Paul Offit responds to denialism.com

Via my e-mailing a link to Mark's blog post about denialism in the Wall Street Journal editorial page that I castigated for its casually lumping Paul Offit's editorial on the Michael Moore movie Sicko in as an example of how the WSJ editorial page was a "clearinghouse for denialism" to a mailing list I belong to asking members whether they thought it was outside the pale, Mark's post and comments were made aware to Dr. Offit, who actually responded.

Is this the longest, most confusing sentence ever?!

"Moore is the most popular documentary filmmaker in history. His last movie grossed more than $200 million. He has the attention of the American public. And he blows it."

Exactly. Moore's movies are well-done, in that they manage to be entertaining and funny as well as provocative. Still, as far as I'm concerned, he does "blow it" by far overplaying his hand and giving too much fodder to those who'd like to reject him.

Orac,

Could you take the first sentence you wrote out back behind the shed and shoot it? It's monstrous, and it scares the horses and children.

Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick!

Anyone who's a regular reader here knows that I occasionally fire off monstrosities like that when I'm in a hurry. But, here, if it bothers you so much, I'll fix it. Just pay attention to Dr. Offit's reply instead of picking apart my occasional faux pas in writing style.

Don't worry Orac, I was only kidding!

Is that what is meant when they give a criminal a "life sentence"?

Pal Offit's article is very reasonable. He even addresses some of the problems than need addressing instead of just supporting pig pharma.
Many critical books like "overdosed America" do a good job at pointing out our system needs some overhauling, and I think some of the science problems are already being addressed.
One thing that always struck me is that big pharma pays out the same in advertising as it does in research. I don't know how much of that is direct consumer advertising but if that could be removed (unlikely with this supreme court), people would be better off (I think the information should be available to them, say on the web, but not hurled at them via commercials)there may be a big saving in the price of drugs.
A single buyer for drugs would work - it would only be in this country and drugs sell world wide, so it would not be a sole buyer.
Michael Moore is entertaining and extreme. He tells a lot of truth, it does so from a very slanted angle, with 0 balence.

I think, as I said in my editorial, that it is very easy to vilify pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists as a short-hand for changes one would like to see in the industry without ever really getting to what the problems are. Moore does exactly that. He shows the company logos, talks of how Cubans pay pennies a dose for drugs for which we pay hundreds of dollars, and talks about how companies just "dope up" Americans dissatisfied with their lives. This is a shameful misrepresentation and misses the point.

I think Offit is still dodging my point. Moore did not "vilify" the pharmaceutical companies, at least not in the movie I was watching.

Why does Offit feel there was an attack on the pharmaceutical companies in this movie? Offit in his editorial stresses how drugs have saved lives, how vaccines save lives, how the people at these companies care about helping humanity. But I still haven't heard exactly where Moore said that this wasn't the case? Where in the movie, exactly, did he "vilify" them? Because he showed that Cubans get cheap drugs the drug companies were vilified? I did not come away with that impression. Because he points out that Medicare Plan D was a horrific giveaway, which it was dammit, the drug companies are being vilified? Umm, no, that segment was about how politicians were to blame. Because he pointed out that DTCA is deceptive and creates false needs for medicine - a position PLoS has taken repeatedly and literally published dozens of papers on - this is vilification?

Since when is pointing out such obvious truths vilification? I don't think these vilify the companies or their products. They're corporations, and they're going to try to make profits, it's just what corporations do. It is expected behavior, and says nothing about the quality of drug company products or the motives of the people developing these drugs. The people who are vilified, if anything, are the politicians that refuse to balance the desires of these corporations with the desires of the American people, and don't do simple things like allow for price-negotiation in Medicare, a very capitalist position if you ask me.

If Offit feels talking pointing out these very obvious problems is "vilification" he has very thin skin. When you go after the drug lobbying in congress or their marketing departments, you're not attacking their researchers or the pharmaceutical science. This is completely unfair. It reminds me of how people think criticizing Bush is criticizing the troops. We're not criticizing the troops! Moore wants the drugs to get to people, he acknowledges the good they do. It's kind of the point of the movie.

I think Offit is still dodging my point.

And I think you're still ignoring my point, which is that, whatever you think of Offit's review, it was not denialist in nature, and neither Offit nor his review deserves to be lumped together with the idiot who wrote the Laffer curve article and the twits at Uncommon Descent.

Hmmm. I used his editorial to suggest that WSJ editorial page was a denialist organization, which I stand by. His editorial is essentially a straw man and emotional appeal, with nothing to do with the points Moore made in the movie, so I disagree with it fundamentally. You continue to assert there was no denialism in his article despite not having seen the film.

