Originally Posted by Mowicz

With a mild blend of 'statistical fear mongering' I might add. Even the 'scientific' evidence is subject to bias and 'fear mongering' tactics, because of the problems with statistics.

Is there a correlation between child autism and childhood vaccinations? Certainly. Does this demonstrate a causal link between them? Anyone who reads the study can see it's only speculatory...but sometimes even scientific studies can 'speculate.' And in those cases, the media's exaggerations are epic.


The biggest example of this is smoking: Any person who died of any sort 'non-accidental' death (ie. not a car accident, not a murder, etc.), and happened to be a smoker has been declared 'a victim of smoking' by StatsCan...even someone who dies of say, AIDS**, which common sense will tell you, has to do with fornication (mostly) and not smoking. I believe they even include people who have been in contact with second hand smoke in this statistic (ie. nonsmokers who work in bars).

So when you hear a statement like "Every eight seconds, someone dies from tobacco use," even if it 'came from a 'legitimate study' you really need to think about the biases that have gone into selecting who is considered a 'victim of smoking.'

**For the nerds in the audience: yes, I actually mean complications due to AIDS and not AIDS itself.

Oh, I whole heartedly agree. However, in papers with a good reputation, if someone says if X causes Y and it's simply a causal relationship, it'll get shredded apart. Most of the time, the reasons why there is so much misinformation is that the journalists probably just read the abstract (if that). I sincerely doubt that they would bother to even read the discussion where most have stated "X has been shown to be associated with Y, but there are other factors associated such as Y , W & Q. Consequently, X is necessary for Y to occur; however, it alone is insufficient to produce the response. Other factors are associated. Journalists shouldn't be writing about health news if they aren't well versed in the critical assessment of scientific papers, most of the time that's what leads to fear mongering. E.g. With nalgene bottles, PBA leeched because the bottles were subjected to harsh detergents and were autoclaved (Nalgene makes a variety of lab products, especially for rats). No adult uses the same methods as the actual study, but there were cries of "Nalgenes leak PBA, they are the devil!"

;__;

UGH. Too many research papers to read for my midterm.

Originally Posted by Jay

However, in papers with a good reputation, if someone says if X causes Y and it's simply a causal relationship, it'll get shredded apart.

Certainly, if someone has nominal data, as opposed to interval-ratio etc. and they make a basic mistake like that, the paper won't get very good peer-evaluations.

The one point I wanted to emphasize though, is that it's not 'unscientific' to include or exclude certain populations from your study if you come up with some (potentially BS) reason regarding why they should(n't) be in there. I suppose you're right, that for causal relationships it wouldn't really come down to the specific population (it'd have to be something reproducible, ideally "rather close to 100% of the time" (in the language of statistics of course)).

But with the example I was talking about (long term effects of tobacco use), the literature (specifically, StatsCanada) has concluded that tobacco use causes death in a significant percentage of smokers, based on the number of smokers who die of certain types of things each year.

However in reality (I think this is even common sense), smoking isn't actually what killed everyone who is declared a 'victim of smoking' by the study. For example: if Mr. X was a smoker and died of Prostate cancer...scientifical ly there's no way to determine if it was actually the 'smoking' that caused the cancer (unless of course it had metastasized from lung cancer, in which case there's strong reason to believe it was smoking-related). But in general, there's no reason to believe that smoking actually caused prostate cancer...and yet all such Mr. X's (many of which would have gotten prostate cancer even if they hadn't smoked), according to StatsCan, are victims of smoking.

This leads to exaggerated numbers, which seem to have a 'scientific' basis. It tricks scientists who don't look carefully enough, let-alone the media (who exaggerate it) and the layman.

In other words, the golden rule of statistics is: Statistics lie.

My mother is allergic to the flu shot. When she was younger she was very sick after taking it and hasn't taken it since. She would never let me take it either. I think her allergy has something to do with a particular ingredient they put in it. There has been a lot of controversy around what is in the flu shot. To be honest I don't know exactly where I stand on it, but it's stories like these that really concern me. I think it's important to be really informed about the possible risks.

There has been some mention of other flu outbreaks lately and how harmful the vaccines were, such as the swine flu outbreak in 1976.

I realize that many people believe that getting the seasonal flu shot is important and I am not going to debate that and say that no one should get it. Some people are very vulnerable to the seasonal flu to begin with so I can understand that... it's their decision. And some people are particularly vulnerable to swine flu. But as other people have posted, swine flu is no worse than the seasonal flu. I think all the media hype about how everyone needs to get vaccinated is unnecessary and it's really important for people to be informed about this vaccine, especially since it is new and likely hasn't been tested much. I've been hearing about how some countries even have forced vaccinations and I don't agree with that.

Originally Posted by EmilySusie

My mother is allergic to the flu shot. When she was younger she was very sick after taking it and hasn't taken it since. She would never let me take it either. I think her allergy has something to do with a particular ingredient they put in it. There has been a lot of controversy around what is in the flu shot. To be honest I don't know exactly where I stand on it, but it's stories like these that really concern me. I think it's important to be really informed about the possible risks.

There has been some mention of other flu outbreaks lately and how harmful the vaccines were, such as the swine flu outbreak in 1976.

