Antivaccine nonsense
oracknows | September 1, 2010The comment thread for my post last week about how philosophical vaccine exemptions in California are endangering herd immunity is rapidly approaching 500 comments as I write this and may well surpass that number by the time this post "goes live" in the morning. I mention this because buried in the comment thread are a number of comments by our old "friend," that anti-vaccine-sympathetic pediatrician to the stars, Dr. Jay Gordon doing what Dr. Jay does best and basically making a fool of himself on matters of vaccine science through his preference for anecdote over sound epidemiology and…
oracknows | August 30, 2010A frequent lament of members of the anti-vaccine movement is that they are not "anti-vaccine" but rather "pro-safe vaccine." they like to claim that they are not opposed to vaccines in general. Of course, in many, if not most or even all cases, that denial is either a lie or self-delusion. After all, even the most die-hard anti-vaccine zealot realizes that being anti-vaccine is quite correctly viewed by the vast majority of people as not rational.
That's why, in a perverse way, I'm thankful for loons like Mike Adams. Yes, Mike Adams. He lays the crazy out in a way that no one else does. But…
oracknows | August 29, 2010A friend of mine sent me a link to one of my hometown news stations because he saw something that irritated him. On the front page, there is a poll of such epic burning stupid that it requires an immediate crash. I may not be P.Z., but I have in some instances overcome my previous dislike of poll crashing, especially when it's a poll this stupid:
Do you think immunizations are safe?
Yes
No
As if an Internet poll has any bearing whatsoever on whether vaccines are safe or even on whether people believe vaccines are safe.
The poll is located on the webpage of the Detroit FOX affiliate in the…
oracknows | August 27, 2010Having followed the anti-vaccine movement continuously for nearly six years now, I had come to think that I had seen it all as far as deceptive strategies for frightening parents about vaccines. Obviously, becoming too complacent is foolish, because, as misguided and scientifically ignorant as they are, many of the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement (Jenny McCarthy excepted) are not stupid. In fact, some of them are damned clever; otherwise, they wouldn't be so successful at demonizing vaccines and promoting the scientifically discredited myth that vaccines cause autism. Every so often, the…
oracknows | August 26, 2010I don't know if it's confirmation bias, faulty memory, or if my individual impression is correct, but it seems to me that over the years I've been blogging that stories like this one seem to be becoming depressingly more common:
Getting inoculated for diseases such as whooping cough and measles used to be a childhood rite of passage that few questioned. Now with shifting parental attitudes about vaccine safety, a growing number of California children are entering kindergarten without shots.
The trend worries public health officials because of the link between immunization rates and infectious…
oracknows | August 20, 2010Here we go again.
Apparently, trying to bounce back from the humiliation of having had its plan to do a music and comedy fundraiser with Jill Sobule as one of the headliners shot down when Sobule found out that Generation Rescue is an "autism organization" that supports anti-vaccine pseudoscience like that of Andrew Wakefield and Mark and David Geier and quite correctly decided to withdraw, Generation Rescue is at it again with an event it's calling Comedy for Kids with Autism.
According to the mass e-mail I received:
Join us Saturday, September 11th at the Third Annual "Comedy for Kids with…
oracknows | August 18, 2010There's so much horrible reporting on vaccines and the whole manufactroversy that promulgates the myth that vaccines somehow cause autism through a combination of confusing correlation with causation, bad science, quackery, and misrepresenting autism that it's gotten harder for me to be sufficiently irritated to write about it. When I see yet another another example of credulous reporting, it has to be either truly egregious to the point of catching my attention above the baseline noise of stories presenting anti-vaccine pseudoscience as though there were any truth to it or somehow illustrate…
oracknows | August 15, 2010Thanks to Autism News Beat, I've found the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! episode Vaccination in a streaming form. I have two warnings. First, if you're not familiar with Penn & Teller, you should be prepared for lots of profanity, including liberal use of the F-word. There is also one scene with a topless woman near the end. If you're easily offended, then you probably shouldn't watch. You have been warned. Second, you have to hit the arrow directly in order not to go to the website hosting the streaming video:
I have to say, I've rarely seen a more visually effective way of portraying…
oracknows | August 12, 2010It was nearly a month ago when I first marveled at how nonsense could be so well-organized. My marvel was expressed at the awesomeness that was the Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense (which, by the way, is now available in "sanitized" versions, as well as versions in other languages). It turns out that Crispan's effort has inspired one of my readers to try his hand at this whole organizating nonsense thing. This blog being what it is and all and his proclivities being what they are, he decided to create...drumroll, please...The Periodic Table of Vaccine Rejectionism, which he's given me…
oracknows | August 12, 2010It's finally here! The long expected episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, in which the boys take on the anti-vaccine movement in their usual inimitable fashion, will premiere tonight on Showtime at 10 PM. It's even the eighth season finale, which is appropriate. If there's a form of "bullshit" other than the irrationality that is the anti-vaccine movment that represents a threat to public health more profound, I have a hard time thinking of it, and it's hard to believe that Penn and Teller did nearly eight seasons of their show without taking it on.
