The Anti-vaccination movement!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Anti-vaccination movement!

MisterBadIdea: Oct 9, 2012; Anything?

In the wake of the anti-vax movement picking up a couple more celebrities (Jay Cutler and Kristin Cavallari), I've been browsing a lot of the sites by these people. They are... frightening. And more demonstrably dangerous than your average conspiracy nut. They do not seem to be shrinking in number either.

Now, I highly doubt we're gonna see any anti-vaxxers on this forum but I was curious if anyone had any insight into these people. Why are these people so numerous and why are they so intractable? Have you ever tried to engage these people? Did they have any point at all? How do you know that YOU'RE not the Big Pharma sheeple they say you are? (I didn't explore the sites very deeply but they seem unmoved that the autism study was debunked because they blame vaccines for a billion other things.)

I mean, they must know they're being vilified, right? That diseases are making a comeback and they're getting blamed for it? Like here! http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/20/thanks-to-anti-vaxxers-mumps-are-back-what-s-next.html How do they deal with that?

Now, me, I've met exactly one anti-vaxxer in my life, and get this, she was a speaker at my autism class when I was getting my master's in education. (She is the mother of an autistic child, and I think this was before the autism study was revealed to be fraudulent. I don't know if my teacher knew she was going to go on about vaccines.) Basically, she summed up her argument like this:
1) Autism went up around the same time vaccinations went up.
2) Vaccinations are scheduled right around the same time autism tends to appear.
3) There's some weird poo poo in vaccines, man.

That is a circumstantial argument at best, obviously, but she seemed to find it convincing. She said she did worry about her kids catching some horrible disease but that was a tradeoff she was willing to face.

MisterBadIdea fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Mar 26, 2014

# ? Mar 25, 2014 19:44

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 03:21

Stanos: Sep 22, 2009; The best 57 in hockey.

Selfishness, mostly. Anti-Vac people have been around forever and my grandma swears to this day that the old MMR vaccine gave my aunt mental issues. My mom fortunately just played it off as 'she was already not bright' and vaccinated but a lot of it is fear and a terrible grounding in history. People growing up today haven't seen the mass illnesses of smallpox first hand and people crippled by polio so they think of it as distant and quaint instead of realizing the reason they don't see it was vaccination in the first place. As you've said, you're already seeing their thought processes coming home to roost and once herd immunity gets weak some bad things are going to happen.

The increase in autism is mainly tied to better diagnosing and people not relating correlation to causation I believe.

It all comes back to selfishness however.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 19:52

Rush Limbo: Sep 5, 2005; its with a full house

It's pretty much delusional thinking, based on very, very circumstantial 'evidence' that has been refuted numerous times.

Even if there was any link at all between vaccinations and autism, then the vaccination will still be the best bet because we know the diseases the vaccinations are protecting against are lethal, carry an incredibly high risk of mortality and pretty much have been completely eradicated in the Western world thanks to these vaccinations.

If it came down to this choice:

a) My child dying of an easily preventable disease or
b) My child possibly getting autism

Then any rational person would prefer the second to the first. As it stands, it's not even a choice because what you're essentially saying is "I don't want my child to die".

The anti-vaccination movement is pretty much child abuse, not only of their own children, but every other child out there. These people should be held criminally responsible for any deaths that result thanks to their stance.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 19:57

E-Tank: Aug 4, 2011

Ddraig posted:

If it came down to this choice:

a) My child dying of an easily preventable disease or
b) My child possibly getting autism

Then any rational person would prefer the second to the first. As it stands, it's not even a choice because what you're essentially saying is "I don't want my child to die".

Its less that, and more lacking in knowledge of exactly how dangerous diseases are. A mother hears that your child might be turn autistic if you get him vaccinated thinks "Well, if he gets sick I can take him to the doctor and we can get medicine for that sickness. . . but autism has no cure and that's *FOREVER!*"

So in the pros/cons of things, they view it as a short term con and a long term pro. Their child might get sick, but we have doctors and if vaccines can stop people from getting sick surely medication can cure a sick child, but there's no cure for mental issues like autism.

Not defending them, I just can see how someone whom doesn't know how exactly diseases work and that any disease if it hits the child in the right way can be loving fatal, would look at it like that.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 20:06

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Not to mention the sheer amount of pseudoscience spread in media and fear mongering which encourages adopting this crap.

There is no legitimate reason for the anti-vaccine movement, its a bunch of 'New Age' thinking that is hurting people and children.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 20:27

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

E-Tank posted:

Its less that, and more lacking in knowledge of exactly how dangerous diseases are. A mother hears that your child might be turn autistic if you get him vaccinated thinks "Well, if he gets sick I can take him to the doctor and we can get medicine for that sickness. . . but autism has no cure and that's *FOREVER!*"

So in the pros/cons of things, they view it as a short term con and a long term pro. Their child might get sick, but we have doctors and if vaccines can stop people from getting sick surely medication can cure a sick child, but there's no cure for mental issues like autism.

Not defending them, I just can see how someone whom doesn't know how exactly diseases work and that any disease if it hits the child in the right way can be loving fatal, would look at it like that.

It would perhaps be more accurate to say that the logic is: "I would rather have a dead child than a child with a mental disability." I can tell you that this sure makes a lot of the adults with autism feel grand about themselves.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 20:30

forgot my pants: Feb 28, 2005

I have a relative who is hardcore anti-vaccine. She is opposed to all forms of Western medicine. I'm not sure her children have ever seen a doctor. Her last pregnancy she had two twins delivered breech. It would have been illegal to home birth them in the state she lives in due to the elevated risk. So she searched on the internet for a couple in a neighboring state that would let her deliver them at their home. She ended up traveling there to give birth. She received all kinds of "cred" in the online communities she's a member of for not going to the hospital despite her risky pregnancy. This is only half of her craziness, but it underscores how the anti-vaccine movement is part of a broader anti-medicine movement, and for many people it is an essential part of their identity. These people derive their social esteem from having such outlandish beliefs. That makes it particularly difficult to change their minds. I also think these views would have a lot of difficulty spreading without the internet making it possible for anti-vaxxers to reinforce each other's opinions.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 20:32

Big Hubris: Mar 8, 2011

Anti-Vaxxing is like anti-nuclear hysteria or anti-environmentalism.

