong and you ought not to blindly trust them.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:5, Insightful)
My daughter got the MMR a month or two ago and she ended up with a week of 106F fever.
So the doctor told you that the fever was a result of the MMR or did you come up with the diagnosis yourself?
I'm just saying that it could have been a coincidence. Perhaps it wasn't the vaccine but some other cause after all kids do tend to get sick.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you possibly get "all the facts" when you are trying to raise a child?
Most parents (if you really are a parent) sort of muddle through the whole process of raising kids with imprecise information and an attempt to do the best we can with what limited information may or may not even be available to us at the moment.
Yes, reading first aid manuals, parenting guides, and other such books or websites may be useful, but more often you go on the advise of your own parents, neighbors and friends. There is often a whole lot of trust that happens too... sometimes misplaced trust at that.
As for "THE TRUTH" about vaccines, I don't really even know what the truth may or may not be here. Certainly it can be quantitized how useful vaccines have been in terms of the society as a whole, but as a parent you don't care about who a vaccine is generally saving the whole of society if it is your own kid that is the 1% or 1/10th% who gets screwed over with a bad reaction to a vaccine. All you care about really is how it is going to impact your own children.
I also don't think the medical community is being totally honest here, and that there can be some children who shouldn't be receiving vaccines. The trick here is to be able to make that decision... often with the medical community actively fighting against you or openly dismissing your fears without so much as even looking at any legitimate concerns you might have or even doing so much as even looking at your child at all, much less your child's medical history.
Muddling through is the best any parent can do anyway, and how dare you suggest that a child should be removed from a parent who is otherwise working in good faith to do the best they can for their own kids.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:1, Insightful)
The person who started the MMR scare was a doctor who had his findings published (subsequently refuted) by the Lancet Medical Journal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
90% of all newspaper articles are utter crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's my reasoning: Once in a while, an article covers a subject that I am knowledgeable about. Almost always, I will find something wrong in the article. Sometimes it's just a minor mistake or a gross over-simplification. More often than not, however, the article gets it hopelessly wrong and completely misinforms the reader.
I can only conclude that the same happens in articles that cover stuff I know nothing about.
So, I pulled the number in the headline out of my ass. Kinda like the average newspaper author.
shamelessly, venally, manipulatively, one-sidedly (Score:2, Insightful)
Writing this column really scares me because I wonder whether everything else in the media is as shamelessly, venally, manipulatively, one-sidedly, selectively reported on as the things I know about. But this week the reality editing was truly without comparison.
Yes, as a matter of fact, the situation with the Palestinain terroist governments in Israel is just even more biased against Israel than the press was against MMR this week.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:3, Insightful)
Information from experts in your life is how you make decisions on which video card to get, which new TV to get, which video game system to buy, which new game to get for it.
Nobody alive is an expert in all fields, and everyone has to put trust in others. That trust is sometimes misplaced, sometimes misplaced in authority, sometimes in lack of authority.
Blaming people for listening to 'other people' and not doing their own research is just stupid -- there's no possibility, and I mean _NONE_ that any human being can do the necessary research to make anything better than an educated guess in 90% of basic life situations.
Should you call a plumber or put baking soda and vinegar down your sink? Should you leave a cover on your AC unit in the winter or not? Should you have your carpet steam-cleaned or not?
Assuming unlimited money to pay for experts in each case, you still won't get all the right answers, and you'll have missed out on most of your life being paranoid.
Yellow Journalism - versus - Yellow Fever (Score:2, Insightful)
This is really a story about the Yellow's - Fever and Journalism that is - and a collective fever of the social psyche that allows reports like this to flourish
Media have ALWAYS played up the sensational, ignoring the good, and marginalizing their own mistakes. In the US, the concept of free speech keeps the governmant from suppressing communication, but there is no such thing as "free speech". Those with the means of traditional puiblication are bound to readership, advertisers, shareholders, and profitibility - the "truth" is only that which sells the most. "Remember the Maine", the Spanish American War, and the media wars of Pulitzer-vs-Hearst. Media reports like this survive and thrive on FUD. It is the basis of YELLOW JOURNALISM. The nice thing about Slashdot and similar blogs, Usenet, and the like, is that this is a genuinely free and democratic forum for the exchange of news and ideas.
FUD-mongering is much easier to spread and manipulate when it comes to technical subjects that average people do not understand - like medical and technology things. The original newspaper stories in this report were no different than the late-night TV ads by lawyer sleaze-buckets who advertise for medical malpractice and medical device liability. All that BS is easy to sell to Joe Sixpack.
