Miscellanea Agnostica

It’s possible that the forces of Antivax have two more advocates in the mass media … Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. I say “possible” because at the moment the only source I can find for this, is an outfit called Media Matters, which is ideologically Leftist and cannot always be trusted. Media Matters reports they’re making some bizarre claims (the following is just a light sampling):

Beck: Vaccine may turn out to be “deadly.” …

Beck: “You don’t know if this is gonna cause neurological damage like it did in the 1970s.” …

Limbaugh: “You’ll be healthier” if you don’t listen to the government. …

Beck suggests government will say “everybody” has to take the flu shot, may “line up” people to get mandatory flu shot.

I’m not sure — despite Beck’s allusion to “neurological damage” — that their objection is even the least bit scientific. They just don’t think people should get the H1N1 vaccine, because the Obama administration thinks people should. It’s just juvenile “my enemy says I should so I won’t!” thinking. So I’m not sure I can put them into the same category as people like Jenny McCarthy, whose objection is to the thimerosol (which is no longer in most vaccines). If John McCain had won the election and his administration were now promoting the H1N1 vaccine, Beck and Limbaugh would no doubt be among the first to line up for a jab.

Just goes to show the lengths of immaturity that ideologues will stoop to, in order to rationalize their views.

Hat tip: Bad Astronomy blog.

Tags: anti-vaccine, anti-vax, antivaccine, antivax, glenn beck, H1N1, h1n1 vaccine, h1n1 virus, liars for antivax, lying liars for antivax, mandator vaccine, mandatory vaccination, media matters, obama administration, rush limbaugh, thimerosol

The forces of Antivax have gained ground … they’ve managed to make a significant minority of Americans fearful of something that’s about as ordinary as old socks. According to an AP poll (reported via the Hartford Courant):

As the first wave of swine flu vaccine crosses the country, more than a third of parents don’t want their kids vaccinated, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll.

Some parents say they are concerned about side effects from the new vaccine — even though nothing serious has turned up in tests so far — while others say swine flu doesn’t amount to any greater health threat than seasonal flu.

It is true that the swine flu has turned out not to be as dangerous as authorities believed it might be … but that doesn’t mean preventing its onset it is a bad idea, and if enough people are vaccinated, it will be even less of a problem than it is now.

Some are falling back on the mantra that this vaccine is “untested”:

Jackie Shea of Newtown, Conn., the mother of a 5-year-old boy named Emmett, says the vaccine is too new and too untested.

“I will not be first in line in October to get him vaccinated,” she said in an interview last month. “We’re talking about putting an unknown into him. I can’t do that.”

What Ms Shea doesn’t realize — but should — is that each year’s conventional flu vaccine is formulated only a few months before it’s distributed. There’s been an accumulation of decades of experience with flu vaccines. So the H1N1 vaccine is not “new” and it’s certainly not “untested” … it’s just a more recent formulation of a very old vaccine type.

It’s unfortunate that the forces of Antivax appear to have so much influence over US parents. We’re lucky that this wave of swine flu or H1N1 may not be severe … but that doesn’t excuse ignorance and stupidity, and it doesn’t excuse the misinformation that’s being thrown around about vaccines.

Tags: anti-vaccine, antivaccine, antivax, H1N1, h1n1 vaccine, swine flu, swine flu vaccine

On the heels of my post yesterday about the anti-vaccine movement raging in New York state, I thought I should remark on Phil Plait (of the excellent Bad Astronomy blog) deciding to take a stand against the anti-vaccine movement in his own way:

I used to write for the Huffington Post, an online news and blog collective. It was started by Arianna Huffington during the Bush Era as a response to all the far-right online media. I didn’t agree with a lot of what was on there — I am more centrist — but at the time I thought it was necessary.

Then they started to promote far-left New Age nonsense, and when it came to vaccinations, HuffPo started posting all kinds of opinions that amounted to nothing more than out-and-out health threats. While they do sometimes post a counter-argument, it’s still almost all alt-med, all the time.

Here’s the latest: a doctor named Frank Lipman is telling people not to get vaccinated against Swine Flu. Instead he says you should wash your hands a lot, eat well, and take homeopathic medicine.

I’m sure the folks at Huff feel they’re doing the right thing, but when you’re talking medicine, feelings do not matter … science and, more specifically, evidence do. At any rate, Plait is done with Huff:

It’s the peddling of antivax rhetoric like this that drove me from HuffPo, and I’ve let them know why. I was a minor cog there, so I know it made no difference… and the proof is that they still post articles promoting procedures known to be useless. In fact, it’s worse than that, since someone might try the homeopathic water rather than get actual treatment.

