Via Kevin Drum I learn that Senator John McCain embraced unfounded anti-vaccination fears on the campaign trail. ABC's Jake Tapper reports:
At a town hall meeting Friday in Texas, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that "there’s strong evidence" that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that was once in many childhood vaccines, is responsible for the increased diagnoses of autism in the U.S. -- a position in stark contrast with the view of the medical establishment.
McCain was responding to a question from the mother of a boy with autism, who asked about a recent story that the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program had issued a judgment in favor of an unnamed child whose family claimed regressive encephalopathy and symptoms of autism were caused by thimerosal. . . .
"We’ve been waiting for years for kind of a responsible answer to this question, and are hoping that you can help us out there," the woman said.
McCain said, per ABC News' Bret Hovell, that "It’s indisputable that (autism) is on the rise amongst children, the question is what’s causing it. And we go back and forth and there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines."
McCain said there’s "divided scientific opinion" on the matter, with "many on the other side that are credible scientists that are saying that’s not the cause of it."
The established medical community is not as divided as McCain made it sound, however. Overwhelmingly the "credible scientists," at least as the government and the medical establishment so ordain them, side against McCain's view.
Moreover, those scientists and organizations fear that powerful people lending credence to the thimerosal theory could dissuade parents from getting their children immunized -- which in their view would lead to a very real health crisis.
Tapper does a good job of exposing the scientific illiteracy of McCain's remarks. Here's more from Orac and Mark Kleiman. Orac also has background on the court case referenced in the story. And my co-blogger David Bernstein blogged on media coverage of thimerosal here.
Related Posts (on one page):
Say, while he's raging against the machine and fighting the power, is he also going to take on the Alar interests and the Flouride lobby? Maybe he can lobby for making Morgellons a national research funding priority, or see if NIH is willing to look into the use of Colloidal Silver as a cure for The Great Pox...
ROTFL
Mr Adler, there is no such a thing as proving risk. By definition, it is safety that must be proven. Anything else constitutes risk.
So, before you lecture us, please educate yourself.
Oh no, better not go outside, the sun might cause your head to spontaneously explode! Prove that it doesn't!
It is impossible to prove safety. I don't think your post makes any sense.
And as much as it is possible to do so, it has been proven that thimerosal does not cause autism.
And I await McCain's endorsement of a crash of an alien spaceship in Area 54.
Area 54? Would that be a location that is 5.88% more secret than Area 51?
I don't think this makes any sense either. Adler's post seems pretty straightforward to me.
Um, so there's a scientific consensus that there's no causation. Which makes the thimerosal link junk science. Got it.
But I've also learned from this blog to never trust the scientific consensus. So, uh, maybe it does.
Why not make everyone happy-
1. Carbon emissions cause autism.
2. Thimerosal in vaccines causes global climate change.
There, I'm less confused now.
Area 54, where are you?
Seriously, a few more town halls like this and I'll be wondering whether to vote for the crook or the idiot this November ...
This is not junk science, this is fact and there is a lot of deceit being handed out.
I suggest before some of you start casting stones you actually do 10 minutes of research and ignore the medical people who believe a few flawed studies can fly in the simple common sense proof that has been shown, as well as the simple fact that NO AMISH CHILDREN DURING THAT TIME FRAME HAVE AUTISM, and the main difference is they do not vaccinate.
-CR
crscott.net
My younger two children were not vaccinated in the same way and amazingly are not autistic.
There is a lot of corollary evidence regarding this and Autism, as well as other preservatives. Again, it's easy to label it as 'junk science'. My only point to the naysayers is since a few studies are all that's needed, I guess all of you will be climbing aboard the Global Warming bandwagon, since the 'professionals' support it?
Both of these claims are disputed. There ARE Amish children with autism, and the Amish DO sometimes vaccinate.
It's also worth noting that timerosal has been banned from vaccines since 2001, and autism rates have not, to my knowledge, dropped since then.
This has GOT to be the greatest example of scientific illiteracy that I have seen in quite a while - Almost as hilarious as all the "Environmental Activists" who signed the petition to ban the release or discharge of Dihydrogen Oxide and Hydrogen Hydroxide because both are powerful solvents and toxic in high dosages. Of COURSE there are ways of proving risk; a properly structured clinical trial will quantify risk with a high degree of precision. As to "proving safety", there are any number of chemical compounds that are toxic in sufficiently high dosages, including water [a human being can die from an overdose of water; a flood of fresh water overwhelms thew kidneys' ability to excrete excess water, and the imbalance of sodium within and without the cell walls cause the cells to absorb large quantities of water through osmosis in a vain attempt to balance salinity, until the cells literally burst] and salt; yet both are absolutely vital to human life. The "safe" levels of each are entirely dependent upon the individual, with variables such as height, weight, kidney function, existing sodium levels, etc., etc.
microtherion, you don't understand. You can't argue with a statement posted in ALL CAPS. IF IT'S IN ALL CAPS THEN IT'S INDISPUTABLY TRUE.
