nm
And how helpful is that? Look at the response to Chikni - there is no reason to think s/he is “just asking questions”, that s/he is anything but a person looking for a few references. Do honestly think this response, or the thread in general, has been helpful? Look where we are - this is not the Pit, or even Great Debates, where people come to rant and argue. This is General Questions; Chikni had a question.
I wouldn’t know; I don’t hang out with “ladies”, or women who have time to hang out in playgrounds much. I also don’t know personally a lot of people who have not vaccinated their children; as far as I know, all my family, friends, and acquaintances -smart, well-educated lawyers and bankers and artists - had their children vaccinated. And you know what? Most them have not one damn clue how the immune system works. They didn’t make well-informed, rational decisions, either.
I clipped out the paragraph about the PBS in your first post because I had no quarrel with it. As you apparently dislike it, I won’t shorten your posts.
I found this today, it’s a report on health literacy in the U.S. The link is to a webpage from which the report can be downloaded as a pdf. I haven’t read it, but you might find it useful or interesting.
I don’t mean this to be rude but are you honestly reading this thread carefully? Did you see my response to this person that linked to the studies they requested? How was my response to them anything less than helpful? Or anything remotely resembling a rant?
Most of the comments here have been very polite. This entire thread has been quite civil so I don’t know you seem so upset.
Many of us who are talking about this issue are not just writing about the specific OP but about anti-vaxers in general who are often quite rude to us. How the hell am I supposed to respond to people who call my girls “funny looking” and “obviously vaccine damaged?” To people who compare me to a Nazi? Call me fugly? Insist I am being paid by pHARM companies to help poison kids with vaccines?
:dubious:
There are some sarcastic responses to this post. But do you really think anything we write here will change this person’s mind?
I have been following this thread from the beginning, because vaccinations and science literacy are particular interests of mine, but never apologize for going with your strengths. I do have to ask if you read my post; I obviously was not pointing out your response to Chikni.
Some of the post in the thread have been polite, but many are not; I could go through them, pulling out all the ones with snarky, dismissive tones, and subtly - or not so subtly - insulting terminology, but what will that achieve? It will piss off the posters, make them less open to what I am saying, and that will not advance my goals, which are to ensure more people have their children vaccinated.
I know that many posters “are not just writing about the specific OP but about anti-vaxers in general”; that is what I am decrying. This forum is General Questions, and the question was a request for a couple of references that cannot be linked back to pharma funding.
[Am I crossing the line into Junior Modding by harping on which forum we are in?]
I was on vacation for much this thread’s life so maybe I’m reading it differently. So I went back and reread it. I still don’t see much snark. People are reponding with a little bit of derision but this is the Straight Dope and the anti-vax view is very much on the fringe.
When you ask what that will achieve I sort of have to ask if you really think ANYTHING will change the mind of the poster on post 81? Let’s not lose sight of the fact that most kids are vaccinated. So we’re mostly already there. The problem is that there’s a small vocal minority and they want attention, respect and a place at the table even when they’re basically the equivalent of birthers and holocaust deniers.
As for decrying the rudeness of some of the posters here, I have to say if you really want to see rude well here’s Barbara Loe Fisher, the grand doyenne of the anti-vax movement and a total asshole calling the HPV vaccine, a vaccine given mostly to girls under twelve “the slut shot.” What the hell could be ruder than calling kids like my daughter a slut for getting a shot that helps protect them against a form of cancer sluts?
You are decrying people like myself and other posters for rudeness but we’re not the ones going around calling little girls sluts. We don’t accuse Andrew Wakefield of eating babies for Thanksgiving. I daresay none of us here have ever called anyone a Nazi even when they lobby in favor of measles. I know I sure as hell would never call any anti-vaxer’s kids fugly or obviously damaged.
You are tone trolling to the wrong people IMO.
I guess I just hold myself to a higher standard than Barbara Loe Fisher.
Do I think “anything” will change debcroweapple’s mind? Yes, I think it is possible, if not probable. Do I think derision will? No.
And I am sorry people are calling your little girls fugly sluts, and if you start a Pit Thread about that, I will support you, but right here I am more concerned with the counterproductive behavior of alienating rather than persuading people, or at least helping them persuade others.
For example, does Chikni know the easiest ways to determine if an author has direct ties to a pharmaceutical company? Does s/he know what a retrospective cohort study is, never mind what it’s most significant disadvantage is here? Has s/he even taken statistics?
Perhaps most importantly, does s/he know what a heart-breaking rabbit hole sh/he is peering down, as Really Not All That Bright has touched on?
The link to the infamous Thanksgiving baby feast photo cited in that article is dead (Age of Autism, the virulently antivax group which posted it on their site later removed it), but the Internet never forgets.
*I’m still puzzled as to what that tree is in full bloom at Thanksgiving.
I also hold myself to a higher standard than Barbara Loe Fisher. Fisher is still a jerk and a public health menace who deserves every bit of vilification she gets. As for poster number 81, I think we both know that pretty much nothing will change their mind on this issue. So I don’t think a bit of mockery is really going to make much of a difference to someone who thinks that doctors are in league with pHARM companies to deliberately poison kids via vaccines.
