Skeptics, in some circles, have a reputation for being cold and devoid of emotion, with a bleak view of the world as seen only though the sterile lens of science.
Well, bullshit, obviously. You can’t generalize a group like that, and even if you could, it doesn’t take a whole lot of reading in skeptical blogs and literature to see plenty of humor, passion, and wonder going hand-in-hand with inquiry.
But the stereotype is what people like the anti-vaccination proponents would like you to think. Their message goes further when “the opposition” — also known as medical science — is painted as heartless, solely profit-driven, and without a thought for, who else, the children. (This argument of course falls flat when you consider how many children, or entire communities of children, are harmed when parents decide not to vaccinate.)
In an earlier post, I wrote about how even as I was being targeted by a bottom-feeding snake-oil salesman, I could understand what had driven him to that point. As unpopular as it may be for a skeptic, I’ve tried to do the same thing when it comes to antivaxxers. By this don’t misunderstand that I’m talking about supporting their position. Rather, I think it’s worth it to disprove the stereotype and look at the debate from an emotional standpoint.
Reading through the stories of parents whose children became ill or died from either a proven or imagined reaction to a vaccine, I find it hard to be entirely unsympathetic. When this happens to a child, be it an actual side effect or a sad coincidence, I can only imagine how devastating it must be. I understand that the parents must desperately want someone or something to blame.
Combine this impotent anger and grief with the ease of finding antivax networks all over the Internet, though, and some parents get steered off course. They must have understood once that vaccinations benefit both their own child and the entire community, or they wouldn’t have done it in the first place. But when something happens to their child, suddenly all their knowledge about how many lives are saved through vaccination vanishes. Instead, they are provided with validation that they can blame something: the vaccine. This emotional validation is supported by bad, cherry-picked science, and sometimes by the unfortunate cachet of people like antivaxxer Jenny McCarthy. To me this is no different from the chronically ill person who gratefully grasps at the snake oil, because it’s being sold by someone with whom they share a terrible experience and who finally has an answer and a scapegoat for them. It’s not an excuse for poor critical thinking, but it is a reason.
Then there’s the sad case of Natalie Morton, who died on September 28 shortly after being vaccinated against HPV with the drug Cervarix. Antivax networks picked up this story and ran with it, naturally. But then it turned out that she was seriously ill with a tumor at the time she was vaccinated. And here is where my compassion for the antivaxxers vanished. Any critically thinking (or even just “thinking”) person would recognize that Natalie’s death, while tragic, doesn’t make a case for ceasing all vaccinations, due to her condition.
Instead they went all conspiracy theory.
I can’t hold any respect for people who consciously deny or distort reality in order to validate their delusions, and I certainly can’t continue to be sympathetic. I truly understand the way pain can short-circuit logical thinking, but there is no excuse for twisting facts or outright lying in order to further your cause. Your personal pain is no excuse to endanger others’ lives. The ideal of skepticism is that when faced with evidence that disproves our beliefs, we take that evidence into account and may change our beliefs accordingly. What’s happening here is the exact opposite of that.
I plan to continue this theme on a more personal level on Friday, but if I wind up chickening out, don’t judge me too harshly.
23 Comments
What these people have in common is a general unwillingness to believe anything except their own paranoid theories. If they were taught critical thinking/philosophical enquiry from an early age, so that they could distinguish between fact and fallacy, that might help. However, I imagine they’ve all got their fingers in their ears, singing “La la la!” very loudly, to avoid hearing anything that might contradict what they’re sure they know. It’s wilful ignorance, which is the worst sort, as opposed to knowing you’re ignorant and doing something about it.
Willful ignorance is one of my biggest pet peeves. People who prefer to remain deluded in their personal lives to avoid reality annoy me as it is. Apply that to the antivaxxers in “la la la!” mode recruiting others to their campaign of deliberate ignorance and it’s really unconscionable.
