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

The MMR and autism scare, for example, is practically non-existent outside Britain.

Or am I wrong, I thought people were now mostly satisfied there wasn't a link between MRR and autism (in UK) due to more research that debunked the theory?

Yup. It's about 10 years old, this particular scare, and MMR vaccination rates are back up again, but the damage is done, in that there is a huge unvaccinated cohort wandering around.

(lol @ link between Maximum Rock'n'Roll and autism)

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5129671/autism-the-disease-of-the-internet-era

wikipedia has a good entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversy

There was an article on the BBC evening news last week about the possible a measles epidemic which actually outright called the autism link a "discredited scare" (they definitely said "discredited") and urged people who hadn't vaccinated their kids to get it done because it wasn't too late, etc.

I was surprised that the BBC was prepared to be so bold about the wording, not that I disagree, it just seemed uncharacteristic. If it helps any kid get vaccinated who'd been missed out before then great.

You see, this is the problem with the BBC- on the whole they think that being balanced means that they should give equal time to two sides of a story. This might work well in politics, but it doesn't in issues like this. So for years they would put a pro- and anti-MMR voice up against each other, despite the overwhelming balance of evidence against any link. They did the same with climate change.

Fortunately, the penny FINALLY drops, and they no longer do this in either case. Even the Daily Mail (the home of the health scare, for non-UK people) don't think there is a link between MMR and autism, but instead are out to bash Andrew Wakefield (see the Bad Science link for more on this).

OTM re. the BBC and 'balance'. If they represented the argument according to the evidence on each side they'd spend a second on anti-MMR for every hundred hours of pro.

These kind of make me wish I had a baby to put one on. I wuv Ben Goldacre.
http://222610.spreadshirt.net/en/GB/Shop/Article/Index/article/confrontational-baby-bib-4417369

a public health intervention in a bib, spark up friendly conversations with vaccine-phobic parents in public with ease!

I like it!

Is it true that most people who get chickenpox as children grow up to have herpes zoster in old age?

one of the mothers interviewed based her opposition to vaccination on the fact that she always fed her family organic everything and couldn't *control* whatever substances would be injected into her child.

People, especially upscale West Coast Americans, have developed this cult of food & body control, where everything that goes in must be rigidly controlled for nutritional, ethical and even spiritual reasons (often a tangle of the three). The self is validated and protected by the extent to which control is exercised, and is threatened to the extent that it breaks down. In some cases, the pathology is fantastically rigid, and the ingestion of even a tiny particle of meat or non-organic produce can become the most horrendous sort of physical/emotional violation.

These disorders are so common as to have become normalized and integrated into other culturally-acceptable belief systems, notably the profound distrust of Western medicine that persists in certain spiritual communities. Given that we live in an era when "unfit" parents are sought out and judged harshly, with a corresponding rise in parental paranoia and overprotectiveness, it's not surprising that the body-controlling medicine hate cult would seize upon more-or-less forced vaccinations of children as a threat.

challops.

xpost I wouldn't say "most," but yes, you can get shingles secondarily later in life after you've been infected with chicken pox.

btw, I know two people who have had herpes zoster (a.k.a. "shingles") in their twenties and thirties during very stressful times in their lives, so shingles isn't just for the old folks!

My wife got Bell's Palsy a couple of years ago and that's apparently also connected to the chickenpox virus.

There was a guy in my class in high school who got shingles junior year. That really sucked for him; he said the breeze on his face generated by walking down the hall caused excruciating pain.

My mom got shingles a couple of years back. By all accounts it was horrific.

I had a older professor who came down with a shingles-type post-pox issue that paralyzed half her face for a week: she had to go around reassuring people she hadn't had a stroke.