We solved problems so they aren't problems and now dumbfucks want to gamble everyone's lives on the idea that they were never problems.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 20:36

King of Hamas: Nov 25, 2013; by XyloJW

I am 100% for vaccines that have proven medical value, and am concurrently against any that lack it, and as a result I am anti-flu vaccine. It is a product made and pushed by for-profit corporations and study after study has shown that they range from marginally effective to totally ineffective. Legitimately objective medical science should be respected, but for-profit products pushed by for-profit companies that are proven to be dubiously effective according to the objective (ie; non industry-funded) research should absolutey not. If you doubt me, go ahead and do your own research, but I would recommend steering clear of studies funded by the very companies that stand to make the most money from a positive outcome. For example, here is the Cochrane Collaboration, a non-profit medical research group based on unpaid volunteers from the medical community, on the issue:

http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001269/vaccines-to-prevent-influenza-in-healthy-adults#sthash.kYUXHVqH.dpuf

Vaccines to prevent influenza in healthy adults posted:

The preventive effect of parenteral inactivated influenza vaccine on healthy adults is small: at least 40 people would need vaccination to avoid one ILI case (95% confidence interval (CI) 26 to 128) and 71 people would need vaccination to prevent one case of influenza (95% CI 64 to 80). Vaccination shows no appreciable effect on working days lost or hospitalisation.

The protection against ILI that is given by the administration of inactivated influenza vaccine to pregnant women is uncertain or at least very limited; the effect on their newborns is not statistically significant.

The effectiveness of live aerosol vaccines on healthy adults is similar to inactivated vaccines: 46 people (95% CI 29 to 115) would need immunisation to avoid one ILI case.

And there is more: not only are the vaccines much less effective than expected, but they have been shown in recent studies to INCREASE the susceptibility of the patient to H1N1, a far more serious strain of the flu, in the following year!

http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/March-2013/effectiveness-of-flu-vaccine-raises-more-red-flags.aspx

NVIC.org posted:

Studies Identify Flu Vaccine Failures

Findings from one of the case-control studies showed that prior vaccination with trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine is protective against seasonal influenza and reduced the flu risk by 56 percent. However, results from all four studies revealed that those vaccinated in the previous 2008-09 season were between 1.4 and 2.5 times more likely to contract H1N1 during the spring and summer of 2009. 3

A second study in 2009 identified a similar association between previous vaccination and pandemic H1N1 illness in a military population. Between April 21 and May 8, a total of 97 patients developed the H1N1 virus. Of these, 63 people, or 66 percent, received the influenza vaccination in the previous 12 months. In comparison, only 40 percent of patients without H1N1 virus had no history of vaccination. 4

In Nov. 13, 2009, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention published a case-cohort study on the effectiveness of 2008-09 trivalent influenza vaccine against 2009 pandemic H1N1. The CDC concluded that there was no decreased or increased risk of pandemic H1N1 following seasonal flu vaccine. 5

Doctors Intrigued and Troubled by Findings

In an accompanying editorial, Drs. John Treanor and Peter Szilagyi wrote a response to the findings for the most recent study showing lower effectiveness with back-to-back flu shots.

�As we are currently struggling through one of the most vigorous influenza seasons in recent memory, the apparent failure of influenza vaccine under optimal conditions seen in this study is indeed troubling,� they wrote. 6

As usual, further study on flu vaccine effectiveness is necessary. There are a lot of conflicting data available. However, the growing number of studies showing low overall effectiveness, waning immunity and a negative effect of prior-year vaccination cast doubt on influenza vaccine policies and strategies, especially when influenza vaccinations now are being required as a condition of employment for health care workers.

A for-profit product pushed by for-profit companies that want to make the vaccine mandatory not just for every health care worker in America but eventually every American. With a potential profit to be garnered from every American in the country I am not surprised that the product pushers would ignore whether it is effective or not, or whether it makes people a great deal more susceptible to swine flu, a far more serious disease than the common flu.

I will conclude my post with the words of the awesomely named Dr. Mark Hyman, who did a big takedown of the flu vaccine (warning huffpost link):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/flu-shots-panacea-or-prop_b_831696.html

Mark Hyman, MD posted:

The wholesale acceptance and promotion of the flu vaccine by government agencies, heath care institutions, pharmacies and physicians is at best based on flimsy, flawed or inadequate evidence. And at worst, it pushes a potentially harmful medical procedure on a poorly informed public.

Consider this. What consumer product creates billions in profits for it manufacturer every year and is recommended and almost mandated by our government to be used by all Americans over six months old? The flu vaccine.

Not only does our government's public health marketing campaigns generate billions in profits for vaccine manufacturers, but those companies are protected from legal liability by the U.S. government. Yes, that's right. If a vaccine harms or kills an American citizen, the government will pick up the legal bill and the settlement for damages. This would be an acceptable risk if flu vaccines were proven to be effective and were free of side-effects such as the life threatening paralysis called Guillain-Barre Syndrome that affects one in a million flu vaccine recipients. If all "eligible" Americans were vaccinated there were be 300 lives adversely affected. But unfortunately unlike many other vaccines, medications and medical procedures in use today, the flu vaccine has not passed the scientific litmus test.

Mark Hyman, MD posted:

Let's briefly review the evidence for and against the flu vaccine based on an independent objective scientific, comprehensive review of ALL the evidence. And let's look at a few logical holes in our current thinking and public policy about vaccines.

Top line, here are the conclusions. For those who want to dig deep and decide for themselves I encourage you to read the recent review paper by the international, independent, non-profit Cochrane Collaboration group published in July of 2010.

