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.