The follow-up reports and references, like the one showing decreased asthma episodes and expense among MMR vaccinated children, show the value of public health programs and medical technologies. People need to see the BIG picture, but sadly, many cannot see beyond the ends of their noses. The problem is that many people today are the recipients of public health benefits that they have no idea about. For instance, who today worries about being crippled by polio, dying from smallpox or pertussis, becoming neurologically impaired by measles? Scourges of bygone centuries are all but forgotten by the average person - thanks to vaccines and public health programs, the doctors and scientists who developed them, the companies and governments that made it all possible, and the public who funded them. Nothing is perfect though, and there may in fact be the occasional complication or death from a vaccine, but we do what we do because 3 deaths a year from a medical treatment that saves 100,000 deaths a year from the disease is a good thing. Any newspaper reporter, editor, publisher, or owner who wants to "stick their money where their mouth is", ought to NOT vaccinate their own kids for any of these diseases, then see what happens.
If people had as much fear of Yellow Journalism as they do of Yellow Fever, we wouldn't see nonsense like this. Sadly, most people have no more appreciation of Yellow Journalism than they do of Yellow Fever, and they can be easily infected by both. Yellow Fever is not prevalent in most parts of the worls, but Yellow Journalism is. Slashdot and similar community forums are a good vaccine for FUD and false reporting, but sadly, they do not have the wide reaching cirulation and readership that fudpapers do. On the other hand, MANY traditional newspapers are downsizing because of competition from modern internet media - let's hope that more truth and less FUD prevail as time goes by.
Re:Lack of Interest in Science (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider the story about the dangers of germ-free environments. Specifically, excessive attempts to elminate germs can, in addition to creating super-bugs, cause our immune system to malfunction. Without the constant exercisng of our immune system by germs, our immune system goes into overdrive by generating an immune response to things (e.g., pollen) that are not germs.
Yeah, it's difficult to find soap that is not "antibacterial" today. Which is odd as just soap and water used properly will do the job.
But let's not forget it was science that taught us about germs in the first place. It's been hammered home since microbes were first discovered that bacteria and virus were to be avoided at all costs. Now the opposite is true?
I can see why most people would rather read about Paris Hilton than try to decide which scientific report to believe.
Then there's X-Ray Spex's [youtube.com] take on the subject;-)
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:5, Insightful)
We may not know what causes autism, but we do know what causes measles, and whooping cough, and we know that both of these can cause death. We also know how to prevent them. Also there is a bigger connection with autism rates and cable television expansion, and the rise of the internet, I hope you think carefully about letting either cable television or a high speed internet connection in your house.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, and this really bothers me, many parents who don't vaccinate their kids are trading on the fact that the rest of us do. The risk of their kid catching one of the MMR diseases is much lower because everyone else has their shot. This of course eventually leads to a "tragedy of the Commons" situation where, as we see, those diseases become more prevalent.
No, what will happen is that there will be a spike in previously preventable diseases due to unvaccinated kids, which will eventually bring about a mutation in the pathogen which will then infect your vaccinated child, or possibly you yourself, who is no longer protected because the anti-vaccine crowd gave the disease a breeding ground and place to evolve to evade the vaccine-created immunity.
Reckless Endangerment? (Score:3, Insightful)
What gets me is that the media can report all this garbage, with no research, no medical training, and no scientific training, yet we as a society allow them to do this without making any attempt to make them act responsibly.
If reporters or newspapers regularly print scare stories without adequate research, or something like this which is practically designed to scare parents without giving them the full story, they should be prosecuted. They are making a profit out of playing on people's fears, why on earth do we allow that?
Surely there would be a case for Reckless Endangerment or Child Endangerment if papers create scares like this, but then make no effort to correct their mistakes when scientific testing proves them wrong? Yes, papers are sometimes made to print apologies, but they are tiny and hidden out of the way. In cases like this, it would be fairer (and safer!) to make papers print a big "We're sorry" article, given exactly the same attention as the original story. And if that means running it on the front cover for a month, with regular follow up articles, then so be it.
The media have a huge effect on the public, they need to take responsiblity for their actions.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:5, Insightful)
I keep hearing this, and it is really off base. If you give a pathogen a place to breed it may mutate into something that can bypass vaccince-created immunity.
So as much as you are gambling that you won't get infected because 80% of others have had the vaccine, those 80% are gambling on YOUR lack of immunity rendering their own immunity null and void if you give the pathogen a place to mutate.
The unvaccinated pose a greater danger to the general population than the vaccines pose to the individual.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:3, Insightful)
Live != Active
I can't think of a single vaccine that's made from a completely live virus (that would be called a virus, not a vaccine).
In addition the term live virus is a bit of a non-sequitur in and of itself btw.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:3, Insightful)
Immunize the kids, sterilize the parents?