1. A comprehensive of the flu research in healthy adults aged 18-65 from 1960 to the present including over 40 clinical trials with over 70,000 people found no evidence of benefit for the flu vaccine. Most trials were poorly done, or inadequate to reach clear conclusions. Only the best 50 studies were included in the final analysis.
2. The only studies that showed benefit were industry funded. Despite this bias they tended to be published in the most prestigious journals and were the ones most widely quoted, while the publicly funded studies were less likely to show favorable conclusions.
3. They found cases of severe harm and inadequate reporting of adverse effects of the flu vaccine.
4. There are different 200+ strains of flu and viruses that infect people every year. The vaccine covers only about 10 percent of the virus strains that make people sick.
5. If the vaccine strain given in a particular vaccination happened to match the virus caught by the vaccinated person, the likelihood of getting sick from the flu was only reduced from 4 percent to 1 percent.
6. There was NO evidence that the vaccine reduced transmission of the flu (a major rationale for mass vaccination) or complications such as pneumonia (another major justification).
7. These conclusions included the data from biased industry studies yet still found no benefit except small reductions in flu symptoms in some industry studies.
8. They warned that their already negative conclusions may be UNDERSTATED because of the inclusion of industry funded studies in their review.

Mark Hyman, MD posted:

This same blunder based on the "healthy user effect" occurred with Premarin. During the height of the hormone craze after the "cohort" Nurses Health Study showed that the hormone users were 50 percent less likely to have heart attacks, over 50 million women took Premarin. One of my patients said her gynecologist told her it was malpractice NOT to prescribe estrogen. It was unethical not to prescribe estrogen to all menopausal women we were told. But only until the National Institute of Health's randomized controlled study known as the Women's health initiative, found that in fact Premarin cause 50 percent more heart attacks, strokes and breast cancer. Then, overnight, our recommendations changed.

Many vaccine advocates suggest that it is unethical to withhold vaccinations from the population because of the evidence (however weak we now know) of benefit. Giving some vaccines and other sham vaccines to study effectiveness and safety is not unethical. It is called science, and until we have clear evidence of benefit from randomized controlled trials we should not have government policy advocating mass vaccination while protecting vaccine manufacturers lawsuits due to any harm.

I want to state again that I am not anti-polio vaccine, anti HPV vaccine, or any other vaccine that has proven medical value. Objective scientific data is our best way to determine what is good and bad for us w/r/t treatment, and we cannot rely on industry-funded research to objectively tell us what that is. Also yes I know that huffpost pushes herbal remedy bullshit and new age clap trap, but the studies cited in the article truly speak for themselves.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 21:43

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

King of Hamas posted:

I am 100% for vaccines that have proven medical value, and am concurrently against any that lack it, and as a result I am anti-flu vaccine.

I'll just point out, that the flu vaccine still shows function and works with CHILDREN. The Cochran study was focused solely on adults. Please do not encourage this crap. Critical thinking is great, but the people who are NOT getting their vaccines (and as a result suffer or die) are the children who need it the most.

I'll also point out that all medicine within the US borders is for profit, pretending that their drive for profit somehow invalidates the effect of the vaccine raises some questions about the validity of your argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flu_vaccine#Benefits_to_children

quote:

Vaccination of school-age children has a strong protective effect on the adults and elderly with whom the children are in contact.[30] Children born to mothers who received flu vaccination while pregnant are strongly protected from having to be hospitalized with the flu. "The effectiveness of influenza vaccine given to mothers during pregnancy in preventing hospitalization among their infants, adjusted for potential confounders, was 91.5%

Mark Hyman is also basically a diet pusher and 'alternative medicine' advocate, I SINCERELY doubt he is qualified to be making calls on the effectiveness of the flu vaccines. Let's leave that to immunologists.

Even better, Mark Hyman is already a known pusher of pseudoscience and woo:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/08/dr-mark-hyman-mangles-autism-science-on/

So basically, don't cite Dr. Hyman please.

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Mar 25, 2014

# ? Mar 25, 2014 22:52

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

This is a nation where reporters were earnestly debating the possibility that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 flew into a black hole. Science shouldn't be left up to us.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 22:59

tbp: Mar 1, 2008; DU WIRST NIEMALS ALLEINE MARSCHIEREN

I'm of the opinion that vaccinations are good, and that not getting them and encouraging other people to not get them is bad.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 23:02

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

tbp posted:

I'm of the opinion that vaccinations are good, and that not getting them and encouraging other people to not get them is bad.

Check out this stuff about Dr. Hyman (he is a real doctor, not a chiropractor, but he pushes a lot of woo)

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/08/dr-mark-hyman-mangles-autism-science-on/

quote:

Well, actually, yes, this does sound very familiar. Woo-meisters the world over love �detoxification� of unknown and unnamed �toxins� that are supposedly the cause of all disease, all accompanied by a boatload of various supplements.

Dr. Hyman is the protoypical brave maverick doctor who don�t need no steekin� randomized controlled studies to tell him what works. It matters not one bit to him that autism is a condition of developmental delay, not developmental stasis. Autistic children do develop, regardless of what treatments they are subjected to, but the assumption n is all too often that these children don�t develop, which leads �brave maverick doctors� like Dr. Hyman to attribute any improvement they observe in an autistic child to whatever the woo du jour to which they happen to be subjecting the child at the time. The thought of a randomized clinical trial never enters their mind because they know this stuff works. They�ve seen it. Never mind that without a proper scientific randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial with a large number of children there�s no way of knowing if any improvement observed in Sam was due to any of the woo to which he was being subjected or just natural aging and development. Indeed, there is evidence that as many as 19% of autistic children move �off the spectrum� by their 7th birthday. Indeed some �recover� spontaneously. With an N of 1, we have no idea if Sam is just such a child. One wonders whether Dr. Hyman will ever publish his �recovery� rate for autism based on a large number of children.