So, as always, don’t listen to people like Lipman, or even to me when it comes to this stuff. Instead, go to your doctor, a board-certified and science-based doctor, and ask them about the H1N1 swine flu, and see if they recommend getting the shot.

That’s good advice … go to a bona fide evidence-based doctor, and follow his/her instructions. Plait’s exit from the circus of children that is Huff may not alleviate that blog’s fuzzy thinking, but even symbolic stands can carry some weight. Good for you, Dr Plait!

Tags: alt med, alternative medicine, anti-vaccine, antivaccine, bad astronomy, cam, complementary medicine, evidence-based medicine, flu vaccine, H1N1, huff, huffington post, huffpo, liars for antivax, lying liars for antivax, medicine, new age, phil plait, science-based medicine, swine flu, vaccination, vaccine

The anti-vaccine movement, about which I’ve blogged before, has found a new demographic to exploit — healthcare workers in New York state — and a new vaccine to bellyache about — the H1N1 (aka “swine flu”) vaccine that will be released soon (as the CBS News Taking Liberties blog reports):

Health care workers are planning to take to the streets Tuesday at a rally in front of the Albany, N.Y. state capitol to protest mandatory vaccination.

The rally is intended to call for “freedom of choice in vaccination and health care” and to protest mandatory vaccination for influenza and the H1N1 swine flu. “This vaccine has not been clinically tested to the same degree as the regular flu vaccine,” Tara Accavallo, a registered nurse on Long Island, told Newsday. “If something happens to me, if I get seriously injured from this vaccine, who’s going to help me?”

Well, of course the H1N1 vaccine hasn’t had the decades of testing that the conventional flu vaccine has. It never will have that amount of testing until more decades have passed; if the vaccine is never released until that length of time has passed, any chance to arrest H1N1 will have been lost. They may as well never develop an H1N1 vaccine, if this is the standard that must be met. Of course this is foolish … and of course healthcare workers know it. The report continues:

State Health Commissioner Richard Daines, who is probably feeling a bit of political pressure after deciding that the Empire State will go where no other state has, released a lengthy open letter last week that concludes: “We, as health care workers, owe it to our patients and to society in general to demonstrate our confidence in those scientific standards. Even more importantly, we should reconfirm our noble commitment to the tradition of putting patients’ interests first by supporting the mandatory influenza vaccination requirement.”

What should be noted, too, is that New York state … and the metro NYC area … were “hotbeds” of H1N1 occurrence in the US. Containing this virus in New York is much more important, and will have a greater effect on transmission around the country, than elsewhere.

Next related item:

Outside the realm of healthcare workers in New York state, the irrationality surrounding vaccines has hit new highs, and has led to truly strange, if not utterly dangerous, things like “swine flu parties” (as reported by US News & World Report):

[Question:] I’ve heard that some parents are throwing “swine flu parties” for their kids with the intent of exposing them to the virus now, while it’s mild, so that kids have enough immunity to fight the virus off. Is this a good idea?

[Answer by] Judith Palfrey, M.D.: While parents want to protect their children from infections, exposing them to illness is not a prudent practice. I asked Dr. Thomas Sandora, the director of infection control at Children’s Hospital in Boston, to give his advice. Here’s what he had to say:

“Swine flu parties are a dangerous gamble and a big mistake. The novel H1N1 influenza virus is predicted to be the predominant circulating strain of flu in the country this winter. It is true that infection with an influenza virus can produce immunity to that strain—that’s the principle by which vaccination works. However, catching this novel H1N1 flu virus can be extremely dangerous. …

“The idea of parties designed to expose children to infections is not new—in the past, some people have hosted ‘chicken pox parties’ in an attempt to expose their children to varicella, often with the goal of avoiding vaccination. But chicken pox can also have fatal complications, so it’s a huge gamble. In my opinion, intentionally exposing your child to a potentially fatal infection is never a risk worth taking.”

I’d never heard of “swine flu parties” before and have no idea how common they are. For all I know they’re just an urban legend that no one actually takes a chance on. But if they are happening, all I can say is — in the words of G’Kar on Babylon 5 (episode “Revelations”) — “Weep for the future; weep for us all.” Because we’ll have fallen into a chasm of irrationality out of which we may never be able to climb.

