She Blinded Me with “Science”

Well that settles it. NO MORE CARROTS in the Maven household!

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Interesting posts. I did a couple degrees in philosophy, so I am well-versed in fallacious arguments, and agree there are a lot of bad ones out there when it comes to vaccines (and medicine in general, actually). But–you saw the ‘but’ coming, right? –there is one thing about vaccines that I have never seen addressed, and I want to know the answer to: Why do different countries adopt different vaccine schedules? There are differences between countries of the ‘western-world’ sort, presumably whose scientists have read / conducted the same studies, and adopt the same starting principles: mainstream western science. Yet the vaccines given to children in the US, or the UK, or Canada, or Sweden, or Japan differ: in timing, in which vaccines, in whether they are given singly or as a group. I am not saying vaccines don’t save lives or that vaccines are bad; I am just a reflective person wondering, “Why the difference in vaccine protocol, if informed by experts who have access to the same studies / information?”

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I definitely love the analogy of the carrots and car accidents….did they specify between baby carrots and regular carrots? That’s what I really wanna know.

Okay, seriously, though, I remember awehile back talking to Cole and Bella’s former EI therapist and she said the same exact thing about autism, not about vinyl flooring but that the signs of autism are usually most prevalent around 18 months old, which is normally when most children receive the MMR. There’s no causation between the two….it just happens to be a convenient coincidence is how she explained it. I wish more people would understand that.

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I just want to add that when bad things happen we want to find someone to blame. My daughter was born with Spina Bifida and Anencephaly, both neural tube defects. If I recall correctly the defect came into play in the first trimester. Now we know that folic acid plays a big role in preventing these defects, sadly only months after this happened. When my husband was told what was going on he immediately blamed me and my genes. It was a knee jerk reaction. I of course wanted to blame his genes. I know this is not the same thing but parents want to do the best for their kids and so when a child is born with a disorder that makes their life challenging the parents want to blame someone or thing.

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Bravo!

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… there’s condensation on my windows sometimes…. my kids are doomed.

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Thanks for this. I’ll call it the How To Use Your Brain series.

I believe also, the recommended vaccine schedule takes into consideration when we are most likely to have access to the greatest number of kids in a medical facility. Like when they are first born.

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Interesting stuff. I heard about a study out of Cornell (but not the medical department) that found an association (or is it high correlation?) between autism with harsh climates. The theory was that when the weather’s bad outside, children watch tv and tv causes autism. Hmm. I’m thinking the tv watching was happening on a vinyl floor while the children were eating carrots.

Seriously, very informative post, Mother.

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I loved this post.
I even forwarded this off to a few others.

I get vaccine/autism questions all the time from parents. I may consider sending this to them as a response

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You really put it in to perspective. Personally I don’t buy carrots, since none of the kids eat them. I’m pretty confident I won’t get into any post-grocery auto accidents. Now that rooster thing, that concerns me a little.

Our former pediatrician actually held off on vaccinating kids who showed early signs of autism, just because he didn’t want the vaccine to be linked as the “cause”. This was before he stopped taking budgetary short cuts and bypassing vaccine purchases altogether. But that’s a whole other story.

Thanks for updating the links btw. I appreciate it.

What you’re reminding me of is that stupid “calcium makes you lose weight” study. I looked at the details of the study a little and found that the participants were eating TEN little tubs of yogurt per day, as a replacement for two of their meals.

That is called CALORIE REDUCTION! Not CALCIUM BENEFIT. So, so stupid.

I took a child psychology class in college, thinking it would be great to take as a very new mom. The only thing I really took away from that class?

That the main point of any study is to manipulate data in such a way as to fund the NEXT study and keep oneself employed in that way. And that even the most innocuous and unrelated data can be manipulated enough to get some sort of result.

Don’t make it true.

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I love how you dumbed that down even for some one like me who is scientifically challenged.

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Maybe it’s because I just finished your post on Amazon/pornography censorship but my first thought after reading your scientific data primer was: how long can a hot virgin remain a virgin?
Can that be measured in weeks, months, years?

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Thanks for this post. I’ve thought similar things many times when I hear all the coverage in the media. I wish commentary like yours made it out there more.

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Mother, there's a new BBC article which I think relates very well to this, stating in the headline that vegetarians avoid more cancers.

I think it's a superb example of what you were saying here. The actual article says that more research is needed before people change their diets radically, but the headline screams that vegetarians avoid more cancers, so that is probably what will stick in peoples' heads.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8127215.stm