http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2013/11/789-mark-hyman.html

quote:

Mark Hyman is a �pioneer of functional medicine,� i.e. altmed shill, author (his book Ultraprevention, co-authored with one Mark Liponis, made it to quackwatch), blogger (for Huffington Post), and creator of �Ultrawellness.� Hyman is particularly notable for his ability to mangle, misunderstand, and misrepresent research in service of his particular brand of woo, for instance by trying to argue that �conventional medicine� has lost its battle with cancer, thus paving the way for Hyman�s own questionable ideas instead. Functional medicine (a good introduction here and here), he claims, is a �systems-biology approach to personalized medicine that focuses on the underlying causes of disease.� Now, it is true that systems-biology is popular in medical research at the moment. But that, of course, does not mean that there is any support there for Hyman�s own crackpottery, functional medicine. And yes, functional medicine is pure woo, backed up, as expected, with a bit of anecdotal data.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 23:04

tbp: Mar 1, 2008; DU WIRST NIEMALS ALLEINE MARSCHIEREN

CommieGIR posted:

Check out this stuff about Dr. Hyman (he is a real doctor, not a chiropractor, but he pushes a lot of woo)

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/08/dr-mark-hyman-mangles-autism-science-on/

Sounds like his theories are broken haha

# ? Mar 25, 2014 23:05

angelfisher: Aug 15, 2011

One thing I found out the other day was that children's writer Roald Dahl was emphatically pro-vaccine after his daughter died of measles:

quote:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn't do anything.

"Are you feeling all right?" I asked her.

"I feel all sleepy," she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunised against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.

It is not yet generally accepted that measles can be a dangerous illness. Believe me, it is. In my opinion parents who now refuse to have their children immunised are putting the lives of those children at risk. In America, where measles immunisation is compulsory, measles like smallpox, has been virtually wiped out.

Here in Britain, because so many parents refuse, either out of obstinacy or ignorance or fear, to allow their children to be immunised, we still have a hundred thousand cases of measles every year. Out of those, more than 10,000 will suffer side effects of one kind or another. At least 10,000 will develop ear or chest infections. About 20 will die.

LET THAT SINK IN.

Every year around 20 children will die in Britain from measles.

So what about the risks that your children will run from being immunised?

They are almost non-existent. Listen to this. In a district of around 300,000 people, there will be only one child every 250 years who will develop serious side effects from measles immunisation! That is about a million to one chance. I should think there would be more chance of your child choking to death on a chocolate bar than of becoming seriously ill from a measles immunisation.

So what on earth are you worrying about? It really is almost a crime to allow your child to go unimmunised.

The ideal time to have it done is at 13 months, but it is never too late. All school-children who have not yet had a measles immunisation should beg their parents to arrange for them to have one as soon as possible.

Incidentally, I dedicated two of my books to Olivia, the first was 'James and the Giant Peach'. That was when she was still alive. The second was 'The BFG', dedicated to her memory after she had died from measles. You will see her name at the beginning of each of these books. And I know how happy she would be if only she could know that her death had helped to save a good deal of illness and death among other children.

This was written back in about 1980, I think. Sad that there are still so many who won't vaccinate their kids.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 23:24

I dont know: Aug 9, 2003; That Guy here...

forgot my pants posted:

I have a relative who is hardcore anti-vaccine. She is opposed to all forms of Western medicine. I'm not sure her children have ever seen a doctor. Her last pregnancy she had two twins delivered breech. It would have been illegal to home birth them in the state she lives in due to the elevated risk. So she searched on the internet for a couple in a neighboring state that would let her deliver them at their home. She ended up traveling there to give birth. She received all kinds of "cred" in the online communities she's a member of for not going to the hospital despite her risky pregnancy. This is only half of her craziness, but it underscores how the anti-vaccine movement is part of a broader anti-medicine movement, and for many people it is an essential part of their identity. These people derive their social esteem from having such outlandish beliefs. That makes it particularly difficult to change their minds. I also think these views would have a lot of difficulty spreading without the internet making it possible for anti-vaxxers to reinforce each other's opinions.

I...I didn't even know that breach vaginal birth was legal anywhere in this country, though I suppose that shouldn't surprise me. I probably don't need to tell you, but your aunt was lucky as hell. It's not an uncommon outcome in breach births for the baby to suffocate and the mother to hemorrhage to death.

It creepy to think of the anti-vaccine people being a whole pathological lifestyle rather than one very wrong belief. It reminds me of pro-anerexia/pro-bolemia people in that regard.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 23:31

Lote: Aug 5, 2001; Place your bets

I dont know posted:

I...I didn't even know that breach vaginal birth was legal anywhere in this country, though I suppose that shouldn't surprise me. I probably don't need to tell you, but your aunt was lucky as hell. It's not an uncommon outcome in breach births for the baby to suffocate and the mother to hemorrhage to death.

It creepy to think of the anti-vaccine people being a whole pathological lifestyle rather than one very wrong belief. It reminds me of pro-anerexia/pro-bolemia people in that regard.

It was breach twins too. That's taking all sorts of risk.