What can I do to convince you that Offit wrote an editorial completely mischaracterizing Moore's movie and attacking a straw man? And using a cheap emotional appeal to suggest attacks on DTCA or Medicare plan D is an attack on the troops like him? It's hard since you haven't seen it, you like Offit's arguments because if Moore had taken that tack, it would have been wrong - but he didn't! Hence straw man.

His editorial is crap.

I don't think one bullshit argument a denialist makes, but I think his editorial was fitting for the WSJ editorial page. Light on truth with a pro-corporate, anti-regulatory message.

And using a cheap emotional appeal to suggest attacks on DTCA or Medicare plan D is an attack on the troops like him?

What on earth are you talking about? Offit never even mentioned Medicare Plan D, much less the troops, in either his editorial or his response to you. He only mentioned DTCA as a negative, something he questioned. Are we even reading the same article?

I truly think you've lost all perspective on this. Tell me how these questions are "denialist" or unreasonable:

Mr. Moore could have framed the real problems with pharmaceutical companies by asking the right questions. How can we eliminate marketing practices that unduly influence clinicians by providing unethical incentives? Does direct-to-consumer advertising mislead the public by creating the notion of magic medicines without side effects? Do we benefit from companies developing yet another hair-loss or potency product while diseases with a much smaller market go ignored? Can the federal government become the sole purchaser of drugs without eliminating the profit that drives companies to make them? And does society benefit from the tax that is included in the price of every drug because of massive litigation?

We're talking in circles here Orac.

His points aren't wrong, but they have nothing to do with Moore. I bring in Medicare plan D and DTCA, because those were the things I recall Moore criticizing in terms of pharmaceutical companies. All of maybe 10 or 20 seconds of film, he shows some of their stupid commercials and mentions how they made out like bandits without government price negotiation.

The vilification that Offit alludes to simply isn't present. It's a straw man. If saying a criticism of DTCA is a vilification or of medicare plan D is a vilification, then he just has incredibly thin skin.

The "attack on the troops" is a metaphor. Like when people say criticizing the president is like attacking the troops. Whatever Moore said about the drug companies, it had nothing to do with the quality of their products, the science, or the people doing research to save lives inside those companies. Moore, and others, should be able to criticize the bad policies of drug companies without being accused of attacking life-saving cures and the good research that is being done.

What else can I say? You haven't seen the movie, so you can't seem to understand why he's wrong.

SteveF:
If you think the sentence you quote is "the longest, most confusing sentence ever", you have led a very sheltered life!

Jim Roberts

What else can I say? You described Offit's article as "dishonest." (Quoth you in the comments of your own blog: "I realize you like the guy, but what else do you call it when someone writes a dishonest editorial for the WSJ?")

You'll pardon me if I take that question to mean that you think Offit's article was stating untruths and that Offit knew they what he was writing was not true. After all, that's what the word "dishonest" implies--that the article is a lie, an intentional untruth. You are thus, in essence, calling Offit a liar.

I don't need to have seen the movie to know that such an accusation is unjustified.

I have to admit that I have read none of Moore's books nor seen any of his movies, except for excepts in (probably biased) reviews. Let's face it, life is too short, change is too fast: we all have to select a tiny amount of what we could experience (so all you choosy people can stop reading now and go on to the next comment) and make the best we can of that.

I also admit that I don't know much about the US health insurance system. However, if someone proposes to replace a poor system by something else, it is important that he provide evidence that his replacement is not even worse than the current state. Moore apparently wants to replace whatever bad system you have with state control. All historical experience indicates that some serious justification for this step is called for.

Jim Roberts

If you think the sentence you quote is "the longest, most confusing sentence ever", you have led a very sheltered life!

Indeed.

I myself have surpassed it on many an occasion. ;-)

I'll cross-post this as well.

Interesting. You win Orac. Without seeing the movie you know that Offit can not possibly be trying to mislead people as to what Moore's message is.

So far on these threads, it appears Tyler and I have seen this film and have both said the same thing. This editorial is a straw man.

Now, is a straw man a dishonest attack? I'd say so. Does that make Offit dishonest? In this criticism of Moore, yes, he levels an attack that isn't on-the-level. Did he intend to mislead? Was he purposefully deceptive? That only Offit can answer.

MarkH,

How can you say Offit was dishonest, but you're not sure he intended to mislead or was purposely deceptive? Dishonesty requires intent, does it not?

(Note - I haven't seen Sicko. While I agree with many of Offit's points in general, I have no opinion on whether his objections are relevant to the movie per se.)

Without seeing the movie you know that Offit can not possibly be trying to mislead people as to what Moore's message is.

Interesting. Without having one shred of evidence to show that Offit was intentionally lying or deceiving, you seem to know enough about his intent declare his article "dishonest," rather than just wrong. As qetzal points out, dishonesty requires intent, and you admit that only Dr. Offit can know his intent.

Bottom line: You accused Offit of dishonesty, rather than just being wrong, even though you have no way of knowing his intent.

