interesting video with great info for anyone wanting to arm themselves against anti vaxxers

I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the khan academy videos but I came across a series on influenza vaccine which has two very well done segments on vaccines and autism. The whole series is very well done if you want to learn a little about the flu and the flu vaccine and its geared for the lay person but the two segments near the end about vaccines and autism do an excellent job of laying out the history of this myth and debunking it.

Very well done. I might post that to my Facebook page.

I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the khan academy videos but I came across a series on influenza vaccine which has two very well done segments on vaccines and autism. The whole series is very well done if you want to learn a little about the flu and the flu vaccine and its geared for the lay person but the two segments near the end about vaccines and autism do an excellent job of laying out the history of this myth and debunking it. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/health-and-medicine/infectious-diseases/influenza/v/vaccines-and-the-autism-myth-part-1
The problem is anti-vaxxers don't want to learn anything about vaccines. They already know everything they need to know. Lois

You are probably correct Lois but the goal is not to convert antivaxxers. Our goal is to persuade their audience, the people on the fence. I see my role at least as providing an opposing voice to all the nonsense that parents and others come across on the internet. If we can educate those who are undecided we can “vaccinate” them against the misinformation that infects the internet. Many of those people are reachable and willing to listen.

Huffpo is running a featured article on this very subject and it mainly concerns the recent measles outbreak caused by McCarthy’s antivax campaign. Also I had no idea that Trump was touting this pseudoscience, but it figures. The author is asking concerned parents to contact the media moguls who allow her to spout her antivax crap and get her to either recant this false claim or take her off the air. This totally false and virulent meme has spread around the country BTW and is affecting whole areas where whooping cough and even meningitis are breaking out yet again. And the dumbing down of America continues.

Cap’t Jack

You are probably correct Lois but the goal is not to convert antivaxxers. Our goal is to persuade their audience, the people on the fence. I see my role at least as providing an opposing voice to all the nonsense that parents and others come across on the internet. If we can educate those who are undecided we can "vaccinate" them against the misinformation that infects the internet. Many of those people are reachable and willing to listen.
Yes, that's a worthy goal. Lois
I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the khan academy videos but I came across a series on influenza vaccine which has two very well done segments on vaccines and autism. The whole series is very well done if you want to learn a little about the flu and the flu vaccine and its geared for the lay person but the two segments near the end about vaccines and autism do an excellent job of laying out the history of this myth and debunking it. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/health-and-medicine/infectious-diseases/influenza/v/vaccines-and-the-autism-myth-part-1
WOW :grrr: I was vaguely familiar with the Lancet study being withdrawn, but that's it. Very interesting to see the whole sequence explained like that. I have a few people in my life, who buy into this - it might make an interesting experiment watching this with them to see what happens. But, the fear of being accused of attacking someones beliefs, looms large…. Darron nails it: You cannot have a rational conversation with someone who holds irrational beliefs. Or as the Amazing Randy would say: "People need to believe." ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Thanks for sharing that macgyver, quite edifying.
I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the khan academy videos but I came across a series on influenza vaccine which has two very well done segments on vaccines and autism. The whole series is very well done if you want to learn a little about the flu and the flu vaccine and its geared for the lay person but the two segments near the end about vaccines and autism do an excellent job of laying out the history of this myth and debunking it. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/health-and-medicine/infectious-diseases/influenza/v/vaccines-and-the-autism-myth-part-1
The problem is anti-vaxxers don't want to learn anything about vaccines. They already know everything they need to know. Lois I don't think they do. No anti-vaxxer I ever met mentions Wakefield. I was in a long argument with one, someone who organizes others to fight for her kooky causes and I mentioned Wakefield and she had never heard of him. Any study you find today, the ones that are in cheap journals, not really peer reviewed, usually just repeating what others have said, those studies will cite another study, then that study will cite Wakefield. Anti-vaxxers don't look at the footnotes, they just glance at an article and see that it has footnotes, and that impresses them. What I love about pt 2 is it is a REAL conspiracy. It has lawyers giving money to doctors who fake their data. Exactly the kind of thing that conspiracy theorists moan about. I'm emailing this to that friend I just mentioned. Can't wait to hear her response.
I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the khan academy videos but I came across a series on influenza vaccine which has two very well done segments on vaccines and autism. The whole series is very well done if you want to learn a little about the flu and the flu vaccine and its geared for the lay person but the two segments near the end about vaccines and autism do an excellent job of laying out the history of this myth and debunking it. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/health-and-medicine/infectious-diseases/influenza/v/vaccines-and-the-autism-myth-part-1
The problem is anti-vaxxers don't want to learn anything about vaccines. They already know everything they need to know. Lois I don't think they do. No anti-vaxxer I ever met mentions Wakefield. I was in a long argument with one, someone who organizes others to fight for her kooky causes and I mentioned Wakefield and she had never heard of him. Any study you find today, the ones that are in cheap journals, not really peer reviewed, usually just repeating what others have said, those studies will cite another study, then that study will cite Wakefield. Anti-vaxxers don't look at the footnotes, they just glance at an article and see that it has footnotes, and that impresses them. What I love about pt 2 is it is a REAL conspiracy. It has lawyers giving money to doctors who fake their data. Exactly the kind of thing that conspiracy theorists moan about. I'm emailing this to that friend I just mentioned. Can't wait to hear her response. I should have said, The problem is anti-vaxxers don't want to learn anything about vaccines. They already know everything they want to know. A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again. Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744) An Essay on Criticism, 1709
I should have said, The problem is anti-vaxxers don't want to learn anything about vaccines. They already know everything they want to know. A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again. Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744) An Essay on Criticism, 1709
That would be more technically correct, which is the best kind of correct. It's unfortunate that listening to an hour long radio show about how vaccines cause autism looks exactly like spending an hour listening to actual authorities providing verified facts about vaccines. It took me years to figure out how to discern one from the other and it's a skill that requires continual exercise.

