Canadian cogitations about politics, social issues, and science. Vituperation optional.
I like it when people on TV are right. :) I’ve already talked about Germ Theory Denial in a previous post, more of the here, but P&T do a great job on destructing and deconstructing the foolishness that people engage in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aky-sRri-NQ
Orac has a few qualms, but agrees mostly with what P&T have to say.
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14 comments
August 20, 2010 at 8:31 am
Vern R. Kaine
Arb, you’re cracking me up here – Penn and Teller? Really?! And you give people who watch Fox News a hard time. ;)
Just because some vaccines have led to the elimination of major diseases like polio doesn’t mean all vaccines are the same or that we should be shoving ourselves to the front of the line to get the first flu shot out the door. And based on a little more information that Penn and Teller provide, we probably shouldn’t be automatically dismissing people as nutjobs for questioning the quality or effectiveness of these vaccines, either.
Sure, there’s tinfoil heads and general idiots who think there’s a massive eugenics-type conspiracy to use vaccines to make people sick, impotent, whatever, and that is easily and rightfully mocked, but have you looked at why some legitimate people (doctors, nurses, etc.) are refusing the vaccine?
Here’s one example of a doctor who seems to have very valid concerns regarding the H1N1 vaccine and people with mitochondrial problems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1z7KSEnyxw&feature=related
Here’s a researcher discussing the hemophilus vaccine and its link to diabetes (poor website quality, but seems to be data-driven)
http://vaccines.net/newpage16.htm
Also, consider how fast things like drugs and vaccines get on the market today. It’s not like it was back in Salk’s day. Some of this is due to greater efficiency, but it’s also driven by greed as well. Products get out the door without much of the testing that could be making the vaccines safer, perhaps reducing or eliminating some of the problems modern vaccines are known to cause.
None of this gives people the right to be ignorant about their health, but it doesn’t automatically mean that people refusing or challenging the safety of vaccines are being ignorant, either.
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August 20, 2010 at 11:24 am
The Arbourist
Just because some vaccines have led to the elimination of major diseases like polio doesn’t mean all vaccines are the same or that we should be shoving ourselves to the front of the line to get the first flu shot out the door.
Actually, the video is mostly about the MMR vaccine and other ones given to children to protect them as they grow up.
we probably shouldn’t be automatically dismissing people as nutjobs for questioning the quality or effectiveness of these vaccines, either.
No we should not. However, on issues where the evidence is great…one could say even overwhelming, as in the case of MMR that the benefits are positive and beneficial skepticism is unwarranted.
I’m curious as to why you would send a link to a video of a non-specialist commenting on H1N1 and making specious claims. Dr. Kent Holtorf seems to have parroted some of the nutty anti-vax talking points in his report. His reliability and accuaracy in this field is questionable at best, even more so with his promotion of ‘bio-identical hormones’.
The researcher in question needs to get published in searchable reputable places. The link between diabetic and that vaccine is not ‘proven’ so to speak. It is easy to find sources that back up a particular point of view on the Internet. Determining their credibility is a much more intensive, perhaps even more important process.
Moreover when I see poorly constructed websites with flashing text, it makes me much more cautious as these sorts of attention grabbing features are not part of reputable researchers toolkit. I trust pubmed, Science Based Medicine and Medline and refer to them first when it comes to medical issues.
None of this gives people the right to be ignorant about their health, but it doesn’t automatically mean that people refusing or challenging the safety of vaccines are being ignorant, either.
Not automatically, just in the cases where the evidence says they are wrong and that was the focus of the P&T video.
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August 20, 2010 at 10:37 pm
wry2010
The Arbourist did a great job in rebuttling this, so I’ll just tackle the one point that he/she did not.
‘consider how fast things like drugs and vaccines get on the market today. It’s not like it was back in Salk’s day. Some of this is due to greater efficiency, but it’s also driven by greed as well. Products get out the door without much of the testing that could be making the vaccines safer, perhaps reducing or eliminating some of the problems modern vaccines are known to cause.’
It takes years for a completely novel vaccine to make it to the market. There is preclinial testing which takes place in cell culture, in then in an animal model. There there is Phase I, II, and III clinical testing. Some of these stagest are done multiple times before moving to the next. The reason that diseases/conditions that already have drugs/vaccines, but have newer drugs/vaccines in the works, make it to the market quicker than a novel one is because things such as correlates of protection, which antigen to use, which animal model to use has already been established. Having these things already established makes it easier to move forward.
