Antivaccine nonsense
oracknows | October 18, 2011Normally, these days I greet the month of October with a mixture of anticipation and dread. The anticipation stems from October's position as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Now that somehow I've managed to have a variety of responsibilities with respect to how breast cancer is managed at our cancer institute, suddenly I find that I'm sometimes called upon to do media appearances, and Breast Cancer Awareness Month is one time we can use to get our message out about breast health and breast cancer detection and treatment, not to mention to highlight for the local media some of the cool research…
oracknows | October 14, 2011You might have noticed that I'm a bit late today. There's a reason, and I bet you know what it is. Yep, yet another grant deadline. As usual, that means I didn't have time to produce my usual dose of not-so-Respectful Insolence. That doesn't mean I can't do some good, though, as yesterday the Bat Signal went up with a call for help. Remember SANEVax? (Oh, no. Not them again!) In case you've forgotten, SANEVax is the anti-vaccine group that specializes in Gardasil fear mongering, having come to my attention with an incredibly silly variation of the toxin gambit in which they tried to scare…
oracknows | October 13, 2011I had a really busy grant writing day today, and my brain is fried. What that means is that, even though there are some things that I could write about that would be really cool (as in studies), I'm just too tired to do it as I write this. So, as I settle down to my nightly ritual, I wondered what I could write about. Certainly, it had to be something amusing and something that doesn't take too much effort for me to take on. Given that blogging is a marathon and not a sprint, there are times for really applying myself and times for slumming.
This is a time for slumming. Tomorrow might be too…
oracknows | October 11, 2011Remember SaneVax?
Before I encountered SaneVax, I hadn't realized that anti-vaccine groups specialized, at least not to this degree. Oh, sure, I remember that Generation Rescue used to specialize in fear mongering about mercury in vaccines, at least before it changed its tune to "too many, too soon." However, SaneVax takes anti-vaccine specialization to another level with its laser-like focus on the HPV vaccine as the source of all evil.
Most recently, SaneVax made a name for itself with a gambit so outrageously stupid, so unrelentingly brain dead, that it amazed even me, and I've seen a lot…
oracknows | October 10, 2011After having been saddened (and distracted, at least from a blog standpoint) by the death of Steve Jobs for the last few days, I think it's time to get back to the normal sorts of stuff I blog about. Not that discussing medical issues related to celebrities in the news isn't one of the normal sorts of things I blog about here, but I usually don't do it for three or four days in a row. On the other hand, sometimes I do blog about vaccines several days in a row. Usually, these sorts of runs of vaccine blogging come about when a particularly idiotic confluence of anti-vaccine idiocy hits the…
oracknows | October 3, 2011Yes, it's that time of year again. Time to get my flu shot.
So that's just what I did yesterday. I decided to brave that evil, toxin-laden, mercury-infused nastiness, all in order to protect myself and my patients against influenze. As you might recall, last year, when I was off to get my flu vaccine, I pointed out that our cancer center required the flu vaccine for all employees who deal with patients, whatever their capacity, from physician to nurse to medical aide to receptionist. Refuse to get the flu vaccine, and you get to wear a mask any time you are in teh presence of a patient. It's…
oracknows | September 28, 2011People wonder why scientists involved in controversial areas are reluctant to address the public. Courtesy of our favorite band of anti-vaccine bloggers at the anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism, we see yet another reason why. Yes, AoA's resident attack poodle Jake Crosby decided to disrupt the Q&A session of a public talk (videocast here) by the editor-in-chief of BMJ, Fiona Godlee:
Throughout the question and answer session, I patiently waited my turn, until finally called on by Dr. Glass (you can view the exchange on the 54:00 of the NIH Videocast):
"Yeah? Introduce yourself…
oracknows | September 27, 2011I concluded last week with the dismantling one of the more bizarre stories I've seen spun by the merry band of anti-vaccine propagandists over at Age of Autism. As you might recall, Mark "Not a Doctor, Not a Scientist" Blaxill had teamed with Dan "Where are the Autistic Amish?" Olmsted (or, as I call them, B&O) to produce what was at that time a five part "epic" of pseudoscientifically and enthusiastically confusing correlation with causation. I'm referring to what they called "The Age of Polio," a title that made me wonder if B&O are terminally without imagination in that they seem…
oracknows | September 23, 2011I've been following the anti-vaccine movement for nearly a decade now, first as a regular on the Usenet newsgroup misc.health.alternative and then, beginning almost seven years ago, blogging away. Along the way, somehow I stumbled into the role of countering the pseudoscience, misinformation, and nonsense promoted by the anti-vaccine movement. It's dangerous misinformation, too. For instance, in the U.K., misinformation claiming that the MMR vaccine somehow contributes to autism, a lie based on the work of Andrew Wakefield, has led the MMR uptake rate there to plummet. As a result measles,…
oracknows | September 19, 2011A couple of months ago, right before TAM 9, I took note of a rather disturbing post by one of the regular bloggers on the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism. Basically, the post was worrisome because in it Kent Heckenlively portrayed those who oppose anti-vaccine pseudoscience as "wicked," even quoting Psalm 94, which is a psalm that calls upon the Lord to bring his vengeance upon the wicked and destroy them. He also invoked Stephen King's novel The Stand. Normally, this wouldn't be such a big deal, except for its timing. Most skeptics will know that The Amazing Meeting is a yearly meeting…
oracknows | September 16, 2011A few days ago, Michelle Bachmann laid down napalm grade burning stupid about the HPV vaccine. Today, Funny or Die sums it up perfectly.
