autism-vaccine link?

fls said:
I agree, but aren't we well beyond that point?
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Apparently not :)

I agree. But that doesn't seem to describe the situation here as it's pretty clear people are coming to different conclusions based on less information.

Linda
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I don't agree (of course, I'm a contrary b**** that loves to disagree with people!) Folks like Ivor and KellyB seem intelligent and well informed on the topic - better than me certainly! If you can't communicate what you know that they don't well enough to convince them, I don't think it's necessarily due to a lack of knowledge on their part. Intelligent informed people can disagree on the subject.
 
Really. It seems people cherry pick their information to suit their views, and then say they can disagree with people actually educated on the topic.

Doesn't make them credible. Certainly doesn't make them more informed. Absolutely doesn't make them right.

Your biases have always stood out Beth.
 
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Eos of the Eons said:
Listening to antivaccinator anti-science folks is not so much of a choice either though. It is they who get the attention of the media with their controversies, stories of cover-ups, and interesting conspiracy theories. They have the limelight. This confuses and scares people.
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That's really the problem, isn't it? I think there are fundamental obstacles to overcoming it. Placing undue emphasis on anectodal evidence, making ad hoc ergo propter hoc assumptions, being suspicious of the motives of those in positions of authority, cultivating a taste for juicy gossip -- habits like these do not arise merely out of specific cultural contexts; they arise out of specific features of the human brain. The devil is in the details, but you're just not going to get those details to compete for attention with the antics of Hollywood celebrities, because the details are boring. It's easier to throw mud than it is to catch it.
 
Eos of the Eons said:
Really. It seems people cherry pick their information to suit their views, and then say they can disagree with people actually educated on the topic.

Doesn't make them credible. Certainly doesn't make them more informed. Absolutely doesn't make them right.

Your biases have always stood out Beth.
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What bias is that?
 
Beth said:
I don't agree (of course, I'm a contrary b**** that loves to disagree with people!) Folks like Ivor and KellyB seem intelligent and well informed on the topic - better than me certainly!
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It wasn't you that I was comparing them with, but if you find them better informed than you, doesn't that confirm my point? You're not coming to different conclusions on the basis of the same information, but rather less.

If you can't communicate what you know that they don't well enough to convince them, I don't think it's necessarily due to a lack of knowledge on their part.
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I agree. The barrier seems to me to be a difference in attitude when faced with a lack of knowledge.

Intelligent informed people can disagree on the subject.
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I agree, but you have yet to show how that is relevant here.

Linda
 
Since when has quantity of information been the ultimate deciding factor in the reasonableness of a decision? Surely what matters is you have enough information to make a reasonable decision?
 
It is one thing, Beth, to disagree and provide supporting evidence for one's position. It is another to change the rules of evidence and claim it is just a matter of opinion.

And as well if one cannot support one's position, then it is not being extreme to say you have not supported your position. This isn't a matter of respecting others' values, it is a matter of evidence based medicine or in other cases, an evidence based world. Evidence is subject to interpretation. The strength of evidence or the significance of evidence is subject to interpretation. But what is and is not evidence is only subject to the rules of scientific methodology, not interpretation.

BTW, I find the three of you quite intelligent, Beth, Ivor and kellyb. I have said a number of times you challenge me to think things through that I might have taken for granted.
 
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fls said:
It wasn't you that I was comparing them with, but if you find them better informed than you, doesn't that confirm my point? You're not coming to different conclusions on the basis of the same information, but rather less.
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Well, I formed my conclusions some time ago and it was based on different information. More specifically, my conclusions have been shaped by my research in the CDC vaccine policy committee and it's members, the past history of their decisions, which includes their justifications for the decisions they made, recalls over the past twenty years, and oversights that were investigated that did not require recalls - this is in addition to the information available from the vaccine manufactures and the CDC on specific vaccines. I have also studied group decision making processes as part of my professional career path, so I'm fairly aware of how things like groupthink play out when a biased group is tasked with setting policy.

