Some drive-by antiscience news for y’all:
1) Chris Mooney wrote a detailed article about the antivax movement for Discover, which they have intelligently put online. It’s a solid and damning piece about the movement which threatens our children.
2) Speaking of which, Slate magazine also has a take-down of Oprah, who is supporting Jenny McCarthy for reasons beyond reason. I like Rebecca’s take on it, too: short and pithy.
3) The National Center for Science Education reports that an anti-evolution bill requiring that creationism be taught in Florida public schools has died in committee. Of course, these things have a way of being resurrected, so I’m sure we’ll be hearing about it again. And again. And again.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
The Arthur Allen article is good but starts out bad, calling her “vaccine skeptic Jenny McCarthy”. Gives skeptics a bad name.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
I loved that Slate article. Didn’t pull any punches.
I put this in an earlier post, so I’m hesitant to seem like I’m spamming, but our local station did a piece on the effects of antivaxxers. Basically focused on the potential for spreading childhood diseases, with just some small hits on some of the most common claims, like mercury and thimerosal.
There’s comments on the online version of the story, and the antivaxxers are really hitting it hard. If anyone wants to join in on the rational side, feel free:
http://www.wmur.com/health/19397989/detail.html
You do have to register, but it’s free, and it should allow you to use that login for any other sites in that company, so it might be nice if you live in one of the broadcast areas.
As I mentioned in my other post, New Hampshire is one of the best in the nation at vaccinating kids, and it would be nice if it stayed that way.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
The FCS response to 3 is absolutely cogent, and something we don’t often hear: this continued barrage of cre[a]ti[o]nist IDiocy is not just an annoyance and a threat to good eduction, it’s a waste of time and money that could be better used elsewhere. Public money is wasted arguing this nonsense in BoEs, congress, senate, court…
But at least AiG and CMI wasted some of their time and money arguing with each other. That’s priceless! Feel the Christian love!
May 8th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Nice articles. Phil.
We need to counterstrike with solid evidence and striking data and truth!
May 8th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I agree on the skeptic point.
I’m going to go with “vaccine denier”
May 8th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
The best part of the Slate article:
Her boyfriend, actor Jim Carrey, is even more clueless. At the rally last year, I asked Carrey to give an example of a childhood vaccine we could dispense with. Tetanus, he said. That answer did not reflect a strong—or any, really—grasp of infectious diseases. Children who get tetanus—fortunately, it has been extremely rare in the United States since tetanus vaccination began in the 1920s—suffer horrendous pain, arch their backs, and go into terrible spasms before dying. It’s a very natural disease, to be sure, because the germ causing tetanus lives in dirt. It’s a germ that will be with us forever, and the only way to prevent it is through vaccination.
Tetanus?? Really Jim??!!?
May 8th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
“These things have a way of being resurrected”
LOL, 3 days, right?
May 8th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
As soon as we can get a reliable set up on factsnotfantasy.com, Todd W, IVAN2MAN, and I will be blogging this sort of inromation on there! And of course, as the genesis device for that page, we’ll have an RSS feed from here.
Thanks for the material!
May 8th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Of course, these things have a way of being resurrected
And that way is JESUS!!
May 8th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
“The National Center for Science Education reports that an anti-evolution bill requiring that creationism be taught in Florida public schools has died in committee.”
Yes!
Too bad things like that don’t stay dead.
If the bill takes the zombie route, I hope that the right descision is made again.
“Of course, these things have a way of being resurrected…
And that way is JESUS!!”
Speaking of zombies!
May 8th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Maybe what’s needed is a legal definition of “science”? Of course, someone will screw that one up, or manage to find a way to be able to define ID and Creationism as “science”.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
My anti-we-need-air-to-breathe bill was also shut down this week in a Louisiana school district. Back to the drawing board.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Great, great Slate article – thanks for the link, Phil.
Question for anyone who cares to answer: how do you talk to a person who doesn’t oppose vaccination for any of the standard anti-vax reasons, but opposes government-enforced vaccination? To be honest, I wasn’t expecting such a line of reasoning, and would like suggestions on countering it. Yes, he’s an ideologue, which makes it all the harder. Here’s a brief from the argument we’re having:
“Although I’m not saying McCarthy is right, it definitely ticks me off how the government is taking more and more control out of the hands of individuals and mandating so many vaccines and such. Just look at the HPV situation…
So where do you draw the line on who/when decides what you ‘have’ to do? Like anything else that is legislated by big brother, it’s a very slippery slope when the government starts telling you what you can and can’t do. Not to start a whole new argument, but you could use the argument you just gave for an anti-abortion position – and it’ not applied there. So why not? “You’re killing other people who had no say in your decision.” Sorry – but I’ve seen way too many scientific theories delivered as “proven scientific facts” that turn out to be not exactly true. Or maybe not immediate, but un-intended consequences learned about later – such as thimerosal.”
