Tin Foil Hat, Inc. and Vaccination

Also possibly posted as part of the Skeptics' Circle over at Young Australian Skeptics. Go check out the rest of what is there. I am again late with a submission. Since Australia is half a day ahead of us, Wednesday evening here is already tomorrow, there. Or something like that. ;-)




Over at The Gotham Skeptic, there is a post with the title, The New Plague, about the fanaticism of those who are anti-science, anti-vaccine, and anti-child.

To start out, here is the first paragraph -

A new epidemic is creeping across parts of the US. It primarily affects infants and children of higher socio-economic status, and it has the potential to cause horrible illness and death. It has already begun to cause outbreaks in scattered communities throughout the country. If it is not contained quickly, more carnage will result. The epidemic I am describing is not Swine Flu. It is not a newly mutated animal virus imported from some far-flung corner of the globe. It is the epidemic of parental vaccine fear, and it is a major threat to the safety of children everywhere.

And a part of the last paragraph -

An often-used saying by those who fight against the irrationality of anti-vaccinationism, is that “vaccines are the victim of their own success.” Certainly, one could not point to a more successful public health measure than vaccination. Vaccines have saved more lives and prevented more disease and disability than all other public health measures combined. They have been so successful, that most parents (and most physicians) have no first-hand knowledge of the diseases against which children are vaccinated.

In the comments, there is some defense of scaremongering from E.S. Hamblin -

Moreover, I feel the safety testing has been far less rigorous in recent years than previously, and that the incentive to downplay adverse events and “spin” results of trials. As a scientist and a writer, I’m fully aware of how easy it is to nuance statistics and facts–you can’t change the numbers themselves, but you CAN pick and choose which numbers you make public.

Please provide some evidence that the FDA (the Food and Drug Administration) is not receiving accurate data.

The FDA is not the public. The FDA actually has a bunch of scientists, who are accustomed to dealing with statistical data, reviewing these data.

E.S. Hamblin, you act as if the FDA has no understanding of research. Why?

E.S. Hamblin, you act as if the FDA has no role in drug approval. Why?

If anything, VAERS (the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) leads to an over-reporting of adverse events. There is no requirement for evidence of any link between a vaccination and an adverse event. This method is good for quality control, since it discourages exactly what E.S. Hamblin alleges. I do not need to be a doctor, nurse, or any kind of health professional to make a report to VAERS. I do not even have to have any idea of what I am doing. VAERS would rather look at hundreds of false reports, and they do, than miss some actual adverse events that are related to vaccination. Yet, E.S. Hamblin mistakenly believes that there is less being done to make vaccines even safer. At least, less than in the good old days. Vaccines are possibly the safest medicines available, but when we choose fear over logic, we will make bad decisions.

Tin Foil Hat, Inc. has no budget for research. They only have to point out coincidences, raise suspicions, and mislead people in order to satisfy their business plan. Their business plan is to sell things to the gullible.

Research costs? Nothing.

Printing costs? They appear to try to save money by shunning punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and spelling.

Does Tin Foil Hat, Inc. need to provide any kind of scientific evidence? No. Of course not. They never met a well done study they didn't hate. Well done research has continually failed to support their claims. Research is the enemy for Tin Foil Hat, Inc. Research has the goal of objectivity, while Tin Foil Hat, Inc. Corporate Communication Officer Chicken Little realizes that drama, not objectivity, is what sells.

Misdirection, fear, uncertainty, coincidence, confusion, . . . are the tools of Tin Foil Hat, Inc.

E.S. Hamblin points out that the drug companies have a profit incentive, while ignoring the same bias from the anti-science critics of the drug companies. This profit incentive is worth considering. The drug companies have the oversight of the FDA.

Tin Foil Hat, Inc. has no oversight. They only have to generate a profit. There is no accountability.

If your child dies, because you took the advice of Tin Foil Hat, Inc., expect nothing.

Don't expect an apology. Don't expect to sue them for malpractice, since they will claim that they are not giving medical advice. Their job is to start the riot, get out of town, then criticize the way the riot was handled. If we want an example of corrupt and irresponsible behavior, this is where we will find it.

Back to E.S. Hamblin's comment -

there’s also such a thing as caveat emptor, and when the people offering the data to us have a financial incentive to convince us to use the product, that raises red flags as to the data’s veracity.

The drug companies do have a financial incentive. The FDA has the role of oversight to protect the public from harm that might result from a too zealous pursuit of their financial incentive.

Tin Foil Hat, Inc. also has a financial incentive. Tin Foil Hat, Inc. has no oversight to protect the public from the harm that might result from a too zealous pursuit of their financial incentive.

On the one side, we have scientific zealots. Doctors, who do the research. Doctors, who publish the research. Doctors, who review the research. Doctors, who criticize the research. The result is that science corrects its mistakes.

On the other side, we have pure zealotry. No scientific understanding. No research or review. They attempt to hide any criticism of their faulty, purely ideological methods. The result is that they try to cover up their mistakes.

Scientists point out mistakes. They do not try to cover up mistakes.

What is a scientific zealot?

A scientific zealot is one who is searching for the truth, regardless of what the truth is. A scientific zealot has the goal of objectivity.

The pure zealot has no interest in the truth. They take a post-modernist approach. I will never know everything, therefore I cannot know anything. My feelings are all there is. I feel that vaccines are bad. I feel that I should oppose vaccines. Hmmm. I need to sell things to allow me to spread the word. I'll write books. I'll sell supplements. I'll provide treatments. I don't need a license, just my agenda and a bank account for deposits.

This isn't even a bad business plan, since there is always free advertising - The sky is falling! News at 11.

Caveat emptor suggests that we should be wary of quacks selling nonsense. On the one side, we have drug companies with so much regulation, that it costs millions of dollars to get a drug approved by the FDA. Many of these drugs are abandoned in early research, because they are dangerous or ineffective. On the other side, we have a bunch of scientific illiterates claiming the sky is falling.

If I walk off a cliff, because I am so busy watching for the sky to fall, it isn't because I have been paying too much attention to science. It is because I have been paying too much attention to nonsense.


For another view on this debate, that has science on one side and science is scary on the other side, there is an excellent article in Wired Magazine - An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All.


.