Of course, this power is to be used sparingly. Everyone knows better than to capitalize something that is false or debatable
There are lots of potentially good explanantions for why thimerosal may or may not be the problem. Possibly infants are more susceptible to heavy metal toxicity while their brains are still developing. Possibly it has to do with multiple vaccinations in a short period of time. Possibly it has to do with maternal blood mercury levels. Possibly it has to do with better diagnosis of autism, even in marginal cases. If it so harmless, why do vaccine producers often require governmental indemnification or to be held not liable? Maybe the genetic makeup of the population is shifting in some way we haven't detected, and humans are becoming more susceptible. I don't think the science is settled ... though I'd say that thimerosal currently appears to be NOT the cause, based on my readings. But that isn't proof. We may never have proof.
My understanding is that thimerosal has been largely removed as a preservative in most childhood vaccines over the past few years,... so I guess we're running that experiment now.
Bottom line, everyone has an OPINION, but no one knows for sure. Seems to me that parents ought to be allowed to make that decision for their own children, given the uncertainties. Does that hurt the public health benefits of universal vaccination? Of course it does.
But since when should that socialist (and it is one of the few "successful" socialist programs I can think of) goal be the over-riding issue? If the public health community wants to regains parental trust, let them work for it with convincing logic and clear explanations, not legal mandates.
Parents should be expected to make choices for what is good for their own children, not what is good for "all the children". Anything less is a failure of their responsibilities. Hopefully, the public health community can make a convincing argument with complete openess and full disclosure that the two are one and the same.
But parents should always be allowed to make their own choices. Otherwise we put ourselves on a very slippery slope (well, we're probably already on it)about what behaviors and risks society should be allowed to coerce everyone to accept.
Another fine example of scientific illiteracy, as well as a great example of a very common logical fallacy, post hoc, ergo propter hoc (literally, "after this, therefore because of this"). The syllogism of the poster is: (1) The Amish do not vaccinate their children; (2) the Amish Children are not afflicted with autism; (3) therefore, childhood vaccinations must cause autism. The most basic problem with this is that it assumes causation without any showing of a causation mechanism. Also, it ignores other possible causes for the differences ["the main difference is they do not vaccinate" - well, if that is only the "main" difference, what are the other differences? And how have you eliminated ALL of the other differences as potential agents of causation?]. Finally, since autism is comparatively rare, was the test sample sufficiently large so that the lack of any autistic children was statistically significant? At what level? In a sample of even 1,000 amish children, random chance alone could account for zero cases of autism. Before accepting such "simple common sense proof" as demonstrating the conclusion that you'd like to reach, you need to approach it with a bit more scepticism.
Wow, not only a correlation/causation error, but the correlation is based on anecdotal evidence.
Area 54 where aliens go to snort coke and dance to ABBA.
Thanks for adding a touch of unintentional humour to my day!
As a professional risk manager for a global financial firm and economist, let me correct your misconception. We cannot in any case prove something does not exist, like safety as defined as "the absence of risk" in your example. Statistical methods do not work in the manner you suggest. They work in reverse - where we seek to recognize a strong probability that something like a risk does exist.
For instance, you cannot use scientific methods to prove there are no black swans (even if none exist in your sample, you are not 100% certain none exist, as Brits who had never had a black swan in Europe were shocked to discover down south in Australia).
The concern I have regarding McCain's foolish comments is that it is further evidence that he is not a rational thinker. Consider, he buys junk science on vaccinations and doesn't understand the context of risk it is put into. I'm aware a certain number of vaccinations cause harm, but it is a massively lower percentage than the harm caused by not vaccinating. McCain claims there is evenly divided opinion on this matter, without any such evidence.
At the same time, McCain believes there is complete consensus on mankind-induced global warming, whereas there is significantly divided opinion placing many of the more credible experts on the side associating the activity with solar causes and identifying measurement flaws and bias in the pro-man-caused warming community.
He really seems to be nothing more than a good ol' boy who votes the way his lobbying ego-stroking handlers tell him to.
Have you published any research exploring the (possible) link between state/federal risk regulation and:
1) the activities of NGOs, activist scientists, and credit-seeking politicians; and
2) the way the risk issue is reported in the media?
I'm flicking through your 2007 Harvard Environmental Law Review article, which touches on how industry lobby groups and political cultures influence the demand for regulation. Any writing/thoughts on the other factors listed above? I ask because I research in the area. Thanks.
More faith-based science, like the inability to accept evolution or global warming. Are the Republicans the party of Wishing Will Make It So?
The unproven, based-on-anecdotal-evidence explanation of autism that appeals to me is that really smart people are more likely to have autistic kids. While a minority of the population, smart people are likely to meet in college, which, unlike vaccinations, the Amish do avoid.
I'm aware a certain number of vaccinations cause harm, but it is a massively lower percentage than the harm caused by not vaccinating.