I’ve responded to him already, but would love to hear others’ takes.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Not to wallow in minutiae, Mike K, but what’s your friend’s point on HPV? Is he referring to the hysteria that some are trying to sow with that vaccine by citing anecdotal cases of complications. Those anecdotes ignore the fact that the HPV vaccine has a complication rate similar or lower to other vaccines. It also has the potential to wipe out a source of cancer — a disease that has the possible complication of death. It’s also not a mandated vaccine, so your friend may just be throwing it out there as a red herring. The HPV vaccine debacle is spurred on by the same general anti-vaxx crowd, aided by those who are terrified of the thought of young women having sex.
To the larger point, your friend is also posing something of a false premise. Although the government does “mandate” vaccines, there are always ways for parents to opt out, so it’s really coming down to a matter of choice right now. I don’t know that anyone is suggesting that the government mandate vaccines under, say, threat of jail if you don’t comply. If you don’t have a medical or other exemption allowed by your state, you may not be able to send your unvaccinated child to school, but that’s about it, I believe.
If you’re just kind of having an ethical debate, and that response to “killing other people who had no say” is that “too many scientific theories … turn out to be not exactly true” is what he threw back at you, it’s depressingly easy, as noted on this blog, to show examples of how anti-vaxxers do indeed kill people. That’s a fact. And they have the potential to kill in greater numbers as herd immunity breaks down in more places.
If your friend doesn’t feel like an individual has a general obligation to help safeguard the larger community, then that’s something of a sociopathological (real word?) belief. At some point, people like that will just be arguing to continue to argue. We’re a social animal, throughout history we’ve worked to build social structures that require group effort to function. If he’s wanting to reject all that because he doesn’t like being told what to do, he may be better off removing himself from that social structure, ie, go and build a cabin out in the woods.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
@ Mike K.
The answer to him is yes, people should (and do) have the right to opt-out of public health initiatives such as vaccination schedules… as long as there is not a clear and present danger presented by the lack of the preventative care. If someone wants to skip an MMR, they should not be forced to have one unless there is an active measles, mumps, or rubella outbreak in their region, at which point they should either accept quarantine as a public health hazard or get the shot. Since many vaccines have *some* sort of adverse reaction, we can’t mandate their use without accepting the fact that (if there’s say a 1 in 2,000,000 fatal reaction rate to that particular vaccination) we’re going to be killing ~150 people by forcing everybody in the country to get the shot.
Yes, it means that some people will avoid vaccinations because they’re really bad at risk analysis, and not for any real rational reason. People have a right to have their own measure of utility, and simple safety doesn’t have to mean the same thing to me as it does to them. As long as the risk remains relatively low, I have a right to call them morons, but I don’t have a right to force them to do things my way.
This is unfortunately a trade-off for the freedom of living in this society. We let people smoke and eat fatty foods, in spite of the fact that they’re harmful.
Heck, we let people put their kids into cars, which is (by a couple of orders of magnitude) more deadly than the current childhood diseases on the vaccination schedule. Realistically, the national standards for getting a driver’s license are pathetic, as evidenced by the national fatality rate on the road, but very few people would advocate a licensing scheme that approached real rigor. We accept the fact that driving is dangerous, and move on.
Although it would be nice to get ~65% of the cars off the road, which is my low-end estimate for how many drivers really ought to be taking the damn bus.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
@Mike K : It’s a public health issue. Unvaccinated children are more likely to get sick and/or pass disease along to others. I don’t see it as being any different from the government requiring restaurants to keep their kitchens clean.
Or maybe not immediate, but un-intended consequences learned about later – such as thimerosal.
What “unintended consequences” came from thimerosal? It was dropped due to uninformed, hysterical public outcry, not because of any actual effect.
That quote is a strike against your friend’s argument, come to think of it. While freedom of choice is a great ideal, there are vast numbers of people making those choices based on incorrect or no data. I suspect your friend considers himself well-informed, yet he was obviously taken in by the lies. That’s fine if it doesn’t affect anyone else, but not vaccinating your kids does affect others, directly.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
@ Naked Bunny
> I don’t see it as being any different from the government
> requiring restaurants to keep their kitchens clean.
It is different, on a couple of different levels. But the main point is, lots of things are risky. Many, many, many things that we regard as socially acceptable behaviors are more risky than not getting vaccinated (again, presupposing there is no active outbreak going on). Hell, more people die from falling off ladders in the United States than from diseases on the vaccination schedule, but we don’t mandate ladder safety training before you buy a ladder at Home Depot.