The conclusion I came to that there is evidence of bias in committee membership towards vaccines. At this point, my conclusion may be dated but I've lost faith in the system that creates those policy recommendations. Which is why I tend to harp on the credibility issue so much. It doesn't really matter how good their decisions are if they don't have the credibility needed for others to buy into their decisions. IMO, that is point they are at now and why I think the emotional approach that some have recommended is a bad idea. It will further reduce their credibility in my eyes.

Ivan has taken a different approach, one that I haven't seen addressed here much, the evaluation of the cost-benefit of recommending universal vaccination. KellyB has done more research than I into how the vaccines actually work, the risks involved, etc. I've learned a lot from both of them. Someone - can't recall who - has recently posted about the problems of different varieties of an illness (was it hepatitus?) emerging such that the total number of cases doesn't reallly change, only the strains of the disease. That was quite interesting. Not something I'd thought about before, but makes sense. Kind of like before pesticides were introduced, farmers lost a large percentage (I'm thinking 1/3 but I'm not sure of that number) of their crops to bugs. Now, after decades of use of pesticides, insects have evolved and farmers lose about that same percentage of their crops to bugs - but with added expense of putting pesticides into our food chain. This relates back to Ivan's points about cost-benefit analysis.

Anyway, in a very real sense, none of us ever have the exact same information. I'm a little reluctant to grant that you have more than the others. While I'm sure you have more information on a particular aspect of vaccinations, they may well have more information about other aspects. Which aspects are most important? That's a subjective decision about which reasonable people can disagree.

I agree. The barrier seems to me to be a difference in attitude when faced with a lack of knowledge.
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I'm not convinced there the problem is a lack of knowledge on the part of those who criticize various aspects of vaccine policy. I certainly agree that there is a barrier related to the difference in attitude when faced with a lack of knowledge, but I see it from the other side. Many medical professionals seem oblivious to their own lack of knowledge regarding the non-medical aspects of medical policy decisions - such as cost-benefit analysis and group decision making processes - and the important role that factors like that can play in making a policy decision.
 
skeptigirl said:
It is one thing, Beth, to disagree and provide supporting evidence for one's position. It is another to change the rules of evidence and claim it is just a matter of opinion.
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Yes, those are different things. And yet another thing is to recognize that different definitions of evidence are appropriate in different situations.
BTW, I find the three of you quite intelligent, Beth, Ivor and kellyb. I have said a number of times you challenge me to think things through that I might have taken for granted.
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Thank you. I feel the same way about you.
 
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Note that we've gone from discussing the case to quibbling over basics, like what evidence is. :rolleyes:

Is anyone willing to concede that the government is not "covering up" anything, and that this case is NOT about autism?
 
Eos of the Eons said:
Note that we've gone from discussing the case to quibbling over basics, like what evidence is. :rolleyes:

Is anyone willing to concede that the government is not "covering up" anything, and that this case is NOT about autism?
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Well I don't think I could say the government is not covering up anything, but I certainly don't think anything has been covered up with respect to this case, or that it has anything to do with autism.
 
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Beth said:
Someone - can't recall who - has recently posted about the problems of different varieties of an illness (was it hepatitus?) emerging such that the total number of cases doesn't reallly change, only the strains of the disease. That was quite interesting. Not something I'd thought about before, but makes sense.
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Apologies of I've missed anything - but I've had a week away and not up with every post on the threads.

Beth, you are referring I think to the issue of serotype replacement. This happens when strains of the infection that are not covered by the vaccine try and fill the niche left behind as infection rates drop. However, with all the vaccines I know about, the replacement is still a tiny fraction of the previous total. So no, the total numbers of cases are not the same, they are still significantly less. The main vaccine this occurs with is pneumococcal, but it also affects others.