Really? A condition that often results in lifelong disability versus some diseases that are fairly rare and highly treatable in modern times? The magnitudes of the losses are very different and avoiding vaccination is quite logical and rational, even from a strict statistical risk management perspective.
Well, when a layperson asks a presidential candidate a medical question, I would expect the presidential candidate to say "I am a politician; I have no competence in either medicine or statistics; please ask an expert". If he was really knowledgable (for a politician) I'd expect McCain to give the FDA's official answer. After all there is a branch of government dedicated to measuring the efficacy and safety of medical treatments. It's not perfect, but its people are sure more knowledgable than members of Congress.
Instead, Mr. McCain decided to give a substantive answer. Charitably, he was trying to explain expert opinion to layment. Uncharitably, he was prentending to be an expert. Either way, he proved himself to be a dangerous quack. If this is really his own opinion, he's too gullible to be president. If this represents advice given to him by scientific advisors, then he's got bad advisors, and they are wasting his time on minor issues when there are major national scientific issues to be thought about.
Once upon a time, politicians would take pride in telling the public what needed to be said. Today, politicians seem to take pride in telling the public what the public wants to hear.
I do love a bit of 70s nostalgia!
"People are complacent about familiar risks and paranoid of unfamiliar ones."
Fear of the unknown is a pretty useful heuristic.
They've run a whole war with that philosophy!
The Brits managed to get a nice mumps epidemic and measles epidemic going thanks to the vaccination hysteria.
I'm pretty sure it's some kind of logical fallacy to say "why are we immunizing against these diseases? No one gets them any more (because we immunize against them)!" But I don't know the latin name for it.
Translation: it's quite logical and rational to ignore probabilities.
The diseases are rare, largely because vaccination rates are high. If vaccination rates go down, we'll see more of the disease.
As for "highly treatable," in a 1997-1998 measles outbreak in Buenas Aires, 12% of the infected children were hospitalized and 0.5% died
Compare that to the known harmful effects of the MMR vaccine:
Anaphylaxis in <1/10,000 children, encephalitis in <1/1,000,000 children, and no deaths in 30-40 million children vaccinated (that would be much less than 0.5%):
Measles isn't a joke, and those pushing anti-vaccination hysteria are doing real harm to children.
From a strict statistical risk management perspective, the chances of getting that lifelong condition from the vaccination are effectively zero, since recent studies have shown there is no causal connection between autism and the MMR vaccine. On the other hand, the chances of getting measles, mumps or rubella if the child is not vaccinated is high, and the potential effects of these diseases (death, sterility, meningitis, encephalitis) are severe. In short, from a strict statistical risk management perspective, you should vaccinate.
I'm pretty sure it's some kind of logical fallacy to say "why are we immunizing against these diseases? No one gets them any more (because we immunize against them)!" But I don't know the latin name for it.
You can always use the Yogi Berra comment: Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
And I await McCain's endorsement of a crash of an alien spaceship in Area 54.
Either this is a place where space aliens dance the night away, a sort of cross between Area 51 and Studio 54, or Bernstein has just totally blown his geek street cred.
Well, as a sometime-libertarian and the parent of autistic twins (no kidding), I'm 100% on the side of science, which overwhelmingly has demonstrated that autism is not caused by vaccines (or the mercury that has been added to them).
I'd love to be able to blame and sue somebody for my kids' condition, but I'm not willing to check reason or the scientific method at the door in order to satisfy that need. I'm enraged that scarce resources are still being spent on a discredited theory -- a discredited theory that has the lovely side effect of decreasing vaccination rates, endangering children.
Oh, and one of the kids in my son's school wasn't vaccinated, and was as autistic as anyone else there. So now he has autism AND could die from an easily preventable disease. As long as we're trading meaningless anecdotes.
Who the heck am I going to vote for now?!?
This is very possible. I know some very smart researchers who are looking at this question, and in their view we just plain don't know whether we are seeing a true increase in autism. Part of the problem is that the diagnostic criteria for autism, which currently are pretty amorphous (it's a clinical diagnosis, i.e., not a blood test), were even more scattershot back in the day.
Many people in the "autism community" (totally stressed parents, as well as plaintiffs' lawyers, etc.) are wedded to the idea of an epidemic, because it helps galvanize support for autism issues. But I think the jury is still out.
I'm pretty sure it's some kind of logical fallacy to say "why are we immunizing against these diseases? No one gets them any more (because we immunize against them)!" But I don't know the latin name for it.
Nothing illogical about it. Many people will still vaccinate because they buy your arguments, so they can act as a buffer while incurring the autism risk.
Vaccination plans always have the free rider problem. As long as the overall vaccination rate stays in the high 90's, the chance of an outbreak is effectively 0. Therefore if the vaccination rate is high, it's in my interest to not get vaccinated since the ambient rate protects me from infection and avoid the small risk of bad things coming from the vaccination itself.