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August 21, 2010 at 2:03 am
Vern R. Kaine
“Not automatically, just in the cases where the evidence says they are wrong and that was the focus of the P&T video.”
The rush to judgment in this post and the “Germ Theory Deniers” post seemed pretty automatic to me and not specific to criticisms of a particular vaccine, but no matter. I’m not out to defend tin-foil heads, just making a point that sometimes peoples’ reasons for not blindly accepting a vaccine or medication can be valid.
I don’t know Dr. Holtorf’s work at all. I came across the clip by way of a YouTube search. My point there wasn’t to say he’s right – I have no idea if he is. It was to say that there’s sometimes something other than a conspiracy theory behind people not wanting to get vaccinated. I know doctors and nurses in Nevada that didn’t want to get vaccinated but had to in order to keep their jobs in Nevada. They felt the vaccine was rushed to market, and was too hit-and-miss in its effectiveness to be getting sick over. For the most part they’re “Anti-Vax”, but I’d hardly call them lunatics.
Anyways, that was my two cents (at par). :)
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August 21, 2010 at 2:40 am
Vern R. Kaine
Hi Wry2010,
To your point about the Phases of drug/vaccine approval, I agree that building on prior work speeds up the process, but you’re speaking of a process that may be near perfect on paper but is not so perfect in practice (if you’re anywhere inside the industry you’ll know what I mean.) Processes can be well-documented, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re well-followed or that the drug/vaccine is actually going to do what they say it’s going to do.
To get to the point (which I believe I perhaps tried to go to too fine a point with Arb’s post), while I believe I am (to a large extent) Anti-H1N1 when it comes to myself personally, I’m not Anti-Vax in general. It’s simply a matter of the evidence not applying to my particular circumstances. My reason for commenting as such was to try and point out that distinction. Thanks for your reply. :)
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August 21, 2010 at 9:13 am
The Arbourist
It was to say that there’s sometimes something other than a conspiracy theory behind people not wanting to get vaccinated.
Of course, there is ignorance and fear too. However, one should never paint with too large a brush. It is important to distinguish between legitimate concerns and those based on pseudo-science and quackery. The “green our vaccines’ and ‘too much too fast’ meme are both examples of scared people wilfully ignoring the facts of the matter and making the situation potentially bad for all of us. Once populations fall below the ‘herd immunity’ threshold we will once again see children dying from preventable diseases whether they have been vaccinated or not.
They felt the vaccine was rushed to market, and was too hit-and-miss in its effectiveness to be getting sick over.
Seasonal flu vaccines by their very nature are “hit&miss” as no one can predict the mutations and variations of the flu virus we get every flu season. The vaccines represent a ‘best guess’ as to the strains of influenza that we will experience during any particular flu season.
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August 21, 2010 at 10:36 am
Vern R. Kaine
Arb: “…we will once again see children dying from preventable diseases”
Yes. It’s a whole other can of worms, but let’s also recognize those who are Anti-Vax or Anti-Treatment due to their religious beliefs that they force upon their children.
“The vaccines represent a ‘best guess’ as to the strains of influenza that we will experience during any particular flu season.”
Of course. They’re guessing many months in advance as to what the strain with morph into, but it doesn’t hurt them to keep the hype going a little longer to sell every last bit of vaccine that they have. It’s easier to speculate and say there must be a new strain than it is to say, “oops, we were wrong.”
I’m speaking of the companies, mind you, not necessarily the scientists working on the actual vaccines. I believe their work is solid, but as for the companies themselves, I’m always skeptical when they push this epidemic/pandemic thing on us, especially when share prices are down.
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August 21, 2010 at 11:10 am
wry2010
I am inside the industry, on the academia side. I’m not sure how it is set up for industry, but in academia it’s very easy to bring concerns about ethics violations, or just concerns in general to the necessary people without fear of losing a job, etc. If people find themselves in a situation where something illegal is being done (meaning violating the IRB or IACUC) then those people should speak up. There is a system in place for a reason. Sadly, in academics we do label people as “missing their call for industry”
A drug or vaccine shouldn’t make it to the market if doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. I’m not sure what you were trying to say, but if a drug meant to lower blood pressure doesn’t lower pressure, then I have a lot of questions needing answered for how it got to the market.
