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

not our suzy, I think

I dunno if this'd actually work but anti-bad-science writer/doctor Ben Goldacre has a book called 'Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients' which sounds right up the street of these kind of people but is totally pro-science, just analysing how the system is actually broken and can be fixed (by better use of/more open science, I assume) (I haven't actually read it)
so maybe it could be a mind-changing portal, although I expect he slags off snake-oil woo in the first paragraph so mileage may vary.

IIRC vaccines aren't even that profitable for big pharma

big pharma IS super shady and greedy and probably totally has the govt in their pockets... it just doesn't change the fact that an insane amount of children used to die of diseases that we've made virtually extinct through vaccinations.

i guess next they'll be telling us that hardly anyone ever died from measles or polio or whatever and that it's some big governmental coverup of history.

yeah what I was getting at is if anti-vaxxer types started reading the book with a false sense of security it might learn them something?

IIRC vaccines aren't even that profitable for big pharma

yeah they're really not. they're probably the least shady concern for big pharma

Mental health medications probably the biggest moneymaker. They don't even really have to work right, since everyone has different chemistry.

have to assume that these "don't trust BIG PHARM" types are equally suspicious of all other large capitalist industries and shun them accordingly

Well considering how often a lot of them insist that we are literally being POISONED by one of the safest food supplies man has ever known

these people are beyond science and reason

I felt like a bit of an asshole for my reply to this person last night (something like "can't wait for all of the people you and your kid will infect") but it genuinely pisses me off because this is a difference of opinion that manages to fuck over other people.

that's kind of the sad punchline. people try to reason or use scientific explanations to debunk ideas rooted in a lack of interest in science and reason.

I recommend engaging logical fallacies. For instance:
- Find an example of a conspiracy advocate who had their kids vaccinated. If they did it, there might be a reason!
- I don't know anyone with measles but these vaccinations have to have some purpose and a lot of otherwise intelligent (or influential) people have received them. Do you think maybe they're actually protection against chemtrails?

these people are beyond science and reason

― rhyme heals all goons (m bison), Friday, March 14, 2014 3:53 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

unfortunately you are actually otm:

http://m.pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/02/25/peds.2013-2365.abstract

Oh Kristin http://defamer.gawker.com/reality-star-idiot-kristin-cavallari-refuses-to-vacci-1544086342

"Listen, to each their own," she said. "I understand both sides of it. I've read too many books about autism and there's some scary statistics out there. It's our personal choice, and, you know, if you're really concerned about your kid get them vaccinated."

Read too many books, eh? I knew it.

didn't know they made popup books about vaccination

stupid two sides to every issue idea is ruining the world

http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/to-read-too-many-books-is-harmful.png

Wow, sorry. That's big.

keep calm and read too many books about autism

she's trying to come off all "don't be judgey" except these choices don't just fuck your own kids, they fuck a whole lot of people's kids, kids who don't have the luxury of choosing vaccination. seriously, fuck these people.

was kinda shocked recently to find out my MIL is somewhat of an anti-vaxxer (she was play therapist for autistic kids for years). really had to bite my tongue, but didn't do a very good job of it.

welcome to the age of pseudoscience

As opposed to the age of no pseudoscience?

its an endless age

Someone with a young daughter was going to get her vacced for HPV with Gardasil, and then saw the scam article that says IT'S DANGEROUS and of course immediately believed it. I sent her the Snopes entry on the subject and her response was, "It's good to hear both sides, I want all the information to make decisions for my child." NO. NO IT IS NOT GOOD, THERE ARE NOT TWO SIDES JESUS CHRIST

"information"

some people lack the basic faculties to differentiate between sources like a respected medical journal and, say, aintitcoolnews.com (#lorax)

It's someone I really don't want to alienate bc it would disturb other important relationships, but oh my god.

yeah it's hard to tread lightly in these cases when it's friends or family. serious question - what's the demographic for the anti-vaxx community? if there is a definitive one.

Perpetuating this stupidity doesn't require people to be ANTI-vax, it only requires them to enjoy play-acting at being thoughtful and rational by "weighing" the "pros and cons" on "both sides."

I think it makes people feel smart to say they're doing that, right?

I'm guessing it's alien to me as part of my anxiety includes OCD tendencies so whenever I do the 'weighing the pros and cons' that involves me reading 3000 articles which by then makes me well aware of the quackery on the other side.

Perpetuating this stupidity doesn't require people to be ANTI-vax, it only requires them to enjoy play-acting at being thoughtful and rational by "weighing" the "pros and cons" on "both sides."

I was mad when I wrote that. Really I believe that if someone's behavior seems nonsensical it's just because you don't understand their motivations. This is not really about whether or not the vaccine is secretly harmful, it's about something else (or elses). Most obviously in this case parents' understandable reluctance to deal with the idea of their child as a sexual person at age 12.

serious question - what's the demographic for the anti-vaxx community? if there is a definitive one.

Hippies and wannabe "attachment parents". Try the forums @ Mothering.com, they eat you alive if you even mention vaccinations.

yeah i always tell myself that the left's antiscience idiocy (vaccines, gmos) isn't nearly as harmful as the right's but the gap isn't as large as i'd like. i guess the left's antiscience is rooted in something far more anodyne and vaguely right (corporations are always evil and should not be trusted, govt is controlled by coroporations) than the right's antiscience is (corporations are always good, government is anti-business, b-b-but the bible, general misogyny and racism).

The Left's antiscience idiocy is as harmful cos the right isn't going to care about the poor at any rate and if the left abandons them for essential oils and spa days then the poor are really sh*t out of luck.

the return of diseases that were targets for eradication and were nearly regionally eradicated a few years ago and the labeling or even banning of gmos don't compare to anti-enviromental regulation, anti-alternative energy research funding, anti-science research funding in general, or inaction on global warming imo

https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t1.0-9/1455032_288122684677356_1539879744_n.jpg

sorry, that's just the first time anything like this has even come across my facebook feed and I wanted to share it.

"so your saying vaccination will halve my child's risk of dying of pertussis? sorry, not good enough"

Yeah, but if it only kills a few kids a year, what's the big deal?

Finally realized that the person who shared it is NOT an anti-vaxxer, but had misinterpreted the image to be PRO-vaccination.

That's some pernicious bullshit.

Pertussis was ubiquitous pre-vaccination: http://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/surv-reporting/cases-by-year.html

Worldwide, pertussis deaths in infants are far from rare, maybe 1% of cases. That includes a lot of babies with poor nutrition etc, wouldn't be that high in North America, but still.

The "without vaccination" numbers there assume herd immunity, and are probably sadly already out of date.

I seriously just got in an argument with someone who calls himself a 'health care professional', who says flu vaccines aren't safe because one in one or two million cases might get GBS (in which, the causal link hasn't even been proven).

This is about the same odds as dying in a plane crash. If .0000001% chance of something 'bad' happening = unsafe, then I wonder what drugs ARE safe.

sorry .0001%

I will say that nothing makes me feel grosser than being stuck on an airplane breathing who knows what from people with who knows what. They should ban airplanes.

really they should just have the oxygen masks down at all times

there was one period last year where I got sick after three consecutive flights, one time with bronchitis :/

I get a cold almost every time I travel, although I think it's partially due to not sleeping enough and being a little stressed by travel.