So, I would say: In short, from a strict statistical risk management perspective, you should not vaccinate, but strongly encourage the government to make it mandatory for everybody else.
And, of course, we have seen the same facility for belief in the face of evidence on any number of political and economic issues. Creation Science, for example.
Hopefully, he will appoint people who have a clue, but even that is not enough. Personal pronouncements of this type will swamp sensible statements by experts. Worse, it's not easy (obvious) for an appointed official to say "look, the president is dead wrong, you should ignore what he says". Even if such responses could be made, the errors will distort resource allocation. This is already happenning, as others point out on this thread.
Population genetic change follows governmental indemnification as night follows leap year.
Sorry to be so rough. Your other observations seemed reasonable to me. But I'm particularly sensitive to rhetorical reasoning by handwaving of the form "If X is so Y, then why do people do Z?"
Maybe it's caused by brain damage from all those vaccinations I got as a kid.
Translation: it's quite logical and rational to ignore probabilities.
Not at all. Contrary to what they say, the probabilities are unknown at this time. (One thing you should watch out for if you're in risk management, [or statistics, or science for that matter] is false certainty. Ask Long Term Capital Management.) I don't find the studies very convincing. (Causation from vaccines is a pharmaceutical exec's, and anyone who's been defending them's worst nightmare.) I do find all the anecdotal accounts of the parents who had autistic children who were developing normally until they had a battery of vaccinations and then rapid deterioration quite convincing, regardless of whether it can be scientifically proven at this point. Throw in the evidence from the Amish, warts and all, and I think there is a good chance of some kind of relationship there. Enough of one where I wouldn't gamble my children's health on it.
Yeah, and then someone comes back from a visit to Romania and coughs on you... ooops.
The diseases are rare, largely because vaccination rates are high. If vaccination rates go down, we'll see more of the disease.
A lot of people will buy your arguments and still vaccinate. However I think there's enough anecdotal and other evidence there to suggest some kind of relationship, even if it hasn't been (or will be) confirmed yet.
As for "highly treatable," in a 1997-1998 measles outbreak in Buenas Aires, 12% of the infected children were hospitalized and 0.5% died.
Those deaths are unfortunate and I have no doubt that the diseases vaccinations are aimed at can be dangerous. But the overall odds still don't encourage me to take what I think could be a significant risk with my future children's health to vaccinate. Once the cause and everything concerning autism is all ironed out and vaccination is actually made safe I would have no problem vaccinating.
Measles isn't a joke, and those pushing anti-vaccination hysteria are doing real harm to children.
I don't agree. Autism isn't a joke either. I find the anecdotal evidence from a lot of parents that focuses on vaccinations and the Amish evidence significant enough to warrant caution.
But you are gambling your children's health on your theories if you choose not to have them vaccinated.
If I had it to do all over again, I would not hesitate to have my autistic twins vaccinated. Failing to do so would pose a direct threat to their health, would expose them to easily preventable but serious diseases, and would generally be incredibly irresponsible.
It should be noted though that McCain was asked about the cause of autism in New Hampshire and his answer was much more nuanced than the partial excerpt everyone seems to be jumping on. Basically he said he didn’t know what was causing the increase in autism but thought that it might be linked to changes in diet and the environment and supported more research in the area. I’m willing to wait until the actual exchange is posted on Youtube or a full transcript of the townhall meeting becomes available before jumping on the “McCain is pushing junk science” bandwagon.
For those concerned with risk:
What's the risk of getting killed in the first round playing Russian Roulette with a six shot fully loaded revolver? Answer: 1/6
For thsoe concerned with safety:
What's the risk of surviving in the first round playing Russian Roulette with a six shot fully loaded revolver? Answer: 5/6
"I think the real problem here is that we're holding him personally accountable for this question. I'm sure whomever he ultimately appoints to the relevant agencies will be quite aware that there is no real link."
Of course we are holding him personally responsible for what he chooses to believe. And we ae holding hm responsible for who he listens to. If he's already listening to the kooks, why should we think he will appoint responsible people to those agencies? Who knows? Maybe he thinks vaccines have the appearance of causing autism just like we should give up free speech because senators don't want the appearance they are crooks.
Whether or not you have good cause for finding the [epidemeological, I'm guessing] studies unconvincing or not, you're still neglecting the stats that they were based on, and relying on anecdotes to shape your perception of risk. Sounds like a pretty good definition of probability neglect to me.
From a strict statistical risk management perspective, the chances of getting that lifelong condition from the vaccination are effectively zero, since recent studies have shown there is no causal connection between autism and the MMR vaccine.
If you think the studies provide certainty. If you don't conclude that the studies provide certainty and you're being cautious you will assume that the probability is unknown. There have been plenty of cases where a relationship remained hidden or supressed for some time.
On the other hand, the chances of getting measles, mumps or rubella if the child is not vaccinated is high, and the potential effects of these diseases (death, sterility, meningitis, encephalitis) are severe. In short, from a strict statistical risk management perspective, you should vaccinate.
