Medical organizations and the media have come down hard on the remarks about so-called risks of vaccines during CNN telecast of a Republican presidential candidates' debate Wednesday.
In the course of the TV show Donald Trump suggested that autism was linked to vaccines, while Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon, and Rand Paul, who trained as an ophthalmologist but is not currently certified, favored changes in the currently recommended vaccine schedule.
In recent years it has seemed that the visibility of the scientifically unsupported link to autism has died down and the infectious disease outbreaks linked to low vaccination rates, plus new studies refuting the association, have added to a sense of greater public acceptance of scientific evidence on the value of vaccines...
I was outraged by Trump's comments and the responses of the two GOP candidates who are doctors -- Rand Paul and Ben Carson. Their responses were pandering to the population who ascribe to the delusions of vaccine caused autism. Their comments undermine the public health of the United States and are irresponsible for a future presidential candidate...
I was very disappointed by politicians making statements about the unsupported link between autism and vaccines. Because vaccines have been so effective, we as a society have become complacent about these deadly infectious diseases. From a public health perspective, we absolutely have to vaccinate as many children as possible to protect them and to protect others who for medical reasons cannot get vaccinated....
This is not a major setback for childhood immunization, but it does create temporary confusion. The American Academy of Pediatrics and many others have responded promptly and forcefully, rejecting the misguided notion that vaccines are associated with autism which now has been disproven many times over. In addition, the so-called "stretched out schedule" also has been shown to be unproven and that it sadly leaves children unprotected for longer than necessary...
The vaccine schedule is the result of a great deal of thought. It makes sense to get protection for any given child at the earliest possible opportunity and thus, the schedule is loaded on the front end, i.e. lots of vaccines early in life. The development of combination vaccines to decrease the number of injections is a good thing and has the potential to decrease the number of injections necessary to have compliance with the carefully thought out vaccine schedule. This effort is proceeding and has already decreased the number of injections a child should receive to be up to date.''...
So much money (millions) has gone into researching the vaccine-ASD link, to the detriment of research for discovering other causes (which could be preventable) or interventions to improve the quality of lives for people with ASD. I am disappointed that the GOP continues to harp on this false science, because much of the public believes them. Dr. Carson should be especially ashamed that he has not kept current with the evidence-base for vaccines and ASD.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/Vaccines/53635?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2015-09-19&eun=g906366d0r
I was outraged by Trump's comments and the responses of the two GOP candidates who are doctors -- Rand Paul and Ben Carson. Their responses were pandering to the population who ascribe to the delusions of vaccine caused autism. Their comments undermine the public health of the United States and are irresponsible for a future presidential candidate...
I was very disappointed by politicians making statements about the unsupported link between autism and vaccines. Because vaccines have been so effective, we as a society have become complacent about these deadly infectious diseases. From a public health perspective, we absolutely have to vaccinate as many children as possible to protect them and to protect others who for medical reasons cannot get vaccinated....
This is not a major setback for childhood immunization, but it does create temporary confusion. The American Academy of Pediatrics and many others have responded promptly and forcefully, rejecting the misguided notion that vaccines are associated with autism which now has been disproven many times over. In addition, the so-called "stretched out schedule" also has been shown to be unproven and that it sadly leaves children unprotected for longer than necessary...
The vaccine schedule is the result of a great deal of thought. It makes sense to get protection for any given child at the earliest possible opportunity and thus, the schedule is loaded on the front end, i.e. lots of vaccines early in life. The development of combination vaccines to decrease the number of injections is a good thing and has the potential to decrease the number of injections necessary to have compliance with the carefully thought out vaccine schedule. This effort is proceeding and has already decreased the number of injections a child should receive to be up to date.''...
So much money (millions) has gone into researching the vaccine-ASD link, to the detriment of research for discovering other causes (which could be preventable) or interventions to improve the quality of lives for people with ASD. I am disappointed that the GOP continues to harp on this false science, because much of the public believes them. Dr. Carson should be especially ashamed that he has not kept current with the evidence-base for vaccines and ASD.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/Vaccines/53635?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2015-09-19&eun=g906366d0r
Despite two of the candidates, Rand Paul and Ben Carson, having medical degrees, no one appeared to understand or defend the true scientific research. The fact that vaccinations have no link to autism seemed entirely lost. In their attempt to build a compromise between science and politics, they managed to lose the value of both.
ReplyDeleteTo his credit, during the debate Dr. Carson did say that there is “extremely well-documented proof that there’s no autism associated with vaccinations.” However, when pressed by Donald Trump, he conceded that “it is true that we are probably giving way too many in too short a period of time.”