Michele Bachmann chooses STD's - watch more funny videos
The not unexpected thing is, instead of retreating under criticism, Bachmann appears to be doubling down on her anti-vaccine silliness.
oracknows | September 13, 2011I don't often blog about politics anymore. As I've said on more than one occasion, political bloggers are a dime a dozen. Rare is the one that interests me much. However, sometimes things happen that lead me to make an exception, except that this time it's not really an exception because it has to do with two of the main topics that this blog is all about: science and the anti-vaccine movement. Those of you who watched the Republican debate the other day or saw the news reports about it yesterday probably know where this is going, but I'll go there anyway. First, I can't help but express my…
oracknows | September 13, 2011Unfortunately, I don't get to see very many movies these days. My wife and I both lead very busy lives, and with periodic spasms of grant writing, plus several new administrative responsibilities, it's just hard. Last weekend, however, a movie that I'd rather like to see came out. Unfortunately, I haven't seen it yet; so I can't give you a definitive review, but the movie caught my interest because it shows at least one thing that I don't recall ever having seen in a movie before. The movie is Contagion, and here's its trailer:
It's not so much the storyline that interests me. After all,…
oracknows | September 11, 2011If there's one thing about anti-vaccine activists that is virtually their sine qua non, it's an utter lack of understanding of science. Actually, a more accurate description would be that it's a highly selective understanding of science. Nowhere do I find this to be the case as much as when I see anti-vaccine loons pulling what I like to call the "toxins gambit," or, as I've put it before, "Why are we injecting TOXINS into our babies?" It's a gambit that anti-vaccine activists seemingly never tire of, and it comes in a wide variety of forms, but they all have one of two things in common.…
oracknows | September 7, 2011I don't recall how many times I've said lately that I detest the term "integrative medicine." As I've pointed out time and time again, it's the preferred "successor," if you will, to the term "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) (at least among the woo-friendly). After all, as I've pointed out before, it just won't do to have the fashionable quackery du jour be considered as only being "complementary" or "alternative" to real medicine. That implies at best that it has a subsidiary role to real medicine and at worst that it is not real medicine, being "alternative" and all. The whole…
oracknows | September 6, 2011Sigh.
Why, oh, why do news organizations do such ridiculously stupid things?
In this case, the CBC decided to put up a poll regarding the chickenpox vaccine. Here's the setup:
The Canadian Pediatric Society (CPS) says children should receive two doses of the chickenpox vaccine to avoid losing immunity and developing the disease as adults.
Chickenpox is an infectious disease that results in a blister-like rash, itching, tiredness, and fever. (Dr. John Noble, Jr./CDC)"Adults who get chickenpox have more serious illness, are more likely to get pneumonia and to be admitted to hospital. They also…
oracknows | September 5, 2011Over the weekend, I chilled out a bit, at least as far as the blog was concerned. I won't make too much of a secret of it, but thanks to the new policy of the new owners I have a decision to make. In the meantime, while I'm dithering, you, my readers, were deluging me with requests. Well, it wasn't exactly a deluge. Maybe three or four e-mails. But, hey, over a dull holiday weekend, when I spend most of the time either working on a grant or working in my yard? That's a deluge! Never let it be said, either, that I don't give the people what they want (usually, at least). So what are the latest…
oracknows | September 1, 2011One of my interests in skepticism and critical thinking has been the similarity in the fallacious arguments, approach to data, and general behavior of those who are--to put it generously--not so skeptical or scientific in their approach to life. I'm talking about believers in the paranormal, quacks, anti-vaccine activists, conspiracy theory mavens, Holocaust deniers, creationists, anthropogenic global warming denialists, and cranks of all stripes. Indeed, it is this similarity in mindset that led Mark Hoofnagle to coin the term "crank magnetism," a perfect description of how people who…
oracknows | August 30, 2011Sometimes I feel a little bit guilty when I'm writing a post deconstructing anti-vaccine nonsense, "alternative medicine" quackery, or some other form of pseudoscience. This guilt usually derives when I end up picking a target that's just too easy, a study that's just so mind-numbingly, brain-meltingly awful that it's not much of a challenge, even though at the time I perceive that it needs to be done. I suppose it's like the feeling that a professional sports team might feel if it were ever paired with a high school team--or even a junior high--team for a game. In fact, I was half-tempted…
oracknows | August 28, 2011Whenever I refer to an anti-vaccine activist as an "anti-vaxer" or an "anti-vaccinationist," I can always count on outraged and self-righteous denunciations from the the person who is being labeled as "anti-vaccine." "Oh, no," she'll say, "I'm not 'anti-vaccine.' I'm pro-safe vaccine." or "I'm a vaccine safety activist." Of couse, over the years, I've learned that the vast majority of such people are deluded in that they probably do really believe that they aren't anti-vaccine, but everything they do and say is pretty much always anti-vaccine. It's easy enough to tell just by asking a couple…