Not if you conclude that the risk for those outcomes is more remote than the risk of damage from vaccination. And note the this isn't a perpetual decision, if autism and the relationship with vaccination is eventually understood and vaccination is then more certain to be safe or made safe the decision will change.
What's the risk of getting killed in the first round playing Russian Roulette with a six shot fully loaded revolver? Answer: 1/6"
Sometimes guns jam. You can never express a risk with complete certainty (with apologies to frequentists).
Probability only applies to the uncertain. It is a means of rationally dealing with uncertainty.
Moreover, why don't you give any credence to the proven effectiveness of vaccines in saving lives and preventing serious life-long disability? My uncle was one of the last crop of American kids to get polio. He survived and thrived - in fact, he's a doctor - but he has had to wear leg braces since he was a child. Go back a few generations in your own family tree and I guarantee that you will find multiple instances of your relatives killed, disfigured, or disabled by these diseases that you dismiss so readily. Better yet, get yourself to a developping country without near universal vaccination.
If we were to experience a resurgence of any one of these diseases in our country, how long do you think it would take for drug resistant strains to emerge? How much brain damage would result from the extremely high fevers associated with some of these diseases? How much death? How much permanent disability and disfigurement? Or do you still need to be convinced that vaccines prevent disease - after all, some people do get the diseases they've been vaccinated against and some unvaccinated people don't get the disease even after being exposed, so there's anecdotal evidence that vaccines don't prevent disease.
So umpteen easily found scientific studies are not convincing, but the anecdotal accounts of a bunch of yo-yos are convincing?
Would it be too much for you clowns to show a little friggin' respect? You already seem to have driven one parent of an autistic child off the thread. These people are usually pretty intelligent people who are very dedicated to getting to the bottom of what happened to their kid, so giving them a little credit in being able to report on their experience would be in order.
And yes, I find their anecdotes pretty convincing along with the Amish evidence. Enough to conclude that the really safe alternative is to assume that there is an unknown but significant risk in vaccination.
Huh. Hope you're not home schooling your kids in math and science.
Not right now, but I wouldn't rule it out in the future. I sure hope you're not if you plan on teaching them to ignore significant contrary evidence. Especially contrary evidence concerning possibly catastrophic risks.
Actually the correct answer is 1/1. If it is fully loaded then all six chambers will have bullets in them. In the old non-PC days that would be called Polish Russian Roulette. :)
I prefer him to that of tighly programmed candidates like Sen. Clinton or those with a vague message like Sen. Obama.
BTW, mercury in vaccines is now a non-issue, as it is not used any more. And I consider people who don't vaccinate their kids to be freeloading parasites. Their kids enjoy the benefit of herd immunity against serious illnesses that is created by those who actually assume the expense and small risk of vaccinating their kids (as presribed by law and the ordinary moral obligation of people who live in a community with others).
I'm not even going to get into the science of the vaccines and autism.
My son shows some symptoms of autism, so we ponied up the rather considerably amount of money required to have him evaluated by a team of experts at UNM Medical School. There is a history of autism in the family and the team saw some indications in our son, but concluded that his social skills are too well-developed for a diagnosis of autism and his language skills too delayed for a diagnosis of Aspberger's. They suggested a tentative diagnosis of hyperactivity but suggested we bring him back in a few years for reevaluation.
In the course of the conversation, the head of the team mentioned that they reject far more autism diagnoses by local doctors than they confirm. She seemed to feel that it had definitely become a fad diagnosis.
Not hard to understand, given that Jefferson and Einstein are alleged to have been on the autistic spectrum, while retarded is just retarded.
Oh, and the vaccination link is crock. Thimerosal has been banned long enough in some places (such as Scandinavia) that we would expect to see a decline if there was a connection. There has been no decline. Ergo, there is no connection.
The preponderance of evidence (see here and here), from large, nationally representative, populations indicates *no* reliable relationship between thimerosal and autism, as a PubMed search will show.
If you’re a scientist, continuing to insist that there *may* be a link between autism and thimerosal, without providing supporting empirical evidence, and given the preponderance of evidence against such a link, is irresponsible.
Moreover, directing scarce research dollars to study such a link, when alternative hypotheses show far more promise (see maternal and paternal age hypotheses, here and here), seems irresponsible too.
Waldensian: Good points now, and on an earlier Bernstein thread on the same topic.
Can you be more specific about the "Amish Evidence?" Claims that Amish do not vaccinate and have no autism seem highly questionable, if they aren't outright falsehoods.
In 1976 one Fort Dix soldier died of swine flu. Twelve other soldiers had severe symptoms, but hundreds of others who were inflected had no symptoms. Fearing a 1918 type pandemic, a panel of experts convened by CDC recommended a massive vaccination program for the US population. The Ford Administration got on board pushing the program. At the time I worked for a government contractor lab and management pushed hard for all employees to get vaccinated. I refused. I reasoned that the evidence for a possible future pandemic was weak, and if everyone else got vaccinated I wouldn’t need it. As it turned out the program aborted after two blows. Three elders died after receiving the vaccination at the same clinic. The second and fatal blow to the program came when the vaccine got linked to the Guillain-Barré syndrome. Moreover the epidemic of swine flu never happened.
