Incidentally, **** you, Jenny McCarthy. That is all.

[notyoueither]

Who said anything about refusing vaccinations categorically?

My questioning is about the use of heavy metals in the formulation when not necessary.

In 1972ish you are a defective human being, Asher. You are broken psychologically and need to be repaired. Involuntary commitment to a mental institution for... therapy?... might be in order.

By 1978ish you are normal.

Which authority would you have me give blind obedience to, Asher?

[Asher]

I'm confused how taking vaccinations and thinking people who don't take them are stupid makes me a nazi, still. Please walk me through that one.

Fact: Take just about anything in a vaccination, up the dosage 1000x, and it could kill you. Why you're obsessed with mercury is a bit beyond me.

[notyoueither]

That is because you have the EQ of a turnip, I would suppose. An inability to appreciate what another human being knows, experiences, and feels.

Being completely, willfully, blind to the contradiction presented by 'experts' who say to avoid heavy metals at significant, or any, cost yet who then turn around and say, but not this one. We've been wrong so many times before, but trust us this time!

[Asher]

That is because you have the EQ of a turnip, I would suppose. An inability to appreciate what another human being knows, experiences, and feels.

I'm, if anything, overly empathetic. I've heard that from many people who are far more knowledgeable in that area than you are.

The fact that I don't "appreciate" what you "know" or "experience" or "feel" isn't that I'm not aware of it, it's that I'm intelligent enough to dismiss it.

Being completely, willfully, blind to the contradiction presented by 'experts' who say to avoid heavy metals at significant, or any, cost yet who then turn around and say, but not this one. We've been wrong so many times before, but trust us this time!

The reason I don't have a problem with this is because I understand the basics of science. I also understand the concept of dosage. I understand how something can be helpful in small amounts, toxic in large amounts. I understand this because I am an intelligent human being who did not major in history.

I suppose you don't drink tap water with fluoride in it either, do you? Fluoride is, after all, toxic. About a gram of it will kill you!

[notyoueither]

I don't have children, Doofus. I have not faced this decision. I can understand the misgivings of people with children, and recriminations when they perceive that something went wrong after experts were arrogant and insisted that a ****ing heavy metal was injected in their child despite the option to have vaccines without.

Now, it appears that mercury has been removed in most of the developed world, yet the arrogant worms of science continue to turn. How dare I question the pronouncements from the pulpit of science! How dare I question the assumption that 'science' must have been right, and that people are just being stupid.

The lack of mercury is now an affront to science! The ****ing Prots have taken the Latin out of Mass! We must launch an inquisition! How could the serfs refuse our authoritee?!

You are little better than a priest with his hands up some child's backside and trying to hush up the congregation, Asher. Odds are that science is dreadfully wrong about something as of this moment. Odds are that the experts are having some fags reconditioned, some material being deemed as safe and ingested or used in building, some some other activity, supplement, or treatment used by as many people as possible some of whom will experience harm from it.

Your blind squating at the alter of science is little better than Ben's ass presented to the Pope.

[Asher]

I don't have children, Doofus.

Whew!

Your blind squating at the alter of science is little better than Ben's ass presented to the Pope.

You're right, we shouldn't trust scientists on this issue. We should instead turn to historians like you.

Or perhaps we should just think whatever we want?

Personally, I'm going to stop avoiding taking public transportation on the grounds that there are too much rubber on them damn busses, and the rubber emits toxic fumes that are then inhaled which cause cancer. LRTs are just out of the question because they run on electricity, and electricity generates pheromones that are toxic to my cats. The pheromones from the LRTs stick to my clothing and poison my cats. If we didn't have electricity, house cats would live for hundreds of years.

Life is badass when we don't listen to science.

[notyoueither]

Funny. There is one guy in the conversation who actually has some expertise. He's an actual practicing scientist in this field with actual knowledge and experience of the topics under discussion. Except, what he says does not support what others want science to say.

He is dismissed. He is a kook too, despite wearing a lab coat and the other vestments. I suppose he is of a heretic sect though.

Indeed, life goes bad when we do not actually listen.

[MikeH]

What science is definitely not wrong about is that vaccinations save many thousands (millions?) of lives a year. Let's just recap, measles kills between 1 in 2500 and 1 in 5000 children that get it. How many children in the US? A million a year that could catch measles? If only 50% of them get it, that's 100 dead children a year.

Now, in the US medical centres have fridges, so they have the option of having Thiomersal free vaccines, but in the developing world they don't. So you are balancing a small, unproven risk that a minute quantity of Thiomersal might have some negative issues (but we don't have any evidence it does cause an issue) vs saving many thousands of children from death and serious side effects like deafness and blindness.

