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Sorry Anti-Vaxxers, the Numbers are Against You
My grandmother was justifiably terrified of polio, which is why she didn’t let my mom play with other kids in the summertime, when polio was most likely to strike. My great aunt died in the flu epidemic of 1917, and my father barely survived whooping cough as a baby.
Anti-vaxxers, plagued with fear untempered by experience, and benefitting from herd immunity need to be reminded of a world without vaccines. So Michael Ramirez, who is old enough to remember the very human cost of denying vaccinations, is making a print available at a very low cost to medical professionals for their offices. Sometimes people just need a reminder:
The prints are available for $100 each for medical professionals and care providers here.
Published in General
I like it.
I remember reading years ago that the cancer rate for left handers was slightly lower than that for right handers. The theory was that left handers’ immune systems were slightly stronger. I’m glad we got something to make up for watches being right handed.
This is why it is so important to make a Bonferroni correction to the p-value threshold when looking at multiple independent variables. The whole point of the p-value for statistical significance is the level at which a false association is acceptable. Many studies tout a p-value of 0.05 or less as significant. But that equates to 1 in 20 probability of it being incorrect. There a lots of funny associations made in the statistics literature showing how this works. I recall something being associated with a birth month of December being significant. It was ridiculous, but “statistically significant” at 0.05.
With all due respect to the earnest moms, their “research” is limited by the sources they consult and their own limitations and biases. The more intelligent they are, the more likely they are to be able to make a reasonable and logical sounding argument for…well, any old junk they want. I do clinical research and have been in medicine for over 40 years. There are areas I know well and in which I am published and considered to know what I’m talking about. Meanwhile, despite having the skills and experience to do my own research, I also recognize my limitations. When I had a cancer diagnosis (my area is infectious disease) and wanted to forego some of the treatment, I spoke with all three of my involved physicians and several colleagues, and also had my husband attend my visits, all to be sure that I wasn’t applying my own bias against treatment–because I did have a good, numerically reasonable argument and wanted to be sure I hadn’t logicked myself into what I wanted to conclude. That’s the essence of the true peer review process. That’s also the frustration of the physicians and infectious disease folks who have seen these awful diseases, and fear their return, when faced with a parent who says, “I did my research.”
We have a wonderful control group for not vaccinating–the developing world, where children continue to die from vaccine preventable diseases like measles by the hundreds of thousands to millions (depending how broadly we count vaccine-preventable). Granted, the medical support services available in the developed world aren’t available when these children get sick, but they aren’t cheap here either. We also have history. Before the introduction of measles vaccine (1963), there were an estimated 2.6 million deaths per year attributable to measles, including 400-500/year in the US in the decade before vaccine introduction [ie, in the antibiotic era and prior to any wide-spread antibiotic resistance (nb. measles isn’t treatable by antibiotics, but secondary bacterial infections like pneumonia would be)]. By 2017 we’re down to “only” 110,000. Here’s a fascinating WHO listing of vaccine preventable deaths and vaccination rates by country from 1980 through 2017 with underlying incidence.
The anti-vaxxers I know, even in my own family (sigh), would say this is prima facie evidence you are not to be trusted.
Sort of like the one flat-earther I know.
Of course, truly scientific studies will also control for improved nutrition, changes in the way we interact socially, so are exposed or not, and all the advances in treatments that control or limit the symptoms or effects of a viral disease as it runs its course.
That care needs to be monetized relative to both inoculation and the rare very bad side effect/complication of vaccination.
I would suggest that anyone who believes that vaccines are a bad thing is not doing proper research at all. The information is all out there in plain sight. It requires a mental or emotional block to be able to ignore the voluminous factual information in favor of the fringe pseudoscientific stuff.
I hate to make this a political issue, but I’ve noticed this for years about the Leftist people who berate us “Climate Deniers” for not believing in science. These same people, in general, do not believe the science at all about Nuclear Energy, GMO Foods, Biological differences between the sexes, IQ differences between races, Flouridation of water, Fracking, and on and on…..
Meanwhile, they are more prone to believe in fake stuff like Quack Medicine, Astrology, UFO’s, ESP, Crystal Power, Ancient Astronauts, Ghosts, Bigfoot, the Musical talent of Bruce Springsteen……..
