“And there is no evidence either that Satan shivered. Why on earth must people get so tied up in such a small point and completely overlook Phil’s point?
To whoever this reply applies to as I am too lazy to find the actual comment: Why is it that because Phil puts himself out there and expresses his scientifically based decision on vaccines people are now going to fact check everything he says? You know its not like Phil is deciding to re-write the laws of gravity here. He just wants people to get the real facts, suck it up, get vaccinated and save people’s lives. WOW Phil is a monster! And I do not want to hear that is what McCarthy et al are doing, but it is not. They don’t care if people die as long as it serves “the cause”. They consider the deaths causalities of war, plain and simple.
How about we all hold hand and sing kumbaya and nitpick the little points while people get ill, infirmed and/or die. Then after we have done this we can look into the eyes of the family members who have to deal with the aftermath and explain to them why we were to busy singing songs and yelling at each other to get a bloody needle.
Look into the eyes of Dana McCaffery and explain to her why she got whooping cough. OH WAIT! You can’t because she is dead. Explain it to the child then who had a heart transplant as a baby why his heart is being rejected because it was just a simple flu that does not kill like the regular flu does. Look into the eyes of the children you may orphan because their parents are immuno-compromised and explain to them why you are risking leaving them parentless.
If you have the nerve to look into these people’s faces and say “Sorry we can’t get our needle because (insert poor excuse here unless it is a valid medical reason)” as they lay there really really sick… well then you don’t want to know what I think about that.
I ranted about this last night on my personal blog. I ranted about it today when I was given a leaflet saying H1N1 is a man made vaccine and conspiracy to kill people and turn them into zombies type BS and for BigPharma to make millions and I am ranting about it again.
Yes I am being a bit of an alarmist here but the above is many people’s reality. They have to worry about illness in ways many people do not even imagine. But I think it is time to stop being nice about it and shake people into reality. If McCarthy et al want to scare people into not vaccinating then why can’t people use the same shock and scare tactics but with science to back them up? And this flu (as someone has already pointed out) is not just killing those at higher risk, but normally healthy people as well.”
After this rant, I was up all night subjecting myself to stupid video after stupid video with McCarthy et al on a various of different “news” programs and talk shows spewing the same dangerous garbage and shifting the goal post. I could not sleep because I was so upset over this and the comments of people who honestly believe this garbage caused me to shake.
You know, McCarthy is one smart cookie and business woman despite the fact she comes off as a raving lunatic for those of us who are grounded in reality. You want to know why she is smart? Because she has put a face to her crazy, her poor poor autistic son Evan. She has made millions off of her poor poor autistic son Evan and has made others millions. She preys on people’s emotions and fears by using words such as “Iran and Iraq” to describe certain things. She states things such as “parent’s anecdotal evidence is real science” to appeal to the parents who are grief stricken over their child’s disorder. She names names and puts a face to her cause. She is smart despite being so wrong and misguided.
One of the biggest criticism of science is that it deals only in stats and numbers. It is cold and unfeeling. I am well aware of this myself as I decided to leave out stats and numbers when I wrote my own blog trying to put a face to Lupus and raise awareness. For many people stats and numbers are boring and they just don’t care. However, if you humanize the equation, people take notice. It is a basic psychological thing. It is why you see in movie after movie and tv show after tv show that when someone is kidnapped, the police/FBI/etc. tell the person making the media plea for the safe return of the victim to say their name over and over again, to turn the nameless and faceless victim into a person.
There are many people in the science and skeptic community trying to bring awareness to this situation and the damage it is doing. Among them are Phil Plait(PhD), Joe Albietz(MD), Steve Novella(MD), Steve Lundquist / Todd W / IVAN3MAN, studies such as the this that have studied the impact of the antivax movement (A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine-Autism War)
This is an excellent start but I am really starting to believe it is not enough and never be enough because it is not appealing to people’s emotions. One can argue that science shouldn’t appeal to person’s emotions since science is supposed to be emotion free. However, this subject is not emotion free. Now even so I do become of a bit of an extremist and an alarmist when it comes to this issue because it could very well kill me and leave my children parentless and I feel we could learn from the tactics of McCarthy does not mean we should become her. Using terror to fight terror is never a good idea. And even so anecdotes ARE NOT EVIDENCE despite what Jenny McCarthy wants to say, I think it is time we put real faces to this issue. It has already begun with Dana McCaffery’s parents becoming vocal on the tragedy that struck their family. I think it is not enough.
Like it or not, people listen to anecdote. Like it or not people will listen to something because a friend of a friend of a friend said it and swears by it so it must be true. So I think us science people need to start putting faces and names to how the antivax movement is affecting our families and us. Let us humanize the numbers found above in the study and the McCarthy body count. Let us who are science realists, who have children with autism etc speak out without spouting numbers but with real faces. The numbers are there but they are cold. Some of my friends in the science community may not agree or support this idea and that is their choice. What I am proposing is this, blog about your story. But on top of blogging your own story or the story of someone close to you who is affected by this, I am willing to create a page dedicated to these stories so they can all be found in one location.
I have invited the crazies many times to come here and say their garbage to my face. Now I do not know if it is because they can actually kill me and they can’t say it to my face why they continue to believe what they believe or what is the case, but they remain silent. And I know they read this blog. It is not like I do not get a lot of hits. Now I am inviting the other side. I hope you accept this invitation and speak up. Please pass the word and send me feedback and I will create the page ASAP and we can start building the provaccine community and put another face to this issue.
And if you are part of the science community and think this is a bad idea, please let me know why you think it a bad idea as well. We are not always going to all agree on how best to get a message out and if we make that transparent perhaps it will help get the message out that it is all anecdote and do the real research yourself and talk to your doctor. Despite the fact we want to think our mommy/daddy instincts outweigh a doctor’s education, they do not. We get insane and irrational when our children are sick. We grasp at straws and will cling to anything told to use that brings us any ray of hope. The last thing we want to hear is a doctor we feel is not listening to us. Well they are listening but it is their job to protect our children and keep them healthy, even at times from us parents.
