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

as well as Neo-Loraxers

As well as anti-education sentiment. "Education is for consumers, man"

"We devised our own math. We don't need the government pushing '2+2=4' down our throat."

perhaps if we ended our pro-vax arguments with "-Bob Marley" they would be more well=received?

"You can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time." -Bob Marley/Abe Lincoln.

I have found it helpful in reading up on conspiracy theorizing, as the cognitive patterns/mechanisms/subroutines/etc work exactly the same way independent of the particular milieu of said conspiracy, as we've mentioned over the past coupla years in this thread and others.

What we as modern humanity really need to grasp is that we don't come to our beliefs rationally; we tend to arrive at beliefs emotionally and then rationalize them after the fact. It helps explain why high intelligence stats alone cannot stop you from believing weird things(c.f. Linus Pauling in the latter half of his life).

Unsurprisingly, wisdom is a far greater defense, but that's really hard to come by.

You sure there's not some buzzfeed listicle I can share to impart deep, cautious wisdom to all?

re the current spread of mumps in central Ohio, esp. OSU: the politics of vaxx http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2014/04/no_immunizations_required_for.htm

What we as modern humanity really need to grasp is that we don't come to our beliefs rationally

Though you'd think a shot you can get that will potentially save you and others from dying would trump emotion.

i'm not gonna post the picture here, but this is what smallpox looks like:

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

a disease COMPLETELY wiped out by vaccinations.

i don't know what else to say really. i kinda think it's sad that it's even a choice to vaccinate your kids for diseases. and yet i do kinda hate the government...but, man, these people could start getting polio or something! you know?

it's a failure of law that children in most countries still aren't afforded legal protection from idiot parenting

Slippery slope etc.

It's one of the more depressing things about social psychology how the success of a program or initiative becomes the argument for its own demise -- whether it's glass-steagall, labor laws, the civil rights act, or now vaccinations.

Here we go, talking about The Backfire Effect.

Talks about anti-vax thinking, then later gets into why Dubya supporters would increasingly insist Iraqi WMDs had been found, even when told by all sources(trusted or not) that it was bollocks.

While younger adults became less likely to misremember a false claim as true after being told three times that it was false, older adults became more likely to misremember the claim as true. (Skurnik et al, 2005)

Hey Plasmon, you out there? What's your most recent take on all this?

Oh hey, sorry I missed this.

I think the backfire effect is probably not as cut-and-dried as it's been presented so far. It would mostly appear in cases where the new/contradictory information runs against a narrative/meaning/account that's deeply important to the person believing it, for whatever reason.

I wrote an overlong exegesis upthread about how anti-vax parents of autistic kids might find that "scientific" explanation ("scientific" in the sense that it's based on a materialist cause-and-effect explanation) much more satisfying than the actual medical understanding of autism, which is something close to "we have no idea why this happened, almost everything and nothing seems to play into it somehow but there's no clear cause, and there's nothing we can do to prevent it".

The broader cultural idea that vaccines are toxic or dangerous is an old one - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversy#History -- that dates back to the very first vaccines. Skepticism of medications in general also has a long, broad tradition, which still shows up in my clinic several times a day ("I don't like to take medications" or "I'm not a pill person"). Those latter sentence shows how the question of what to ingest/incorporate into the body for medicinal purposes is very much a question of personal identity.

I could sketch a bigger picture here about our endless array of 21st century food preferences, intolerances, moral choices and "allergies". Of course the major differences there are that the vaccination question carries far more potential danger than gluten, dairy, or free trade coffee, and that most of the risk is borne by children who aren't capable of making their own choices.

With questions or controversies that get to what people see as central or important to their identity, contradictory information leads more easily to skepticism of the source than a reconsideration of the belief. If I "know" that gluten is somehow bad for me, because I cut gluten out of my diet and felt better in 17 specific ways, I'm not going to have much patience for anyone touting the recent study that showed that placebo gluten produced the same nocebo-style negative effects as real gluten -- in fact, I'm likely to react against the source as untrustworthy or victim-blaming or corporate-tainted or whatever, long before reintroducing bread into my diet.

