The Misinformants: Prominent Voices in the Anti-Vaccine Crusade
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Friday, October 30, 2009
How to Win an Argument About Vaccines
This is an excellent article on debunking the pseudo-science we are often confronted with by the anti-vac crowd.
How to Win an Argument About Vaccines
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How to Win an Argument About Vaccines
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An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All
As we are confronted with a disease that is now taking the lives of children and teenagers, perhaps some will notice how we as a community are ignoring our responsibility to participate in programs that protect the health of everyone. Many parents who rely on pseudo-science and conspiracy theories don't take the time to get the scientific facts and instead decide they will just avoid vaccinations and rely instead upon the "herd immunity" of those who have had their children vaccinated. A better way to deal with your fears is to have a conversation with your medical provider. Not with friends, people at work, celebrities or from conspiracy minded web pages. Instead you need to look at the science. Falling for out of date and paranoid claims has finally started to have an effect on not just the health of individuals, but the health of the community. We do need to fear something, and regretfully the "enemy is us." This is a good read not just about vaccines, but also about community responsibility. Just because some people fail to believe in the germ theory doesn't mean we don't need a sanitation department!
An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All
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An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All
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Saturday, October 10, 2009
Psychologist allowed in class - finally
Psychologist allowed in class - Local - Bradenton.com
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This story reminds me how the Burnaby School District's Teacher's Union sent out instructions last year telling teachers not to fill out behaviour or similar diagnostic forms from psychologist. Their rationale was that private psychologists were taking away work from school psychologist. Please note that school psychologists generally have an M.A. degree and can't diagnose, aren't a regulated profession and have a waiting list ranging from 1-2 years. The clash between schools and medical providers just astounds me! School districts are still reluctant to allow private practitioners to observe children in their care, or n=private behaviour specialists from working with the children in the schools.
Recently BC cut millions from funding for children with autism, and oddly gave millions to a private organization to build a building. We have a long way to go, but right now we need to protect the funding that we have, and allow children with autism to use all the services they can find.
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This story reminds me how the Burnaby School District's Teacher's Union sent out instructions last year telling teachers not to fill out behaviour or similar diagnostic forms from psychologist. Their rationale was that private psychologists were taking away work from school psychologist. Please note that school psychologists generally have an M.A. degree and can't diagnose, aren't a regulated profession and have a waiting list ranging from 1-2 years. The clash between schools and medical providers just astounds me! School districts are still reluctant to allow private practitioners to observe children in their care, or n=private behaviour specialists from working with the children in the schools.
Recently BC cut millions from funding for children with autism, and oddly gave millions to a private organization to build a building. We have a long way to go, but right now we need to protect the funding that we have, and allow children with autism to use all the services they can find.
False autism concerns continue: "60% of swine flu vaccine will have thimerosal."
Autism concerns continue: 60% of swine flu vaccine will have thimerosal
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Here is an interesting article to test your ability to tell what is important, and what is non-sense. Here is a writer, whose qualifications are being a "special mom," writing about vaccines and she decides to give a "balanced" report by including fears and psuedo-science by the anti-vac people .... oh, and giving the headline a twist that can only increase fear and certainly doesn't reflect the" balance of evidence" on this topic.
The evidence is clear, there is no know correlation between getting your child vaccinated and autism. Of course there are some dangers, as there are with ANY medication. But this article like many trying to be "fair" totally misrepresents the "balance" facts. It equates all scientific evidence to the non-prooofs of those who spread fear. The title alone should be a warning that this writer isn't concerned about scaring parents who then don't get their children vaccinated and who the suffer from diseases that were preventable. And perhaps die. Somehow this "special mom" has decided that's the price she is willing to pay to draw your eye to her "balanced report" and increase her readership. These actions are frankly immoral. But it's a good article to read and test your own ability to see fact from fiction. Science from rumour. Data from paranoia.
A humorous YouTube video on this topic might help you understand it more. Humour often makes things clear. Watch Dara O'Brian talk about science, numbers and our fear of Zombies. Develop your critical thinking skills.
For those in fields like psychology I also offer here a LONG article on critical thinking by Meehl, P. E. (1973). "Why I do not attend case conferences."
In P. E. Meehl (Ed.), Psychodiagnosis: Selected papers (pp. 225-302). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
"Common mistakes in the oral process of diagnosis are reviewed. Examples are given of logical, rhetorical, and statistical mistakes, as well as misuses of psychodiagnostic testing and validations. Repeated themes include: The relationship of minor, irrelevant facts to symptoms or diagnosis; The clinical vs actuarial problem; The proper role of the psychologist and psychological testing; And the importance of records, genes, construct validity, diagnosis, interrater reliability, extant research, adequate criterion, and followup. The research on diagnostic testing should include accuracy rates as well as reports of significance levels. The purpose of case conferences is both diagnostic and educations, and focussing on the best methods of diagnosis improves them. The polemical rhetoric calls the many logical, rhetorical, and scientific diagnostic errors silly, muddleheaded, dumb, stupid, softheaded, intellectually dishonest, bobbysoxer, ludicrous, absurd, and incompetent."
Sounds boring? Actually, funny and you learn a lot about critical thinking.
Finally, for a good overview of the history of vaccines you could look at the Jenny McCarthy Body Count Page. There you can see the actual results of spreading false information, fear and paranoid thinking grown in a mixture of various conspiracy mindsets.