Re: vaccinations this seems key and point-busting for a lot of the worriers: the point is mostly moot since thimerosol has been eliminated from vacciniations for a while now, anyway

Also this -- I've been hearing "my kid got fucked up right after s/he got vaccinated" stories for too long -- doesn't sound necessarily significant to me: surely part of the panic over these things is that a lot of disorders become apparent and get diagnosed right around the time children are supposed to be getting these vaccinations, right? The prevalence of various scares seems like an extension of that -- something is wrong with your child, and the only real medical event available to start worrying about is the fact that they were vaccinated, because other than that there's no big stand-out action or exposure to blame it on.

I find Jenny McCarthy kinda cool and funny, usually, and I'm occasionally impressed that she seems smart and genuine when talking about this vaccination stuff, but she also seems just wrong, and I hate the dynamic that gets set up when she's on TV along with some staid medical professionals, getting all ring-the-alarm "I'm a mother" emotional while two guys sit there looking uncomfortable and saying "we're really sorry, but there's just no medical evidence here" -- it probably makes for good TV and gets people on her side, but that seems like a bad thing, and the whole display just depresses me by being set up like some sort of feel-good mother-against-power movie.

my mom had shingles a couple years ago; it seemed like the most painful event of her entire life

this kind of shit pisses me off in the same way celia farber and her bonkers hiv/aids work (citing the padian study as evidence, etc) pisses me off.

as i was saying upthread, there seems to be a documented - but very rare - link between vaccines and autism, but people are so afraid they assume their kid is automatically going to be in that .01%

Well you said a link involving thimerosol, which is no longer in vaccines.

i'm sorry, but i can't stand for how much credibility this "cause" has garnered for something that sounds, to me, like it was lifted verbatim from the minutes of a John Birch Society chapter meeting.

This could quite easily be entirely due to coincidental correlation - MMR administration and autism diagnosis both generally occur in the 12-48 month age range.

I agree that coincidental correlation is a very strong possibility, and it may be the ultimate answer.

i have a lot of sympathy for the larger point in your post but this is some bad thinking. part of the problem with buying into this type of faulty caustion is that pressure is put on ppl doing useful, necessary research into autism to debunk these theories.

That (pressure) is a shame if so, because I think positive evidence for the causative factors behind autism is what everyone needs (and, hopefully, wants) most. In other words, once we have a strong physical model for the mechanism that causes autism, it's far easier to tell directly whether there's any reasonable means via which vaccines might be implicated, rather than depending on statistical inference.

I will say, though, that one of the points of my post was that anecdotal evidence used to be one of the mainstays of practical medicine, and that we overestimate our resources if we think that we're "past" it, or that everything we need to know (and ought to believe) can be demonstrated through double-blind studies and clinical trials. Hell, we even overestimate ourselves when we think we know how these things work! There are loads of drugs whose mechanism we don't really understand, but we use them anyway. Ninety percent of the decisions that doctors make reflect something far closer to statistical correlation than a true understanding of causation; in most cases, we don't know jack-shit about "how" or "why", really.

So I think that what I'm resisting here is this notion that we're faced with a choice between snake-oil hokum hand-wringing on the one hand, and the crushing mathematical quality of über-reductive, a=b, "that-can't-possibly-be-true" thinking. Yes, anecdote is not the singular form of data, but I also know that there are a shitload of things for which the data aren't in yet, but which are nonetheless of great significance. Medical history is littered with prior examples of this, with which we're all familiar, and there have been times that word-of-mouth and practical experience have been our only bulwark against -- for example -- taking thalidomide when pregnant. (And that's a good example, by the way: they still have no real idea how thalidomide causes birth defects.)

I'll tip my hand here a bit: I have direct experience with a case in which (a) an infant had (what appeared to be) a moderately violent reaction to vaccination, and (b) that infant went on to have major neurological issues. Do I think that (a) translates to (b), or that "vaccines cause autism"? No, but it did put my antennae up, and makes me wary when anyone gets too dismissive on the issue. (Still, I probably made a mistake when I said I thought there was "something going on with autism and vaccination" -- I should have said "autism and neurological problems".)