Here's a preview:
Unfortunately,…
oracknows | August 9, 2010The longer I'm in this whole skepticism thing, the more I realize that no form of science is immune to woo. For example, even though I lament just how many people do not accept evolution, for example, I can somewhat understand it. Although the basics of the science and evidence supporting the theory of evolution as the central organizing principle of all biology, much of the evidence is not readily apparent to those who don't make it a calling to study biology, evolution, and speciation. It's not like, for example, gravity, which everyone experiences and of which everyone has a "gut level"…
oracknows | August 7, 2010Here's some sheer awesomeness in the form of an explanation of germ theory denialism:
The only thing I would disagree with is the conclusion at the end that germ theory denialists are not much of a threat. In fact, germ theory denialism, usually softer germ theory denialism, such as the kind that says a healthy body can can fight off any bacteria or virus (the implication being that germs can cause disease only if there is some problem in the body) is a major strain of "thought" (if you can call it that) in anti-vaccine circles. In fact, it's a major strain of "thought" driving many forms…
oracknows | August 4, 2010I haven't really taken much note of Andrew Wakefield in a while, and in general that's a very good thing indeed. However, I found out recently that somehow I missed this gem from around the time of Autism One:
That's right. I thought it was pretty bad that Andy Wakefield had appeared on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, that all night conspiracy/UFO/paranormal radio show that's been so popular here in the U.S. for many years. It turns out that I missed an even worse one: Wakefield showing up on Alex Jones' even more looney conspiracy show, PrisonPlanet.tv. This is the same guy who…
oracknows | August 4, 2010Of all the bizarre forms of antivaccine autism quackery, one of the strangest has to be Mark and David Geier's "Lupron protocol." I've written about it many times, dating back to 2006 and, more recently, when the Chicago Tribune provided the first coverage I'm aware of of the Geiers' quackery in a major newspaper, thanks to Trine Tsouderos. If you want the details, feel free to click on the links, but I'll boil it down for purposes of this post.
Basically, the father-and-son team of autism woo-meisters who operate out of the basement of the father's Silver Spring, MD house, Mark and David…
oracknows | July 28, 2010Nancy Snyderman isn't helping. At least, she wasn't helping yesterday.
Don't get me wrong. I like the fact that NBC's Chief Medical Editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman is a staunch defender of vaccination. She's one of the rare talking head doctors on TV who pulls no punches when going after the anti-vaccine movement, so much so that the big macher of the anti-vaccine movement and head of the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism J.B. Handley has referred to her as a "NBC's pharma-whore in residence." Let's just put it this way: Anyone whom J.B. detests and labels with a term like that can't be all…
oracknows | July 26, 2010On Friday, I noted an e-mail circulating around the Internet in which disgraced University of Kentucky chemist and card-carrying general in the mercury militia, Boyd Haley, announced that he was suspending sales of his industrial chelator turned "antioxidant dietary supplement" OSR#1. Now, true to form, Trine Tsouderos at the Chicago Tribune has noticed and published a story on Haley's decision, Controversial supplement to come off shelves:
Pharmacies are halting sales of OSR#1, a compound marketed as a dietary supplement to parents of children with autism, six weeks after the U.S. Food and…
oracknows | July 22, 2010As you may have heard, the strike is over. That doesn't mean the crisis is over, nor does it necessarily mean that I will be staying with ScienceBlogs, but I view management's response as a positive move that may be enough to keep me here. Now management needs to lose the Google ads for quackery, and then we have something to talk about. It seems that every time our benevolent overlords kill one set of quack ads, they disappear for a short while, only to reappear in a different guise. I think they understand that. At least I hope so.
In the meantime, I will speak no further of these issues,…
oracknows | July 21, 2010While the drama continues and interesting developments occur, I've found that I actually don't mind taking a couple of days off. Don't worry. Blogging's a bug that's gotten into me and, like PZ, I'll probably start twitching and seizing if I go too long without producing one of my patented logorrheic screeds of pure insolence, be it here, at my super not-so-secret other blog, or on some other blogging platform. At least 4,000 words would be best. Still, I should take a couple of days off more often and not under circumstances like the current upheaval.
Upheaval or no upheaval, strike or no…
oracknows | July 19, 2010"I know you are, but what am I?"
That's basically the child's version of a familiar logical fallacy known as the tu quoque, which basically means, "You, too!" It's a very simple and simplistic logical fallacy that tries to argue that, if one's trait shares one or more of the same bad traits of the people he is criticizing, then his arguments can be dismissed. It's sometimes very effective in that implied within the fallacy is a charge of hypocrisy. As a diversionary tactic, it can be very effective.
Not too surprisingly, I've found a doozy of an example of just this fallacy over at the other…
oracknows | July 16, 2010
Ever since I somehow stumbled into a niche in the blogosphere where I seem to be one of a handful of go-to bloggers for issues having to do with vaccines and the anti-vaccine movement, like Spider-Man I realize that with great power comes great responsibility.
Wait a minute. That beginning was too pompous and pretentious even for me. I know it's hard to believe, but even Orac has limits when it comes to pretentiousness.
Orac-ian pomposity aside, there are indeed certain topics that I can't resist. Whether it's because they intensely interest me or my being an aforementioned "go-to" blogger…