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Regardless of the article itself, what do you call it when people persist in believing in the alleged link between MMR vaccine and autism, after the link has be

Regardless of the article itself, what do you call it when people persist in believing in the alleged link between MMR vaccine and autism, after the link has been thoroughly debunked? To paraphrase one of my favorite writers, those people have their feet wet and can see the pyramids really well, 'cause they're standing knee-deep in De Nile.

mistermann 16y ago
"after the link has been thoroughly debunked?" If a relationship between a vaccination and a negative reaction cannot be definitively confirmed, then it does not show up in the statistics...in case you actually are interested in the truth. There is a website somewhere that tracks all of this, but my question is, why wouldn't the official people already involved track fucking everything? It costs exactly zero over and above what they are doing now, so why exclude it? This is where the conspiracy theories come from. You have the means and budget to track everything, but you don't. My question is: why? Combine that with some weird stories I hear, and the fact that it is free for you to counter them with data, but you don't, and there you go, a conspiracy theory.
- CodeMage 16y ago
  why wouldn't the official people already involved track fucking everything? It costs exactly zero over and above what they are doing now, so why exclude it? I'm not really sure who are those "official people already involved", but what I would really like to know is how you're so sure that "it costs exactly zero and above what they are doing now" to track "fucking everything"? First, let's go with the simple thing: how this tracking is supposed to be done. I'm just extrapolating here, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I've had no doctor follow my kid around after vaccination 24/7 to monitor whether he's suddenly developed a symptom, so I suppose it's not by direct observation. Therefore, it must depend on some doctor connecting the dots ("oh, so you vaccinated your kid 3 months ago and now he has X?") and reporting it to some tracking body. Which leads me to the next issue. To put it like you did: how the fuck do you track "fucking everything"? I can understand that the doctors would be informed about a suspected link between A and B and would therefore report any cases of A and B happening "together", where "together" is defined as a parameter of this suspected link. But for that, you need to at least suspect that there's a link between A and B. Maybe I'm too naive, but to me it stands to reason that tracking "fucking everything" does not cost "zero", because otherwise someone would have been doing it already. Whenever someone claims that it would be easy to do something someone's not doing already, I remember Yegge's post "Have you ever legalized marijuana?": http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legalized-marijuana.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali... Combine that with some weird stories I hear, and the fact that it is free for you to counter them with data, but you don't, and there you go, a conspiracy theory. Okay. Here's how that reads: "I hear stories from people and nobody seems to counter that with data, so I choose to believe in a conspiracy. Especially because I believe it would be 'free' to come up with data." ...in case you actually are interested in the truth. In case you are, here's a dose of it: http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html
  - mistermann 16y ago
    This: ("oh, so you vaccinated your kid 3 months ago and now he has X?") and reporting it to some tracking body. Why is this not done? Doesn't that seem a bit odd? And yes, I was exaggerating, it wouldn't be free. But it could be done for very little cost.
    - CodeMage 16y ago
      Okay, I see the message is not getting through. What makes you claim it could be done for very little cost? I mean, I don't work in the medical field, so I don't have any insider information on the existing infrastructure. If you have some -- or any other argument to support your claim, for that matter -- please share. For example, what tracking body would the doctors report to? Is it CDC? If so, will existing staff take on their new duties, meaning that they will now have less time for other duties? Or will they have to hire new staff for that? If not CDC, which organization? Who pays their wages? How to disseminate information (to all doctors) on what to report to the tracking body? Do doctors now have a legal duty to inform themselves? Or is it someone else's duty to inform the doctors? Can I sue for malpractice if my doctor doesn't report? Or is it voluntary for doctors to report? What channels do they have for reporting: phone, Internet, some other? Who will pay for establishing those channels? I could go on, but there should be no need to, hopefully.
- isleyaardvark 16y ago
  We already spend approximately $22 million for the NIS (National Immunization Survey), which gives an estimate of the number of children vaccinated. And you think it would cost nothing to track every single child, instead of statistical sampling? Not only whether they were immunized, but track every single ailment for the a significant portion of their lives, and this will cost nothing? And that's not even getting into privacy issues with health records. Or you could do what the medical establishment has already done. Start with the ailment, and look at the statistics of who has the ailment versus the suspected cause. In this case there's no difference in the rates of autism between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