Antivaxers will point to serotype replacement, trying to disguise the actual numbers so that someone with an eagle eye cannot imediately rumble them.

Here is a prime example, quoting word for word the paragraph from the "insideVaccines" blog:
The incidence of Hib meningitis decreased 69% during the 1-year period after initiation of Hib immunization (from 2.62 to 0.81 cases/100,000 person-years; P<.001). In contrast, the incidence for H. influenzae type a meningitis increased 8-fold.

Therefore, Hib immunization contributed to an increased risk for H. influenzae type a meningitis through selection of circulating H. influenzae type a clones.
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Anyone reading this would be rather scared that by preventing Hib B, all one was doing was replacing it with even more type A than there was type B to begin with.

Not so.

The actual source of the "cherry picked" quote says this:
The incidence of Hib meningitis decreased 69% during the 1-year period after initiation of Hib immunization (from 2.62 to 0.81 cases/100,000 person-years; P<.001). In contrast, the incidence for H. influenzae type a meningitis increased 8-fold (from 0.02 to 0.16 cases/100,000 person-years; P=.008).
Therefore, Hib immunization contributed to an increased risk for H. influenzae type a meningitis through selection of circulating H. influenzae type a clones. The risk attributable to serotype replacement is small in comparison to the large reduction in Hib meningitis due to immunization.
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As you can see, in red I have added the sections that were deliberately removed from the quote on "InsideVaccines".
 
Eos of the Eons said:
Thank you Ivor. Wanna speculate on why Kent Heckenlively would not agree with us? Let's not forget David Kirby and Deirdre Imus, and Jenny McCarthy, and J. B. Handley, and...


http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=734
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They have an unsupported* hypothesis and will grasp at anything which looks like it may be related to it?

*Looking at the balance of evidence, 'unsupported' is being generous.
 
Wouldn't you love to know why they are doing that Ivor? I want to say that it is human nature, but the rabid way they go about it with the ability to ignore any evidence to the contrary is confounding. That is the nature of the beast, and the same goes for those rejecting evolution in favor of figuring the earth is only a few thousand years old.

What is evidence to these people?


If these people had an agenda to prove the earth was flat, it seems they would go to umpteem lengths to do it.

When evidence is blatantly obvious to some, it's ignored by others.

The evidence not only shows that vaccines do not cause autism, but why vaccines don't cause autism. Yet, people ignore the evidence and even try to change the evidence to fit their need to blame vaccines for autism... Deetee's post above highlights this.

Oversimplifying is used to try to change the evidence as well. Metal is bad, therefore aluminum and ethyl mercury must cause autism. Well, evidence shows the body is able to eliminate the metals you eat and get from other sources. Evidence also shows that the brain is not damaged in the process. But, antivaxxers cling to their oversimplifications.

Why why why... why harp on oversimplifications, why cling to fantastic stories about conspiracies, why cling to anecdotes? Why why why...

Well, some have something else to sell you on, others are plain deluded and convinced they are right no matter what, others want someone to pay for whatever in spite of evidence showing they have the wrong party.

Examine your own reasons for wanting to believe the incredible tales these people dish up. Does there REALLY have to be anything to their claims? Why?
 
Eos of the Eons said:
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Examine your own reasons for wanting to believe the incredible tales these people dish up. Does there REALLY have to be anything to their claims? Why?
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:confused:

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say, but I'm confused as to where or when I gave the impression I wanted to believe anti-vaxers' incredible tales?
 
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I will clarify to say that my post is not just directed at you. I will also say that maybe you don't find some of their tales that "incredible". I'd have to quote which ones you seem to not find so incredible, but that would entail a search that I don't have time for at the moment.

I do remember reading some that you seem to find plausible, unless you've changed your opinion since the time I read those. Or perhaps I am mistaken and mixing you up with someone else.

If you want, you can outline some that you do find plausible for discussion. Or I can address the questions in my post to others that find some or all antivaccine claims plausible.
 
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