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

that's kind of not what he's saying

food is a distraction from the real causes of ill health, like obesity and diabetes

Ben Goldacre's a proponent of evidence based medicine and evidence based policy: when he says 'the evidence on [how diet affects life expectancy], frankly, is pretty thin' he is being, I would guess, quite scrupulous. Note that he's talking about age at death here, not ill health in general - I think this is from a bit where he talks about the ten-year difference in life expectancy between hampstead and kentish town, places which are about two miles apart. Hampstead is a wealthy area and has been for the past hundred years or so; Kentish Town is historically working-class (increasingly less so); life expectancy in Hampstead is 80 years old and in Kentish Town it is 70.

The point that he is making is that when middle class people who exert a great deal of control over their dietary choices - to the point of nutritionism - point to "diet" as the "reason" that KT has a lower life expectancy, they are doing a number of things

1/ not thinking about how life expectancy works
2/ ignoring the whole intersection of class and money and expectations and human well-being that go into making a person's lifestyle
3/ assuming that their control over their own dietary choices is a matter of informedness and willpower, which other people lack

iirc the impact of diet is considerably more on health in later life than it is actual life expectancy, don't think this is particularly controversial.

also "willpower" is a thing i've thought about a lot the last couple of years, wd like to explore it on another thread some time.

Yeah this probably sounded odd out of context, it's in the middle of a bit about fish oils and superfoods and detoxes

^^ it's not even diet in general Goldacre's talking about, it's people who think food-faddism will make them healthy and long lived and incidentally also is a sign of their moral commitment to wellness -- and who wilfully ignore the fact that they are being sold a commodity. His wider point is that people want there to be single silver-bullet solutions to health issues that are actually rooted in complex social and political problems.

goldacre's position on diet in general is the minimal nhs position iirc - regular exercise and the healthy food that is widely available, no need for packaged diets or supplements etc etc unless you have v specific dietary deficiencies that have been diagnosed by a professional.

Ben Goldacre's a proponent of evidence based medicine and evidence based policy: when he says 'the evidence on [how diet affects life expectancy], frankly, is pretty thin' he is being, I would guess, quite scrupulous.
― chasm jar pro (c sharp major), Monday, September 17, 2012 7:53 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've seen plenty of studies that say obesity is a strong negative factor in life expectancy. Are there holes in these studies?

Most likely he's just writing clumsily and forgot about obesity because he was busy thinking about debunking fish oil and other fads. But at a basic level that passage just doesn't wash.

Perhaps it would help if you read the previous version of the chapter that is available here, where he does talk about obesity and health:

But let’s look at the evidence. Diet has been studied very extensively, and there are some things that we know with a fair degree of certainty: there is convincing evidence that diets rich in fresh fruit and vegetables, with natural sources of dietary fibre, avoiding obesity, moderate alcohol, and physical exercise, are protective against things such as cancer and heart disease.

and yet

How can I be sure that this phenomenal difference in life expectancy between rich and poor isn’t due to the difference in diet? Because I’ve read the dietary intervention studies: when you intervene and make a huge effort to change people’s diets, and get them eating more fruit and veg, you find the benefits, where they are positive at all, are actually very modest. Nothing like 10 years.

i'm sorry for being a dick about this, but, really, the man is an epidemiologist. i really don't think he is the right windmill to be tilting at.

"really"

But let’s look at the evidence. Diet has been studied very extensively, and there are some things that we know with a fair degree of certainty: there is convincing evidence that diets rich in fresh fruit and vegetables, with natural sources of dietary fibre, avoiding obesity, moderate alcohol, and physical exercise, are protective against things such as cancer and heart disease.

convincing evidence that is also "thin" I guess

fresh fruit and vegetables

hate the shit out of this phrase. frozen vegetables are at least as healthy for you as fresh ones, if not more so.

Thats splitting hairs, I assume saying fresh veggies is more like, as opposed to processed foods with maybe some veg in them (like, I dunno, corn cakes or readymade hash browns or whatever).

Hm. To me that refers to the produce aisle or farmer's market.

no he means fresh but it's not about the nutrients it's because sometimes when you look at a bag of frozen vegetables like maybe those little cubed carrots it can make you sad and it's bad for your health to be too sad.

Not if you arrange them into a face! A smiling face only, obv.

Also tbqh very few frozen veg taste any good: peas and corn the exception (just), but blech, frozen string beans or carrots or broccoli? Gross and watery, no thanks. Also more pricey than fresh (here anyway).

oh, it's much cheaper to buy frozen than fresh at my grocery store. they work out pretty well if you defrost them by running under a tap in a spaghetti strainer. anyway, this has been a digression.

fresh fruit and vegetables
hate the shit out of this phrase. frozen vegetables are at least as healthy for you as fresh ones, if not more so.

Well, here you are assuming that this phrase means P(x & y), where it may actually mean Px & y. Fresh(fruit & vegetables) or fresh fruit, and vegetables?

Got it. Frozen "california blend" = a-ok. "frozen blueberries" = road to deathsville.

is there any way they could unearth like frozen blueberries from the Pleistocene and make them a real connoisseur thing - Fruits of Lascaux or something

frozen blueberries are great for baking

also i mean if you live in a part of the world that has no fucking fruit for ~6 months except for cellar-stored apples well into the second part of their half-life, your options aren't great short of frozen veg

Pa will make it to the trading post come spring.

i'm wondering through welling tears how a little cubed carrots cake would turn out.

I use frozen blueberries all the time. In fact I just ate some in my overnight oats.

What does any of this have to do with vaccines? Someone whose blog I read was talking about not vaccinating her kid and then all these other people commenting were like "I have 3 unvaxed (they actually wrote it like that) kids and they're super healthy!") and it all made me very sad and upset.

Started off as a tangent about the magical thinking people do that's ignorant of evidence-based science.

"I don't think dirt or getting sick makes you a weak person; your immune system needs to work with things," said Reber, whose children attend the Greenwood School in the San Francisco Bay area town of Mill Valley. "We certainly don't want to go back to having polio, but on the other hand, I don't think we need to eradicate all the childhood diseases

I might be way off base but isn't the whole point of immunization to develop the immune systems memory and therefore act swiftly if it comes into contact with it at a future date causing an immunity to the disease?

And how fucking selfish are these assholes who are happy to A be happy for their kids to get sick and B infect other kids.

I can't even imagine what kind of hell these Jenny McCarthy types are going to but I imagine it will be pretty spotty and gimpy

Into contact with the disease is what I meant

My child is special and thus deserves special treatment etc

It's also a claim for authenticity. Your immune system needs to get its hands dirty, break a sweat, catch a bit of a tan, instead of sitting around the basement all afternoon zapping virtual virions with the iPad and Xbox. The tomatoes taste better if you grow them yourself! Same with measles.

"My mumps went to the SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS"

B Cell Boot Camp

School of hard pox, more like.

Organic free range polio

Why when I was a boy I had chicken pox in every orifice of my body. Toughen up kid!

seems relevant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMvMb90hem8

<3 him

"Get in the fuckin' sack" should be the stock response to all of these folks.

irl lols @ toothiologist (also Noddy lols)

http://www.whale.to/

love this kind of stuff. love you internet.

Holy shit that whole site needs to be on why do i hate that artist thing that people keep posting on my facebook so much? why am i such a jerk?

http://www.whale.to/a/534439_354324334653869_1687636089_n.jpg

yeah I don't know either

Loooooool

Is that Brian May?

John Pertwee iirc

oh shit it really is Brian May

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/brian-may-badgers-best-friend-8163734.html

OMG