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.
WDDTY: How To Misunderstand A Paper
In an article on MMR and measles in the June issue of What Doctors Don’t Tell You (WDDTY), Bryan Hubbard reports on the DeStefano et al paper that found no association between autism and the number of antigens children receive from vaccination. That is what the paper actually found. What Hubbard reports is something quite different. I have no idea how Mr Hubbard manages to get it so wrong. I’d have thought pretty much anyone would be able to figure out what the researchers studied, but apparently not.
Now, I’m no expert – far from it – but I think even an ignorant layman like me can work out what research question the authors were investigating. Read the rest of this entry »
Measles in Pakistan: Anti-Vaccine Websites Go Cherry-picking
In this post, Child Health Safety uncritically repeats a report from NSNBC based on a comment made by Dr. Tabish Hazir in the Tribune.
Dr Hazir stated that more than 50% of the 550 patients with measles seen at a children’s hospital in Islamabad had previously been vaccinated (though he did not state whether they had received the recommended two doses or just one). NSNBC, quite unjustifiably, turned this into the headline “More than 50 % of those Diagnosed with Measles in Pakistan had been Vaccinated”. Read the rest of this entry »
Claims Of Unethical Skeptics: A Mirror Image Of The Truth
Over the years, I have seen a number of baseless claims made by anti-vaccinationists and advocates of alternative medicine regarding unethical behaviour by skeptics. They imagine conspiracies and financial interests. They make claims that their opponents are dishonest and mislead people. Yet there never seems to be any evidence that the skeptics they smear have done anything unethical.There is evidence, though, that some anti-vaccinationists and advocates of alternative medicine have been involved in unethical behaviour. Read the rest of this entry »
Vaccination Council: Misleading
Vaccination is one of medicine’s great success stories, preventing deaths and serious ill health caused by infectious diseases – and almost always doing so without causing serious harm in the process. I will be discussing the lives saved and harm prevented by vaccination against diseases such as pertussis and measles in this post, but first a note on safety. As Rümke and Visser wrote: “During recent years a scala of diseases or symptoms have been associated with vaccination (presumed side effects). Careful and extensive investigations have shown that such hypotheses could not be supported. […] The total number of cases where at least a possible relation between side effects and vaccination is observed–apart from local reactions and moderate general symptoms–is very rare (about 0.25 per 1000 vaccinations) and does not balance the benefits from vaccination.” Not everyone accepts that vaccination is safe and effective. Sadly, some of these people mislead others into thinking that vaccination is less effective or more dangerous than it actually is. Read the rest of this entry »
Hitler and Vaccines
What’s more convincing than a Youtube video? Nothing. With that in mind, I draw your attention to this: Hitler and Vaccines, posted on Youtube by 101numbat. You can stop reading now and go watch the video. Read the rest of this entry »
GMC Complaint Regarding Dr Sarah Myhill
Having originally written about Dr Sarah Myhill’s views on vaccination in April last year, detailing some of the most obviously incorrect assertions on her website and noting the changes made to Dr Myhill’s site after correspondence with her, I followed up on this in August this year in this post: the wrongness of Dr Sarah Myhill. I noted that Dr Myhill had substantially amended her website, removing many of the factually incorrect statements, but that some of her website content was still unsupported by evidence, misleading, or untrue. Further correspondence with Dr Myhill proved fruitless, so I contacted the GMC. I have now heard from the GMC regarding my concerns. Read the rest of this entry »
Daily Mail On HPV Vaccine
The Daily Mail have published an article about the HPV vaccine. You won’t be surprised to learn that the tone of the article is scaremongering – with the very real benefits of the vaccine downplayed and a focus on the hypothetical risks. Read the rest of this entry »
Stuff And Nonsense 