I am vey interested in the vaccine issue. I agree that the anti- vaxx radicals are out of control, but I also think there are reasons to question the safety of some vaccines, including the HPV and swine flu vaccines. Squalene adjuvients may very well be toxic. Recently an infectious disease specialist went on abc news to publicly state he believes the swine flu vaccine to be dangerous and is not going to get his kids vaccinated with it. I have also read far too many stories from mothers whose daughters came down with me/cfs after getting the HPV vaccine to discount them as coincidence or hysteria. Gulf war syndrome, which is very similar to me/cfs, is often linked to vaccination. I believe at the very least, serious research needs to be conducted on vaccines and their ingredients, so we can be properly informed of the risks and benefits. The media frenzy on swine flu is not helping people make rational decisions about the vaccine, either. Currently it’s milder than the “regular” flu, and nobody makes too much of a fuss about that. Finally, people with me/cfs risk worsening of their symptoms just by getting a vaccine. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I think the risks outweigh the benefits in a lot of cases, including mine. I would rather risk a virus invading my body than intentionally inject myself with substances like squalene. That’s my give cents on the issue! Thanks for this thought-provoking post!
Of course, anyone with a chronic illness should be aware of whether vaccination is recommended in his or her specific case. The jury seems to be out on flu vaccination for people with CFS, but there are some contraindications. Neither of my doctors suggested it for me and they are both modern Western medicine practitioners.
That said, here are some excellent articles from Science-Based Medicine on the subject of HPV and flu vaccination safety:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=98
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1652
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=851
I’m going for my annual flu jab in a couple of weeks (it’s offered to pensioners and people with conditions like asthma in the UK, free of charge). I’ve had one for the past few years. The only side effect has been a slightly sore arm for a few days. With ME/CFS and asthma, I really don’t want the flu. I don’t know if they’ve included swine flu with this year’s shot, but I’m happy to have it.
Asthma is a no-brainer in my opinion, since respiratory complications seem to be how people get seriously sick from the flu. My husband has asthma as well, and he’s getting both the regular flu shot and the H1N1 shot if they let him (since he is a caretaker).
I still haven’t decided 100% about the flu shots for me, for a few reasons. For one thing, I have a history of adverse vaccine reactions of the type that make me suspect it may cause the CFS to flare. For another thing, my body is a champ against infectious diseases; always has been but for the past few years I’ve had an abnormally high white blood cell count that seems to have improved things even more. There’s other stuff I won’t bore you with, although none of it has to do with the safety of the vaccine itself.
I suppose all this may make me sound hypocritical, but the problem I have is not with grown people making decisions for themselves based on existing conditions. If I had a healthy kid I wouldn’t hesitate to get her the flu, MMR, and whatever other vaccines are indicated, given the information we have today.
Thanks for the link up in that article….I am honoured. I’ve been trying to get more hits on my crazy ole website.
You are quite happy to give a vaccine to our children which in a study of 12,500 cases seven percent included hospitalization, permanent disability, life-threatening illness, or death….? Do you consider all the information on this site invalid? http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/. You quote the London Times as your only source for ‘confirming’ her ‘death by tumour’ just a couple of hours after the jab. That is one hell of a coincidence! Although the other 38 young women who have died from the jab might not agree.
Dear Margret Nelson – side effects may not be immediate, but the toxic ingrediants in vaccines like the flu shot build up in the brain and nervous system and disrupt the operation of a healthy immune system. Conditions can then occur many years later.
So you zing me for only providing one source on Natalie Morton’s death (just out of curiosity, should I have linked to every article that discussed it?), yet you’re citing only one study — with no link — to make your case. Gotcha.
I just went to that website and as I haven’t read “all the information” on the site yet, I can’t answer your question fully. However, I see the lead article (from back in January) cites the Daily Mail as its source, which doesn’t exactly instill confidence in any literate thinker.
Every article that discussed her death from ‘caner’ was from mainstream media, who pick up their stories from the same newswires and PR releases. That’s why the story was exactly the same, repeated ad nauseum around the world. Or maybe this kind of influence as well:
1) http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-5977774.html
2) http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/02/james-murdoch-in-glaxosmithcline-role
Still, all one hell of a coincidence. Oh, here’s another one. http://www.naturalnews.com/027188_NaturalNews_cancer_cervical_cancer.html. As another girl is permanently brain damaged from the vaccine, how long can people keep defending giant multi-billion dollar corporations? You think they care about public health?! . Surely EVEN ONE DEATH OR SERIOUS DISABILITY IS ONE TOO MANY, especially when the Cervical Cancer Vaccine IS NOT PROVEN TO BE EFFECTIVE AT ALL! The report I cited is from the Journal of the American Medical Association, not sure if it is avaliable on-line.