All bets are off if there is an active outbreak, but really if you’re going to start making vaccinations mandatory, you really should first look up what sorts of things are more deadly or dangerous than a lack of vaccination on a yearly basis and ask yourself how many of *those* things you’d be willing to also take off the table. I bet you find a couple you’d like to keep, or at least quite a few that you’d feel outraged if someone tried to impose upon you.
This is not generally a good venue for the law.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
@Pat Cahalan: You keep using examples like “people falling off ladders” and “people putting their kids into cars”. Can you please post some examples of behaviors that are actually equivalent to not vaccinating your kids that you think I’d like to keep around?
I’m all for increased freedom when it’s not harming others, but that’s the worst part about the anti-vax movement: it’s hurting people who don;t buy into the lies.
If you want to risk your kids by putting them in a car* or risk yourself on a ladder, fine. But I still want you to get a driver’s license so you have less chance of hitting my kid, and I’ll make sure to not walk under your ladder. If there’s a legitimate reason to not vaccinate a child (and there are at times), then fine, but we’re talking about people making decisions based on falsehoods. What’s wrong with prevention? Why are you so against prevention?
* (A bad example, given all the regulations regarding licenses and seat belts and speed limits and child seats, BTW.)
May 8th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
@ Naked
I’m not against prevention. I personally think that anyone who looks at the rate of negative outcomes from vaccinations and compares it to the disease risk and decides not to vaccinate is a bonehead. Hell, I’d probably take the smallpox vaccine if they offered it, the adverse reaction rate is still laughably microscopic.
That’s not the point.
I didn’t explain the car example properly, that’s my bad. Right now, somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 people die in car accidents every year. Human factors contribute to anywhere between 80 and 90% of those accidents, depending upon your source. Roughly half of fatal accidents are multiple-vehicle at fault accidents, so somewhere between 12,000 and 22,500 people die each year because someone else was a bad driver.
This is *quite a bit* larger than people dying because other people don’t get vaccinated, and yet in order to reduce that rate significantly we’d have to do a number of things, not the least of which is really significantly raise the requirements for people to acquire and maintain their license. I don’t have the direct science, but a SWAG is that huge numbers of people under the age of 25 and over the age of 55 would have to stop driving, and quite a few people would have to lose their license, somewhere around 50-65% of the driving population. Need to drive to get to work? Sorry. Take the bus. It’s for the greater good. Let’s mandate 55 mph governors in the cars.
Yes, I agree that the anti-vax movement is harming others. Yes, I agree that it sucks that people don’t vaccinate their kids (or themselves, for that matter). Yes, I agree that I’m disgusted that other people’s children die because people don’t vaccinate their children. If it happens to my kids, I’ll probably need therapy to deal with the anger.
It’s *still* not a good venue for legal intervention. Making it illegal to pass on vaccinations will certainly cut down a bit on the list of people who don’t get vaccinations, but how would you implement it? What justifications do you have for getting an exception? Do you need a legal waiver? Some sort of other proceeding? A doctor’s note? What’s going to prevent shady doctors from selling the waivers (there are lots of doctors who support the woo)? What happens when you *do* have an attributable adverse reaction? There are vaccines that have them. How do you fund the compensation fund, or are you just going to look at that 11 in 70,000,000 people who have an anaphylactic reaction to an MMR and say, “Gee, that’s rough. Too bad!” Once you make something mandatory, you need to accept the consequences; since you’ve removed the individual’s right to make their own risk assessment, you’ve got to foot the responsibility bill.
You solve this problem by educating people, not by making ignorance illegal. It’s a bad precedent, it doesn’t scale well.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Oh, and I forgot to add, it feeds right into the persecution “Take It To The Man” complex that drives probably about 80% of the crazy woo followers right now. How could you even get this passed… and assuming you *could* get it passed (as opposed to wasting time and money that you could spend on anything else directly productive, like an educational campaign)… what makes you think that the crazy woo followers would just decide that, “Oh, gee, that’s endgame” and go get their shots? They won’t.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
On HPV, by coincidence the other day a leading swedish newspaper published an article on the swedish campaign to eradicate it. The article starts out with claiming that the world wide incidence will be doubled by 2050 to a million cases if nothing is done.
The mass vaccination campaign starts next year, and is expected to be successful.
Oh, and the article claims they have now discovered that men are more easily infected than women.
NOO, HE HAS BECOME THE SUBTRACTING MAN!!!
