A New Science Forum
Excitingly, a new science forum Scrutable is here.
There’s a SCEINCE forum (officially known as the Nerd Lab) for discussion of, well, science – click here for breathless discussions of the latest research or to share your horror at the latest pronouncements from anti-vaccine commentators.
There’s a second serious forum for Heavy Shit (AKA Weighty Matters) which contains serious topics for serious people. Click here if you’re seriously interested in such serious discussions. Srsly.
You are also permitted to have fun, but only in the designated zones. No puns.
Oh, and one last thing: you might want to read the rules and abide by them.
Anti-Vaccine Authors To Promote Their Wares At University Of Minnesota
Anti-vaccine authors have successfully hired a room at the University of Minnesota. This isn’t an especially impressive or interesting development – I just couldn’t think how else to start this post. The book symposium will take place next January.
Speakers include David Lewis, Judy Mikovits, Mark Blaxill, Dan Olmsted, and the novelist-policeman Louis Conte. Oh, and some lawyers.
The symposium is being sponsored by Skyhorse Publishing, experienced in publishing “books on sports, flyfishing, nature and history” (an obvious choice for anyone who has written a scholarly tome on medical matters – as I’m sure Andrew Wakefield would tell you). The other sponsors are The Holland Center (a treatment centre which offers biomedical interventions such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy, nutrition consulting and allergy testing), CADE (a local non-profit organisation), The Canary Party, Age of Autism and Health Choice (you may notice some overlap between the last three groups and the list of authors).
The minimum ticket price appears to be $25 but this does include one of the ten books being promoted (for $99 dollars you get a ticket and enough books to remedy up to ten wonky tables).
The Anti-Vaccine Movement: A Terrible Track Record
Anti-vaccinationists have made a wide range of claims about the dangers of vaccines. In spite of the fact that they have generally had neither data nor a plausible mechanism for the claimed effect, several of their claims have been investigated by researchers.
As it turns out, the anti-vaccinationists are remarkably consistent. Time and time again, they are shown to be wrong. I’m not sure how many times a group needs to be wrong before people stop seeing them as credible. Perhaps people need to be reminded of how many times this group has been wrong? Read the rest of this entry »
Wakefield and MMR: New Revelations
A guest blog post from a UK Doctor
New revelations and implications about Andrew Wakefield’s research work.
For anyone who doesn’t know about the ramifications of the Andrew Wakefield saga, here is a brief recap. In 1998 he published a paper in the Lancet journal along with 11 colleagues, detailing bowel changes found in a sequence of children supposedly consecutively referred to his department of Gastroenterology at the Royal Free Hospital in London. The suggestion was that these children’s parents had noticed behavioural or gastrointestinal abnormalities within a very short interval following MMR vaccination. The inference drawn was that MMR might damage the bowel, leading to neurological changes of autism. In a press conference called after the paper was published, Wakefield expressed no faith in the MMR vaccine, and called for single measles vaccines to be used as an alternative. Read the rest of this entry »
Anti-vaccinationists: Competing Interests and Conspiracy Theories
I’ve written before about the anti-vaccination lobbyists and their obsession with competing interests. John Stone’s big discovery was apparently that Dr Evan Harris’s father was once on a committee. Competing interests by proxy are hardly notable, but anti-vaxxers have sometimes failed harder than that in their conspiracy theorising. Read the rest of this entry »
MMR vaccination – still underachieving on a massive scale
Guest blogpost from Peter Flegg, UK doctor.
This week I discovered a new toy to play around with. It’s the new interactive section of the Health Protection Agency website, called Health Protection Profiles. Read the rest of this entry »
Sceptics Beware: The Dangers of Debunking Myths
Here is a PDF (Schwarz et al) that discusses attempts to improve decision-making – and the frequent failures of these attempts.
Anger In Debating Of Health Issues
There seems to be something about health that can make some people discussing issues relating to it become rather angry. There is a new example of this in the case of Dr Alan Dangour. The scientist who conducted research concluding that organic food is no healthier than conventional produce “told The Independent that hundreds of people had contacted him since his work was published, with many accusing him of dishonesty and incompetence in emails peppered with swear words”. Read the rest of this entry »
Stuff And Nonsense 