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What the Papers Don't Say About Vaccines
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."
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.
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*
Since when is this nebulous entity called "the media" the only group that "has access to all the information"? If people decide to shirk responsibility for their own lives, and blindly accept conventional wisdom, that is their choice and they have freely made it, whether or not they consciously acknowledge it.
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.
I know this is going to be viewed somewhat as flamebait, but to put it bluntly, doctors are mechanics for the human body. No more, no less. The vast, overwhelming majority of doctors have little to no true scientific training, any more so than a business person or Joe the Plumber. Even those doctors doing active medical research have limited scientific faculties IMO, having heard about this stereotype from others, read about on the internet, and dealt with it myself. Therefore, when it comes to scientific interpretation, anything coming from a doctor's mouth should be taken with at least a grain of salt, if not a shakerful.
Just gotta give up some respect to Ben Goldacre.
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.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
"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.
Do we really want to take medical advise from amateurs? This isn't backyard car modding we are talking about.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
Remember when power lines were giving our children cancer?
I'm glad they fixed that.
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.
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.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It "might almost be a conspiracy?" Perhaps it looks that way due to the fact that stupid people are easily led astray when given an incomplete set of information. In truth, individuals are responsible for maintaining their own sufficient understanding of reality. As many others will surely tell you, "the media" (read: people) only disseminate the bad news because bad news sells.
I would be a bit cautious about this part. As the saying goes, never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.
Sadly, I can not imagine my life without last.fm.
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.
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.
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.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
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.
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.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
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.
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.
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.
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.
Immunize the kids, sterilize the parents?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Most journalists (not all) have a MA in English Lit. To most, science and their education in it parted ways as early as possible in school. They know what's sensational enough to sell papers, and can re-churn a press release into a story without the slightest knowledge of the science or medicine that's crucial to the story. Unfortunately, these crusading pieces against the established medical community make the journalists feel they're doing the world some good, and they're doing one over on all of those odd medics that do this incomprehensible gobbledeygook science stuff that they hated and don't feel a part of. More unfortunately, the few remaining scientifically trained journos are often not listened to by their editors-- never spoil a good story with disclaimers... or additional facts, eh? Tragically, most people still think that if it's in a good newspaper, it's fact. That's no longer the case (too few journalists and sub editors to waste time on that!) So when a juicy anti-MMR story comes along, many parents believe it. And when the retraction/ better evidence is published in a small article nowhere near the front page (or not at all)-- their opinions aren't changed. So MMR vax'ns drop below the level where herd immunity can exist. M/M or R levels rise, and disable many. So how many die from this process. Sometimes I think the media needs some... ass whipping over irresponsible stories.
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.
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.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
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.
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!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
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.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
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.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
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.
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.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
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.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You see so many similar stories cause parents/close ones, instead of being logical about things, immediately say HOLY FUCK THE DOCTORS DID IT!!!! They refuse to accept that it was a natural thing, and instead want to blame anyone they possibly can to try and make someone else take responsibility.
Dude, gotta link to your studies if you want to make such bold claimes of clear and obvious statistical fact.
>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?