I wouldn’t be surprised at all that, if Jenny McCarthy were impaled on a unicorn’s horn, she’d blame vaccines. After all, her organization Generation Rescue has shamefully blamed them on totally unrelated things before, and no doubt will again.
This is a serious topic, since the antivaxxers are a public health menace, and the rise of preventable diseases can in many cases be traced back to their propaganda. But sometimes, just sometimes, mocking them is the way to go.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
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November 13th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Preposterous! Unicorns only approach virgins, after all.
November 13th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Mocking is a starting point.
I wonder if they can be charged with some kind of conspiracy, maybe under RICO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act
November 13th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
*giggles* Every time I see this, I laugh hysterically. Thanks Phil!
November 13th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Ah yes, but they will slay (read impale) the wicked/evil people.
I would say something about the slutty also but this is not that type of blog
November 13th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
And when the mocking is over, education is good, too. Science-Based Medicine is a good place to go, as are the CDC, AAP and FDA web sites, as well as my site: antiantivax.flurf.net (now with a Digg button to the left-hand side! – please click!) and Larian’s factsnotfantasy.com
November 13th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
I find it particularly amusing comparing the content of this post with the new ad that showed up on the right… in case you can’t see it, here’s a snapshot:
http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/9937/64667839.png
Clicking links to http://www.accessnaturalhealing.com/services.htm?gclid=CJvyytP4iJ4CFSn6agod6Ae1oQ
Ah, google. What would the quacks of the world do without your ad services.
November 13th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Thanks Todd. Was in a Management meeting today, so I haven’t be able to pounce on Dr. Plait’s entries today like usual.
I may want to change my A-unicorn stance if believing in unicorns means that this could possibly happen! Oh wait, that’s just silly (but not at all mean, right?).
November 13th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Larian, you can’t disprove unicorns! Science doesn’t know everything, after all. I mean, even if we searched the entire face of the earth with a special ray that detected unicorns there’s always the ocean (Unicorns evolved to be deep sea dwellers? Why not? Well, it’s probably just microevolution, so don’t get too freaked out; unicorns evolve fast… really fast… and in a Lamarkian manner)… or the hollow earth!
So I still hold out hope that a unicorn will come out from the depths of the ocean and impale Jenny McCarthy.
November 13th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Gosh, that’s one nasty case of Unicornenza.
She should have vaccinated.
November 13th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Of course it was the vaccines. They changed her natural mommy-pheromones to something the made the unicorns angry.
November 13th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Cases of Whooping Cough (Pertussis) have increased dramatically in central Texas this year. Health officials have actually had to tell people the best way to prevent the spread of this disease is thru vaccinations. Obviously, there is a trend of people not getting vaccinated for some reason…
www . statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/11/10/1110whoopingcough.html
November 13th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
@Todd
>Science-Based Medicine is a good place to go, as are the CDC, AAP and FDA…
But, Todd, SURELY all of those sites are part of the Big Pharma Conspiracy(tm), so they must all be rejected out of hand.
*eyeroll
November 13th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
@#1 Preposterous! Unicorns only approach virgins, after all.
Her brain is virgin!
November 13th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
You see, this is what I don’t get.
Some people say that vaccines are harmful, others say that they are not. People like to quote that thimersol is 59% mercury, others say the actual amount in the vaccine is a very low dose.
But people do not actually publish the numbers all together.
So I spent about 10 minutes on google to sort it out.
1. A single vaccine dose has about 1 mcg of ethylmercury.
2. Ethylmercury has a half-life of 24 days.
3. Methylmercury is more toxic and has a half-life of 59 days.
4. A 45 lb child can safely take up to 14.35 mcg of mercury per week.
5. A single can of tuna has over 50 mcg of mercury.
6. Therefore fish is 50 times more toxic than vaccines. (Where is the uproar?)
Conclusion: We should not vaccinate our kids with fish.
I was going to post the links I found this information on, but I figured the spam filter would catch it. I figure anyone can find it if they really want to. I’d like to see a good article that would bring it all together, clearly, focused, with the numbers and references, that can be easily understood for the layperson.
MrQ
Edited to add: Agreed, this was very quick research, a more detailed investigation, I’m sure would result in more accurate numbers. Take it for what you will.
November 13th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
http://preventdisease.com/news/09/103009_vaccine_sterility_immunotoxicity_neurotoxicity.shtml
What do thy blessing boob?
November 13th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
MrQ,
What about swordfish? They also have mercury, and are the piscine equivalent of unicorns…
Coincidence? I think not!
November 13th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Slightly OT but I had my first real life encounter with the crazy that is the 9/11 Truther movement yesterday. I couldn’t help myself but laugh at them. Details on my blog (click my name).
November 13th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
MrQhuest: You have won a coupon good for one free Internet at your local Internet dealer.
November 13th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Jenny McCarthy is a hack, but lets face it Phil Unicorns are real.
November 13th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Diana Peterfreund has novel, Rampant, about killer unicorns.
November 13th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
All things being equal, I got my H1N1 “jab” yesterday. In Jenny McCarthy’s FACE!!
November 13th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Almost as bad as a friend of mine who says CPR is useless…
November 13th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
New cow-orker arrived the other day. Biblical literalist, anti-vaxxer, the whole crockpot. I told him to keep the frell away from me because “I’m a carrier for all the diseases you aren’t protected against.”
But I don’t get the flu vaccine; H1N1, seasonal, none of them. And here’s why, I like my fully operational primate immune system. I only get sick about once a decade. I catch the flu when it has mutated far enough from previous versions that it’s something new. That’s only about every seven or eight years.
