The Intersection » vaccination

Institute of Medicine Slams Anti-Vaxxers, Again

Chris Mooney — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:53:43 +0000

A new report is out from the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, on vaccine safety. In the voluminous report, the committee of course does not find that every vaccine is perfectly safe for all time–there are certainly some risks. But it once again rejects the claim that the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine causes autism–the evidence, the committee said, was more than adequate to reject this causal assertion.

You can read the report for free here. The New York Times report, titled “Vaccine Cleared Again as Autism Culprit,” is here.

Please note: Anti-vaxxers will not change their minds based on this major scientific consensus report. They will argue back and challenge its conclusions.

So it goes.

More Polling Data On The Politics of Vaccine Resistance

Chris Mooney — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:03:00 +0000

Okay, so, I owe Brendan Nyhan big time on this one.

In a debate last week that pulled in Kevin Drum, David Frum, Andrew Sullivan, Josh Rosenau, and Mike the Mad Biologist, we’ve been discussing whether vaccine denial is really a left wing phenomenon or not. One problem has been that the polling data on who actually resists vaccines is pretty scarce.

However, there are at least two polling results out there in the universe of public opinion data that have not been discussed yet, so far as I can tell. Neither is perfect for getting at the question of who has fallen for the vaccine-autism scare, but both are relevant. Let’s take them in sequence.

In late 2009, USA Today/Gallup asked a question about Jenny McCarthy’s anti-vax views:

Did Jenny McCarthy’s statements (she believes her son developed autism after getting a common childhood vaccine) make you more likely to question the safety of vaccines for children, or did her statements not make you more likely to question the safety of childhood vaccines?

Survey by USA Today. Methodology: Conducted by Gallup Organization, November 20 – November 22, 2009 and based on 1,017 telephone interviews. Sample: national adult. Interviews were ...

Vaccine Denial and the Left

Chris Mooney — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:53:34 +0000

Kevin Drum has blogged my MoJo piece, and while he likes it, he adds this:

…be prepared to be annoyed when Chris wrenches his spine out of shape bending over backward to find an example of liberals denying science as much as conservatives. It might be true that you can find vaccine deniers in the aisles of Whole Foods, but if there’s any rigorous evidence that belief in the vaccine-autism link is especially pronounced or widespread among liberals, I haven’t seen it. Surely there’s a better, more substantive example than that floating around somewhere?

So I want to further explain my assertion that vaccine denial “largely occupies” the political left. It arises, basically, from my long familiarity with this issue, having read numerous books about it, etc.

First, it is certainly true that environmentalists and Hollywood celebrities have been the loudest proponents of anti-vaccine views. To me, that is evidence, although not necessarily definitive. So is the fact that we see dangerously large clusters of the unvaccinated in places like Ashland, Oregon, and Boulder, Colorado, which are very leftwing cities.

What’s tricky is, there’s not a standard left-right political ideology underlying this. Rather, it seems more associated with a Whole Foods and ...

Revkin on Biased Reasoning

Chris Mooney — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:21:42 +0000

Andy Revkin has done a post that combines together a discussion of my Mother Jones piece with, appropriately, an analysis of the recent claims and counterclaims over the greenhouse gas implications of fugitive methane emissions from unconventional gas drilling (e.g., fracking). It includes a Q & A between us:

REVKIN: I would love your sense of why climate, as a hot-button issue, is more salient than vaccines in the political arena. Presumably it’s because it’s a direct link to the wallet for anti-tax folks and vaccines are a much smaller base of concern (people with young kids)?

You didn’t mention genetically modified organisms or radiation, two other arenas where the communitarians [Kahan's descriptor for what others might call liberals] have what seems to be a high “dread to risk ratio“….

Finally, this seems to clash with the enduring vision that inertia on climate (and related issues) derives from heavy spending by fossil fuelers and media muddle. My learning curve on cultural cognition has led me to mostly abandon my expectation that better information and communication could change the public debate.

Do you see any need for the environmental movement to abandon its longstanding claim that the public is inert on climate ...

Deep Confusion About the Left, the Right, and Science

Chris Mooney — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:10:34 +0000

Recently I came across this Ed Driscoll post at Pajamas Media, riffing on this editorial in Investor’s Business Daily. While the arguments advanced in these paired right wing science commentaries aren’t particularly nuanced, the basic theme is clear–it’s the left that abuses science! In particular–and this is something I discussed with Seth Mnookin on the latest Point of Inquiry–the vaccine-autism claim is becoming Exhibit A in a developing “Democrat War on Science” style argument.

What do I say to this, as the person who coined the phrase “Republican War on Science”?

First, I fully admit that a type of “war on science” has occurred with respect to vaccination over the last ten years; and furthermore, I agree that the animus against good science in this case tends to be located, broadly speaking, on the political left. However, I don’t see how the vaccine-autism case study refutes my broader argument, which was about the relationship between the right and science in modern U.S. politics.

