jenny mccarthy wants your kid to get measles: autism, vaccines, and stupid idiots

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html?hpt=T1

Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

(CNN) -- A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.

An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.

"It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief, told CNN. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data..."

Direct from BMJ:
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.full
and
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full

Yikes.

Now I wish I hadn't un-FB-friended that vaccine denying, chiropractor ex-boyfriend of mine so I could go rub this right in his stupid, smug face.

I'm sure he'll find a way to continue believing that vaccines cause autism.

They already think he is the target of a witch-hunt.

It's a conspiracy to discredit the truth, organized by Big Pharma!

I skimmed these and the NYT article and couldn't find it, but are there any stats showing the increase in whooping cough deaths (or the occurrence of any other diseases that show an increase since everybody panicked about vaccines)?

Also, if I know my vaccine deniers, I'm going to guess that they will just attribute this to part of the whole anti-Wakefield cabal. xp yup that is it exactly.

The CNN article says:

"In the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than in any other year since 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 90% of those infected had not been vaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown, the CDC reported."

I'd guess you'd have to dig through the CDC website to find the details.

anderson cooper mentions whooping cough increase in this vid but can't remember what he said

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/05/retracted-autism-study-an-elaborate-fraud-british-journal-finds/

It's a conspiracy to discredit the truth, organized by Big Pharma!

This is exactly what they say. The comments on any article debunking the link between vaccines and autism always parrot this line.

What, you don't think they'd do that? You don't think they're that powerful? THINK AGAIN

etc

I know people will believe any old stupid thing for any old stupid reason, but I don't get why they're so attached to the notion that vaccines are evil. That scared of needles?

Because they are parents who have kids with problems. Which creates anxiety. To put a lid on their anxiety, they need something to blame it on. And they think they have found it. If you take that away from them you take the lid off the cauldron.

never believed that shit anyways. we were all vaccinated, ate peanut butter, slept on our stomach and we are all fine? well minus a few issues.

all of us who didn't die are fine

haha.

cole slept on his stomach from week one on, never had issues. he was miserable on his back.

Because they are parents who have kids with problems. Which creates anxiety. To put a lid on their anxiety, they need something to blame it on. And they think they have found it. If you take that away from them you take the lid off the cauldron.

This is insightful. I totally missed that bit from the CNN article, too, so thanks!

The _Denialism_ book goes on at lengths about this. You have a horrifying, horrifying condition that no one understands and the affected kid never comes out of, so you grasp at anything for a cause.

Also, you can tell when you're in for real fun when cascade logic gets used. Evidence of disproof is inverted to show "they're all in on it, maaan."

Take yer pick of subjects: 9/11, climate change, evolution, chemtrails, gm food, floridation, obama, etc. Because these are subjects so lofty and disconnected from our daily existence, we have to rely on others for veracity. You cant trust empiric reality anymore because the means to verify claims are out of reach of all but a very select few.

And it's not helped when authority figures and those who do know deliberately bullshit us. Tuskegee airmen experiment, the Tillman death, Merck sales reps being told to lie and downplay any connection Vioxx had to heart issues, oil and cigarette companies paying off science-types to "create doubt," etc.

Confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and cascade logic are reasons why no one can be convinced of anything anymore.

Oh god, I almost got into a facebook wall clusterfuck about confirmation bias with a friend who was convinced that her store-purchased bread was bad because wildlife wouldn't eat it. She started up with the "what about this mcdonald's hamburger that looked the same after a year" thing.

Pretty sure she also had vaccination reservations.

store-purchased bread IS bad though.

It's bananas that a study based on only 12 non-random subjects got so much traction in the first place. This seriously makes me doubt the Lancet's bona fides.

I know people will believe any old stupid thing for any old stupid reason, but I don't get why they're so attached to the notion that vaccines are evil. That scared of needles?

Because the idea of injecting someone with germs to keep them from getting sick defies common sense. Which is one reason why I don't believe in common sense.

Where does Jenny McCarthy stand on shampoos with tea tree oil, which may or may not make men sprout breasts, according to one dubious study? Huh? HUH?!

no wonder why i have man tits.

nah, that's just the soy, man.

Both of which may be just a way to scare people into thinking that using nice shampoos and eating soy stuff will turn you into a girlyman.

soy does fuck with the hormones of males, though it requires very large amounts to do so (i.e. an entirely soy-based diet).

Where does Jenny McCarthy stand on shampoos with tea tree oil, which may or may not make men sprout breasts, according to one dubious study? Huh? HUH?!

http://john.kism.com/files/2009/08/vera-de-milo.jpg

They did end up breaking up, so I'm guessing she doesn't like them.

zing

Antivaccinationists tend toward complete mistrust of government and manufacturers, conspiratorial thinking, denialism, low cognitive complexity in thinking patterns, reasoning flaws, and a habit of substituting emotional anecdotes for data

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1010594

Can anyone link through to the Andrew Wakefield magazine piece in the Times?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24Autism-t.html

Michelle Guppy, the coordinator of the Houston Autism Disability Network

Why oh why does life so often pitch us hanging curveballs like this?

Can someone link the MoJo article that Chris Mooney did?

Y'all should read it.

God, Wakefield is an all-time jackass. I'm incredibly perturbed to find out that he's become an Austin resident. There's a not insignificant number of parents around here who have bought in to his nonsense. It drives me up the wall!

“To our community, Andrew Wakefield is Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ rolled up into one,” says J. B. Handley, co-founder of Generation Rescue, a group that disputes vaccine safety. “He’s a symbol of how all of us feel.”

scary

What has become increasingly clear to Insel is that something is to blame. Some environmental factor is, or many environmental factors are, interacting with certain gene types, yielding who knows how many different pathways to the same disease. And although many parents think they know with instinctual certainty what that factor was in their own child, researchers “haven’t found anything that looks like a smoking gun,” Insel says. To him, the M.M.R. vaccine, so aggressively studied since the media splash following Wakefield’s 1998 paper, is one of the few factors that can be been ruled out. But could it be aspartame? UV rays? Elmo? No one knows.

well that last part is right, isn't it

xps

http://awesomeappliques.com/zc-commerce/images/elmo.jpg

would definitely be down for an anti-elmo movement

ah, here we are, check this:

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

How our brains fool us on climate, creationism, and the vaccine-autism link.

— By Chris Mooney

They can make a special toy for autistic kids: "Ignore Me Elmo."

"A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." - Leon Festinger

my brother and his wife haven't vaccinated their kids, and it's so tough. i just don't even talk to them about it...

You...also don't take your kids to play there?

no, we do! i don't know, it's weird, they have a whole circle of people around them who don't vaccinate.