mistermann 16y ago

"after the link has been thoroughly debunked?" If a relationship between a vaccination and a negative reaction cannot be definitively confirmed, then it does not show up in the statistics...in case you actually are interested in the truth. There is a website somewhere that tracks all of this, but my question is, why wouldn't the official people already involved track fucking everything? It costs exactly zero over and above what they are doing now, so why exclude it? This is where the conspiracy theories come from. You have the means and budget to track everything, but you don't. My question is: why? Combine that with some weird stories I hear, and the fact that it is free for you to counter them with data, but you don't, and there you go, a conspiracy theory.

CodeMage 16y ago
why wouldn't the official people already involved track fucking everything? It costs exactly zero over and above what they are doing now, so why exclude it? I'm not really sure who are those "official people already involved", but what I would really like to know is how you're so sure that "it costs exactly zero and above what they are doing now" to track "fucking everything"? First, let's go with the simple thing: how this tracking is supposed to be done. I'm just extrapolating here, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I've had no doctor follow my kid around after vaccination 24/7 to monitor whether he's suddenly developed a symptom, so I suppose it's not by direct observation. Therefore, it must depend on some doctor connecting the dots ("oh, so you vaccinated your kid 3 months ago and now he has X?") and reporting it to some tracking body. Which leads me to the next issue. To put it like you did: how the fuck do you track "fucking everything"? I can understand that the doctors would be informed about a suspected link between A and B and would therefore report any cases of A and B happening "together", where "together" is defined as a parameter of this suspected link. But for that, you need to at least suspect that there's a link between A and B. Maybe I'm too naive, but to me it stands to reason that tracking "fucking everything" does not cost "zero", because otherwise someone would have been doing it already. Whenever someone claims that it would be easy to do something someone's not doing already, I remember Yegge's post "Have you ever legalized marijuana?": http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legalized-marijuana.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali... Combine that with some weird stories I hear, and the fact that it is free for you to counter them with data, but you don't, and there you go, a conspiracy theory. Okay. Here's how that reads: "I hear stories from people and nobody seems to counter that with data, so I choose to believe in a conspiracy. Especially because I believe it would be 'free' to come up with data." ...in case you actually are interested in the truth. In case you are, here's a dose of it: http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html
- mistermann 16y ago
  This: ("oh, so you vaccinated your kid 3 months ago and now he has X?") and reporting it to some tracking body. Why is this not done? Doesn't that seem a bit odd? And yes, I was exaggerating, it wouldn't be free. But it could be done for very little cost.
  - CodeMage 16y ago
    Okay, I see the message is not getting through. What makes you claim it could be done for very little cost? I mean, I don't work in the medical field, so I don't have any insider information on the existing infrastructure. If you have some -- or any other argument to support your claim, for that matter -- please share. For example, what tracking body would the doctors report to? Is it CDC? If so, will existing staff take on their new duties, meaning that they will now have less time for other duties? Or will they have to hire new staff for that? If not CDC, which organization? Who pays their wages? How to disseminate information (to all doctors) on what to report to the tracking body? Do doctors now have a legal duty to inform themselves? Or is it someone else's duty to inform the doctors? Can I sue for malpractice if my doctor doesn't report? Or is it voluntary for doctors to report? What channels do they have for reporting: phone, Internet, some other? Who will pay for establishing those channels? I could go on, but there should be no need to, hopefully.
isleyaardvark 16y ago
We already spend approximately $22 million for the NIS (National Immunization Survey), which gives an estimate of the number of children vaccinated. And you think it would cost nothing to track every single child, instead of statistical sampling? Not only whether they were immunized, but track every single ailment for the a significant portion of their lives, and this will cost nothing? And that's not even getting into privacy issues with health records. Or you could do what the medical establishment has already done. Start with the ailment, and look at the statistics of who has the ailment versus the suspected cause. In this case there's no difference in the rates of autism between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.