Re:90% of all newspaper articles are utter crap (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for the insight. I live in Canada, incidentally, but the situation is similar. The government pays on a per-visit basis, not by time, and so it benefits a GP to squeeze as many visits into a day as possible.
There seems to be something else at work though. My doctor, who sounds a lot like you in some ways, is not very popular where I live (a small community of about 10,000). To some extent this can be attributed to his bedside manner, which isn't great, but also I think it's because people know he won't give pain meds at the drop of a hat. He's also been so indiscreet as to suggest that people with chronic pain disorders might benefit from seeing a psychologist, something that doesn't fly too well with the auto-accident litigation industry here.
I think that there is a strong push to prescription-pad medicine from the patients' side as well. People want the quick fix that makes them better. They don't want to hear that pain relief won't fix their problem. They don't want to hear that exercise and a healthy diet are really the only way to lose weight safely. They want magic.
Lazy journalism -- deaths (Score:2, Insightful)
Follow the Money (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason why this debate has been and is still going on, even with the evidence to the contrary, is the money trail.
The average cost of therapies for Autism is about $50,000 - $100,000 US per year for at least 2 - 3 years for those who end up being higher functioning and even more for those that are lower functioning. Health Insurance companies refuse to pay the costs calling it a mental health issue (will be interesting to see where mental health parity leads), the schools do not want to pay for it because they do not see it as a medical issue, and for those who never get the ability to survive on their own, the government is not real interested in paying for their care for the rest of their lives. I am sure that in some ways, athasma is in a similar area.
To make the situation worse, there is stress on the whole family. The parents cannot go out together because they cannot find someone to care for their kid. The other kids feel left out. There is the monetary stress. Simply put they want someone to pay.
Who better than a big bad corporation who has deep pockets. So of course, now they are going to be blamed. The lawyers pick it up for the money and the media picks it up because situations like that sell news. Even worse, if there is evidence that proves that this group is wrong, it is either ignored or there is a conspiracy. I remember a couple of months ago where we here on Slashdot where a mother and person with Autism did a blog against the whole MMR causes vaccines argument and was vigorously subpeonaed by a lawyer fighting for anti-vaccine parents. This occurred in the Dow-Corning fight with Silicone Breast implants too.
Add to the fact that in most cases, scientists cannot and will not say for 100% certainty that MMR does not cause Autism. This is because nothing is 100%. If 100 people jump out of a 3rd story window and all die, are you 100% certain that the 101st also will die when the jump out. In fact, the agent which is claimed to cause the issues has been removed from vaccines in many states in the USA and the expected drop in autism has not occurred. That should be enough proof for most people that they are looking up the wrong path.
I do not think this will die however until someone/thing comes up with a system to pay for the treatments of autism and other issues. This is all about the money.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:5, Insightful)
The incidence of diagnosis of autism is up, but that doesn't necessarily mean the incidence of occurrence is up also. It could very well be that it simply went undiagnosed before -- instead of being called "autistic," the children were just called "slow" or "shy" or "retarded" or something.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:4, Insightful)
And you miss out the prisoner's dilemma.
If you're the only one that doesn't get vaccinated then that's fine, but the moment it becomes popular then whooping cough rapidly becomes more common.
Re:Doctors != Scientists (Score:1, Insightful)
IAAD (I am a doctor), and I have to say your statement about "the vast, overwhelming majority of doctors" is just plain wrong. Period.
At least in the US, you have to have a minimum of college level courses in physics, inorganic and organic chemistry and biology. You are tested repeatedly to demonstrate competence in these areas. Once in medical school, you have courses in pharmacology, microbiology, biochemistry and immunology -- all things that fail to fit your "mechanic" paradigm. In fact, I feel that for many doctors (such as surgeons or rehab docs) this is all wasted -- these areas *are* like being mechanics, and they're wasting time teaching things you don't need to know day-to-day.
In any case, *every* US trained doctor has *vastly* more amounts of "true scientific training" than almost *every* "business person" or "plumber".
In short, you're way off base.
Re:Jenny McCarthy needs to shut up (Score:3, Insightful)
Jenny McCarthy may not know what causes autism, but let's not forget that neither do doctors.
Possibly, however doctors and scientists tend to have stricter standards of proof than "making shit up" or "google searching". Read the site I linked and ask yourself why the media gives this woman a pulpit to preach from. She didn't know vaccines are made with viruses in them and thinks this is a bad thing, she has no knowledge of the subject matter. Her ignorance is so astounding it almost seems to be a form of criminal negligence to put her in front of a camera to spout off about something she obviously knows nothing about, yet has a huge following of stupid people following her.