Not only that, but having your child vaccinated can potentially save the lives of extremely sick kids, say with leukemia, cancer, HIV who are immune compromised and so can't be vaccinated. If most of the population is vaccinated the disease dies out and the small percentage that can't are protected.

Is Thiomersal controversial? Yes, a bit.

Is it causing any problems? Not that we know of, and we've done a lot of research.

Despite this are we phasing Thiomersal out where it's safe to do so? Yes

Are these vaccines saving lives? Yes

Are there ever complications from vaccines? Yes

Does misleading/scaremongering anti-vaccination propoganda reduce take up of vaccines? Yes

Does reduced take up of vaccines cause death and preventable illness to children? Yes

Is it reasonable to be worried about all aspects of medical care for your children? Yes

On balance is it still better to get vaccinated against the known risk even with Thiomersal? Yes

Are vaccinations, generally, a good thing? Yes

Should we just accept all new vaccinations without thinking about it? No

Will I get my kid vaccinated with the combined MMR? Yes, and I would even if we had the Thiomersal version which we don't.

[dannubis]

I suggest we do not vaccinate the people that do not trust them. I guess the problem will sort itself out given enough time.

[Aeson]

lulz@scaremongering

[MikeH]

I suggest we do not vaccinate the people that do not trust them. I guess the problem will sort itself out given enough time.

If only it only affected them, but it also allows the disease to persist and punishes people who can't get vaccinated for other reasons, (usually immune compromised from another condition).

So people not getting their kids vaccinated literally makes sick kids more likely to die.

[dannubis]

My sarcasm went undetected.

[Lorizael]

NYE: Your problem here is one of selection bias. You're ignoring how fantastically good the scientific community's track record has actually been (in the long run) and focusing on the few highly public mistakes.

You see, in terms of medicine and health, science has been right about the germ theory of disease, the placebo effect, vaccines, anesthetics, blood types, vitamins, the circulatory system, the endocrine system, the nervous system, the digestive system, the immune system, differential diagnosis, genetics, radiology, magnetic resonance imaging, defibrillators, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, ultrasound technology, contraceptives, stethoscopes, band-aids, crutches, ice packs, cotton, steel, paper, glass, concrete, resin, fiberglass, treated wood, bricks, chicken soup, and the kitchen sink.

While science gets things wrong - all the time - its track record for eventually getting things right is extraordinarily good, and better than the track record of any other method of going about your life. Even those highly public mistakes you pointed out are actually examples of science getting it right - eventually - because it's the scientific method that allows us to try again and figure out what went wrong.

While you shouldn't trust authority blindly, if you're going to put your trust in anything, it should be the one institution that has a vested interest in correcting its own mistakes - science. Trusting anything else - anecdotal evidence, emotional pleas, or blind paranoia - is likely to have you falling prey to the myriad cognitive biases that affect your ability to reason properly.

[Wezil]

Does misleading/scaremongering anti-vaccination propoganda reduce take up of vaccines? Yes

This one works both ways. Hysteria from the WHO over last years flu has led to considerably lower vaccination rates this year.

[DaShi]

So? There's a possibility that Natalie Portman will stop by my house tomorrow to give me head. It's incredibly unlikely, but still a possibility.

Part of science is never saying anything more than what you have evidence for. Don't rag on Spencer for being cautious in his statements. He's in the right on this one.

No, and this is an important distinction when relaying scientific information to lay people. Remember that the average IQ is 100. So there are a lot more NYE's than you think.

Now, what if I said that toxic waste could give you superpowers:

Adding more epidemioglical data that doesnt address the more complex questions that I briefly mentioned and that are noted by the National Academy does not add anything to the debate except to help confirm the existing conclusions. It doesnt refute the more complex hypotheses since they remain untested by epidemiological studies . Keep in mind that the existing studies are looking for a causal relationship between toxic waste and superpowers, nothing more.

Kind of ridiculous, right? This is because what Spencer said actually doesn't bring anything to the debate because the chance is so insignificant. It's so small to be nearly impossible to happen. At that level, bringing it up simply as a chance that it could happen is nonsense in an argument and irresponsible in a public statement. This is the value of epidemiological studies that Spencer finds so useless. They allow us to identify real risk. Yes, there is a possible mechanism that the mutagens from toxic waste could give you enhanced abilities, a causal relationship. But what is important to public policy is how likely it is that that could happen. Spencer's statement attempts to give it equal weight which feeds on the ignorance of people like NYE and Jenny McCarthy.