Speaking out against antivaxxers
Scott Hurst, a skeptic and JREF friend, has written an entry for Swift asking how much responsibility antivax mouthpieces like Meryl Dorey and Jenny McCarthy have for deaths caused by their rhetoric. It’s a solidly-written piece that is well-researched and brings up what I think is a valid point. While we do have the right to free speech in the U.S., there are ramifications to it. Are they responsible if parents don’t vaccinate their children, and deaths follow? It’s a fair question.
Somewhat less fair, perhaps, is a video that has been made making fun of Jenny McCarthy. While I think it provides an outlet for the visceral need to do something to stop her relentless nonsense about vaccinations and autism, I don’t know if this sort of thing really helps. I don’t know if it will convince any fence-sitters or believers, and can come across as being mean-spirited. I think there’s a difference between being angry and showing it, and being simply mean. What do you think? I’ve heard opinions going both ways on this video.
I’m scratching my head over Cracked Magazine’s take on McCarthy, though (NSFW though, since it has some, um, adult content). It’s accurate, snarky, and takes her to task really well, but I doubt it’s any more fair to her than the video is, but it bugs me less. I wonder if the graphic imagery in the video is what troubles me, given that Cracked article has a ridiculous (and generally juvenile) nature. Pictures of sick babies is, well, it’s tough. Hmmm.
Finally, a great new website has been created called whyichoose.org, where people can post images of themselves and tell their personal stories about why they chose to get vaccinated. Anecdotes are not data, but they do sway opinion. And unlike the antivax anecdotes, we have reality on our side. So it’s not evil or wrong to use personal stories to urge people to vaccinate, and in fact I think it’s an important aspect that has not been used to its full potential. I’m all for it.
Tip o’ the syringe to BABloggee Heather Steingruebl.
whyichoose.org: fighting antivax propaganda with a faux “grassroots” propaganda, right?
I think the campaign is more about recognizing people that still believe in immunizations. Science is already on the side the immunizations — by a long shot, but some have forgotten how important vaccines really are. I did my research and spoke with our family doctor. I’m a father of a 2-month year old son with leukemia, who is too young to get vaccinated, so immunizations for those around him are key to his health. I plan on sharing my I choose story soon.
Quote from the article:
Bogus, eh? I hope Scott Hurst isn’t from the UK.
I disagree about the video. Most people in the US today have never seen a case of measles, or any other disease controlled by vaccination, part of the reason I think parents can so easily be convinced to not vaccinate their kids. Saying something can cause a disfiguring rash gets different results than showing it. Yes, those are sadly real suffering babies, but there is no better way to drive home the effect these diseases can have.
Showing the actual harm of the diseases that could be prevented through vaccination seems like fair game to me.
A large part of the problem is that those who decide not to vaccinate their children really don’t know how horrible and devastating a disease like polio can be. And while many of the children who contract measles or mumps will recover fully, many others will carry lifelong effects like scarring, and others won’t survive.
Ironically, the very vaccination program that these parents fear so badly has been so successful at curbing these disease that parents don’t really know anything about them.
I can understand someone saying that showing the actual suffering of these babies is akin to emotional blackmail. But the antivax side has been using misinformation to commit emotional blackmail for far too long. Rationally pointing out their misinformation hasn’t changed anything. Maybe shock value can make a difference.
I have to agree with the other comments. The video may be mean, angry and emotional, but it may actually get to people who will not listen to a well-researched, factually correct argument. Having the facts on your side won’t help you much if people can just call you a cold hearted scientist who thinks that reason trumps Jenny’s mommy instinct. These people could actually be swayed by somebody who will shake them and yell “Idiots like you kill children!”
Sexualizing women to discredit them is a time-honored bullshit thing to do. It’s an underaddressed logical fallacy that I, as a female blogger, run up against all the time. The second some dude is like, “Look! Hot!”, I lose all respect for him, even if he is attacking someone that I think is wrong. Wanting to have sex with someone doesn’t automatically mean what she has to say is stupid or worthless. That doesn’t even make sense.