These people are going to listen to her stupidity, not get their kids vaccinated, they will get sick with something that used to be rare or unheardof due to vaccines. That will mutate and infect ME, since my vaccine-created immunity won't be effective against a mutant strain. At that point I think I'd be justified in taking a baseball bat to any parent who would rather have their kid be a petri dish for the next black plague than get a vaccine.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:3, Insightful)
You misunderstand me: I wasn't advocating not getting vaccinated; I was pointing out that Reziac himself committed exactly the statistical fallacy he was complaining about!
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:3, Insightful)
But it is worth noting that they mention there may be a true rise in cases on the second page.
I suppose the real question is why is it disconcerting to you that vaccines are no longer being considered a cause? The studies show that vaccines haven't caused it, so looking into them further would just be a waste of time- time that could be used to find the actual cause.
Re:Power Lines (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, there was a degree of truth to that story, even though it turned out that the power lines themselves were harmless.
It turned out that the pesticides used to clear the land surrounding the high-voltage lines were carcinogenic, and seeped into the water supply.
Other studies have concluded that any other correlation between childhood cancers and powerlines were either statistical noise, or due to other factors such as the higher likelihood that the lines would be located near industrial residential areas.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the solution is basic education in the scientific method and statistics for everyone, beginning in elementary school.
This is wrong. People don't care. Teaching about the scientific method and statistics won't make them care. It's too many steps removed from the vaccine issue for the average attention-span anyway.
We have a cultural problem. It's not about the scientific method. People believe in conspiracy theories. People believe in shadowy corporations who are secretly out to get them. People believe in secret cover-ups. People believe everyone's got a hidden agenda or a conflict of interest. But, most importantly, people believe they're the exception. They have it figured out. They're wise. They're not going to be fooled like everyone else.
It's a self-esteem problem -- too much self-esteem. It's a lack of respect for others. It's laziness. It's irresponsibility. It's self-focus and emotional self-investment. It's not being completely grown-up.
The scientific method won't help because it's only useful if the answer it leads to fulfills some emotional need you have. Otherwise, it can be discounted in favor of the process that leads to a more fulfilling answer.
I don't know what the solution is. Removing some of the societal rewards for making bad choices would help.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Vaccines save lives (Score:4, Insightful)
More specifically, the risks posed to an individual are far outweighed by the same individual's benefit gained by living in a thoroughly vaccinated society. It's not a question of individual vs. societal benefits, it's that people who refuse vaccinations for spurious reasons are free-riding on the herd immunity (whilst simultaneously degrading it a tiny bit) of all the other individuals who properly weighed the risks and got vaccinated.
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, there's a non-zero risk of an adverse reaction that can be quite severe, even including death. That risk is vanishingly small in comparison to the possible consequences of not having widespread vaccination. You can die from most vaccinated diseases, and if we didn't have herd immunity from widespread vaccination, your risks of death from those diseases would be far greater.
The problem is that the risks and consequences of degrading herd immunity appear to be individually small because the consequences are spread out across a large number of people. A correct risk-benefit analysis should lead anyone to get vaccinated, even in the face of stories like yours.
Re:Too many coincidences (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is no connection why do we see so many stories similar to mine?
Because the age that vaccines are given is the same age that the symptoms of autism (et al) start to manifest. It's as simple as that.
People have tried vaccines without mercury. People have tried giving vaccines at different times. People have tried forgoing vaccines. And guess what? The same percentage of each group of kids developed all the same awful conditions that are blamed on vaccines.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:4, Insightful)
Having said that, some vaccines are unneeded in my opinion; chicken pox, for example, is irritating but better to "experience" as a child.
Are you kidding? Shingles is a potentially disfiguring, often extremely painful event that happens at one time or another to many people who get chicken pox as a kid (shingles isn't acquired... it's a re-surfacing of the virus from within your body). I am glad that a couple of small shots my kids had as an infant will prevent him from ever getting shingles.
Re:Follow the Money (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd agree. And you can't prove a negative. However, our legal system isn't supposed to require you to prove a negative, even in a civil case. The problem is tons of lawsuits brought by individuals gets expensive. Eventually, these cases will cause Congress to give pharma blanket immunity on vaccination lawsuits, which is a lousy idea. And not for a good reason. There's no valid, statistical evidence of a causative link between the MMR and Ausitm, and all the wishing in the world doesn't make it so. There are heartbreaking anecdotes, but that's not a reasonable standard when you are basing a court case on a scientific claim. And that's what these folks are doing. Thimerosal? Since it started to come out of the vaccines, has the rate of new cases dropped? Nope. So what else is going on? Beats me.