You wanted some links, so here are some links:
http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james170.htm
The FDA itself has stated that HPV DOES NOT CAUSE CERVICAL CANCER. http://www.naturalnews.com/Report_HPV_Vaccine_0.html
Speaking to the site ‘Child Health Safety’, if you can’t read all the information then have a look at this one article: http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/germany-hpv/ where international experts are questioning the vaccine.
Thank you for providing an excellent example of how conspiracy theorists cherry-pick science and twist words around to suit their case.
I chose your link that supposedly proves the FDA stated that HPV does not cause cervical cancer. Let me quote.
“Emphasis added” indeed. The leap from “most” to “all” is where you fall flat on your face. The final conclusion is an outright lie, which, again, any literate thinker could determine simply from reading the part excerpted, never mind if they went ahead and read the FDA’s statement for themselves.
Actually your logic is kind of strange here, and you seem to be the one twisting the words. Most to All is an exaggeration, granted, but it still means that MOST infections are short-lived and not associated with cervical cancer. Therefore how can this dangerous vaccine be effective when it doesn’t, in the majority of cases, do what it is meant to (and is disabling and killing people in the process).
Or were you trying to deflect the attention away from the other links I provided? Would you like to speak to those?
I am not getting into it with you on the science because there are many, many much more qualified people out there who have already done a bang-up job of it, such as the National Cancer Institute and many of the links under the “Science and Skepticism” header on the right there, including SBM to which I linked in an earlier comment.
The point of my post is the lengths to which conspiracy theorists will go to push their poor science on a vulnerable public. That jump from the FDA’s actual statement to the lie about what it means the FDA has concluded is such a beautiful example that all I can do is thank you again for providing it.
Well sure, and thanks for sending so much traffic to my site as well, anyone reading this can look at all the evidence and make their own minds up. Seems like you are backing out with your last post as well, sorry you couldn’t speak to the other links I posted. Even a researcher who worked on the vaccine says its useless! http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/131817/Jab-as-deadly-as-the-cancer-#
All those people doing a ‘bang-up’ job on the ’science’ are probably funded by the companies who make the vaccines. These companies make their own research groups so they can control the results – that is extremely old news.
I find it very interesting that in addition to the rise of autism and autism like diseases, there is an increase in homosexuality that also corresponds with the increase in the number of vaccines we have given our children.
What if the childhood diseases that were common in the past actually weeded out the homos? And now, with vaccines, we are making MORE homos able to live, and the straights are becoming autistic.
Vaccines make you gay?
What the fuck is wrong with you? I have determined that every person named Heidi may or may not be a goddamned idiot.
These two comments make me so happy…
Nothing makes you gay. You’re either gay or you’re not. You’re born that way. I laughed out loud when I read that comment.
Margaret, if you are “born gay” as you say, then why are children not attempting sodomy or masturbation or even dancing until they are around 2 or 3?
Hmm, what else happens around age 2 or 3? The last round of vaccinations!
My child’s pediatrician delays most, but not all vaccines. He says that it is risk vs. reward for each, and that many vaccines can cause problems in infants.
He went to school for, like, a thousand years, and he has 1000s of successful, happy children that have gone through his care with success.
I think you know the flu shot is shit. If you do not, you are silly. It is a business.
I also think you know the pharmaceutical industry makes a lot of unnecessary drugs, and suffers from a real lack of morally responsible competence.
See, here is my issue…
Drugs are a business. Businesses exist to profit. Profits are made by cutting corners when corners can be cut.
Trust few, determine necessity, act only out of imperative, never out of imitation.
The human body is capable of learning to kill most any invading specimen, provided we work to develop a robust immune system. We should save vaccination for the category killers, like smallpox, and stop forcing the flu to evolve faster than we can.
But yes, the sky IS falling. It’s just falling very slowly.
Autism has increased for a couple of reasons completely unrelated to vaccines.
1. It’s a well-known condition now with exact symptoms and treatment options, but this was not always so. Autistic children weren’t always diagnosed with autism. The level of awareness if huge now, so part of it is that it seems like more.