Which is, to clarify, the reason the Cracked thing bothered me. Much of it is good, but they start off right away with a bunch of jokes about how the most important and first thing any red-blooded male thinks of when a woman is speaking is whether or not he’d prong her, and that bothers me.
I’ve enjoyed Cracked as an amusing distraction for a while now, it is juvenile but so am I, kind of. I think it’s great, it communicates some important points to an audience that generally wouldn’t be exposed to it.
I heard a name for Cracked’s style of humour recently: Fratire. Sums it up I think.
Great post on this topic at White Coat Underground.
http://scienceblogs.com/whitecoatunderground/2009/05/public_figures_public_statemen.php
I don’t think the video is too mean-spirited. As satire goes, it’s actually fairly mild. Imagine what The Onion would do with this subject matter.
Mean-spirited and emotional? Of course! That’s how it’s done nowadays. We live in an era when late-night comedians and good poster graphics determine who gets to be President. Don’t attack their ideas, destroy the person. For something as important as vaccination it’s foolish to play by Marquess of Queensbury rules when the anti-vaccination idiots certainly aren’t.
I find the bit about telling personal stories for whyichoose.org funny.
What type of personal stories can you tell about vaccination:
“I got vaccinated so nothing happened”? :-)
There are also stories of friend’s and family who were fortunate to get vaccinated after the polio vaccine was developed. They remained healthy, while around loved ones who weren’t so lucky. I choose immunizations!
In all fairness, if people are going to put their trust in celebrities, then I’m all for watching the Lemmings throw themselves off the cliff. It’s just unfortunate they’ll be taking others with them.
I don’t really get the song, is it supposed to be funny or informative because it isn’t really either. My biggest problem with it however is that it is a bad song, repetitive and boring. The tone of it doesn’t come across as angry just aloof and slightly patronising. I agree that it probably isn’t going to convince any fence-sitters or believers. Conversely though it isn’t going to have a reverse effect to those in the pro-vaccine camp so it is fairly harmless.
I generally don’t have a problem with satire so long as it is done decently, see South Park or for skeptical songs, Tim Minchin.
I think the Jenny McCarthy song misses the mark. The pictures of her seem to be trying to make the point that because she is pretty and a model she doesn’t know anything about vaccines. Whilst this may be true in her case I don’t feel comfortable with the implication that all famous beautiful people are stupid. Perhaps I am extrapolating too much but that was just what came across to me.
I’m all for the the Jenny McCarthy song and the Jenny McCarthy death count.
If one thing’s been demonstrated over and over again, good guys finish last. That is to say simply sticking to facts and rational thinking — while admirable and appropriate — doesn’t seem to get through like one would hope (and I should know, I used to live with and have a child with a woo-woo). Time to get a little more down and dirty and sling a little mud with the kids.
More guerrilla skepticism is called for and I think the Amateur Scientist did a good job. I do have a degree in Music so I’m not going to be critical of its composition, etc. One thing I though would be fun would to have remixes done. You know, hot techno beats by cool angry Germans who cut off their toes. I digress.
Heck, I read on this very blog about doing more proactive things and one of the things which were suggest was trying to get something viral. Here’s an opportunity for just that and your ambivalence isn’t helpful.
While this video may not win over “fence-sitters”, it can piss off denialists. Doesn’t _The_Art_of_War_ mention something about angering your opponent in order to encourage them to make mistakes? I like that idea. Let ‘em get their underwear in a bunch, slap ‘em up side the head with the reason stick, and let them babble like irrational idiots for all to see.
baron_army- I like your take on trying to get the other side to make mistakes. They seem to be making them pretty regularly already without any goading though, and not many people seem to be noticing. But maybe these kind of things will push them over the edge. One can only hope.
The idea of forcing people to make mistakes is fine when you are taking part in sport. But this is rationality versus irrationality.
You don’t have to MAKE them make mistakes because their whole posistion, assumptions and two-bit science are the mistake. They are wrong to begin with if you catch my drift.
Ultimately you have to believe that the science will overcome the nonscience (nonsense)!