November 13th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
My lab partner in biochemistry was a nurse who had returned to school to work on becoming an MD. She told me CPR has a success rate of 3%. Sciencedaily says between 5 and 10 percent.(CPR: More rib fractures, but better survival rates, june 1 2007).
Pubmed has a few articles including a 1993 metastudy. Some groups have up to a 20% short-term survival rate, but a much lower rate of being able to leave the hospital alive. Overall it seems CPR is not useless, but it certainly doesn’t have the success as seen on tv shows (one study found 69-75% of patients were saved on various hospital dramas).
Sorry for the side-track, but it just caught my interest.
Last minute: Harris and Willoughby 2009 (PubMed) says recent tv shows are more in line with reality (based on overall survival, not age-related survival), and he says success rate is P=0.48. Gee, the more you know….
November 13th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
From http://www.smh.com.au/national/many-bystanders-unwilling-to-resuscitate-strangers-study-finds-20091015-gz9p.html
November 13th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Darn spam thingy swallowed the post with the source. Click my name for the source of the above quote.
Edit: Oops, previous comment in moderation. Sorry about the double post when the other one turns up.
November 13th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
We make lots of jokes about the stupidity of it all, but sometimes it just isn’t funny anymore.
I just found out that Wednesday night the son of one of my oldest friends (since we were 3) died of H1N1. He was 17 years old and had just started college. He was a really good kid, smart, funny and full of life.
According one of the newspaper articles about him, the university was supposed to receive their vaccine 2-3 weeks ago, but it was delayed. There not sure it would have done him any good in any case, due to the incubation period of the virus and the time it takes for the vaccine to take effect. But please don’t take chances! If you have to opportunity to get vaccinated, don’t pass it up.
November 14th, 2009 at 8:28 am
…
November 14th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Buzz, our deepest sympathy to you and your friend’s family.
November 14th, 2009 at 9:26 am
I am SO glad I’m an old fraker that has already seen this bug. That leaves my H1N1 dose for those who really need it.
I wonder who the folks are who rush to the hospital with their flu symptoms raging, expecting a magic shot to make them well? If we ran a survey, how many would confess they CHOSE to not be vaccinated?
Just wondering,,,
Gary 7
November 14th, 2009 at 11:06 am
….. This five dollar sketch I was asked to do sure is getting a lot of leg work around.
…
had I known I may have added a narwhal going through her the other way. They ARE the unicorns of the sea.
November 14th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Tyler, adding the narhwal would not have had the same awesome affect. I think it is perfect just the way it is.
November 14th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
What makes me curious about the mercury claims is that when I was a child (have to admit, I hate use of ‘kid’, as I was never a baby goat) we sometimes had mercury thermometers that broke, and we’d play with the mercury. Okay, we didn’t swallow it, but still….
J/P=?
BTW.. how many people get the joke in Victor Prime’s handle?
November 14th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
You can’t add a Narwhal, that would be too much unicorn too soon and your immune system would be overwhelmed. You need to spread out your unicorns, perhaps ask your cartoonist if he can supply individual cartoon frames rather than having to subject yourself to a whole comic all at once.
November 14th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Thanks, Shane. (and everyone.)
November 14th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Sir Eccles, I will be laughing for days over that comment. Thank you!
November 15th, 2009 at 7:22 am
I was going to ask Phil to comment on some idiocy I got emailed recently from a ‘health news’ newsletter. But here’s as good a place as any. These are links to the original sources (or as original as can be when one of them is a youtube video).
Does the Vaccine Matter?
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1
Autism Spikes, Toxins Suspected
http://www.counterpunch.org/higgs11022009.html
Mercury Still Found in Vaccines -Its Damaging Effect on Your Body (NewsStory)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSKvDQ9OkNM
I’m so disgusted with the last one. It’s from a TV station near me.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:17 am
37. Paul Says:
Ah well. At least the counterpunch site has money to raise. Perhaps they’ll have to shut down???
As far as youtube is concerned, they’re not responsible for trash.
Upon further examination of the spectrum disorders, I’ve decided, nearly every high IQ type person I know has one or more of the indicators for spectrum disorders. What the heck is the difference between being obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons or compulsively counting beans on the floor? Oh, right, it’s a question of degree, however, now we’ve isolated the degree of such “disorders” to feeling uneasy when stepping on a line. I guess we’re nearly ALL disordered. Gee, maybe it was those dang vaccinations I took that kept me from getting typhoid, tetanus, diphtheria and smallpox as a kid. Guess I shoulda just gone ahead and died,,,
Gary 7
November 16th, 2009 at 11:31 am
@Paul
That Atlantic article has been addressed over at Respectful Insolence by Orac. I think Science-Based Medicine may also have a couple posts on it.
November 16th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Phill your geting a little sick hear did you just read about Vlad the implaer or something ? look I don’t like anti-vaxxers any more then you do but the answer is not to round them up and kill them after all this din’t work with the Christans in Rome or the early scientists did it? and I would worry about a law suit from Jenney Mcarthy claiming your threating her . Phill I think non-voilence is the way to win this argument .
November 17th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Re: post 40. Seriously? You really think anyone’s advocating impalement (or any other actual violence) as an honest solution to the anti-vax movement? Maybe my sarcasm meter’s broken, but wow, just… wow.
In other news, science struck another small blow against disease today as I and my family just got our H1N1 vaccinations. Take THAT, disease! Went really well for me in particular… I honestly thought the nurse hadn’t even injected me, as I felt absolutely nothing. One of my kids panicked a little (as kids are wont to do concerning needles), and was so tense, she got a little sore. But otherwise, all went well, and we all have one less thing to worry about now.
Oh, and in a belated nod to one of the posts above, we didn’t vaccinate with fish! (LOL!)