This, of course, is nonsense. There is no evidence to suggest that the vaccine schedule needs any change at all. In fact, there is good evidence that delaying vaccines may actually make infants more likely to acquire preventable diseases like measles.
The worst part was, however, that there was an apparent consensus among the candidates on stage that the vaccination schedule needed to be changed. Not one among them, not even the two physicians, were willing to adhere to the evidence. Even stranger, none appeared concerned that they were giving forceful statements on standardized systems for the practice of healthcare. Would we ask senators for recommendations for the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma? Why do presidential candidates think they need to micromanage healthcare?
Instead, there should be an honest discussion of solely policy, since the science is settled. As such, beyond changing the vaccine schedule itself, several of the Republicans also mentioned that children should be allowed to opt out for non-medical reasons. Of course, this idea is potentially harmful for the child, dangerous for the public at large and entirely unnecessary. But at least it lies within the realm of public policy and is worth discussing. For instance, there can be a clear, policy-driven argument made in favor of mandatory vaccination based on the notion that children need to be protected from poor decision making from their parents. But instead of discussing these issues in these terms, of individual liberties and the rights of parents over their children, the clear, scientific evidence is called into question. The real problem is they are blurring the boundary between politics and science, between values and truth.
We should not forget that even President Obama is guilty of this. During his 2008 presidential race, he was questioned about his stance on the vaccination-autism controversy. He replied that “The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.” At the same time, Hillary Clinton stated “I am committed to make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines.” Now both Obama and Clinton are resolute in defending the value of vaccination. Obama recently stated that “the science is, you know, pretty indisputable” during an interview on the “Today” show this year, and Clinton now supports universal vaccination. But at the time, it was easy for even Democrats to fall for the trap of vague scientific concessions...
When controversy arises, politicians use compromise as a tool to simultaneously demonstrate humility and flexibility, while also effectively maintaining their original stance and allowing for progress.
However, science cannot be compromised. Ideally, politicians should be comfortable understanding that science is science, and politics is politics. But when these do clash, it is so much easier to just imply some sort of compromise, regardless of the facts. Perhaps this approach is appealing to voters, since many do not consider science a priority. But when policy-makers attempt to compromise science, they discard its entire value, resulting in an insult to both the scientists’ work and the public that depends on it.
http://dailynorthwestern.com/2015/09/20/opinion/folmsbee-vaccination-science-cannot-be-compromised/
An analysis of nearly 500 anti-vaccination websites found that over two-thirds used what they represented as scientific evidence to support the idea that vaccines are dangerous and nearly one-third contained anecdotes that reinforced the perception.
ReplyDeleteAs is the case among other anti-science movements, like those related to energy and agriculture, the sites contained a considerable amount of misinformation and pseudoscience, with more than two-thirds suggesting that vaccines were dangerous, just under two-thirds suggesting they cause autism and just over 4 in 10 claiming vaccines cause "brain injury."
More than two-thirds selected "scientific" evidence that in fact was not, while about 3 in 10 used anecdotes as evidence. Many sites also promoted unrelated behaviors as being medically relevant to not getting a disease like polio, such as eating better (18.5 percent), eating organic (5.2 percent) and breastfeeding (5.5 percent).
The scholars looked at sites with content about childhood vaccines but did not break out their analysis by individual vaccine. They searched four search engines - Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves - using terms like "immunization dangers" and "vaccine danger" and others were identified using Google Trends. After eliminating duplicates, they had a mix of personal websites and blogs, Facebook pages and health websites. A team of four coders labeled the content for the vaccine misinformation presented, the source of the vaccine misinformation and the types of persuasive tactics used. The coders also coded for behaviors and values co-promoted by the websites that could help vaccine promotion efforts develop better-targeted materials.
"The biggest global takeaway is that we need to communicate to the vaccine-hesitant parent in a way that resonates with them and is sensitive to their concerns," says Meghan Moran, PhD, associate professor in the Bloomberg School's Department of Health, Behavior and Society and lead author of the study. "In our review, we saw communication for things we consider healthy, such as breastfeeding, eating organic, the types of behavior public health officials want to encourage. I think we can leverage these good things and reframe our communication in a way that makes sense to those parents resisting vaccines for their children."
"Why are anti-vaccine messages so persuasive? A content analysis of anti-vaccine websites to inform the development of vaccine promotion strategies" was presented at the American Public Health Association's Annual Meeting in Chicago on Nov. 3.
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/antivaccination_websites_select_science_and_a_lot_of_anecdotes-158917