OMFSM!!! Jennifer Lopez...

I guess I've been blissfully unaware of the antivaxxer mindset. It took J-Lo to make me curious enough to read this thread. I'll go back to ignoring the problem now...
 
Well, it's hard to ignore when the teh stupidz burns you, the way it did me. This was my hubby's best friend's wife. They hate ME now, for vaccinating my kids!!!
 
Eos of the Eons said:
Cuz antivaxxers never play off the emotions of parents, nope nope!
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All right, calm down! You have convinced me.

Eos of the Eons said:
They hate ME now, for vaccinating my kids!!!
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Maybe they simply feel for the plight of the poor, little germs:

7328_117739044732_530824732_2097662_3628918_n.jpg


Don't let their cute, little faces fool you, though! These can be some nasty critters, when they actually get into you!
 
Wowbagger said:
All right, calm down! You have convinced me.

Maybe they simply feel for the plight of the poor, little germs:

http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphoto..._117739044732_530824732_2097662_3628918_n.jpg

Don't let their cute, little faces fool you, though! These can be some nasty critters, when they actually get into you!
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Fine, I'll calm down, cuz they ARE sooo cute! That IS it you know. The cute critters are not the enemy, we just aren't ODing on vitamins and using quacky preventionz like teh oilz enough! They can't hurtz you if you have teh protective lifestyle of a breatharian!

Those signs are making me laugh out loud!
 
I was at a McDonaldland where a kid gave off that distinctive cough. I got my kids out of there, though they had the pertussis vaccine. Vaccines are great, avoidance is better, and JLo is just right!

ETA: Er, something better than "just right." :D
 
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I'm going to stir the pot a bit here but I actually have a disdain for celebrities getting involved with such issues. Either way, they have to be spoon-fed their information so if we lend legitimacy to some celebrities that get spoon-fed the right information, how do we denigrate other celebrities that get it so wrong based upon them being stupid celebrities?
 
Good question.

Thing is, you can fact check both "endorsements" and find one is quoting statistics backed up with evidence and find that the audio she is using is not faked.

The other one totally embellishes the statistics (saying things like 1/10 instead of the more accepted 1/100 - 1/150). She uses doctors that sell questionable quack cures to push her "it must have been vaccines" agenda, and then goes on and on about toxins when she gets the most toxic substance known to man injected into her face while ignoring how she finds this toxin beneficial in a DOSE less than what is actually harmful. It's completely hypocritical to call ethyl mercury TOXIC in the doses found in vaccines, which also isn't the METHYL mercury that poisons people in actual high doses found in nature (not vaccines).
 
I had Pertussis five or six years ago, and coughed my lungs out for MONTHS! I would cough so lng and so hard that I would almost pass out from lack of oxygen. Not a fun time.
 
Eos of the Eons said:
Good question.

Thing is, you can fact check both "endorsements" and find one is quoting statistics backed up with evidence and find that the audio she is using is not faked.

The other one totally embellishes the statistics (saying things like 1/10 instead of the more accepted 1/100 - 1/150). She uses doctors that sell questionable quack cures to push her "it must have been vaccines" agenda, and then goes on and on about toxins when she gets the most toxic substance known to man injected into her face while ignoring how she finds this toxin beneficial in a DOSE less than what is actually harmful. It's completely hypocritical to call ethyl mercury TOXIC in the doses found in vaccines, which also isn't the METHYL mercury that poisons people in actual high doses found in nature (not vaccines).
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I agree with all of that but you are giving way too much credit to the target audience. What I am trying to point out is that we end up on a slippery slope by using celebrities to endorse vaccines; we are appealing to the lowest common denominator. As such, we get into a mess by promulgating celebrities as experts and since it is for the sake of the lowest common denominator, how can they distinguish between the right and wrong celebrities? Do you see what I mean?

I really think that health agencies are going about this the wrong way and need to go on the offensive more. A good start would be to use actual experts to convey the idea that people should listen to actual experts and not some ditzy celebrity or smarmy TV doctor.
 