# ? Mar 25, 2014 23:42

Stottie Kyek: Apr 26, 2008; fuckin egg in a bun

Having ASD, I get an extra bit offended at the whole movement. It's true that I needed some therapy when I was younger and needed to learn techniques to cope with stress (which are pretty useful for non-autistic people too), but these days I have a job, an education, a partner and a decent social life, just like lots of autistics. And these people would rather risk their children dying horribly or being severely injured from infectious, entirely preventable diseases than growing up to be like us. Thanks, I guess.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 00:14

forgot my pants: Feb 28, 2005

King of Hamas posted:

I am 100% for vaccines that have proven medical value, and am concurrently against any that lack it, and as a result I am anti-flu vaccine. It is a product made and pushed by for-profit corporations and study after study has shown that they range from marginally effective to totally ineffective. Legitimately objective medical science should be respected, but for-profit products pushed by for-profit companies that are proven to be dubiously effective according to the objective (ie; non industry-funded) research should absolutey not. If you doubt me, go ahead and do your own research, but I would recommend steering clear of studies funded by the very companies that stand to make the most money from a positive outcome. For example, here is the Cochrane Collaboration, a non-profit medical research group based on unpaid volunteers from the medical community, on the issue:

I got the flu vaccine this year because I was working with immunocompromised children. My girlfriend got very sick with the flu, which was serious enough to cause her to make a trip to the doctor due to respiratory issues. She ended up being in pretty rough shape for two weeks, and had to take a few days off work. I, on the other hand, despite being near her and having every opportunity to catch it from her, developed only a generalized immune response, which consisted of a slightly running nose for 24 hours. I never got sick, and I have a pretty weak immune system.

The year before that my girlfriend had gotten the flu shot and I had not. I ended up getting the flu and being sick for three weeks, while she remained healthy. This experience is sufficient that we'll both be getting the flu vaccine from now on. Of course, this is all anecdotal. It could be we just got lucky when we didn't get sick, or it could be that she and I respond particularly well to the flu vaccine. But the evidence supports the claim that it works at least some of the time.

Also, you should not completely disregard corporate-funded research into the vaccine's efficacy. Instead, you should weight that research in such a manner that takes into account the potential conflict of interest. The problem with just ignoring that data is that you are cherrypicking, and also shrinking your sample size, thereby making it less representative.

By the way, the fact that corporations make money off the flu vaccine is not really a concern to me, as it is free with my insurance. Why do you think my insurance would provide a vaccine free of charge? The answer is that their actuaries have determined the company will save money by getting more people vaccinated, as it will result in less trips to the doctor. This means there are people who've spent many hours researching and doing the math who found the flu vaccine prevents enough people from getting sick that it is worth providing it without charge.

While the flu vaccine is not 100% effective, it reduces your chances of getting the flu significantly. There are certain groups (the very young, old, healthcare workers, and immunocompromised) who should always get the vaccine. But I'd also recommend it to people who tend to get sick easily and have lifestyles or jobs that bring them into contact with a lot of other people. If you don't want to get the flu shot, though, I'm ok with that.

That said, I feel there is a moral imperative to get your children vaccinated. The parents who don't are hoping to exploit the herd immunity that our society has developed to prevent their kids from getting sick without risking the side effects of a vaccine (and there are some rare but serious side effects). That is what I consider a leech on society. And I know kids who can't get vaccinated because they are going through chemotherapy, so the rest of us have to do our part to get our vaccines and not present a risk to those who are most vulnerable.

I dont know posted:

I...I didn't even know that breach vaginal birth was legal anywhere in this country, though I suppose that shouldn't surprise me. I probably don't need to tell you, but your aunt was lucky as hell. It's not an uncommon outcome in breach births for the baby to suffocate and the mother to hemorrhage to death.

It creepy to think of the anti-vaccine people being a whole pathological lifestyle rather than one very wrong belief. It reminds me of pro-anerexia/pro-bolemia people in that regard.

In the case of my relative, that's a good way of putting it (anti-vaccine being part of a wider pathological lifestyle). I'm not sure how much this extends to other anti-vaxxers, but I get the impression those sorts of people are attracted to an alternative way of thinking because it makes them feel special and in-the-know. These people are very knowledgeable in their own demented way. If I were to go point by point with this family member over any of these issues she'd have a response to each point, and it would be clear she had done her research. The only caveat would be that her research was limited to what she could find on websites that supported her point of view. So instead of looking at primary, peer-reviewed literature, she will have read a bunch of articles from the anti-medicine echo chamber.

I believe this is one symptom of a larger loss of faith in our institutions. People don't trust our government, churches, corporations, etc, and this extends to our medical institutions. They will cite the profit motive of hospitals as evidence that doctors cannot be trusted. But this ignores the fact that most doctors really want what is best for the patient, and they are experts in what they do.

Also, in the case of my relative, she is totally blind to the incentives that practicioners of alternative medicine have. The last time her kids got really sick she took them to be cupped (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupping_Therapy). I seriously doubt she considered the possibility that the person performing this might just be doing it for money. Sidenote: if you bring your child into the ER with cupping marks, they will report you to child services.

forgot my pants fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Mar 26, 2014

# ? Mar 26, 2014 00:39

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

King of Hamas posted:

I am 100% for vaccines that have proven medical value, and am concurrently against any that lack it, and as a result I am anti-flu vaccine. It is a product made and pushed by for-profit corporations and study after study has shown that they range from marginally effective to totally ineffective. Legitimately objective medical science should be respected, but for-profit products pushed by for-profit companies that are proven to be dubiously effective according to the objective (ie; non industry-funded) research should absolutey not. If you doubt me, go ahead and do your own research, but I would recommend steering clear of studies funded by the very companies that stand to make the most money from a positive outcome. For example, here is the Cochrane Collaboration, a non-profit medical research group based on unpaid volunteers from the medical community, on the issue:

http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001269/vaccines-to-prevent-influenza-in-healthy-adults#sthash.kYUXHVqH.dpuf

And there is more: not only are the vaccines much less effective than expected, but they have been shown in recent studies to INCREASE the susceptibility of the patient to H1N1, a far more serious strain of the flu, in the following year!

http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/March-2013/effectiveness-of-flu-vaccine-raises-more-red-flags.aspx

A for-profit product pushed by for-profit companies that want to make the vaccine mandatory not just for every health care worker in America but eventually every American. With a potential profit to be garnered from every American in the country I am not surprised that the product pushers would ignore whether it is effective or not, or whether it makes people a great deal more susceptible to swine flu, a far more serious disease than the common flu.

