Antivaccine nonsense
oracknows | May 3, 2011One of the most persistent myths is one that's been particularly and doggedly resistant to evidence, science, clinical trials, epidemiology, and reason. It's also a myth that I've been writing about since a couple of months after the beginning of this blog. Specifically, I'm referring to the now scientifically discredited myth that the mercury-containing thimerosal preservative that used to be in quite a few childhood vaccines causes autism. The myth began in the late 1990s and was later fed by the publication of David Kirby's book Evidence of Harm, which was basically a paean to various…
oracknows | May 2, 2011Here's a brief one for you all. Former UPI editor and now editor of the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism has a talent for incredibly un-self-aware statements. This time around, in the wake of President Obama's having released his "long form" birth certificate, ol' Danny Boy posted a quickie statement (in amongst a bunch of other almost as amusing quickie statements) that reads:
Now that the "birther" myth has been debunked, maybe we can get rid of the ridiculous but widespread notion -- pushed by people who should know better -- that vaccines don't cause autism.
Uh, no, Dan. You have it…
oracknows | April 29, 2011I'm pretty hard on anti-vaccine activists. I know that. One in particular provokes my ire because of his particular brand of loutishness, intimidation, and stupidity. I'm talking about, of course, J.B. Handley, founder of Generation Rescue and blogger at its propaganda arm Age of Autism. As much as JB and I detest each other though, on rare occasions (of which this appears to be the first) I'm forced to admit that JB actually did something right.
Five months ago, JB wrote a hilarious bit of detection work in which he concluded that a blogger by the 'nym of Sullivan was, in reality, Dr. Paul…
oracknows | April 27, 2011
Longtime readers of this blog might be familiar with a certain regular commenter here who goes by the 'nym Sullivan and also blogs over at Left Brain Right Brain. Back in November, our old friend at the anti-vaccine propaganda crank blog, J.B. Handley himself, founder of the anti-vaccine crank activist group now fronted by Jenny McCarthy herself, Generation Rescue, posted a hilariously off base "outing" of Sullivan entitled Is Paul Offit's Wife Internet Troll/Autism Father "Sullivan"? Yes, that's right. Apparently J.B., with the investigative skills of Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau and…
oracknows | April 25, 2011A commenter named ottoschnaut at the anti-vaccine blog Age of Autism owes me a new irony meter after writing to a commenter by the 'nym "Parent" who complained about the meanness of J.B. Handley's attack on Seth Mnookin:
To Parent:
You write: "Both sides claim the other is crazy, both in a race to the bottom with scare tactics and threats"
Can you give me one example of a safe vaccine advocate calling those who defend "one size fits all vaccine policy" crazy?
Can you give me an example of "scare tactics" used by safe vaccine advocates?
The truth is what safe vaccine advocates use. If that is…
oracknows | April 21, 2011Several of you have been sending me this; so I would be remiss not to note that there is a rather lengthy profile of Generation Rescue's favorite "martyred" anti-vaccine hero, disgraced and discredited British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield, in this weekend's New York Times Magazine entitled The Crash and Burn of an Autism Guru. By and large, it's not bad, but what caught my attention wasn't so much the story of Andrew Wakefield, with which I have, sadly, become intimately familiar, or the usual self-pitying, self-serving excuses and denials of Wakefield himself. Rather, it's what the…
oracknows | April 19, 2011Hot on the heels of his excellent effort Immunize, ZDoggMD is back for a followup. Unfortunately, his partner in crime, Dr. Chase McCallister, billionnaire hemorrhoid surgeon, whose woo-fighting alter-ego is Doc Quixote, screwed up. Wandering into the University of Google, he came up with a rap that would do Mike Adams proud:
More reason than ever to get your vax on!
oracknows | April 15, 2011Time and time again, anti-vaccine activists will piously and self-righteously tell those of us who criticize their pseudoscientific fear mongering, "I'm not anti-vaccine," followed by something like, "I'm pro-vaccine safety," "I'm a vaccine safety watchdog," or "I'm pro-safe vaccine." Nothing puts the lie to these denials better than looking at the sorts of things anti-vaccine activists say and write in their own lairs.
For instance, here we have a commenter by the 'nym of veritas (no hubris there!) over at the anti-vaccine blog Age of Autism discussing the Poul Thorsen scandal:
I just wonder…
oracknows | April 15, 2011AThe the nonsense from the anti-vaccine movement on the issue of Poul Thorenson, the Danish scientist indicted for defrauding the CDC of approximately $1 million in grant money continues apace...
Just yesterday I pointed out how the anti-vaccine loons at Age of Autism were busily trying to poison the well over the Poul Thorsen case, as though whether or not he committed fraud with his CDC grant has anything to do with the quality of the science of the Danish studies that failed to find a link between either the MMR vaccine or thimerosal in vaccines and autism. Being on the mailing list of…
oracknows | April 14, 2011Here we go again.