I've got three kids. They've all received vaccines. Why? Diphtheria, mumps, measles, pertussis, tetanus, etc. can all be pretty damn serious or fatal, and it wasn't that long ago that a lot of people in the United States died from them. My parents were born years before Penicillin was used in treatments. And well before things like the measles vaccine were available. They, their parents, siblings, friends and other relatives had some of these diseases when younger and were very sick, some died from them. A lot of the parents making the "no vaccine" decision now need to go talk to the 80+ year old group while they're still around and realize that the only reason they have the luxury of wondering if they need vaccines is the damn things worked. And if enough people stop, the population immunity drops enough to have epidemics occurring among the unvaccinated. A history of the the 1918 flu pandemic ought to be required reading for folks to understand what can happen.
The other big problem today? Lack of proper funding for hospitals and nurses. There aren't enough beds to deal with a major epidemic or pandemic, and not enough trained medical staff to deal with it.
Could the Vaccination Scare KILL YOUR CHLDREN? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am waiting for the stories blaming the scare for the disease to come out. It has to happen eventually. The media just needs to make sure that they don't make the dumbass parents look like dumbasses for being dumbasses about not vaccinating their kids.
Sort of a "i know we sold you on not doing this thing, but now that you aren't doing this thing and your kids are dying, we decided to tell you that the people who made up how bad this thing was were dumb and we were just following the press coverage heard, so get mad at them."
It'll happen. You heard it here first.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:4, Insightful)
Unvaccinated, breastfed kids don't generally get sick. (very rarely)
Yes; that's so true. In fact in the past, say 1000 years ago, when there were no vaccines and all kids were breast fed, there used to be no infant mortality at all. </sarcasm>
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:5, Insightful)
NO, that is not true. Breastfeeding improves the baby's immune system, but it does NOT provide the same kind of specific immunity that a vaccine does. Please stop spreading lies that endanger the public health.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:3, Insightful)
but when it's a third party who pays for your bad decision, well, that's a lot more justifiable, now isn't it?
So stop doing that. You want to use government force to make the other government meddling (and force) less expensive. Try minding your own business.
Re:That is impractical. I mean, impossible. (Score:3, Insightful)
Since the cause of autism is unknown, but the incidence of it is up the last few decades, it seems quite likely that at least one of the assertions regarding what supposedly doesn't cause it may be wrong. Maybe the experiments that have "proved" MMR to be safe didn't reproduce the right conditions or test against the (unidentified) group most at risk of side effects.
Maybe what is defined as autism has changed, resulting in more "diagnosis" than before without any actual change in the population.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're so certain you're correct and can back it up with reproducible data, why not submit your study or meta-analysis to a major journal like JAMA, NEJM or The Lancet? The basic idea is that the risks from vaccination are outweighed by the risks of getting the disease your are vaccinating against.
If you can conclusively prove that the risks associated with vaccination outweighs the morbidity and mortality rates of the the disease itself, you should have no problem persuading the medical community at large. Personally I sincerely doubt that this is the case and as a such have had my own children fully vaccinated.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too many coincidences (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:5, Insightful)
Whereas I've had Mumps and Rubella, and the fever was worse and I felt horrible and missed school for over a week each time. 2 days, 2 weeks ... my kids are immunized, thanks.
Re:Parents ARE to blame (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure the Hippocratic oath does not specify that doctors are required to commit insurance fraud.
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too many coincidences (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Helminthic Therapy to the Rescue (Score:3, Insightful)
>The effects of these buggers is reduces asthma, allergies, arthritis, and other issue from over-active immune systems.
So you say. Cam you site any double-blind studies by respected researchers publishing in peer-reviewed journals? It seems everyone has a crackpot theory on the immune system nowadays, yet I constantly am seeing a lack of results from these crazy ideas. Kids growing up "dirty" and kids growing up "clean" tend to have the same health issues as adults. Auto-immune diseases look genetic or perhaps post-viral, not environmental; and certainly not the results of "lack of harmful parasites in one's gut." I mean, what is this the 18th century?
Re:Negative headlines sell better (Score:3, Insightful)
> It contains antibodies to vpds (vaccine preventable diseases) as well as the illness du jour
Sounds like passive immunization to me, so the effects should quickly fade after your stop drinking that breast milk.
> it contains healthful bacterium (now marketed as pro-biotics in your friendly formula brand)
Seriously? I didn't know. I'm not saying you're wrong, but how the hell did those bacteria get in that milk?
> as well as stem-cells
Huh? What use are orally ingested stem cells from another organism to a baby? They shouldn't survive your stomach, and even when they do they shouldn't be able to enter your body, and even when they do they should be rejected.