I will conclude my post with the words of the awesomely named Dr. Mark Hyman, who did a big takedown of the flu vaccine (warning huffpost link):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/flu-shots-panacea-or-prop_b_831696.html

I want to state again that I am not anti-polio vaccine, anti HPV vaccine, or any other vaccine that has proven medical value. Objective scientific data is our best way to determine what is good and bad for us w/r/t treatment, and we cannot rely on industry-funded research to objectively tell us what that is. Also yes I know that huffpost pushes herbal remedy bullshit and new age clap trap, but the studies cited in the article truly speak for themselves.

It's a bad move to make bedfellows with a guy on the flu vaccine who is out on the lunatic/snake oil fringe on every other medical issue he talks about and is on Huffington Post, a news organization with the journalistic credibility to rival Buzzfeed.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 00:53

sexpig by night: Sep 8, 2011; by Azathoth

I love how people in these movements take any 'takedown' at total face value because something something CORPORATIONS MAN.

Hyman is a total fraud, he literally talks about how autism is a symptom of other illnesses and how if autistic kids can 'detoxify' they'd be cured. He's the absolute worst huckster next to Doctor Oz or whoever else is the current tv doctor that tells fat people if they buy five bottles of his miracle pill they'll be set.

I would literally trust a hobo on the street more than Hyman, but hey man he's on the HuffPo they don't let just ANYONE write there right?!

Also wasn't there a thing a while back when most of HuffPo's 'medical' section was anti-vaxx hucksters? No relation of course!

# ? Mar 26, 2014 01:02

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

I've had two mothers on Facebook who have un-friended me after a civil conversation about their anti-vaccination stance, and a third who I've gently browbeat into shutting up a couple of times.

Generally what happens is this:

1) They don't trust any data "funded by drug companies" (any study conducted or data gathered by a remotely credible organization)

2) They immediately trust data from amateur-hour naturopathy sites, which inevitably begin their argument not by advancing any evidence of their own methodology, but by attacking the sources their audience is already suspicious of. These attacks involve logic gymnastics, like using a government agency's data (even though government data is evil) to assert facts or theories that aren't at all supported by said data.

3) The author behind these arguments is sometimes so well-known as a snake oil salesman to experts and authorities that he has a sourced Wikipedia article documenting his legal troubles and total lack of credibility.

4) When all this is pointed out to mom, she retreats into a shell of "well I've seen the studies" and gives up on trying to produce anything because we are obviously unfairly biased against naturopathy, even though all we're asking for is baseline credible evidence that can't be debunked and destroyed with a two-minute Google search.

This kind of paranoia is hard to crack and could use the help of a more serious, sustained public relations campaign to counter-act it.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 01:12

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

2) They immediately trust data from amateur-hour naturopathy sites, which inevitably begin their argument not by advancing any evidence of their own methodology, but by attacking the sources their audience is already suspicious of. These attacks involve logic gymnastics, like using a government agency's data (even though government data is evil) to assert facts or theories that aren't at all supported by said data.

I've observed this as well, and for me it really drives home that most people's conception of medicine is utterly pre-scientific. I'm almost afraid to google "naturopathy humorism" because I'm afraid of discovering one or both of two things:

1) alternative medicine practitioners have re-examined the literature of humorism and declared it to be valid
2) alternative medicine practitioners have, through blogging and forum posting, spontaneously re-discovered humorism

# ? Mar 26, 2014 01:28

Captain_Maclaine: Sep 30, 2001; Every moment I'm alive, I pray for death!

SedanChair posted:

I've observed this as well, and for me it really drives home that most people's conception of medicine is utterly pre-scientific. I'm almost afraid to google "naturopathy humorism" because I'm afraid of discovering one or both of two things:

1) alternative medicine practitioners have re-examined the literature of humorism and declared it to be valid
2) alternative medicine practitioners have, through blogging and forum posting, spontaneously re-discovered humorism

Switch "toxins" for "miasmas," and I suspect you'd get a close to a one-to-one match. It'd be funny if not, you know, for the epidemics.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 01:30

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

SedanChair posted:

I've observed this as well, and for me it really drives home that most people's conception of medicine is utterly pre-scientific. I'm almost afraid to google "naturopathy humorism" because I'm afraid of discovering one or both of two things:

1) alternative medicine practitioners have re-examined the literature of humorism and declared it to be valid
2) alternative medicine practitioners have, through blogging and forum posting, spontaneously re-discovered humorism

If it has the words 'Alternative' and 'Medicine' in the immediate vicinity of each other, run.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 01:45

Dr Pepper: Feb 4, 2012; Don't like it? well...

How in the world is this "movement" still alive?

Also I remember somebody here having a link to a website showing pictures of the sort of horrible diseases children got before we started vaccinating against them.

I think that's a good counter, because these people are running off pure emotion as is so might as well hit with the emotional sledgehammer.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 01:45

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

It's a bad move to make bedfellows with a guy on the flu vaccine who is out on the lunatic/snake oil fringe on every other medical issue he talks about and is on Huffington Post, a news organization with the journalistic credibility to rival Buzzfeed.

I think the deepest irony in these 'Naturopathy/Alternative Medicine' sites is that the people who support them scream about pharmaceutical companies being profit driven, despite the fact that sites like Natural News are literally ALL ABOUT selling your something.

Dr Pepper posted:

How in the world is this "movement" still alive?

Also I remember somebody here having a link to a website showing pictures of the sort of horrible diseases children got before we started vaccinating against them.

I think that's a good counter, because these people are running off pure emotion as is so might as well hit with the emotional sledgehammer.

Because a lot of these 'movements' are backed by celebrities and political organizations that need to die in a fire.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 01:48

Captain_Maclaine: Sep 30, 2001; Every moment I'm alive, I pray for death!

Dr Pepper posted:

How in the world is this "movement" still alive?

Also I remember somebody here having a link to a website showing pictures of the sort of horrible diseases children got before we started vaccinating against them.

I think that's a good counter, because these people are running off pure emotion as is so might as well hit with the emotional sledgehammer.