At my first computer job (helping researchers run statistical packages on our mainframe computer) there was an education professor who ran a diploma mill, helping teachers get their masters degrees (and a bump in salary) by doing survey questionnaire research, then looking for any “significant” differences and writing their thesis on that. I had suspected that’s what he was doing, but once in my presence he explained to a student that that was how to go about it. This guy and I usually communicated OK, but when I asked him if he didn’t need to correct for multiple comparisons, he all of a sudden didn’t know what I was talking about. I didn’t want to show him up in front of his student, so I didn’t get argumentative about it.
And besides, it was not my job to give statistical advice, as I was just a masters student in biology who had taken a few statistics classes, and not a credentialed statistics person. I had once been told that in my own department, where real research was being done, that a masters student in his thesis defense had been challenged on his use of statistics, and he had appealed to what I had said. I was told that the committee member had said, “I don’t care what [insert my name here] said; I want to hear your explanation.”
I hadn’t given out any bogus information, but this made me nervous. If I was getting that kind of attention I needed to be careful about overstepping my role.
But there was a time when an administrator came to me under cover of darkness, so to speak, to get some statistical advice about a sex discrimination case. He couldn’t consult with any of the statisticians on the faculty because they were members of the union that was party to the lawsuit. It was a question about whether a “significant” difference was a significant difference. I was stuck on the fact that he didn’t have a sample with which to draw inferences about a larger population; he had data on the entire population. So I didn’t know how to help him. Also, I was very nervous about overstepping my role, and rightly so since I didn’t have the knowledge needed. Since then I have learned about ways to formulate your question for that kind of situation, but at the time I was at a loss.
They are not all leftists. That much I can tell you for sure. Sheryl Attkinson is not a leftist, for example. So if you argue against them on that basis you will not be taken seriously, and with some justification, because you have jumped to wrong conclusions on the basis of insufficient data.
I did not mean to say that all Leftists do not believe the science on these issues, just that I’ve noticed that in general, they are more likely to disregard established science than are Conservatives. Why do you bring up Cheryl Attkinson? Does she deny some scientific belief, or believe in pseudoscience?
True, you didn’t say all leftists. The reason I brought up Attkinson is to point out that we shouldn’t make this into a left or right issue. I really don’t know much about her basis for being an anti-vaxer because I haven’t read her arguments closely. Usually when I go to read Attkinson it’s on other topics, but this one seems to come up now and then. My usual response is to roll my eyes and move on. That doesn’t speak well of me, but that’s what I tend to do.
But I will say that most of the arguments presented here about anti-vaxers have not been very scientific. The doctor in the Ramierez cartoon is not responding to the issue in a scientific or logical manner. There is a lot of science that informs me that vaccinations are usually worth the risk, given my value system, and that lack of them can put the larger population at risk. But the attacks on anti-vaxers tend to be unscientific or even pseudo-scientific.
I didn’t know that about Attkinson. I’m not surprised though, when I hear about irrational beliefs in anybody, even the staunchest realists. Humans are kind of incapable of maintaining complete rationality at all times, or in all aspects of their lives.
I don’t have any basis for saying her view is based on an irrational belief. I guess that’s what I get for not paying closer attention.
Here’s a bit more science for you:
There is only one n in Sharyl Attkisson. And it’s at the very end.
So then what’s the issue? Even if someone is totally self-centered, they should support vaccination since it protects themselves as well as the larger population. What rational “value system” could conclude otherwise?
The issue is mandates.
And I said “usually.” I recognize that there can be exceptions.
People do all sorts of things that put the larger population at risk. Voting for Democrats is an example. That doesn’t mean I favor mandatory votes for Republicans. Making bad choices of sex partners is another example. It puts us all at risk. It doesn’t mean I favor marriages arranged by government. I will bend overboard to allow people to make their own unwise choices, and I will bend overboard to allow parents to make their own choices on vaccines, compatible with their own value systems. I am willing for us all to take some risks in order to allow people to make those choices. However, it doesn’t mean I am willing for us to take any and all risks for that. There are limits.
The reasoning behind and justification for mandatory vaccination is precisely the same as that for quarantining people suffering from dangerous infectious diseases. Failing to vaccine/quarantine presents a risk to others in a way that those other individuals cannot defend against or avoid. Your examples of bad choices have consequences that can be avoided by individuals making good choices (especially moral choices). Your defense of the freedom to make bad choices is a strawman in this case, whether you meant it that way or not.