Eos of the Eons said:
So, why aren't any of these ladies on Ograh or Larry King? Reality and facts too hard to sensationalize? Saving lives too boring?
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Speaking of Oprah. . . I understand she's going to interview Palin sometime soon. That'll be a meeting of a couple of great wits.

I think I left a "t" out somewhere. . . .
 
Good point Estellea. You can get to the silly stage of 'well I dont like J Lo so what she says must be false.' It is a slippery slope based on popularity, as is all advertising. But when it comes to vaccines, setting one celeb as an anitdote to another, where will it all end?
 
Well, experts are accused of being biased, that's why you can't listen to them. I've even been told that I was brainwashed by getting a college education! And then you have "experts" who supposedly suddenly aren't biased, like Jay Gordon and Wakefield that only put their self interests ahead of ethics! Now there is a Canadian health expert saying there is too much hype and money spent on vaccinating people against this pandemic virus!

So, even experts can cause idiocy to spread far and wide. Just read the forwards of McCarthy's books! And thank Wakefied for parents not getting their kids any MMR vaccine.

We are damned either way, so anyone actually talking facts gets my attention anymore, since it is such a switch from what I'm used to seeing in the media.
 
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The J-Lo commercial, for reference:



Whoever made that commercial is brilliant, and not for getting J-Lo to do it. I think that commercial would be just as effective with any mother making the appeal to reason that J-Lo does in this commercial. Her connection to the music industry gives the setting a believable context, but the effect of the sound of the coughing along with the calm but steady and strong explanation really drives home the importance of the vaccine without diving into histrionics or hyperbole.
 
Eos of the Eons said:
I've even been told that I was brainwashed by getting a college education!
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Me too!

Eyeron said:
But for some unknown reason people tend to listen to celebrities more than people who do actually know and have umpteen million years of experience in their fields. Damned scientists and doctors. What do they know.
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We need to turn scientists into celebrities. A reality show or two oughtta do the trick. Like "Flip this Hypothesis" or "Laboratory Makeover" or even "Thesis Swap".
 
She's doing this same commercial in spanish. This is probably even more important as whooping cough rates are higher among hispanics.
 
Estellea said:
I agree with all of that but you are giving way too much credit to the target audience. What I am trying to point out is that we end up on a slippery slope by using celebrities to endorse vaccines; we are appealing to the lowest common denominator. As such, we get into a mess by promulgating celebrities as experts and since it is for the sake of the lowest common denominator, how can they distinguish between the right and wrong celebrities? Do you see what I mean?

I really think that health agencies are going about this the wrong way and need to go on the offensive more. A good start would be to use actual experts to convey the idea that people should listen to actual experts and not some ditzy celebrity or smarmy TV doctor.
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And how many people are going to change channels when it;s an expert but might watch if it is J Lo?
Sorry, but you need marketing to get the word out. You might not like it but it's a fact of life.
And, frankly, the Skeptical Community is lousy at marketing. The Skeptics Guide to the Universe had a discussion about this.
And the bitter fact is some experts, though very knowledgable, are lousy at presenting their information to the public.
 
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Does anyone think we have a society that has no experience with the bad old days of disease, and is complacent?
I can look back at family members whi got diseases we dont see, including my Uncle crippled by polio, my mum nearly died of dyptheria as a baby.
My son wasnt immunised for whooping cough because at the time they wernt giving it if parents had epilepsy, and his dad was undergoing tests for some fits at the time. He caught the disease aged about 6, and it was horrible. It also made him ill for about six weeks.
I would hate as a grandma (not that I am yet, but meaning generation wise) to be seeing a return to full blown epidemics of childhood diseases per the era of my mum, and see the shoes and calipers of polio in a new generation of children.
Hearing the coughing made me relieved that scientists work so hard on testing and developing. Are the antivaxers funding any research?
 
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