I realize that many people believe that getting the seasonal flu shot is important and I am not going to debate that and say that no one should get it. Some people are very vulnerable to the seasonal flu to begin with so I can understand that... it's their decision. And some people are particularly vulnerable to swine flu. But as other people have posted, swine flu is no worse than the seasonal flu. I think all the media hype about how everyone needs to get vaccinated is unnecessary and it's really important for people to be informed about this vaccine, especially since it is new and likely hasn't been tested much. I've been hearing about how some countries even have forced vaccinations and I don't agree with that.

Is your mother allergic to eggs? They culture the flu vaccine in eggs.

There have been controversies over the ingredients in vaccines for a long time. A couple of the most controversial ingredients are mercury (for obvious reasons) and squalene.

People think squalene is a bad thing because poachers will kill sharks for shark liver oil (which contains squalene), apparently these people don't know that the squalene in vaccines isn't taken from these people.

There was also a controversy over squalene during the Gulf War when a study was released showing a correlation between squalene antibodies and Gulf War Syndrome patients. It then took both the WHO and the US Government to write extensive reports to show that the vaccines given to US Soldiers in the Gulf War did not contain squalene.

Squalene is in fact created by our own bodies, and is not something to worry about.

Just for interests sake, the ingredients in a variety of flu vaccines can be found here

Not sure about that particular page Ben, but I'd be wary about the "NoVaccine" website, in general. That is just me, personally, though.

Originally Posted by daisy

Not sure about that particular page Ben, but I'd be wary about the "NoVaccine" website, in general. That is just me, personally, though.

Of course, everyone should. The ingredients lists are taken directly from the packages though, so that shouldn't be a problem.

An interesting article on autism and vaccines (re: thimerisol/mercury)

And another , more general.

Food for thought.

Originally Posted by daisy

An interesting article on autism and vaccines (re: thimerisol/mercury)

And another , more general.

Food for thought.

That first article is really good. I'll read the 2nd later.

Reading the article though, it kind of annoys me that my parents bought into all the media crap when I was younger. I know I've had almost all the vaccinations you could possibly administer to a kid. >_<

It's scary at how much people ignore evidence. Even politicians. People need to start separating their emotions when forming opinions. It's blinding.

Originally Posted by Mowicz

Certainly, if someone has nominal data, as opposed to interval-ratio etc. and they make a basic mistake like that, the paper won't get very good peer-evaluations.

The one point I wanted to emphasize though, is that it's not 'unscientific' to include or exclude certain populations from your study if you come up with some (potentially BS) reason regarding why they should(n't) be in there. I suppose you're right, that for causal relationships it wouldn't really come down to the specific population (it'd have to be something reproducible, ideally "rather close to 100% of the time" (in the language of statistics of course)).

But with the example I was talking about (long term effects of tobacco use), the literature (specifically, StatsCanada) has concluded that tobacco use causes death in a significant percentage of smokers, based on the number of smokers who die of certain types of things each year.

However in reality (I think this is even common sense), smoking isn't actually what killed everyone who is declared a 'victim of smoking' by the study. For example: if Mr. X was a smoker and died of Prostate cancer...scientifical ly there's no way to determine if it was actually the 'smoking' that caused the cancer (unless of course it had metastasized from lung cancer, in which case there's strong reason to believe it was smoking-related). But in general, there's no reason to believe that smoking actually caused prostate cancer...and yet all such Mr. X's (many of which would have gotten prostate cancer even if they hadn't smoked), according to StatsCan, are victims of smoking.

This leads to exaggerated numbers, which seem to have a 'scientific' basis. It tricks scientists who don't look carefully enough, let-alone the media (who exaggerate it) and the layman.

In other words, the golden rule of statistics is: Statistics lie.

I think we're both in agreement with the idea that one should think critically about things, even if they're published in scientific sources.

One of them is: what population has been tested in the study? This relates back to the Nalgene examples --> rats who are subjected to harsh conditions, versus humans who usually just use warm water and soap. I've been reading a lot of scientific articles as my program dictates it, but writers in papers such as Nature and Cell are very specific about the specific conclusions that they've reached. They also mention that further studies need to be undertaken in _____ (list of things here). Sometimes the population selection isn't necessarily due to scientific bias, but rather trying to reduce the number of confounders. For example: in the lab that i'm working in right now, we refuse to use smokers in exercise studies as cigarettes may alter metabolic functions in another manner.

However, when it comes to media reports versus actual research findings (i.e. American Journal of Cancer Research versus CNN), at least with the journal you can assess for yourself whether the findings have any biases in methodology or analyses whereas the news report focuses on the thrills.

There is severe scientific illiteracy in the media, that's for certain, and it just spreads like wildfire.

Originally Posted by lawleypop

It's scary at how much people ignore evidence. Even politicians. People need to start separating their emotions when forming opinions. It's blinding.

Yes, it is. Hence all of the prejudice towards (so-called) social racial groups in this country: people deliberately ignore evidence and make wild accusations...which other people believe and so you have a population of ignorant idiots...

This isn't nice, but I couldn't resist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulIH6Ok2hOw

EmilySusie can your mother take the nasal spray flu vaccine?

Originally Posted by danallan

AHHAHA funniest video ever.

but that sucks though.

she should just run everywhere. it'd be more efficient anyway :p

i doubt it'd be funny if that happened to your girlfriend, or a close friend of yours..