Tags: anti-vaccine, antivaccine, H1N1, h1n1 vaccine, healthcare, mandatory vaccination, new york, new york state, new york state health care commissioner, richard daines, tara accavallo, vaccination, vaccine, vaccine scare, weep for the future

I’ve previously blogged about the anti-vaccine crowd and its too-often-heard Hollywood-based spokespersons. Well, in addition to the forces of reason and science fighting back, as I remarked, the anti-vaccine fortress is beginning to crumble, as Newsweek reported:

This week, Alison Singer, the executive vice president of communications and awareness at Autism Speaks, one of the nation’s leading autism advocacy groups, announced her resignation, citing a difference of opinion over the organization’s policy on vaccine research. “Dozens of credible scientific studies have exonerated vaccines as a cause of autism,” she wrote in a statement. “I believe we must devote limited funding to more promising avenues of autism research.” …

The Newsweek article includes an interview with Ms Singer, in which she says, among other things:

In general, I disagree with a policy that says, “Despite what this study shows, more studies should be done.” At some point, you have to say, “This question has been asked and answered and it’s time to move on.” We need to be able to say, “Yes, we are now satisfied that the earth is round.” …

Over and over, the science has shown no causal link between vaccines and autism. …

I think that there’s this feeling [among some parents] that the vaccine decision is a choice between, “Do I want to risk measles or do I want to risk autism?” That’s not a good characterization. We know for a fact that the measles vaccine reduces the risk of getting measles. One choice is backed by science, one choice isn’t.

Emotional thinking — which is what fuels the anti-vaccine crowd (e.g. “I know vaccines cause autism ’cause my kid is autistic and s/he’s been vaccinated, and you can’t tell me it’s not true ’cause s/he’s my child and I just know it!”) — has no place in science. It is, instead, merely sanctimony, and is even a bit childish. Having a feeling that two things are connected, does not mean they are. Being the parent of an autistic kid, does not make one an expert on the causes of autism. I know it sounds heartless, but emotions are not as important as fact, veracity, or verifiability.

Tags: alison singer, anti-vaccine, antivaccine, autism, mmr, vaccines

Over the last couple of years a lot of folks have turned against the idea of vaccinating their children against communicable diseases — you know, the ones kids used to get all the time, and which occasionally killed one of them, such as measles, rubella, mumps, chicken pox, etc. Perhaps the best-known of the anti-vaccine crusaders is Jenny McCarthy, who has an autistic son, and whose autism she blames on vaccines.

Although she’s able to make a compelling, emotional case, her crusade is mistargeted, since vaccines have not been shown to account for the apparent rise of the incidence of autism. The mercury-containing thimerosol — once a preservative used in vaccines — which she claims is the culprit, has not been used in vaccines for many years and likely was not in any of the vaccines her own son was given.

Logic such as this, however, means little, in the face of a Hollywood couple (McCarthy is married to Jim Carrey) with lots of celebrity connections, who has been on Oprah, and has had the megaphone of her celebrity to use to blare out her ill-founded assumptions. Conventional medicine has largely been silent on the matter, though, apparently assuming individual physicians can overcome the anti-vaccine crusade.

Until now, that is.

Dr Paul Offit, a pediatrician who has himself developed vaccines, penned a book which is the opening salvo against the anti-vaccine crusaders’ pseudomedicine (as reported by the New York Times):

A new book defending vaccines, written by a doctor infuriated at the claim that they cause autism, is galvanizing a backlash against the antivaccine movement in the United States.

But there will be no book tour for the doctor, Paul A. Offit, author of “Autism’s False Prophets.” He has had too many death threats.

“I’ll speak at a conference, say, to nurses,” he said. “But I wouldn’t go into a bookstore and sign books. It can get nasty. There are parents who really believe that vaccines hurt their children, and to them, I’m incredibly evil. They hate me.” …

“When Jonas Salk invented polio vaccine, he was a hero — and I’m a terrorist?” he jokes, referring to a placard denouncing him at a recent demonstration by antivaccine activists outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The Times article continues, explaining how the anti-vaccine movement has become largely an emotional one, which no scientific evidence can withstand:

As a result, “a few years ago this ceased to be a civil scientific discourse and became about crucifying individuals,” said Dr. Gregory A. Poland, chief of vaccine research at the Mayo Clinic, who says he has had threats against his children. “Paul is a lightning rod, a figure who goes charging into the fray.”

How nice of the anti-vaccine crowd to threaten a man, due to their sanctimonious outrage. As it turns out, the New York Times itself played a role in this controversy:

Arthur Allen, the author of “Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver” (W. W. Norton, 2007), has publicly debated other journalists who argue that vaccines cause autism. Six years ago, he wrote a seminal article in The New York Times Magazine titled “The Not-So-Crackpot Autism Theory.” He later changed his mind and now “feels bad” about the article, he said, “because it helped get these people into the field who did a lot of damage.”

If only the rest of the crackpots could also grow up, rein in their sanctimony, and realize that vaccines save lives and do not cause autism.

Tags: anti-vaccine, antivaccine, jenny mccarthy, paul offit