As I said before, if I had kids, I would vaccinate 'em. But I also think it's a certainty that certain vaccines fuck some kids up, in some way. The question, though, is how many and in what way, and right now I don't see any objective evidence that it's more than a very small number -- certainly not enough to justify the level of hysteria. But slamming that door shut, or proclaiming my moral superiority over a bunch of moms who "loll about in (their) suburban mansions" or whatever, feels like total hubris to me.

This is some black helicopter type shit, imo. No disrespect.

tru

So, basically,

"Vaccines cause autism" = BOO
"Vaccines can't possibly cause autism" = BOO
"Honestly, we don't know what the fuck is going on, but get your damn kids vaccinated anyway" = YAY

xpost

CR Nylund continuing to be on all kinds of TM. Esp. WR2 to the reasonable defense of intuition, anecdotal evidence and uncertainty. At this point, however, "decent science vs. nutjob luddites" seems like the better horse.

""Honestly, we don't know what the fuck is going on, but get your damn kids vaccinated anyway" = YAY

I would change this to "We're injecting people stuff and things may go haywire for a small percentage of the population but you should deal with it, unless you enjoy getting the measles."

and anything else is black helicopter/"let's teach the controversy" bullshit

We pretty much already tell people that irt vaccine reactions, gullaine-barre, etc...

We pretty much already tell people that irt vaccine reactions, gullaine-barre, etc...

Definitely, though I think that massive research is needed to determine who's likely to have those reactions, and why. I mean, basically, my suspicion is that there's a strong, but exceedingly complex, genetic component to all this. That would, if true, potentially explain why certain families seem to get hit hard with this stuff -- for reasons other than parental hysteria, that is.

I also think it would be prudent to consider postponing some of these vaccinations when possible. The vaccination schedule has become quite aggressive, and while the intent behind that is admirable, it might be excessive in some cases. The schedule that makes sense for a kid in urban or suburban daycare might not make sense for a kid with a stay-at-home mom in the backwoods.

I know two people who have had herpes zoster (a.k.a. "shingles") in their twenties and thirties during very stressful times in their lives, so shingles isn't just for the old folks!

That's what happened to me too...extreme stress can bring it on if you've had the chicken pox. It's terrible.

there IS massive high-profile research on this (my source for autism research anecdotes, btw)

I had a older professor who came down with a shingles-type post-pox issue that paralyzed half her face for a week: she had to go around reassuring people she hadn't had a stroke.

Assuming that we can ever even identify the genetic component/mitochondrial disorder/whatever, it probably would be cost-prohibitive to screen kids for this, espescially when there wouldn't be very many of them. And not vaccinating these kids is no guarentee that they won't be exposed to some other antigen that would cause the same problems.

Definitely, though I think that massive research is needed to determine who's likely to have those reactions, and why. I mean, basically, my suspicion is that there's a strong, but exceedingly complex, genetic component to all this.

seriously. . . i had an adverse reaction to a vaccine and i don't think a dime should be spent on research to figure out why. i don't care. my parents don't care. the benefits to being vaccinated far outweigh the costs.

Poo, I thought it was only referred to as Bell's Palsy when there was no clear source? Whereas hers was, I think, immediately identified as a herpes-simplex thing. But yeah, same issue.

You could be right Nabisco, our doc just said it was Bell's Palsy and that it might have something to do with herpes/chickenpox, there was no clear source.

Assuming that we can ever even identify the genetic component/mitochondrial disorder/whatever, it probably would be cost-prohibitive to screen kids for this, espescially when there wouldn't be very many of them.

That's sort of putting the cart before the horse, though, isn't it? I mean, if there is an identifiable component, that'd be valuable information in and of itself, and cost isn't a reason not to investigate. Figuring out whether we could afford to screen people is a separate issue, though I'm willing to bet that our archetype of the rich lolsuburban family could probably afford to screen Kid #2 if Kid #1 got hit.

i had an adverse reaction to a vaccine and i don't think a dime should be spent on research to figure out why...the benefits to being vaccinated far outweigh the costs.