People quarantined often suffer worse outcomes, and certainly suffer more financially, than if they were not quarantined. But a clear danger to society causes the rest of us to enforce that quarantine. So too with vaccines. Some individuals will experience negative reactions, but the danger to the rest of society more than justifies it. Recognition of the need for society to act like this in some cases purely for societal survival tends to highlight the void between conservatives and libertarians. (See Arnold Kling’s The Three Languages of Politics.)
Maybe I’m not understanding the argument, but it seems that the failure to vaccinate only presents a risk to others who failed to vaccinate.
No, there’s a substantial fraction of the vaccinated who don’t develop immunity. They are only protected by the herd of other vaccinated people around them who can’t catch the disease in question. This works up to about 5% or so (varies with population density, as you might expect). Deliberate avoidance of vaccination raises the percentage depending on the herd, threatening the random vaccinated person for whom it didn’t “take”. So when the outbreak comes, the unvaccinated take out the unfortunates who couldn’t develop immunity.
The unvaccinated who catch and survive a particular disease are also more likely to become carriers, threatening both the above non-immune and the infants and children too young to take a vaccine yet. Sometimes a carrier has had such an apparently mild case they don’t even realize what has happened.
Vaccination isn’t 100% effective on an individual basis, which is another reason why “herd immunity” is so important.
The most commonly noted aspect of “herd immunity” is probably that it helps protect those who can’t be vaccinated for some definite medial reason, not just because they don’t wanna.
Probably. Quarantines have sometimes been opposed by civil liberties groups and others because there is a temptation for governments to use them as a means of political control or political scapegoating. And it’s not just in the Russian comedy film, Election Day, in which a cholera quarantine is used to suppress a political opposition campaign. It has happened in real life. This article appears to give a good historical perspective:
Tognotti E. Lessons from the history of quarantine, from plague to influenza A. Emerg Infect Dis. http://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid1902
I found the closing sentence to be a good one.
Notice the part about balancing risks and benefits. Balance. Unfortunately, it appears that some people are determined to conduct their anti-anti-vax campaign with anti-scientific, unbalanced, smashmouth techniques that will do the utmost to undermine public trust.
No, I cannot completely avoid the bad consequences of people around me who make bad choices. No man is an island, etc. We can argue about this if you’d like.
No, it’s not a strawman. It’s an analogy. If I need to explain I will, but I presume you can figure it out yourself.
Yes, sometimes the danger to the rest of society justifies it. That’s a point I was trying to make. And sometimes it doesn’t. It’s not easy to determine when we’ve reached that point. I am opposed to the people who think it’s an easy call. Those people are not to be trusted.
Part of what might be… confusing… some people, perhaps including yourself, is the misconception that past vaccination makes current vaccination unnecessary. But that is not true. Many of the anti-vaccination crowd seem to rely on the “fact” that vaccination doesn’t seem necessary because something like “nobody gets polio any more!” Right. BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN GETTING VACCINATED! If you stop that, even to a somewhat small degree that brings down “herd immunity,” you get outbreaks of measles etc exactly such as we’ve been getting recently!
I’m also reminded of some network news twit who claimed that a border wall wasn’t necessary because, there he was in a border town with a McDonalds etc right behind him, and there weren’t a bunch of illegals streaming across… ignoring that there was also a BORDER WALL right behind him.
I would need to see the evidence that anybody thinks that way. Y’know, science.
It’s one of the arguments they make. If polio etc were at the levels they were at before vaccination, as in the OP for example, they wouldn’t be able to use that as a crutch. But to the extent they succeed, they lead to that very result. Again, as is already being seen in recent outbreaks of measles etc.
There was also an episode of “Emergency!” back in the 70s that made the same point. The kid’s (10 years old or less, as I recall) mother didn’t get him the polio treatment because “nobody gets polio any more.” One of the doctors commented, “What do you think she’ll tell him, when he’s old enough to understand?”
Well, if I can appeal to movies/TV as evidence, I guess you can too.
#1, it’s called “Alternative Medicine”
#2. I’m a Taurus.
#3. What do you call it when you can’t identify it either?
#4. Don’t say it. I already know.
#5. Hematite is very balancing and calming. You should try it.
#6. What do you call Buzz Aldrin?
#7. There’s better evidence of the last two than of vaccine injury.
Funny stuff. But I bet if you gave someone a crystal of anything-but-hematite, told them it was hematite, and “Hematite is very balancing and calming,” you’d get the exact same results.
It’s not evidence, it’s an illustration/example.
Depends on the person. A True Believer, yes. Skeptic? Not bloody likely.