Same deal with Fox News watchers rolling their eyes at anyone who says that Benghazi wasn't a big deal, or Iraq never had WMDs. Same deal in fact for people on the other side of the political spectrum rolling their eyes at climate change denialists or people who try to delegitimize the discussion about structural racism or sexism. In the latter case of course I agree with the eye-rollers, and believe that they're correct, but there's still a tribal-identity aspect to the debate that extends beyond the scientific or historical evidence (as it should, and must, lest everyone of us be responsible for independently assessing the scientific evidence for anthropogenic global warming or whatever -- we have to take some things on faith, and trust what seem to be trustworthy sources).

The structure of the media debate on these questions of identity is aimed at stoking people's reactions in either direction, rather than reaching a point of agreement. That makes sense for the media model -- getting people fired up about who they are and what they believe keeps them engaged in the debate, watching the shows, clicking on the websites, etc. I watch a lot of sports, and you see this very clearly in sports TV -- "Is Joe Flacco elite?" is a meaningless question that's just designed to get people arguing, and the average sports commentator on ESPN is basically a troll.

Nothing much about even the pro-scientific account of the anti-vaccine question, as it's filtered through the media, is actually designed to persuade the people involved, but to badger them with their heresy, while reassuring the people on the other side that they're on the right team. Persuasion would require a different sort of discussion, with an aim of understanding instead of blaming/mocking or other forms of aggression.

I struggle with that myself at work. I do my best to see my patients' side of their situation and to pitch my discussion of their problem in terms they understand. But sometimes the fatigue and irritation is too much, and around the time I'm being asked to fill out a long-term disability claim on an apparently healthy 47 year old who continues to insist that s/he has Lyme disease despite repeatedly negative testing (note: this is not a real patient but an example of the kind of thing I see), my tolerance sometimes wears down to the point that I get quite blunt about the difference between feeling ill and having an actual, verifiable disease. I've learned the hard way that there is a subset of patients that I can't reach despite my kindest, most patient approach, who will not be satisfied with reassurances from a specialist and normal test results, who want me to endorse their fantasy about "black mould" or whatever no matter how often I've tried to redirect them. For these people, as soon as I realize that I'm unlikely to make any progress in the discussion, I do my best to wrap things up as quickly and amicably as possible, agreeing to disagree essentially.

The good news is that there's a bigger subset of people who have less at stake in the discussion about their illness or disease, who are willing and in fact eager to be educated and reassured, who (I like to tell myself) actually benefit from spending some time talking it over with a sympathetic ear who's an expert in the field. I don't think there's a backfire effect there at all.

But then, that's an important part of who I am, so even if you proved to me that there was, I probably wouldn't believe you.

with an aim of understanding instead of blaming/mocking or other forms of aggression

As an example of the latter approach, consider the title of this thread.

There is also a factor that hearing one, detailed, relatable account has way more effect than hearing about 100 times the opposite in dry statistics. E.g. you read one review of, say, a University from someone, that chimes with you, and you're more likely to ignore 20 people giving it a 1-star rating.

As an example of the latter approach, consider the title of this thread.

― Plasmon, Friday, May 23, 2014 11:52 AM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well but see she told me personally

Plasmon, your faux-measured, faux-reasonable approach is futile and wrong. The kind of dialogic persuasion you are describing is a mythical beast. Public shaming and/or completely refusal to humor idiocy (e.g. with Benghazi) are the best approaches.

I did not realize that Hurting was literally a strawman

lol yes I am trolling a bit, but I have never had a single reasonable conversation/exchange/dialogue with an anti-vaccine person or a person who thinks there is "more we don't know" about Benghazi, or a 9/11 truther, etc. I am the kind of person whose curiosity drives me to read even far-fetched theories. I watched that stupid loose change film and actually considered its points as though they were serious. I researched vaccines when it came time to vaccinate our own daughter, and I even considered the "modified schedule" or whatever before being adequately convinced that there was nothing to it. The people who cling to the idea that vaccines are poisoning our kids or causing autism or whatever are clinging to tiny tiny fragments of information while faced with a deluge of contrary, more reputable information. There is little use in dialogue at that point.

I mean tbf, if someone was like "I have some concerns about vaccines, do you think they're safe?" then of course I would engage in dialogue with them.

In politics, you can win power and impose your will. That's the best approach for a lot of these questions. No point waiting until the sweet day bye and bye when Republicans endorse global warming or socialized health care, just win the elections, pass the bills, and pack the courts to uphold them.