All that being said, I still get a flu vaccination every year, and my children got all their childhood inoculations. But at the same time I understand people’s fears. You are unlikely to either contract the disease or suffer harm from the vaccine. How does an individual reconcile the relative risks of electing or not electing vaccination? Let’s remember that individual risk is much different from collective risk. If the chance of an adverse advent is 1:100,000, I will ignore the risk. But the government can’t as 3,000 adverse cases is political disaster.
I am having my 7 month old daughter vaccinated against the common, high risk diseases. But I am not having her vaccinated against hepatitis B. Each time her pediatrician asks about it, I tell him that I will have her vaccinated against hep B once she becomes a crack whore.
I guess there is a subset of the population truly at risk for hep B (besides health care workers), but to force everyone else to get this vaccination is unnecessary. My family is definitely not in this at-risk population, and I hate that the government tries to force this on me.
Also, Professor Bernstein says;
Do you promise? Does that mean no more posts digging up age-old quotations out of context and using them to slam him?
Studies, at best, provide probabilities within statistical confidence limits.
And why would people expect the Amish not to vaccinate? Christian Scientists are the ones who believe illness is an illusion.
"Would it be too much for you clowns to show a little friggin' respect?"
I can have respect for a lot of things, but when you put your child at risk, and when you put my children at risk, that's where I draw the line. Your thimeserol beliefs are a mindless fad cobbled together by the plaintiff's bar to take advantage of grieving parents and to profit at the expense of drug companies.
Find some anecdotal evidence about triglycerides or the value of flax seed in the diet that you find convincing.
One can reasonably conclude that when multiple studies conclude there is no relationship, then that is as close to "certainty" as you're going to get.
The truly "cautious" approach - from the standpoint of statistics - is to assume that the risk of health damage from not vaccinating is higher than the risk of vaccinating.
Not if you conclude that the risk for those outcomes is more remote than the risk of damage from vaccination.
It's not - the risk of damage from vaccination is remote relative to the risk of damage from these diseases.
Would it be too much for you clowns to show a little friggin' respect?
There really is no reason to respond respectfully to bad use of science, misuse of statistics, and the privileging of emotion-laded anecdotes over scientific studies.
I sure hope you're not if you plan on teaching them to ignore significant contrary evidence.
I will teach them to recognize and avoid many logical fallacies.
these diseases are horrible!!!
if you don't vaccinate then be extra careful, and take kids/family members to doctors when they get sick. don't just assume they will fight it off. its your right not to vaccinate. just don't discount the risks of not vaccinating.
As a funeral director once told me .. "we just don't get all those 50's deaths from heart attacks anymore, or at least like we used to .. now they get a bypass and live on."
.. to die of cancer in their 80's in those "cancer clusters."
I had always heard it that Polish Roulette was played using a semiautomatic.
Nick
NickM, you just have to shake the clip real hard before putting it in the gun.
Anyhow, you can't prove risk statistically, you can establish its likelihood, sometimes its verylikelihood or extremelyliklihood.
Anyhow, you can't prove risk statistically, you can establish its likelihood, sometimes its verylikelihood or extremelyliklihood.
I recall reading someone's theory that there is a link, but it's more subtle than simply "vaccines cause autism". What I recall of the theory was that if some vaccines where given when the child's immune system was otherwise weakened (due to some other childhood illness), the vaccine could potentially trigger some sort of auto-immune reaction that effected the brain. The doctor wouldn't give vaccines to kid with low white blood cell count, preferring to wait a few weeks for the child's immune system to return to normal.
I don't recall all the details (and I may be grossly misremembering it) but I think it was from the University of Utah.
IANA doc, statistician, or epidemiologist, but the existence of Guillain-Barré and Reyes syndromes do suggest to this layman that such a causal link is possible or even likely.
I would not be surprised at a discovery, for example, that the timing of vaccination (with respect to known infant physiological development stages) had some bearing on reactions to vaccinations.
But by no means would I suggest that vaccinations generally are not a good thing. It's just that the devil is in the details.
Perhaps MDJD2B will add enlightening commentary on these issues.
There's a difference between looking at contrary evidence and deciding it's a bunch of hogwash and simply ignoring it.
If the Amish didn't vaccinate and they had no autism (both of those appear to be fiction), then the proper response would not be "vaccines must cause autism!" It would be "there might be something here. Let's look at the numbers with a more controlled population." If that larger controlled experiment disproves the hypothesis (which is what happened), the "Amish theory" doesn't stick around as some kind of "evidence." It's discredited.
It's also how you avoid the Texas sharpshooter fallacy.