The political “left”–in this country or elsewhere–can certainly serve as a haven for science denialism. Soviet Lysenkoism is by far the most famous case, as was discussed in The Republican War on Science; but there are many, many others.

But just ...

Bravo to Salon.com for Taking Down RFK Jr. Vaccine-Autism Article

Chris Mooney — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:53:01 +0000

See here, from editor in chief Kerry Lauerman:

In 2005, Salon published online an exclusive story by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that offered an explosive premise: that the mercury-based thimerosal compound present in vaccines until 2001 was dangerous, and that he was “convinced that the link between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is real.”

The piece was co-published with Rolling Stone magazine — they fact-checked it and published it in print; we posted it online. In the days after running “Deadly Immunity,” we amended the story with five corrections (which can still be found logged here) that went far in undermining Kennedy’s exposé. At the time, we felt that correcting the piece — and keeping it on the site, in the spirit of transparency — was the best way to operate. But subsequent critics, including most recently, Seth Mnookin in his book “The Panic Virus,” further eroded any faith we had in the story’s value. We’ve grown to believe the best reader service is to delete the piece entirely.

“I regret we didn’t move on this more quickly, as evidence continued to emerge debunking the vaccines and autism link,” says former Salon editor in chief Joan Walsh, now editor ...

The Irrationality Vaccine–New Point of Inquiry with Seth Mnookin

Chris Mooney — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 19:10:21 +0000

My new episode of Point of Inquiry is now up. The guest is Seth Mnookin, author of the new book The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear.

Here’s the write up:

Recently the British Medical Journal dealt yet another blow to 1998 scientific study that first terrified the public about the possibility that vaccines might cause autism. The paper, the Journal alleged, was nothing less than “fraudulent.”

Amazingly, however, no one expects anti-vaccine advocates to retract, change their minds, or cease their activities. Which raises the question: How did they grow so strongly and doggedly convinced to begin with?

That’s where Seth Mnookin’s new book The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear comes in. It tells the page turning story behind the thoroughly refuted-but still devoutly believed—claim of a link between vaccines and autism. The book explores not only the science, but also the parents involved, the autism advocacy and support community, and the crucial role of the media, the Internet, and celebrities like Jenny McCarthy in spreading misinformation about vaccines.

Seth Mnookin is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, ...

Two New Books Destroy Anti-Vax Claims

Chris Mooney — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 13:06:55 +0000

In the latest New Scientist, I have a lengthy review of the following new books, which couldn’t be better timed in light of the recent devastation of the Wakefield paper that started the whole autism scare:

The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear by Seth Mnookin, who’s an editor at Vanity Fair and wrote the New York Times bestseller Feeding the Monster.

Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, by Paul Offit, previously well known as the author of Autism’s False Prophets and a Point of Inquiry guest

You can’t read the full review online unless you have a subscription, but suffice it to say that these are both great books and they’re actually quite different and complementary as well. Mnookin is more of a narrative writer. Offit is devastating on the science, and on the incredible risk now posed to innocent children by those who fail to vaccinate. If you care about science and reason, both should be in your library.

I want to add something else: Please go to Amazon ...

Vaccine-Autism Coffin Has No More Room for Nails

Chris Mooney — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 19:57:17 +0000

Here’s CNN doing some really impressive science and medical journalism–although notably, it’s Anderson Cooper, not Sanjay Gupta.

The occasion is still more debunking of the study that started it all–Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 Lancet paper accusing the MMR vaccine of causing autism through a novel (and implausible) pathway. Now, the British Medical Journal is calling the work an outright “fraud” based upon a series of reports it is beginning to publish by investigative journalist Brian Deer.

All the details can be found at those links, and you can evaluate them yourself–but at this point, I think it’s fair to say that no open minded person who surveys the evidence can conclude anything but that vaccines are overwhelmingly safe and the real threat to public health are the activists, and tiny handful of scientists, who tried to convince us otherwise. (Not that they would, like, change their minds or anything.)

And just in time for Seth Mnookin’s and Paul Offit’s new books–my review of which will be out very soon!

Update: I was unfair to Sanjay Gupta, he did a tough interview with Wakefield too–not nearly as tough as Anderson Cooper, but still fairly tough.

Here Come Two New Pro-Vaccine Books

Chris Mooney — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 19:31:46 +0000

I’m currently reading the following books for a review–both come out in January:

The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear by Seth Mnookin, who’s an editor at Vanity Fair and wrote the New York Times bestseller Feeding the Monster.

Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, by Paul Offit, previously well known as the author of Autism’s False Prophets and a Point of Inquiry guest

I’m not going to comment more right now, as the books are stirring up a lot of ideas but my thoughts aren’t complete.

But these are both pro-vaccine books by well established authors, and for that reason, I know blog readers here will be interested in both of them.

So click the links or the covers for more.

I’ll say a lot more once my review is published.