Seriously.

But medicine isn't like that. Even as a medical specialist with a degree on the wall behind me, I can't force someone to take a medication she doesn't want to or agree that her illness isn't caused by whatever she deeply believes is the cause. I can try to persuade, but I can't coerce.

If you don't like that dynamic, you should stay far away from the caring professions. But then you're a lawyer IIRC, so playing the game to win is your job, and you're not really required to consider the opposing point of view except to try to defeat it.

There's a fair point to be made that the societal effects of a multitude of individual medical decisions can and should better be managed with political or societal means. For example, no you don't have to vaccinate your kids, but then we won't let them attend public school. There would be pros and cons to that approach, but it's a fair way to run a society, with many successes to date (say, seatbelt laws or drunk driving penalties, no longer a personal choice but the law), and it's probably easier and more effective than convincing a bunch of people to do something that they strongly oppose.

I'm not society's doctor though, I'm this individual patient's doctor. And so I have to play the game on her turf. Other people doing other things can try to solve the problem in other ways.

Faux-apologies for ongoing faux-reasonableness here. Not impressed with the trolling, you should try harder to understand the details of what we're discussing here.

The good news is that there's a bigger subset of people who have less at stake in the discussion about their illness or disease, who are willing and in fact eager to be educated and reassured, who (I like to tell myself) actually benefit from spending some time talking it over with a sympathetic ear who's an expert in the field. I don't think there's a backfire effect there at all.

more of these folks than you might think, hurting. for example (compiled from several different pts), the parents of a child with a severe mental illness who were reluctant to start metformin in addition to the anti-psychotic because they didn't want to "add another pill." (when that same reluctance is why their child was admitted in the first place---they wanted to see how their kid did w/o his psychiatric meds)

it'd be easy to get blame-y and smack yr forehead, but really a little education was all it took in the end. which is much of what good physicians ought to be doing: educating patients about the risks/benefits of treatment. the serious hold-outs will hold out, but there's a lot more ppl on the fence that are just waiting for someone to at least ~validate~ their concerns---once that's accomplished, it's much easier to allay them.

xp: tbf I didn't realize that you were actually in the medical profession, Plasmon. I can see how, if you are literally counseling a patient, your approach is best. Of course, you're also in a special position of authority and power in relation to patients, and perhaps a "soft" use of said power is best. I don't really see a parallel between you advising a patient on his/her options and me trying to convince someone that they should consider that Barack Obama may actually have been born in the United States, or that global warming is real, or that evolution is scientifically supported.

i am totally pro-vax but it's also good to keep in mind that a lot of people have had multiple and legit bad experiences with healthcare professionals, which destroys a lot of the ability to trust someone who is supposed to be an expert on the subject.

The difference is that the question of vaccination is one where the parents opinion has an actual, direct effect: the child either gets the vaccine or doesn't.

What one old coot in Kansas thinks about Barack Obama's birthplace makes little material difference to Obama or to him. It makes next to no difference to whether Obama gets elected -- by far, the birthers are the people who were going to vote against him anyway and are simply identifying with a smear that validates their choice, rather than neutral observers who were turned against Obama because they were honestly convinced he was born in Kenya. In other words the false belief is produced by the tribal identity (produced and validated within it), and is not the cause of people taking on that identity in the first place.

The global warming denialists have a little more of an effect, if they resist buying a fuel-efficient car or otherwise taking personal measures to limit their environmental footprint. But there, again, the main effect is more that the people who support Republicanism have learned (been taught) to cast a skeptical eye on the scientific consensus about AGW, rather than people who did their own research into the subject and were not convinced deciding because of that to vote for Romney or McCain. Yes, you can show that certain aspects of environmentalism were not taboo to right-wingers even just a few years ago (McCain voted for cap-and-trade IIRC), but that sort of thing is quite different than making the same choice once the political battle has heated up and the lines dividing the two sides have been reinforced. It's a little like the (IMO misleading) framing of Obamacare as a "Republican idea" -- those ideas were never sincerely intended to become public policy, they were simply an attempt to tear down Clinton's proposals by comparison. As soon as the situation changed and that became the Democratic proposal on the table, they were bound to be rejected by the same people who had previously supported them -- and for the same reasons (motivated identity, which is far stronger than the understanding of the political or social benefit of a policy, and allows one to first support and then oppose essentially the same policy without hardly twinging the conscience -- the same pattern happens on the left, just look at the "evolution" in liberal views about surveillance and US military initiatives from 2006 to 2010).

