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

One of my favorite questions to ask is: "Which toxins are you referring to specifically?"

Overuse of the word "toxins" irritates me generally. "I need to clean out all the toxins that have built up from the bad food I've been eating." What have you been eating, rattlesnakes?

haha, I love when people are all about that stuff. they nearly always are referring to the stuff that comes out when they "cleanse." I always have to point out that's intestinal lining, and they are in fact just burning their digestive system

I've always thought that the reason why the toxin theory has stayed so popular with the half-informed public is that it has a lot of simularities with the Christian sense of sin.

I don't really believe in 'toxins' and get annoyed with anyone who talks about them (had a couple of arguments w my brother in law in this vein). Surely nothing is really a toxin by definition - it depends on dosage etc as well. Like, salt or water can kill you in big enough quantities, but you don't want to flush them out of your system.

Oh god the cleansers. Don't get me started. If people were as full of toxins as they claimed, they would be dead. The other reason people give for "cleansing" that makes me crazy is to "give their organs a rest." Do you know what will really rest them? Systemic organ failure.

Another thing I've been reading is about how the blood can be too acidic, so you should drink this pH water. Ummmm no. If your blood is too acidic, you are dead. Or at least way too ill to buy any damn bottled water.

I read about one cleanse that requires the participant to drink olive oil and I think lemon juice and people got all excited because they were pooping out little white balls that they claimed were coagulated toxins, but really the little balls were cause by the olive oil and lemon juice saponifying in people's guts. That's probably not exactly what happened but that was the gist of it. I think I read about it on a skeptical medicine site.

that and mucus lining. it is, i imagine, like that extruded molecular gastronomy faux caviar junk except instead of coming out of a turkey baster it sloughs out of your butt.

That is such an upsetting metaphor.

holy crap

thank you for ruining molecular gastronomy forever

Also caviar, turkey basters, and pooping.

...white balls, olive oil, lemon juice...

oh god msnbc right now

ive come to the conclusion thomas the tank engine causes autism.

i mean show me an autistic kid that doesnt like trains

"Children with autism love to watch mechanical objects like vehicles," Baron-Cohen says, "probably because they're so predictable."

Each vehicle is a distinct character, including a cable car named Sally, a tractor named Barney and a tram named Charlie. Throughout each episode, their facial expressions change to match the emotions described by the narrator.

"Even if the child is focusing on the wheels going around on the vehicles, or on the levers and mechanical aspects of the vehicles, even without realizing it, they're going to be looking at the faces," Baron-Cohen says.

http://m.npr.org/story/99732203

apparent thomas the tank engine videos are favored by many parents of autistic kids for this very reason!

When I was a child, not only did I like Thomas the Tank Engine, but my favourite train was the grumpy train who doesn't help the other trains. That's got to be a pretty bad diagnosis, right?

you are so on the spectrum

Confession: there is a photo of me in fancy dress as Gordon the grumpy train, who is blue like Thomas. The fancy dress was being judged by the books' author (can't remember if it was the original author or his son, who took over) and he said "oh, you are dressed as Thomas, very nice dear" and I very rudely corrected him that clearly I was Gordon, as anyone should know from the number on my side

(clears throat nervously)

so yeah, now I am a computer programmer. Surprise!

seriously, you guys, Specter's book is awesome.

Also, useful to this discussion: http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2010/05/the_new_scientist_debates_deni.php

...Whatever they are denying, denial movements have much in common with one another, not least the use of similar tactics (see "How to be a denialist"). All set themselves up as courageous underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the truth or foist a malicious lie on ordinary people. This conspiracy is usually claimed to be promoting a sinister agenda: the nanny state, takeover of the world economy, government power over individuals, financial gain, atheism. ... All denialisms appear to be attempts like this to regain a sense of agency over uncaring nature: blaming autism on vaccines rather than an unknown natural cause, insisting that humans were made by divine plan, rejecting the idea that actions we thought were okay, such as smoking and burning coal, have turned out to be dangerous...

good lookin out, anti-vaccine assholes

i hate bumper stickers but i'd consider an IGNORANCE KILLS one tbh

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?!