You'd think, but whenever I've tried that I get handwavy bullshit back about how with the right natural treatment or whatever a full-blown case of polio is no worse than a week with the flu and natural immunity is soooo much better than artificial, chemically derived resistance*, and certainly not nearly as bad as if your precious darling got ~*vaccine injured*~.*

*Both terms I've heard used non-ironically by supposed adult parents of young children.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 01:49

duck monster: Dec 15, 2004

I had a lot of friends who where anti-vaccine but have came around. What actually turned that around was the fact I also have a few friends with legitimately autistic (including one kid who still cant speak at age 7) kids who have gone a pro-vaccination crusade. For some reason autism mothers have more weight than my GP friend in opinions around that part of my social circle.

Whatever, at least everyones gone and gotten their kids vaccinated now.

edit: Oh and one of the local "naturopaths" decided everyone should get vaccinated because the theory of vaccination is very similar to the theory of homeopathy. That one caught me by surprise, because it is actually sort of kind of true. So if you have any homeopathy loving friends who are also into vaccination, point out the irony of being opposed to a proven medicine that prevents the big danger by exposing the body to a massively diluted fragment of it, whilst approving the unproven medicine that supposedly prevents the big danger by exposing the body to a massively diluted fragment of it.

The important thing is results, scientific understanding IMHO is secondary imporance to stopping a loving plague.

duck monster fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Mar 26, 2014

# ? Mar 26, 2014 01:51

MisterBadIdea: Oct 9, 2012; Anything?

Dr Pepper posted:

How in the world is this "movement" still alive?

Also I remember somebody here having a link to a website showing pictures of the sort of horrible diseases children got before we started vaccinating against them.

I think that's a good counter, because these people are running off pure emotion as is so might as well hit with the emotional sledgehammer.

You'd think, but there was a thing on Salon or Slate or something the other day where they tried that on anti-vaxxers and it only made the problem worse.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 02:31

Paper Mac: Mar 2, 2007; lives in a paper shack

CommieGIR posted:

I'll also point out that all medicine within the US borders is for profit, pretending that their drive for profit somehow invalidates the effect of the vaccine raises some questions about the validity of your argument.

That's not the argument. The argument is that studies conducted by groups with a material interest in the outcome systematically overstate the effects of the treatment, which is widely recognised within the immunological community and is a problem even with the data related to children. Hyman may be a kook but you should probably actually look at the Cochrane studies before you dismiss these concerns so flippantly.

http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004879/vaccines-for-preventing-influenza-in-healthy-children#sthash.l7aPTgoN.dpuf

quote:

This review includes trials funded by industry. An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry-funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favourable to the vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in the light of this finding.

This is an enormous problem if only because it provides ammunition for anti-vaxxers to use against vaccines where the evidence is unequivocal and displays no signs of manipulation.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 03:28

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

duck monster posted:

edit: Oh and one of the local "naturopaths" decided everyone should get vaccinated because the theory of vaccination is very similar to the theory of homeopathy. That one caught me by surprise, because it is actually sort of kind of true. So if you have any homeopathy loving friends who are also into vaccination, point out the irony of being opposed to a proven medicine that prevents the big danger by exposing the body to a massively diluted fragment of it, whilst approving the unproven medicine that supposedly prevents the big danger by exposing the body to a massively diluted fragment of it.

No I refuse. Anybody this persuades should be dead :colbert:

Captain_Maclaine posted:

~*vaccine injured*~.*

I'm about to plotz. You know, this is all just the same sort of bourgeois guilt and paranoia that have always accompanied psychosocial diagnoses. First it was Bruno Bettelheim's "refrigerator moms" that caused autism, then it was thimerosal, then all vaccines. It can't just be that people turn out different from one another and psychologists put a name on it, no. An evil god must have done it. Somebody put a root on me. It was doctors.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 03:30

Crazyweasel: Oct 29, 2006; lazy

CommieGIR posted:

Because a lot of these 'movements' are backed by celebrities and political organizations that need to die in a fire.

Seriously, I think the real answer is that if a high profile celebritie's child passes away from a disease they were not vaccinated for, that would drive a stake through this movement's heart faster than any amount of published studies.

My friend tried a long time to get pregnant and finally had a baby girl last year. She wasn't entirely against vaccinating but wanted an alternate plan that would "spread out" the vaccine. I think at the end of the day, like some folks above mention, a baby is a really precious thing and people cling to this primal out of sight out of mind instict that says "well I could do nothing or take it slow and hope nothing happens..."

# ? Mar 26, 2014 03:44

Argue: Sep 29, 2005; I represent the Philippines

I've posted in other threads about how the bishops here in the Philippines have been fighting reproductive health care with a bunch of scientifically refuted claims. We're still working on beating them on that front, but in the meantime, I'm sad to say that the bishops have now set their sights on vaccines. Anti-vaxxers are relatively fringe in this country, but support from the bishops is big news, as the population is predominantly Catholic. Here's the press release on their official site. I'm really pissed because we're already fighting a losing battle about contraceptives and now they're what, trying to spread those efforts thin by requiring everyone to fight this bunk too? And to think that this is on the heels of a recent measles outbreak.

Fortunately, our Department of Health issued a statement that their claims are nonsense, but then again, it doesn't seem like their support helps a lot.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 03:44

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Paper Mac posted:

That's not the argument. The argument is that studies conducted by groups with a material interest in the outcome systematically overstate the effects of the treatment, which is widely recognised within the immunological community and is a problem even with the data related to children. Hyman may be a kook but you should probably actually look at the Cochrane studies before you dismiss these concerns so flippantly.

http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004879/vaccines-for-preventing-influenza-in-healthy-children#sthash.l7aPTgoN.dpuf

I have read the Chochrane study. The study primarily says that the injected vaccines have flaws and lower success rates. Nobody ever expected vaccines to be perfect, and as the study even points out we've come up with more effective vaccination methods for the flu: live nasal vaccines.