The second half of this statement has nothing to do with the first! One can think that "the benefits to being vaccinated far outweigh the costs" and still think that it would be good if we could predict who would have a bad reaction, and maybe figure out a way of immunizing them -- later in life, or using a different method -- that wouldn't make them subsequently get into IDM and counting bricks and shit.

u trying to wipe out ilx's future users before they even get a chance, dogg?

well what do you call a bad reaction?

seriously. . . i had an adverse reaction to a vaccine and i don't think a dime should be spent on research to figure out why. i don't care. my parents don't care. the benefits to being vaccinated far outweigh the costs.

― Mr. Que

This seems like an example of flipping to far the other way, into some kind of inflexible nutjob position WR2 "vaccinations are GREAT!!!" I mean, if specific genetic factors make one likely to react adversely to vaccines, I think it'd be great to identify that. (Or chemicals used in vaccines or whatever...)

Re: vaccinations this seems key and point-busting for a lot of the worriers: the point is mostly moot since thimerosol has been eliminated from vacciniations for a while now, anyway

I have to go back to this, because if you look at the "green our vaccines" movement, they have moved on to question everything in vaccines as being possibly damaging and therefore reason to not vaccinate.

I'm sympathetic to people's concerns (even if I sound like I'm not upthread), I just think there's a whole lot of bad science and scare tactics being tossed out there. If you read some of the literature the anti-vaccination people publish, some of them seem to believe there is a big conspiracy to hide the connection between autism and vaccines, and that the CDC, NIH, etc. are in on it. I have no idea who they think does have credibility in the world of science at this point.

Also, it just annoys the piss out of me that we keep the focus on vaccines when it seems clear that it's a lot more complicated than that, and we're wasting time looking at something that has not panned out.

This seems like an example of flipping to far the other way, into some kind of inflexible nutjob position WR2 "vaccinations are GREAT!!!" I mean, if specific genetic factors make one likely to react adversely to vaccines, I think it'd be great to identify that. (Or chemicals used in vaccines or whatever...)

vaccinations are great, though. that's not really debatable nor is it a nutjob position.

do you not think vaccinations are great?

I have no idea who they think does have credibility in the world of science at this point.

― Sara R-C

Million dollar question in lots of areas these days.

The people who have credibility in the world of science for them are the people telling them what they want to hear.

is the anti-vaccination position really just a grassroots thing these days? or can I follow the money and find some rich asshole looking to make big cash from this? Because my suspicion regarding the anti-vaccination position is that these sort of "let's challenge science" things generally have some big players looking to make big coin (e.g. global warming denial).

well what do you call a bad reaction?

Fair point. I think a kid that gets sick for a few days with no lasting ill effects is something that any reasonable parent should be able to deal with, and we don't need to throw $$$ at that. It's the "lasting ill effects" that I'm talking about -- neurological damage, massive psychological/behavioral changes, etc. There's zero doubt that at least a handful of kids have those reactions, probably as a result of some weird-ass autoimmune response that's partly genetic. It'd be valuable to know how that happens and how to stop it, because even if you don't give a shit about overprivileged suburban white toddlers, it'd probably shed light on other things too.

And yeah, conspiracy theory talk is pretty much paranoid bullshit. However, you don't need a bunch of people in a dark room to get much the same effect, policy-wise. It's pretty obvious that one of the reasons that the ADA won't budge on amalgam is that they don't want to get the shit sued out of them, but there's no reason why a secret cabal of Illuminati dentists would have to meet on a mountaintop to make that happen. A consensus based on self-interest can do a lot of what people fondly attribute to conspiracy.

xpost you can follow money and find rich assholes looking to make big cash from, like, anything.

i dont know, has anyone been running a "turn dead kids into fuel" empire?

Oh, and of course vaccinations are great. But "i don't think a dime should be spent on research to figure out why" some people might have adverse reactions to them is a questionable (nutty) extension of the (sound) underlying argument.

I mean, I've totally heard that argument used against environmentalism -- that environmentalists are just in it for $$$, control, etc. -- so I'm very wary of it.

xpost