Indeed, I found this gem buried amid Orac's valiant efforts to refute the significance of the government's concession:
So if Orac can do it, why can't the rest of us accept that vaccines may cause autism or autism-like symptoms in some children? Only the craziest anti-vaxxers would claim that vaccines cause all cases of autism, yet that is the strawman that Orac and others seem to be focused on taking down.
If we could just get on the same page, maybe the government would finally support research to figure out which children are at risk from a normal vaccine schedule.
If the negative impact is really as rare as pro-vaxxers claim, then quantifying the risk would be a good thing, because it will ease the minds of parents who might not otherwise vaccinate due to conspiracy theories and anecdote. Meanwhile, kids who are at risk can get on an alternate vaccine schedule. Why is this such a bad thing?
None of which proves a causal relationship between thimerosal and autism but some of your people like to go buck wild while brandishing some seriously false information.
I leave you with:
"It was announced that the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program ruled in favor of a child who regressed into autism as a result of vaccinations, several of which contained the mercury-based preservative thimerosal.
Case documents state that the vaccines administered to the claimant significantly aggravated an underlying condition that ultimately led to regressive encephalopathy and symptoms of autism.
According to official court documents, the child was developing normally until given the vaccines, and shortly after the shots, regressed into full autism. The child was diagnosed by nationally recognized autism medical specialists."
regressive encephalopathy : Ahh yes the inflammed brain tissue. I wonder what Adler and DB think causes that? Maybe it's the bad auras of those "activist mothers"? (chuckle chuckle snort).
Yet, pretty clearly, exactly that is being claimed by a non-trivial number of "anti-vaxxers" (your coinage, not mine) to explain at least the bulk of the increase in autism; in fact, the coincidence of the increase in number of vaccinations per kid with the upsurge in diagnosed cases is the primary evidenc they offer.
OTOH, I don't think even the most vigorous "pro-vaxxers" argue that there is ZERO occurence, or ZERO risk of harm or side-effects. What they do argue, and fairly persuasively, is that these adverse events are EXTREMELY rare (as in "less likely than being struck by lightning") , and that the risk of the diseases against which we're routinely vaccinating is also fairly well documented. This is, still frankly, a tough sell in the face of the internet's rumor-based "science reporting" and various television shows, which might leave a random man from Mars, or the causal viewer getting medical information from medical "freak show" shows, and fictional dramas, with the impression that large numbers of previously healthy Americans are suddenly dropping dead from almost-undiagnosable esoteric diseases, (go ahead, ask your family doc when he last saw a case of Guinea Worm, or leishmaniasis that someone contracted in the US) or from previously unknown side-effects or interactions of commonly used drugs.
It cannot be shown that vaccines never cause autism. Especially because we don't know what really causes autism.
Likewise, you cannot show that seatbelts don't cause stomach cancer, that pasteurized milk doesn't cause breast cancer, that bicycle helmets don't cause brain cancer, or that canned vegetables don't cause prostate cancer.
However, no risks have been found from the above objects that exceed the safety value they create.
If you have the theory that vaccination for a certain disease at a certain age significantly increases the rate of autism, you would conduct a longitudinal study of age-of-vaccination versus rate-of-autism, controlling for year, class, gender, income, and race.
I think the major problem with this theory is that autism cases have only shot up in the 90s, maybe starting in the 80s. We've been vaccinating people a lot longer than that. Thimerosal was blamed because its introduction and widespread use semi-correlated with the rise in autism diagnoses. I think artificial sweeteners occasionally get blamed for the same reason. (What haven't artificial sweeteners been blamed for?)
The autism argument is based on the idea that these children are not dysfunctional, given the vaccine, and then become functional. That has nothing to do with oddball case reports on genetic defect interaction with vaccines.
Perhaps I should find some other sport?
Wow, I didn't know that having an autistic child granted one Absolute Moral and Scientific Authority... I guess we should all shut up now.
Is it? What is your basis for this statement?
As David Kirby pointed out in his Huffington Post article, right now there is no separate diagnosis for "Vaccine Aggravated Mitochondrial Disease with Features of ASD." It's all just ASD. I was under the impression that we simply don't know how many cases of "Vaccine Aggravated Mitochondrial Disease with Features of ASD" are out there. (I suspect that my son, who regressed after a flu shot, may be one of them.) But please correct me if there are numbers available. Perhaps there is a simple blood test for Vaccine Aggravated Mitochondrial Disease that I am not aware of?
Anyway, after years of insisting that there is no connection between vaccines and ASD, the government's admission that there is such a thing as "Vaccine Aggravated Mitochondrial Disease with Features of ASD" looks like semantic game-playing.
Also, see my friends blog at: moosemoms.blogspot.com for a lot of information on this.
My son is on the autism spectrum. My wife and I are a biochemist and chemist, respectively, and have deeply researched this issue.
Thimerosal DOES NOT cause autism.
There are a hundred reasons that could be adduced, but the most telling is:
Look at the increased number of cases of autism over the last few years in babies born since the use of thimerosal was DISCONTINUED. They have not a speck of that chemical in their bodies.
