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

boys should get the HPV vaccine. p sure it hasn't been approved for boys yet (...clinical trials, ladies and gentlemen), but i likely will be. given that stupid boys are the actual vectors, vaccinating them would be more efficacious imo.

But how, from a public-policy standpoint, can we separate the stupid boys from the non-stupid boys to prioritise limited resources?

Look at their facebook pages.

can we separate the stupid boys from the non-stupid boys

it's easy, the second group is imaginary

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/01/rob-schneider-links-autism-vaccines_n_1641922.html

well fuck

u think u can trust some celebs but now this shit

deuce bigelow noooooooooo

How could one of comedy's greatest minds be taken in?

haha

i watched the frontline special on this. i hope mccarthy & carrey's dumbaby gets shingles on his dingle

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-09-10/ap-exclusive-private-school-vaccine-opt-outs-rise

Bibi Reber, whose children attend the Waldorf-inspired Greenwood School in Mill Valley, had her children vaccinated only for what she sees as the deadliest diseases. Greenwood has a 79 percent opt-out rate among its kindergartners.

"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

Public health officials say that, regardless of why parents choose not to vaccinate their children, the result is the same: an increased risk of an outbreak of whooping cough or other communicable diseases.

Greenwood School offers a dynamic education that recognizes the developmental phases of childhood and fosters the emerging capacities of each child. And whooping cough.

Enlivened education is filled with vitality, enthusiasm and spirit of imagination. And whooping cough.

Comments on that article already bringing the crazy.

Dude, if a robust immune system is key, get vaccines but don't wash hands after handling raw chicken.

I suppose it's nice that the tradition of the old-fashioned childhood diseases will be kept alive forevermore by artisanal practitioners of suffering and debility. You wouldn't want to see the classic clinical syndromes of mumps or diphtheria vanish entirely under the tide of soulless modernization and health, like an old theatre with gilded painted ceilings torn down to build another condo building and another Starbucks.

We need a Society for the Preservation of Historic Diseases. We can outfit the sick children in britches and pinafores, have their nurses wear the old fashioned white caps with red crosses, hire only bearded doctors in suspenders who don't wash their hands. It'll be a mark of culture and sophistication to have an outbreak of whooping cough in your community, like having a soda fountain that makes its own secret cola recipe or a an old-time barber shop where they use straight razors.

Of course true hipsters will roll their eyes at these increasingly corporatized North American diseases, making a point of exposing their little darlings to dengue or yellow fever instead, or at least have them contract a nagging case of neurocysticercosis.

Would be a good skit on Portlandia.

Reminds me of this, albeit vaguely http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=uWENUcEKE1s

Our artisanal disease sommeliers have the training and experience necessary to recommend the infection that's right for your child. Nothing disfiguring or damaging to their long term intellectual or reproductive abilities, don't worry, just a quick sprint around the block for little Jethro's immune system and the proud feeling for the family that he's now entwined in humanity's endless struggle with death and decay. Our expert photographers will capture professionally lit medium format photographs of little Ruby's febrile exanthem and upload them to the social media platform of your choice -- with your permission, of course.

haha

On a possibly related note:

http://m.gawker.com/5942391/sheryl-crow-has-a-theory-that-cell-phone-use-caused-her-brain-tumor

Wasn't she a smoker? That's a far more likely cause of a tumor than a cell phone.

Hanging out with Lance Armstrong would probably cause brain damage, to be fair.

<3 u, Plasmon.

I really didn't think highly educated Bay Area yuppsters would suddenly have something in common with our dear playmate Jenny.

Can't say I'm surprised.

Most of the patients I see who subscribe to pseudoscientific explanations of medical problems arer better educated and/or better off. They expect to be able to understand exactly what's happening to them, either by following their own research (usually U of Google) or by adopting someone else's just-so story. They also tend to reject explanations of "bad luck" or "just one of those things" even when the story they prefer is nebulous at best ("stress"). There's probably some connection to their station in life. It must be adaptive for people to believe that their choices determine their fates and their situation can be improved if they just work a little harder at figuring it out. Those attitudes serve people well in school or business or life in general, and they're broadly speaking scientific, in the way I explained above at much greater length.