2. More women now are giving birth after 35, and that creates a higher risk of complications. One of these complications is Autism. It doesn’t mean all women over 35 will have children with some disorder, but it is a slightly higher risk.
Great blog.
Just a few observations:
Shit happens; it’s not necessarily anyone or anything’s fault if we get stuff wrong with us. The human body is such a wonderfully complicated thing that it’s not surprising if bits of it malfunction.
Improved medicine and public health, together with healthier diets have led to a majority of us who live in the developed world living longer. In those countries where they’re not so fortunate, life expectancy is still well under 50, as it was in the UK a few 100 years ago.
Life is risky. We take a calculated risk every time we get into a car, for example. You can’t eliminate every possible danger, whether in child protection, medical treatment, or whatever. The tendency to expect assurances, and then sue anyone you think might have contributed to a problem, is very expensive and very unhealthy. For example, children don’t develop common sense responses to potential dangers as they’re so over-protected, they can’t judge what is or isn’t dangerous. This is something that’s only developed in the last few decades. When I was a child, it was normal to disappear out into the countryside to play all day. Kids in developing countries work, using dangerous tools just like their parents, and care for their younger siblings. No one sues anyone for making mistakes. While travelling, my son observed that in India, every other child seemed to have his or her arm in a sling after falling out of a tree.
Jon wrote: “Toxic ingrediants (sic) in vaccines like the flu shot build up in the brain and nervous system and disrupt the operation of a healthy immune system.” Where’s your evidence? Anyhow, my immune system’s not healthy. I’ve been ill since 1986 with ME/CFS, and I’m happy to have the vaccine because I’d rather not have the flu, thank you. Flu can kill. It killed more people in 1918 than the 1st World War did. I’m 65 and have survived cancer (twice), so I’m not all that bothered about living into great old age, but I’d rather not die from something avoidable, like the flu.
A major problem we have nowadays is that there are so many scare stories about vaccine “risks”, such as the one about the death of Natalie Morton, and the MMR scare story spread by that lunatic Andrew Wakefield, that we’re seeing a loss of the herd immunity that’s been built up and children are dying from preventable diseases like measles again, which is shocking.
The risks of dying from measles or of your unborn baby being killed by it are high, if you live in an area where there is no herd immunity from vaccination. The death rate in some countries can be as high as 28%.
Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women under 35 in the UK. Each year, about 2,800 British women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and over 1,000 will die from it. The potential risk from the vaccine is negligible. Serious effects in a very small number of cases appear to be entirely coincidental, such as in the Morton case; she had a massive, undiagnosed tumour, and could have died at any time.
Take it from someone who’s had a lot of problems and is quite comfortable with her mortality: life is for living, enjoying, and not wasting by looking for potential dangers everywhere. In a developed country like mine, a huge number die from self-indulgence (smoking, drinking, over-eating, casual sex) and careless driving. Unfortunately, there’s no vaccine against stupidity.
Margaret brings the common-sense smackdown.
Wow Joey,
I have always thought that your topics, even before your blog have been thought provoking and worth exploring. I appreciate your mind and how you think.
I did not have the time to read all of your comments (I have two boys that keep me busy) but I did want to say I agree with the fact that whole no-vaccine thing has gone a little overboard. It defiantly is a heated topic.
As a mother of two boys one that I thought was autistic at first and has had 40 ear infections I have been very careful about immunizations. I researched for hours and days and labored about what to do.
I decided to vaccinate with my doctor of Oriental medicine first and then did each shot individually and half dosed them. I am not sure if the vaccines themselves cause the issues in the children. I think we should vaccinate but maybe not on the schedule that the doctors want us to follow. I think there are preservatives in the shots so the companies can save money and the vaccine can sit on the shelf longer. So I feel the doctors push way to many shots all at one time. Most children get 5-6 shots at one time, that is too much in my opinion. One or two at one time I think is a lot safer. The doctors reasoning is the child will associate the doctor with getting a shot and then they will not want to come to the office. I would rather spread things out for my child and have him be healthier.
Again Joey, great topic and it is a topic that I could talk about and read about for hours. Thank you for bringing it up. I hope we all stay as healthy as we possibly can.
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