Watch him go Ivan1man, Ivan0man, Ivan-1man, …
May 8th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
“the world wide incidence” of cervical cancer will be doubled”
May 8th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
# Ken B Says:
Maybe what’s needed is a legal definition of “science”? Of course, someone will screw that one up, or manage to find a way to be able to define ID and Creationism as “science”.
I was recently watching NOVA: Judgement Day, Intelligent Design on Trial (via DVR to computer to DVD) and one of the cdesign proponentists did INDEED have such a ‘definition’, which allowed Astrology to be defined as ‘science’.
J/P=?
May 8th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Chris Mooney’s blog post is one of the best, most comprehensive takedowns of the antivax stupidity I’ve seen recently. Well done to him, and to you Phil for sharing it with us.
Fla. senator Wise said, “If you’re going to teach evolution, then you have to teach the other side so you can have critical thinking.” There is no other side! One is science, the other religion. What’s next for Mr. Wise, sponsoring a bill requiring the teaching astrology as an alternative theory to astronomy? Requiring the teaching of the alternative idea that there are only four elements (earth, wind, fire, and water) rather than the 112 science knows about? These make as much sense as teaching creationism (and that’s what ID is, make no mistake).
May 8th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
@John Paradox: that was none other than Michael Behe himself during the 2005 trial in Dover. Plaintiff’s attorney led him right into that trap, and he fell for it hook and sinker. The look on his face at that moment must have been priceless, I wish we had video of it. You should read the transcript with that portion – heck, you should just read the entire transcript of Behe’s testimony versus the plaintiffs attorney. He is simply eviscerated.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:42 am
Antiscience scums need to DIE!
May 9th, 2009 at 6:29 am
QUASAR: Please, for the love of God/The FSM/The IPU, just go away! Or grow up. What is your biological age, anyway? 12?
May 9th, 2009 at 6:36 am
@ Grump
SCREW OFF MY INTERNET!
May 9th, 2009 at 6:41 am
I agree with Cahalan that vaccination exemption should be allowed. The Supreme Court in 1906 (this is from memory, year might be wrong) established the groundrules pretty well: A state can require its citizens to be vaccinated to participate in certain public activities (like school) but it can’t forcibly vaccinate them (which happened pretty often in the early 20th C–a time when smallpox vaccination was less than pretty). So states have the power to require vaccination. In practice nearly all allow exemptions of one kind or another. but it’s a hodgepodge. in California you just sign your name on the back of a form — i don’t want my kid vaccinated. period. Similar in Colorado. Some states have a “religious” exemption but the meaning of religion is elastic and antivaxers have found a way around it.
I personally support model legislation that some fellows at Johns Hopkins wrote up for Arkansas. It basically says that if you’re of sound body and mind and you really dno’t want your kid vaccinated, you don’t have to do it. but you need to go through counseling by a nurse to show that you’re not doing out of laziness or rank stupidity.
Now under the current circumstances, this kind of law would allow rather high exemption rates in certain cities–boulder colorado comes to mind, but it’s by no means the only one. And this will lead to the spread of diseases. But I think it’s the price we pay for having a relatively libertarian attitude toward personal health decisions.
Of course during an outbreak of disease all bets are off–if your children aren’t vaccinated, they can be kept inside your house. That’s quarantine law, which is a different issue.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:21 am
@Grump,
Firstly, I’d say you’ve nailed the biological age to within a year. Secondly, s/he appears to pop up simply to get a personal response from Phil. Trolling in vaccine threads hasn’t worked as yet. Trying to look as if s/he’s the hot source for info hasn’t worked either (blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/05/01/launch-dates/#comments).
May 9th, 2009 at 8:23 am
And apparently s/he hasn’t learnt that if you troll for long enough, nobody takes anything else you have to say seriously.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Whatever happened to ” extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”?
Jenny makes an extraordinary claim, so, show me the evidence,,,(crickets,,,)
Usually, when people go on about government/medical community conspiracies, people understand they are paranoid/delusional fruit cakes and either laugh at or ignore them.
Stewart/Colbert, please ramp up your laugh machines. We need your satire more than ever,,,
Gary 7
May 9th, 2009 at 10:07 am
@Mark Hansen: I read your tactfully-implied criticism, I admit guilt, and I apologise to all. Immediately after posting that I regretted feeding the troll. They starve to death if you don’t feed them, but give them any crumb of sustenance, and they keep coming back.
May 14th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
RE:” Jenny McCrazy and Oprah Fact-free”
Salon has an article about Oprah, Jenny and Suzanne (Chrissie) Somers:
J/P=?
May 14th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
grrr http://www.salon.com/env/vital_signs/2009/05/15/oprah_winfrey_health/
link