They do unfortunately lead to absurdity. I had a masters student with migraines this week who assured me that he headaches are due to her scalp being "too tight". Even though she recognizes the role that stress and other psychological factors play in triggering her symptoms (long story), she believes that what she needs to do when she gets a headache is relax "so the plates in my skull can shift around", thereby relieving the pressure and pain. Craniosacral therapy has apparently given her this model, which she has found more helpful than the medications I prescribed. In this case, little harm in her pursuing (what I take to be ) quackery. Not so much with the vaccination question, because of herd immunity, or the lack thereof.

"she believes that what she needs to do when she gets a headache is relax "so the plates in my skull can shift around""

I love these explanations.

"It must be adaptive for people to believe that their choices determine their fates and their situation can be improved if they just work a little harder at figuring it out."

I think this is key. There's a bit in Ben Goldacre's book that is about diet specifically but I think can be applied to bullshit cures etc in general:

People die at different rates because of a complex nexus of interlocking social and political issues including work life, employment status, social stability, family support, housing, smoking, drugs, and possibly diet, although the evidence on that, frankly, is pretty thin, and you certainly wouldn’t start there.

But we do, because it’s such a delicious fantasy, because it’s commodifiable and pushed by expert PR agencies, and in some respects this is one of the most destructive features of the whole nutritionist project, graphically exemplified by figures such as Dr Gillian McKeith PhD. Food has become a distraction from the real causes of ill health, and also, in some respects, a manifesto of rightwing individualism. You are what you eat, and people die young because they deserve it. You hear it from people as they walk past the local council estate and point at a mother feeding her child crisps: “Well, when you look at what they feed them,” they say, “it’s got to be diet, hasn’t it?” They choose death, through ignorance and laziness, but you choose life, fresh fish, olive oil, and that’s why you’re healthy. You’re going to see 80. You deserve it. Not like them.

Seems like whenever yuppies object to food stamps its always on the basis of the nutritional value of the food bought.

"Oh no! Its just subsidizing their squalid diets!"

I should really quit paying attention to Gawker comment sections and bullshit arguments on Facebook.

Magical thinking, like Malcolm Gladwell books

Wasn't she a smoker? That's a far more likely cause of a tumor than a cell phone.
― NR’s resident heavy-metal expert (Nicole), Wednesday, September 12, 2012 3:16 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

She has a brain tumour - no connection to smoking whatsoever.

Thing I've noticed in the last year is that I've gotten a far better grasp(or think I do) about why American bullshit weirdness is currently the way it is by reading these books that mix c

That mix cog.science and politics and conspiracy theory. All this idiocy makes so much more sense.

Plasmon is my favorite poster in the history of this board, just thought I'd say so

Same here tbh, especially for when he agreed with me about becoming a neurologist why bcz Oliver Sacks :)

(not that I am one. But I thoguht about it, many many years back)

People die at different rates because of a complex nexus of interlocking social and political issues including work life, employment status, social stability, family support, housing, smoking, drugs, and possibly diet, although the evidence on that, frankly, is pretty thin, and you certainly wouldn’t start there.
But we do, because it’s such a delicious fantasy, because it’s commodifiable and pushed by expert PR agencies, and in some respects this is one of the most destructive features of the whole nutritionist project, graphically exemplified by figures such as Dr Gillian McKeith PhD. Food has become a distraction from the real causes of ill health, and also, in some respects, a manifesto of rightwing individualism. You are what you eat, and people die young because they deserve it. You hear it from people as they walk past the local council estate and point at a mother feeding her child crisps: “Well, when you look at what they feed them,” they say, “it’s got to be diet, hasn’t it?” They choose death, through ignorance and laziness, but you choose life, fresh fish, olive oil, and that’s why you’re healthy. You’re going to see 80. You deserve it. Not like them.

― kinder, Sunday, September 16, 2012 4:23 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Obesity is a huge cause of ill health wtf is this shit

"yeah I'm 350 pounds, but I have family support."

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.