Since there have been so many people refusing to vaccinate heir kids over the past few years, if the anti-vaxxers are right there should be a significant difference in the number of autistic kids who never had vaccinations and the number of autistic kids who had been vaccinated. I hope a scientific organization is doing this kind of comparison. It would certainly tell the story.
Lois

Since there have been so many people refusing to vaccinate heir kids over the past few years, if the anti-vaxxers are right there should be a significant difference in the number of autistic kids who never had vaccinations and the number of autistic kids who had been vaccinated. I hope a scientific organization is doing this kind of comparison. It would certainly tell the story. Lois
These studies have been done ad nauseum. Too much money has already been spent proving a negative. There's plenty of data available for rational minds (the video I linked to in the begining goes over this), for the devoted antivaxxers, as has been said before, you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

I have been rather pleased with the news stories about the recent Measles outbreak. Most of them mention Wakefield, and that he took money from lawyers, and that he is no longer a real doctor. Hopefully this will little blip will be all it takes to get people vaccinating again.

One thing that I have noticed from viewer comments on news sites like CNN is that there appears to be a very strong public backlash against ani-vaxxers as a result of the measles outbreak. I generally rail against knee jerk reactions from the public but maybe in this one instance some good will come from it. Even if the anti-vaxxers stay their ground, people on the fence are likely to be turned away from their conspiracy theories now and politicians might rethink the ill conceived “Philosophical Objections” that anti-vaxxers are allowed to use in states like California to exempt their children from vaccines when they go to public schools.

One thing that I have noticed from viewer comments on news sites like CNN is that there appears to be a very strong public backlash against ani-vaxxers as a result of the measles outbreak. I generally rail against knee jerk reactions from the public but maybe in this one instance some good will come from it. Even if the anti-vaxxers stay their ground, people on the fence are likely to be turned away from their conspiracy theories now and politicians might rethink the ill conceived "Philosophical Objections" that anti-vaxxers are allowed to use in states like California to exempt their children from vaccines when they go to public schools.
It's a scandal, to be sure, in this land of fruits and nuts. Lois