Either way, the Cochrane study shows that live nasal vaccinations are effective. And besides, his point of being anti-flu shot was exposed right away as worthless tripe mostly based on citing a woo spewing general practitioner who wants to sell diet books and alternative medicine.

As for providing ammunition to the anti-vaxx crowd: The vast majority of the people in these groups make up whatever ammunition sounds plausible to them at that moment, its more of a 'religious' movement than a scientific or medical movement, as nearly everything they say has no evidence backing it, nor are they willing to accept evidence from the most unbiased source, because every possible degree of evidence that disagrees with their position must be a 'conspiracy' or 'planted'

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Mar 26, 2014

# ? Mar 26, 2014 03:46

Pope Guilty: Nov 6, 2006; The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

An old buddy of mine, Craig Egan, has spent the last couple of years using his free time to troll the poo poo out of antivax activists on facebook, getting several antivax groups and pages taken down. It's to the point where there's people who believe that he's a name used by a legion of Monsanto-funded shills, that people occasionally call his workplace and harass him, and other people have started using his name to harass the antivaccination movement.

I've got nothing but admiration.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 03:53

Paper Mac: Mar 2, 2007; lives in a paper shack

CommieGIR posted:

I have read the Chochrane study. The study primarily says that the injected vaccines have flaws and lower success rates. Nobody ever expected vaccines to be perfect, and as the study even points out we've come up with more effective vaccination methods for the flu: live nasal vaccines.

It also says that the conclusions the study makes have to be interpreted in light of the fact that much of the evidence used to draw those conclusions is demonstrably systematically manipulated to make vaccines appear more effective than they are. It's entirely legitimate to be concerned about the conclusions drawn from such a body of evidence. Being intellectually honest and scrupulous requires us to admit that there are significant, documented problems with this literature. We can then turn around and show that for other vaccines those problems don't exist, while demanding that the research into flu vaccine be held to the same standards.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 04:01

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Paper Mac posted:

It also says that the conclusions the study makes have to be interpreted in light of the fact that much of the evidence used to draw those conclusions is demonstrably systematically manipulated to make vaccines appear more effective than they are. It's entirely legitimate to be concerned about the conclusions drawn from such a body of evidence. Being intellectually honest and scrupulous requires us to admit that there are significant, documented problems with this literature. We can then turn around and show that for other vaccines those problems don't exist, while demanding that the research into flu vaccine be held to the same standards.

Ah, I see your point. True.

I wondered how the got the idea that there is a lack of information on flu vaccine safety, despite the fact that flu vaccine safety has kind of been covered for some time now? It it not independent enough for the purposes of their study? If so, why not?

# ? Mar 26, 2014 04:03

enbot: Jun 7, 2013

duck monster posted:

I had a lot of friends who where anti-vaccine but have came around. What actually turned that around was the fact I also have a few friends with legitimately autistic (including one kid who still cant speak at age 7) kids who have gone a pro-vaccination crusade. For some reason autism mothers have more weight than my GP friend in opinions around that part of my social circle.

To be fair the average GP isn't trained at all to know poo poo about this issue other than they are correctly told that people should get vaccines. And people aren't necessarily wrong to have a mistrusting eye towards medical studies; there are far more with huge glaring statistical problems than any layman knows about- I spent half a semester in a course trashing paper after paper published in top journals that had huge glaring methodology and analysis flaws. The average researcher doesn't even understand what variance is, and this is not a joke.

Regardless, obviously vaccines work and are quite effective and there's no evidence towards the things the alt-medicine people claim (it's sad people who distrust medical science trust people who know absolutely nothing about it). But it's not based on "selfishness" or really even "delusional", the average person can't actually evaluate scientific claims- even smart people not trained in the area can only trust the other smart people in that area. It's because vaccines have successfully eradicated the problems they were designed for and the probability of their child getting affected by it is astonishingly low. For example:

quote:

Here in Britain, because so many parents refuse, either out of obstinacy or ignorance or fear, to allow their children to be immunised, we still have a hundred thousand cases of measles every year. Out of those, more than 10,000 will suffer side effects of one kind or another. At least 10,000 will develop ear or chest infections. About 20 will die.

LET THAT SINK IN.

Every year around 20 children will die in Britain from measles.

Of course it's horrible if it happens to you, but 20 deaths a year is 0.002777777% of the children born per year in Britain. There are numerous diseases and accidental deaths that claim far more lives. Deaths that can be prevented by vaccines are of course completely unnecessary, and we should continue to educate people, but the real reason these movements exist is because the diseases/ conditions people (incorrectly) fear from the vaccines are orders of magnitude more likely than conditions caused by a lack of vaccination.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 04:11

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 03:21

Paper Mac: Mar 2, 2007; lives in a paper shack

CommieGIR posted:

Ah, I see your point. True.

I wondered how the got the idea that there is a lack of information on flu vaccine safety, despite the fact that flu vaccine safety has kind of been covered for some time now? It it not independent enough for the purposes of their study? If so, why not?

I'm not familiar enough with the literature to say, but I'm married to an immunologist and hang out with folks in the field from time to time and my impression is basically that it's just really difficult to get a proper RCT going because of the way the industry works. My understanding is that the immunologists and epidemiologists at Sanofi sit down and have a look at what flu subtypes were circulating last year and make a model-informed projection as to what subtypes are likely to crop up next year (they need to get their production lines going before flu season starts for obvious reasons). Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don't, and the result is that it's really difficult to make year-to-year comparisons, to plan an RCT (expensive and if they got the subtype projection wrong you just flushed that study down the drain), etc. The selection criteria for the Cochrane reviews are pretty stringent- for that one I linked above you'll see they're only looking at RCTs, cohort studies, and case control studies- and so a lot of the literature that gets generated in the normal course of administering these things just doesn't meet those standards.

# ? Mar 26, 2014 04:11

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