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Here is an interesting article to test your ability to tell what is important, and what is non-sense. Here is a writer, whose qualifications are being a "special mom," writing about vaccines and she decides to give a "balanced" report by including fears and psuedo-science by the anti-vac people .... oh, and giving the headline a twist that can only increase fear and certainly doesn't reflect the" balance of evidence" on this topic.
The evidence is clear, there is no know correlation between getting your child vaccinated and autism. Of course there are some dangers, as there are with ANY medication. But this article like many trying to be "fair" totally misrepresents the "balance" facts. It equates all scientific evidence to the non-prooofs of those who spread fear. The title alone should be a warning that this writer isn't concerned about scaring parents who then don't get their children vaccinated and who the suffer from diseases that were preventable. And perhaps die. Somehow this "special mom" has decided that's the price she is willing to pay to draw your eye to her "balanced report" and increase her readership. These actions are frankly immoral. But it's a good article to read and test your own ability to see fact from fiction. Science from rumour. Data from paranoia.
A humorous YouTube video on this topic might help you understand it more. Humour often makes things clear. Watch Dara O'Brian talk about science, numbers and our fear of Zombies. Develop your critical thinking skills.
For those in fields like psychology I also offer here a LONG article on critical thinking by Meehl, P. E. (1973). "Why I do not attend case conferences."
In P. E. Meehl (Ed.), Psychodiagnosis: Selected papers (pp. 225-302). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
"Common mistakes in the oral process of diagnosis are reviewed. Examples are given of logical, rhetorical, and statistical mistakes, as well as misuses of psychodiagnostic testing and validations. Repeated themes include: The relationship of minor, irrelevant facts to symptoms or diagnosis; The clinical vs actuarial problem; The proper role of the psychologist and psychological testing; And the importance of records, genes, construct validity, diagnosis, interrater reliability, extant research, adequate criterion, and followup. The research on diagnostic testing should include accuracy rates as well as reports of significance levels. The purpose of case conferences is both diagnostic and educations, and focussing on the best methods of diagnosis improves them. The polemical rhetoric calls the many logical, rhetorical, and scientific diagnostic errors silly, muddleheaded, dumb, stupid, softheaded, intellectually dishonest, bobbysoxer, ludicrous, absurd, and incompetent."
Sounds boring? Actually, funny and you learn a lot about critical thinking.
Finally, for a good overview of the history of vaccines you could look at the Jenny McCarthy Body Count Page. There you can see the actual results of spreading false information, fear and paranoid thinking grown in a mixture of various conspiracy mindsets.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Great review of a pretty good book: Autism's False Prophets
Many people can be found "making the mistake of starting with the premise that pharmaceutical companies are inherently evil. I think we can all agree that the safe use of pharmaceutical drugs has saved billions of lives. That isn't to say that these companies don't want to make a profit, nor am I saying that they are beyond reproach. But is it profitable to create a vaccine that causes autism or SIDS?"
Read the review, then read the book. Become a skeptic ...and look for evidence.... and follow the evidence rather than starting with a theory and finding evidence to match it. The blog post can be found here:
http://skepticdad.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/book-review-autisms-false-prophets/
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Read the review, then read the book. Become a skeptic ...and look for evidence.... and follow the evidence rather than starting with a theory and finding evidence to match it. The blog post can be found here:
http://skepticdad.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/book-review-autisms-false-prophets/
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Autism: Removing Thimerosal From Vaccines Did Not Reduce Autism Cases In California, Report Finds
Autism: Removing Thimerosal From Vaccines Did Not Reduce Autism Cases In California, Report Finds
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"In the last decade, two hypotheses on autism-immunization links were raised that have had a profound impact in the field of autism research and practice and on public health at large," writes Eric Fombonne, M.D., of the Montreal Children's Hospital, in an accompanying editorial. "One incriminated the measles component of the triple measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, the other the amount of thimerosal (about 50 percent of which is ethylmercury) contained in most other childhood vaccines."
Since the 2004 Institute of Medicine report favored the rejection of both hypotheses, "more studies have accumulated that have reinforced this conclusion, one independently reached by scientific and professional committees around the world," he writes.
"Parents of autistic children should be reassured that autism in their child did not occur through immunizations," Dr. Fombonne concludes. "Their autistic children, and their siblings, should be normally vaccinated, and as there is no evidence of mercury poisoning in autism, they should avoid ineffective and dangerous 'treatments' such as chelation therapy for their children."
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"In the last decade, two hypotheses on autism-immunization links were raised that have had a profound impact in the field of autism research and practice and on public health at large," writes Eric Fombonne, M.D., of the Montreal Children's Hospital, in an accompanying editorial. "One incriminated the measles component of the triple measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, the other the amount of thimerosal (about 50 percent of which is ethylmercury) contained in most other childhood vaccines."
Since the 2004 Institute of Medicine report favored the rejection of both hypotheses, "more studies have accumulated that have reinforced this conclusion, one independently reached by scientific and professional committees around the world," he writes.
"Parents of autistic children should be reassured that autism in their child did not occur through immunizations," Dr. Fombonne concludes. "Their autistic children, and their siblings, should be normally vaccinated, and as there is no evidence of mercury poisoning in autism, they should avoid ineffective and dangerous 'treatments' such as chelation therapy for their children."
No Scientific Link Between Childhood Vaccines And Autism, Review Shows
Another excellent review of the SCIENCE surrounding vaccinations. This article published in pediatric nursing also contains a very brief but good history for quick review.
No Scientific Link Between Childhood Vaccines And Autism, Review Shows
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No Scientific Link Between Childhood Vaccines And Autism, Review Shows
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