It makes more sense to argue that thimerosal PREVENTS autism.
Geez.
If I were conspiracy minded, I would suggest that drug companies are hyping these syndromes to sell drugs. Eh, possible.
A friend of mine is a child psychiatrist and he complained to me that schools demanded children get put on drugs for ADHD and refused to accept that these children were not afflicted by that syndrome, so they went to other, more compliant doctors.
I've met one child that was clearly not right, ADHD or autism was surely the cause, but most kids labeled ADHD are simply brats that lack good parents, in my opinion. I don't know if the same applies to any children diagnosed as autistic, but it wouldn't surprise me that parents who blame vaccinations for their children's poor behavior might have some reason to seek other excuses rather than their own parenting skills for why their child is not acting right.
If you're able to form complete, grammatically correct, intelligently formed sentences, then I think there must be some sort of motive not immediately apparent for failing to accept or entertain a rational explanation for such basic statistics.
But maybe I'm a clown.
Or maybe the Amish are just better parents.
Beyond free-riding, the problem here is that failing to vaccinate is not simply a personal choice. People who don't vaccinate are discounting risks to themselves, but they also seem to discount the risks to me.
Since billing those who don't vaccinate for their share of the herd immunity is difficult, a more practical solution is to offer a rebate to those who vaccinate -- say by tying well-baby visits to vaccinations.
Chester, what spec of chemical do you mean? Like mercury appearing in the urine of autistic children after chelation?
Skyler, can you explain why autistics have gut issues and inflamed brain tissue? How does that fit in with your bad parenting theory? Be honest, you actualy are a clown and have no idea what you are talking about.
Alas, it's true. Having two such children renders me basically on the same plane as the Almighty. Luckily I only use my power for good. :)
In all seriousness -- and except in moments of weakness, which do occur from time to time -- I haul out the all-powerful "I have two kids with autism" hammer in only two contexts:
1. When I come in contact with people who claim that autism is demonstrably linked to vaccines, such that it is rational to avoid vaccination of children in order to avoid the horrors of autism. In my view, these persons' irrational risk analysis is quite literally dangerous, so out comes the hammer. For some reason, I also want people to know that not EVERY parent of an autistic child is a blame-obsessed science-ignoring zealot.
Also, it hacks me off that my family represents anti-vaxxers' absolute worst nightmare, that ours is a fate to be avoided even at the risk of dread diseases. This anger is kind of hard to explain, and probably is petty and irrational on my part.
2. I pull out the hammer when people make those same tired, vicious, dehumanizing jokes about developmentally disabled children. Yes, the jokes that I used to make. Now that I am the keeper of the hammer, however, I view such jokes as the moral equivalent of racism or anti-Semitism (and maybe they're worse). I will fight to the death for your freedom to make such jokes, but I will, at every opportunity, label you an a-- for doing so. Incidentally, the Lord King God A-- on that score is arguably Bill Maher.
Boy, is that a good question. It means very, very different things to different people, in part because the diagnostic are clinical and a bit open to interpetation, to say the least.
If you're talking about "autistic disorder," which in my opinion is generally a more severe disability than the common/media understanding of "autism," the place to start is DSM-IV's definition -- a definition that has always reminded me a bit of a menu in a Chinese restaurant.
I will always use preview.
I will always use preview.
I will always use preview.
"We are in danger of losing our grip on the concepts of truth, evidence, objectivity, disinterested inquiry. The preposterous environment in which academic work is presently conducted is inhospitable to genuine inquiry, hospitable to the sham and the fake. Encouraging both envy and resentment of the sciences, it has fed an increasingly widespread and articulate irrationalism."
[...]
"In part because it is so intellectually impressive, in part because it is so useful, and in part, no doubt, because it is so expensive, science enjoys enormous prestige, in which the rest of us would dearly like to share. And, inevitably perhaps, in consequence of universities' having become such big businesses, many university administrators have become enamored of a business management ethos which values "entrepreneurial skills," i.e., the ability to obtain large sums of money to undertake large research projects, above originality or depth, and which encourages conceptions of "efficiency" and "productivity" more appropriate to a manufacturing plant than to the pursuit of truth."
Otherwise put, swallowing a gnat and swallowing a camel are not the same thing. As with the military-industrial complex, the academic-ideological complex can be no less corrosive of better designs and better ends, arguably moreso in the present era.
ruralcounsel wrote at 3.3.2008 9:17am:
[Amid several otherwise sensible observations:]If it so harmless, why do vaccine producers often require governmental indemnification or to be held not liable? Maybe the genetic makeup of the population is shifting in some way we haven't detected, and humans are becoming more susceptible.
Because anybody can sue anybody for anything? Because even lawsuits which ultimately fail for lack of proof can put a defendant out of business? Because courtroom science is to science as military music is to music?
Population genetic change follows governmental indemnification as night