If someone wants to ask for help trying to figure out the information you are touching on, they are more than welcome to ask such questions. I think we both know that the poster will be given very helpful information. Polite questions tend to be greeted with polite answers. Rants of the anti-vax, birther, holocaust denial variety tend to be greeted with a mixture of both attempts to answer the questions posed but more than a hint of snark because many posters know they are largely wasting their time doing so.
What I personally found is that passionate (and occasionally snarky) debates about vaccines can also help people. We do far too much IMO to try and reason the unreasonable out of bad behavior and not enough to provide support for those who are making the right choice and vaccinating their kids. I think that giving them a place at the table helps validate their viewpoint and perpetuate the problem of false balance by ultimately implying that the anti-view even deserves to be heard. I don’t know that it really does. I mean Fisher, Wakefield and their ilk are just plain wrong. Worse, dangerous. I know several people who have been perusaded by their idoicy and ended up with kids with pertussis and the flu. Granted, they tended to become instantly pro-vax that way, but it’s kind of a nasty price for their poor kids to pay.
We live in the era where “my opinion” is as valid as any peer reviewed scientific study. Christ on a pogo stick, I deal with this enough at work with smart, well educated (post grad, often PhD’s) experienced folk who are complete rubes on areas outside their area of expertise, who still feel that “dammit my *opinion *is equal to your subject matter expertise. Just break it down to 3 bullet points and I’ll give you a yes no answer.”
It’s asinine false equivalency, and it’s getting increasingly prevalent. These same people bring the full weight of their opinion to something like vaccines. “I’m the Dad, I know better than doctors, big pharma and everyone else 'cause I’m smart, successful, make good money, have an MBA, and I have my opinion and my opinion has made me the success I am.”
I have a child on the autism spectrum. I hear vaccination BS and miracle cures every day, thank you very much.
I’ll agree that honey is better than vinegar, and that being polite generally has the best approach. That said, California has the right idea that you can believe any kinda of pseudo science you want, and the State can’t force you to vaccinate your child, but the State can raise the bar significantly for what your beliefs are going to requires. As soon as Marin Mom has to actually pay the price for pseudo science then we’ll see how many really will stick to their guns.
That assumes I’m interested in trying to reason with anti-vaxers. I’m not.
All I care about is stopping them from putting kids at risk by their anti-social behaviour.
For example, they shouldn’t be able to send their kids to a public school without proof of vaccination. They can home-school, or set up a private school for unvaccinated kids.
I don’t really care why they choose to put their own kids at risk, and I’m not interested in trying to argue them our of their irrational and anti-social behaviour.
I just don’t want them putting my kid at risk.
I feel sorry for their kids though.
Could you provide some context? What was this thing about?
None in a sense. The distinction is not one relevant to immediate health outcomes. It’s a distinction that – if relevant at all – may be relevant to appropriate approaches to changing people’s minds.
Aren’t the “horrible evil BigPharma” companies researching a way to make their drugs and other vaccines in a way that those who are currently allergic to them can have a vaccine that will not cause an allergic reaction? That seems to me to be a pretty good distinction between those who can’t (and thus must wait) and those who won’t (and thus are creating a problem).
Just the anti-vaxxers (Age of Autism specifically) idea of humor. The faces photoshopped on there are prominent pro-vaccinators. So naturally they are horrible, horrible baby-eating big Pharma shills.
They thought this was a good idea. A lot of their rabid fanbase agreed, a large number did not, and the general public that saw this was appalled. They removed with no apology it and now pretend it never happened.
For a lot of science & medicine folks, this is where the anti-vaxxers got their attention and showed to them that they were acting like rabid dogs. A few other rabid dog incidents sealed it and their movement hasn’t done as well.
For more context, here’s the photoshopped image as it appeared on the Age of Autism website. The people portrayed as baby-eating cannibals include Dr. Paul Offit (developer of a ilfe-saving rotavirus vaccine and prominent immunization advocate, who’s the semi-official Antivax Antichrist), Trine Tsouderos (a former Chicago Tribune reporter who wrote numerous accurate and thus unflattering articles on the antivax movement) and Alison Singer (a leader of the research and advocacy group Autism Speaks, who had the temerity to focus on autism research that doesn’t seek to demonize vaccines).
In case anyone is dismissing Age of Autism as waaaay out there - well yes, they are, but their leaders are prominent antivax figures widely quoted and admired by others of their kind.
Thanks! very disturbing group of folks.
Why, one that is watered with the blood of babies, of course. See how red the flowers are–blood. Connect the dot!
Happily, their antics are no longer working, and they might even be backfiring.
Point being, the anti-vaccination conspiracy theory, like the Bush/Jews/NWO/Zionists/Reptilians/Khazars Did 9/11 conspiracy theory and the others before it, is passing into its hardcore stage, where it is primarily held by people who believe everything which isn’t “mainstream” or “logical” or “grounded in reality”, even if the beliefs are mutually-inconsistent and blatantly idiotic.
You can tie this to the measles outbreak, but these things seem to have a lifespan (I personally witnessed the 9/11 Idiocy Movement rise and die off prior to this) and, ultimately, it would have been something. It’s just a natural downswing.