With global warming, health care, and politics in general, the way to solve a problem is to win power and use it to implement the agenda you want. Most of the "analysis" of the specific questions (is this a good idea or a bad idea) is window dressing to that struggle, and people are easily swayed on the facts as long as their team wins.

That's a very different situation than vaccine denialism, except at the level of public/social policy (allowing unvaccinated kids into public schools for instance). On the individual level, what the person actually believes is what happens.

In my experience, patients do not respond well if they understand me to be "on the other team" and interested mainly in defeating their beliefs. I can win those arguments, if I want to, but winning them won't lead to the change I'm trying to effect, won't help the people I'm trying to help.

Certainly it's true that there's a limit to what the art of gentle persuasion can accomplish, I admitted as much in my first post today. But in my experience there is definitely a wide spectrum of people with honestly held mistaken beliefs, or honestly felt unreasonable concerns, who will change their mind and their comfort level, and their willingness to go through with something, if I can convince them to share my point of view.

So that's what I do every day.

How to Quack-Proof Yourself Against Pseudoscience

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--QEDMN_2o--/qu7xqzdp0gin6ng0jk4b.jpg

http://m.nydailynews.com/news/national/florida-mom-kidnaps-daughter-anti-vaccine-bid-authorities-article-1.1830778

I think there's much more to it than vaccinations but anyway...

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/vani-hari-a-k-a-the-food-babe-the-jenny-mccarthy-of-food/

You know that stupid "What's in our beer?!!!1" post getting shared lately? Here's what happens if you actually know basic chemistry and something about how food chemistry actually works

Related:

http://www.science20.com/pfired_still_kicking/food_babe_hath_spoken_and_subway_bread_will_still_suck-131716

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-vaccines-movie-20140721-story.html#page=2

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/magazine/the-kids-who-beat-autism.html

^^ interesting read

http://www.clickhole.com/blogpost/my-doctor-told-me-i-should-vaccinate-my-children-t-653

So this was on my fb newsfeed today...

http://www.livingwhole.org/god-does-not-support-vaccines/

Fuck god

well this oughta thin the herd

Doesn't thin the herd of parents, just their innocent kids. :-(

I never thought I would write "Amanda Peet is my hero" but there you have it.

also thins the herd of other kids w/responsible parents, but i suppose those are also kids from wealthy families so it's all good amirite

http://www.avclub.com/article/rob-schneider-inoculates-himself-against-criticism-209721

http://vistamaglive.com/no-laughing-matter-rob-schneider-on-mandatory-vaccination/

I’m not the Rob Schneider of 20 years ago. I’m 49 and I’m not a kid anymore. You have to develop and grow. I was always curious: why did I become famous? I made some funny movies and now I get to reach out to people, and potentially help them learn something or inspire them to educate themselves to make better choices. I have to be careful on stage: I’m there to get laughs, but I do try to sneak in some messages along the way. I think it’s important to state my political and philosophical beliefs. Maybe there’s a conflict there, but I need to follow my instincts. Standing up against the tyrannical system of medical intervention in the United States is something I’m very proud of.

funniest thing he's ever done

any good he's ever done the world, he's just undone and then some

what a fucktard

I was pretty turned off by his WTF joeks

i expected as much from schneider, but i'm disappointed in blossom.

fucking California man

Heard that one reason H'wood and rich CA parents skip vaccines is that filling out that PBE form speeds up the admissions process of their fancy/magnet schools, allowing them to get applications in before others. As someone told my wife, "The schools are first come, first serve, and each requires you to actually go to your ped and have them fill out a paper with vac record etc. This delays the application to the public school. As an alternative, parents are signing the no vax sheet to cheat their way to a higher spot on the list bc they can turn the app immediately."

Super obnoxious, but at least it is a rationale not based in conspiracy theories and wiki medicine

yeah it's worse

Peet [has been](http://web.archive.org/web/20080907054818/http://www.cookiemag.com/entertainment/2008/07/amandapeet) more trenchant: "Frankly, I feel that parents who don't vaccinate their children are parasites."