MarkH: "What can I do to convince you that Offit wrote an editorial completely mischaracterizing Moore's movie and attacking a straw man?"

MarkH: "I haven't seen Sicko."

?

Oops, above quote constructed ny me and purporting to be by MarkH: "I haven't seen Sicko" was actually by qetzal.

My appologies to MarkH. And to the rest of y'all: sorry for the intrusion.

In reading the original Sicko post at denialism blog and the resulting shitstorm of comments, I was struck by an observation: MarkH, when somebody disagrees with him, will only argue so far. His general tactic, after a point, is to ignore the other person's arguments and simply label him "denialist," throw some of those "denialist cards" around, and pretend that he's made an argument.

When MarkH labels someone instead of addressing his arguments, he's committing an ad hominem fallacy: "He's a denialist, therefore he's wrong." His actions with the cards (throwing them at people with whom he disagrees under the unwarranted assumption that anyone who says anything on any of his cards is a denialist and thus wrong) are genetic fallacies leading into ad hominem: "You bring up communism, therefore you're a denialist and therefore you're wrong."

At first I thought those cards were really neato. Then I saw them applied to someone who I felt had a couple of decent things to say. MarkH seems to simply assume that anyone who says "No Problem!" or something else from his cards is, by definition, lying, and thus a denialist. Sorry, MarkH, but sometimes people say the things your cards because they're true. Lots of denialists say those things on the cards as part of their systematic denial of the facts, but not everyone that says the things on the cards is a denialist.

It is dishonest and counterproductive to label anyone who disagrees with you a denialist, as if that wins the argument. Some people are clearly denialists: people who deny the facts in the face of mountains and mountains of evidence, like antivaxxers or Holocaust deniers. People who disagree with you politically aren't denialists; they're people who disagree with you politically.

I've seen "Sicko," and thought it was excellent. Dr. Offit's criticism strikes me as not unfair, but very much off the mark.

Dr. Offit criticizes "Sicko" for failing to be more balanced in its presentation regarding pharmaceutical companies. This strikes me as analogous to the reviews of Dawkins' "The God Delusion" that criticized it for being impolite in its discussion of religion. That of course was one of Dawkins' points - to strongly question why religion traditionally is seen to be more deserving of respect than other codes of behavior/philosophies of life/explanations for natural phenomena that lack any evidentiary basis. Similarly, it is one of the aims of "Sicko" to point out problems created for everyday people by the economics of obtaining drugs in the U.S., and it does so just as well as, if not better than, Dawkins does in causing us to consider whether religion really should get quite so much of a "free pass."

Dr. Offit, then, has criticized Michael Moore not for the film he has made, but for the one he didn't make that Offit would rather have seen. I doubt that this says much to anyone who is considering seeing "Sicko," given the improbability that anyone expects praise (however much deserved) for weeping pharmaceutical executives to be prominently featured in this film.

Praise for improvements in medicine wrought by pharmaceutical companies and their employees is hardly lacking these days, not least in the form of pharmaceutical company marketing that can hardly be escaped in any mass medium. I don't see why "Sicko" should be expected to help carry the burden of that message.

Full disclosure: I work for a health insurance company (negatively) portrayed in "Sicko." (Though not on the managed care side of things, which is what comes in for most of the film's criticism.)

I was just reading last night[1] about Paul Offit in Arthur Allen's Vaccine, so encountering this discussion brought with it a shock of familiarity. Offit's account of Penny Heaton's emotionalism seems more in place when we read Allen's description of Offit himself:

Offit was an outgoing, passionate scientist who spoke lovingly of his own children and wept when he talked about kids who had died.

And the in-your-face tone of Offit's WSJ editorial is not so surprising when we hear some of his earlier comments on the drug industry:

"Yes, it's true that we want our vaccine to be used," Offit would say, sarcastically. "It would be nice if we could make it ourselves, but we can't. So we have to work with the evil drug industry."

In context, Offit's comments on Michael Moore seem perfectly natural. Offit is passionately devoted to the cause he's spent his professional life advancing. He gets emotional on the subject, and feels a kinship of spirit with those (like Penny Heaton) who share that emotion. He disdains those he sees as having gotten on the wrong side of the issue he cares most about, and doesn't hesitate to say so -- always directly, and often abrasively. To many, this makes him seem like a jerk. I've known a lot of jerks who were also right, so I'll reserve judgment.

[1]Yes, I know; I'm late to the party. If you have waited even longer than I have to read this book, do it now.

I find it extraordinary that anyone still takes Moore seriously. He has a very on/off relationship with truth. As articles such as http://www.reason.com/news/show/120998.html demonstrate, he does not give show the flaws in the health systems that he praises.

I'd say he is a denialist about these flaws and that MarkH is a denialist about Moore's failings. No, that's not it: both are clearly dishonest.