If there's one thing about the anti-vaccine movement, it's all about the ad hominem. Failing to win on science, clinical trials, epidemiology, and other objective evidence, inevitably anti-vaccine propagandists fall back on attacking the person instead of the evidence. For example, Paul Offit has been the subject of unrelenting attacks from Generation Rescue and other anti-vaccine groups, having been dubbed "Dr. Proffit" and accused of being so in the pocket of big pharma that he'll do and say anything for it. I personally have been accused by Jake Crosby of a conflict of…
oracknows | April 13, 2011Excellent! It's about time the bigger guns started getting involved. Remember the anti-vaccine ads being run on the big CBS JumboTron in Times Square? Well, the American Academy of Pediatrics has finally weighted in to complaint. Here's the letter:
April 13, 2011
Mr. Wally Kelly
Chairman and CEO
CBS Outdoor
405 Lexington Ave., 14th floor
New York, NY 10174
Dear Mr. Kelly,
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) objects to the paid advertisement/public service message from the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) being shown throughout the month of April on the CBS JumboTron in Times…
oracknows | April 11, 2011Calling all Boston area skeptics! Calling all Boston area skeptics! The Bat Signal is up!
Your fair city is being invaded by the man who, arguably more than anyone else, sparked the latest incarnation of the anti-vaccine movement, is about to metastasize to your fair city (well, to its suburb of Waltham) and speak at one of your universities, specifically Brandeis University. That's right, Andrew Wakefield is invading your town, apparently invited by that one trick pony of a blogger for the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism, namely Jake Crosby:
Struck off the UK's medical register after…
oracknows | April 10, 2011I tell ya. I take a weekend off from this blog, and what do I find on Sunday night when I sit back down to take a look and see if there's anything I want to blog about?
Damn if those anti-vaccine loons aren't pulling a fast one while I'm not looking. It turns out that über-quack Joe Mercola is teaming up once again with Barbara Loe Fisher's the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) in a desperate attempt for the NVIC to try to demonstrate that it's still relevant in the anti-vaccine movement after having been supplanted by Generation rescue. This time around, they're doing SafeMinds one…
oracknows | April 6, 2011As I wing my way back home from Orlando, fresh from having imbibed deeply of the latest and greatest in cancer research, I didn't really have the opportunity to generate a typical Orac-ian post. Fortunately for me (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), a commenter named Erwin Alber popped up in the comments of a year and a half old post to demonstrate once again the self-delusion at the heart of the claim of many in the anti-vaccine movement. Take it away, Erwin:
There is no scientific evidence to show that vaccines have ever prevented anything, apart from health, sanity and…
oracknows | April 5, 2011I'm not infrequently asked why the myth that vaccines cause autism and other anti-vaccine myths are so stubbornly resistant to the science that time and time again fails to support them. Certainly useful celebrity idiots like Jenny McCarthy are one reason. So, too, are anti-vaccine propaganda websites and blogs such as Age of Autism and anti-vaccine organizations like Generation Rescue, the National Vaccine Information Center, and SafeMinds and the organizations that publish them. However, these are clearly not the only reason. Alone, these people and organizations are in general quite…
oracknows | March 25, 2011One of the major tactics of the anti-vaccine movement has been a disingenuous demand for more "informed consent." Of course, their idea of "informed consent" is anything but informed. Indeed, I have referred to it as "misinformed consent," because what the anti-vaccine movement does is a pathetic parody of the "informed" part of informed consent. The reason is because the anti-vaccine movement exaggerates the risks of vaccination beyond what science supports, and it does it intentionally. Autism, asthma, autoimmune disease, neurodevelopmental disorders, all of these have been blamed on…
oracknows | March 24, 2011Remember Dr. Jay Gordon? I haven't written about him in a while because, well, as much as he's descended into anti-vaccine apologia over the last few years, he really has nothing new to say. However, apparently he's been Tweeting a lot lately, and he hasn't exactly been doing himself proud. Earlier today, one of my readers sent me an example of a Tweet by Dr. Jay that sinks to a new low of argumentation:
So...should I call this particular logical fallacy argumentum ad television or argumentum ad bradi bunchium? Seriously, Dr. Jay, this sort of argument is pathetic, even by your standards.…
oracknows | March 21, 2011Here's something for you all to check out. Trine Tsouderos, the journalist from The Chicago Tribune who's distinguished herself as being one of the few reporters who "gets it" when it comes to quackery and the anti-vaccine movement (just put her name in the search box of this blog for some examples) will be hosting a web chat about vaccines featuring none other than Dr. Paul Offit, one of the gutsiest (if not the gutsiest) defender of vaccine science out there. The chat will occur here at noon CDT today. Questions can be submitted in advance to Tsouderos at ttsouderos@tribune.com.
Head on…
oracknows | March 17, 2011People believe a lot of wacky things. Some of these things are merely amusingly wacky, while others are dangerously wacky. Among the most dangerously wacky of things that a large number of people believe in is the idea that germ theory is invalid. Perhaps a better way of putting it is that among the most dangerously wacky of nonsense is germ theory denialism; i.e., the denial that germs are the cause of disease. Few theories in medicine or science are supported as strongly by such a huge amount of evidence from multiple disciplines that converge on the idea that microorganisms cause disease,…
oracknows | March 11, 2011In many ways, the anti-vaccine movement is highly mutable. However, this mutability is firmly based around keeping one thing utterly constant, and that one thing is vaccines. No matter what the evidence, no matter what the science, no matter how much observational, scientific, and epidemiological evidence is arrayed against them, to the relentlessly self-confident members of the anti-vaccine movement, it's always about the vaccines. Always. Vaccines are always the root many human health problems, be they asthma, autoimmune diseases, autism, and chronic diseases of all types. Everything else…