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August 21, 2010 at 11:19 am
wry2010
Freedom of religion isn’t absolute. In some circumstances it comes down to freedom of religion vs welfare of the state. In this case it’s the welfare of the children in schools that trumps (and rightfully so) the freedom of religion.
It’s not the pharmaceutical companies that push the epidemic/pandemic thing upon is. It’s public health specialist such as biostatisticians epidemiologists, research scientists that work for both the government and in academia that give input as to whether something is an epidemic/pandemic. As far as H1N1 is concerned there were at least 46 countries with confirmed cases…if that’s not a pandemic then I don’t know what it is.
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August 21, 2010 at 11:40 am
The Arbourist
Arb: “…we will once again see children dying from preventable diseases”
V.R. Kaine: Yes. It’s a whole other can of worms, but let’s also recognize those who are Anti-Vax or Anti-Treatment due to their religious beliefs that they force upon their children.
I would quietly point out this is another reason why religion needs to go. When belief and tradition trump evidence and fact nothing good can come from the equation.
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August 21, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Vern R. Kaine
Then you’ve got more faith in the system than I do. I worked with one of the major pharmas as well as a different company that monitored their clinical trials as a third party. Each would talk about the pressures on having successful trials and the urgency to get a drug to market as fast as possible. There are checks and balances, sure, but those rely on people with varied stakes in the game.
I’ve taken this way off-topic, so I’ll just finish by just saying that I don’t have a high, automatic level of faith in new drugs to begin with, so with something that even the drug companies say is “hit and miss’ such as the H1N1 vaccine, and people are in such a panic that they can accidentally get injected with insulin rather than the vaccine (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineFluNews/school-staffers-insulin-swine-flu-shot/story?id=9606504), I’m not so quick to jump on the flu shot bandwagon. If that makes me Anti-Vax, so be it.
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August 21, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Vern R. Kaine
“It’s not the pharmaceutical companies that push the epidemic/pandemic thing upon is. It’s public health specialist such as biostatisticians epidemiologists, research scientists that work for both the government and in academia that give input as to whether something is an epidemic/pandemic.
Curious – who decides which drug company the country buys the vaccine from? To not think there’s at least some corporate and political influence there might be a bit naive. Neither the drug companies or the government workers would be stupid enough to leave proof of that influence in plain sight, but at the very least the suspicion is warranted (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10235558).
Working at the executive level one knows that these companies don’t get to the size they get to without having political connections EVERYWHERE. Their policies may speak or hope of a lack of bias, but based on my experience with government, pharmaceutical companies, and yes, even universities, people are always playing favorites of some kind.
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August 22, 2010 at 10:09 am
Alan Scott
The Arbourist,
It is nice when you hand me the tools to argue against you.
” I would quietly point out this is another reason why religion needs to go. When belief and tradition trump evidence and fact nothing good can come from the equation. ”
Religion will continue to change, evolve, but it will never go. Thousands of years of history are against you.
” Of course, there is ignorance and fear too. However, one should never paint with too large a brush. ”
Exactly what you are doing. Every religion has it’s splinter groups. Islam is divided up between Sunnis and Shi’ites. In Christianity, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and the Roman Catholic Church, are the older branches. Protestant Churches have so many sub groups with in the main branches .
You can always find a Christian Church practicing something you disagree with and then use it to smear all of Christianity, which is what you do.
Unfortunately your science has not progressed to the point where it has every answer . For the billions of earth’s people swimming in the sea of uncertainty, that is everyday life, Religion is always an option.
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August 22, 2010 at 12:08 pm
The Arbourist
Religion will continue to change, evolve, but it will never go. Thousands of years of history are against you.
The institution of slavery, supported in the bible btw, has passed from much of the modern world. If something established as slavery can be stricken down, I have hope that organized religion may one day follow.
You can always find a Christian Church practicing something you disagree with and then use it to smear all of Christianity, which is what you do.
People who believe that prayer can heal their children and eventually kill them. Which doctrine is it based on? Christianity. My objection, as I said in my earlier comment, is that when belief and tradition trump evidence and science, nothing good can come from it.
Because less deluded christian sects exist that have a better grip on reality does in no way refute my point.
Unfortunately your science has not progressed to the point where it has every answer .
I doubt that it ever will, but that is sort of the point of science. It is a move toward the better understanding of the physical universe we live in.
For the billions of earth’s people swimming in the sea of uncertainty, that is everyday life, Religion is always an option.
It most certainly is, but just because *lots* of people endorse it does not necessarily make it correct.
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