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This may be downvoted to hell, but stuff like this makes me question things like vaccinating children. I am positive that hundreds of studies were conducted an

This may be downvoted to hell, but stuff like this makes me question things like vaccinating children. I am positive that hundreds of studies were conducted and "peer reviewed" to ensure that they were safe. And I am sure that the drug companies producing vaccines have 0 conflict of interest with the anti "fake-news" saying that "anti-vaxxers" are nuts. /s

aggie 9y ago
I don't know much about the science of vaccines so I won't address your point there. But I will say your comment is a good example of why I worry about the uptick in news of fraud and other bad practices in science, as well as the replication crisis is social psychology. These cases may be systemic or isolated or somewhere in the middle, but they erode public trust in good science. And with the 'post-truth' atmosphere of the politics, I fear a snowball effect.
rsfern 9y ago
I think you're being too quick to throw out the baby with the bath water. We know there are epidemiological risks to foregoing vaccination, dating to well before peer review and drug manufacturer incentives were problematic. If you're concerned about the incentives of vaccine manufacturers to produce safe products (which is a reasonable position), I think a better response in this case is to call for more transparency in research and manufacturing. Why accept a known large risk in an attempt to reduce a risk that may not exist at all?
LeeHwang 9y ago
Its not unreasonable. I really hope scientific authorities start realizing there is erosion of trust and they need to take extreme steps to fix it.
jwilk 9y ago
From the HN guidelines: Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted.
ska 9y ago
but stuff like this makes me question things like vaccinating children. Respectively, I suggest you question instead your understanding of how science works today (warts and all). This kind of thing is a problem, but it's not the same problem you seem to think it is.
stefantalpalaru 9y ago
> stuff like this makes me question things like vaccinating children We don't vaccinate children because of some peer-reviewed article. We vaccinate them because infant mortality rates dropped dramatically when and where vaccination was introduced, and the drop wasn't explained by the parallel introduction of antibiotics alone. We also have the correlation in the opposite direction - drops in the number of vaccinations due to rumours are correlated with an increase in mortality. That's why anti-vaxxers are nuts.

aggie 9y ago

I don't know much about the science of vaccines so I won't address your point there. But I will say your comment is a good example of why I worry about the uptick in news of fraud and other bad practices in science, as well as the replication crisis is social psychology. These cases may be systemic or isolated or somewhere in the middle, but they erode public trust in good science. And with the 'post-truth' atmosphere of the politics, I fear a snowball effect.

rsfern 9y ago

I think you're being too quick to throw out the baby with the bath water. We know there are epidemiological risks to foregoing vaccination, dating to well before peer review and drug manufacturer incentives were problematic. If you're concerned about the incentives of vaccine manufacturers to produce safe products (which is a reasonable position), I think a better response in this case is to call for more transparency in research and manufacturing. Why accept a known large risk in an attempt to reduce a risk that may not exist at all?

LeeHwang 9y ago

Its not unreasonable. I really hope scientific authorities start realizing there is erosion of trust and they need to take extreme steps to fix it.

jwilk 9y ago

From the HN guidelines: Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted.

ska 9y ago

but stuff like this makes me question things like vaccinating children. Respectively, I suggest you question instead your understanding of how science works today (warts and all). This kind of thing is a problem, but it's not the same problem you seem to think it is.

stefantalpalaru 9y ago

> stuff like this makes me question things like vaccinating children We don't vaccinate children because of some peer-reviewed article. We vaccinate them because infant mortality rates dropped dramatically when and where vaccination was introduced, and the drop wasn't explained by the parallel introduction of antibiotics alone. We also have the correlation in the opposite direction - drops in the number of vaccinations due to rumours are correlated with an increase in mortality. That's why anti-vaxxers are nuts.