I absolutely know you weren't recommending the anti-medical parts, and I'm very sorry to have given the impression that I thought you were.
Those sorts of things tick me off (obviously), perhaps in part because of exposure to my wife's very sweet and intelligent but NewAge-loopy cousin.
I don't think a "balanced" approach to the vaccination issue is justified. Cars, trains, and electric supply networks also "really injure and kill people". Without analysis, that argument is no better than anecdotes. In populations in the hundreds of millions, you can always find anecdotes, and they prove nothing. The evidence is overwhelming. Certainly the origin of anti-vaccinism, in ex-Dr. Wakefield's fraudulent report, is no recommendation at all.
CSICOP, AFAIK, has no dog in this fight: just debunking frauds. Voices for Vaccines obviously does. The news media... well, I suppose one could say they get ad money from Big Pharma.
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dancing_serpent
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2015-04-30 09:26 pm (UTC)Those sorts of things tick me off (obviously), perhaps in part because of exposure to my wife's very sweet and intelligent but NewAge-loopy cousin.
I don't think a "balanced" approach to the vaccination issue is justified. Cars, trains, and electric supply networks also "really injure and kill people". Without analysis, that argument is no better than anecdotes. In populations in the hundreds of millions, you can always find anecdotes, and they prove nothing. The evidence is overwhelming. Certainly the origin of anti-vaccinism, in ex-Dr. Wakefield's fraudulent report, is no recommendation at all.
• CSICOP: The Anti-Vaccination Movement
• Voices for Vaccines: Leaving the Anti-Vaccine Movement
• Newsweek: Andrew Wakefield, Father of the Anti-Vaccine Movement, Responds to the Current Measles Outbreak for the First Time
• USA Today: Anti-vaccine movement is giving diseases a 2nd life
• Huffington Post: 6 Dangerous Anti-Vaccination Arguments Analyzed, Explained, And Shut Down
CSICOP, AFAIK, has no dog in this fight: just debunking frauds.
Voices for Vaccines obviously does.
The news media... well, I suppose one could say they get ad money from Big Pharma.