Indeed, they should be shooting themselves in both feet given the the shaky grounds that their movement is based on. But having said that, it doesn’t seem that they have made that one critical blunder that sets the public openly against them. My anecdotal observation is that there is an ‘under the radar’ word of mouth meme that just ‘knows’ that something is dreadfully wrong with vaccinations that warrants great caution. I have a bad feeling that this will continue until there is a bad enough outbreak of some disease with multiple deaths,before it rocks the general publics mindset.
I’m not talking about exposing their irrationality. While that is obvious to some (skeptics), it isn’t obvious to others (denialists and fence sitters). By forcing mistakes, I’m referring to the spittle-flying hate-filled googlety-gook that flies out of the mouth of a true believer when confronted with actual evidence. I’ve seen it first hand and it is quite revealing.
While some people will be quite happy discussing the evidence — which needs to be happening — there is a large demographic out there that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about facts. They are looking for something else to hang their hats on. Look at Facebook as an example. It’s loaded with groups that purport to help the rain forest, etc. if only you have this little application on your profile. Voila, a million-trillion 14 year-olds now have the rain forest as an issue they are supporting. They only click some buttons. There was no discussions or weighing of the evidence.
It’s marketing. Plain and simple. Whether people like or not, it’s a part of reality and a viral video is a means by which to get the idea out. Discussion can then occur afterward. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was once asked in an interview why he started the band. Among the reasons he gave was to open peoples ears to the punk bands that influenced him. No one can argue Nirvana wasn’t extremely popular in the 90’s and continues to be influential. Likewise, I don’t think anyone can argue they didn’t achieve Cobain’s other goal of exposing people to punk rock. I know it got me to check out a lot of bands I wouldn’t have otherwise. Similarly, a viral video, meme, or similar tactics can become popular and similarly expose people to the fundamental ideas behind them.
Having read both these responses I kind of agree with both of you. I think there is a general misunderstanding about science which is why scare stories are easily spread. That’s what anti vax ultimately is; a scare story.
There is always going to be a minority that fall for the scare stories and conspiracy theories and that is a great shame. What is a bigger shame is that these minorities and people like Jenny McCarthy thrive in being the underdog. The joke, albeit not a funny one, is they aren’t the ‘underdog’, Jenny has the big contract with Oprah, homeopathy and other bogus cures make money. I think Steve Novella made the point on Skeptics Guide this week how the ‘other side’ are so well funded and the sceptical side isn’t, “there’s no money in skepticism!”
I’m digressing a little, ok a lot, I guess I have to take solace that the kooks are still a minority. Most people still get vaccinated, most people go to the doctors when they are ill and most people when presented with the evidence are capable of making an informed and correct decision. Just getting that information to most people most of the time is the difficult part! Anything to help this we probably should consider a good thing. I still don’t like the song though. ;-)
Fortunately or unfortunately, the only bits I see of Jenny from here in Australia are what I see via the skeptical websites I visit.
Can anyone tell me if there has ever been a one-on-one Jenny vs scientist or Jenny vs doctor debate? Has anyone been able to actually hold her down and debunk her, to her face? Or does she not let herself get into those situations?
Isn’t all this simply a question of facts? Is it not possible to show her some facts that refute her claims? Why hasn’t this been done then? Can’t we set up a nice candlelight dinner for Jenny McCarthy and Steve Novella? Surely a nice bottle of wine will help clear the air.
I would pay good money to see this.
Novella vs McCarthy the showdown.
We could have a host of them.
Phil Plait vs Russell Grant
PZ Myers vs Bill Donohue . . .
I think that video is fine.
As others have mentionned, we skeptics have been “too nice” and “too polite” for far too long. We try to reason with people who are simply not reasonable. We all know we have better chances of turning lead to gold than convincing a “true believer” that their position is nonsense, no matter how many facts we present.
In many cases of woowoo I just let it slide as the consequences are minimal and I frankly don’t care if someone wants to wallow in nonsense and ignorance.
In the case of the anti-vaccination nutcases though there are some serious consequences to their insane propaganda. People are getting sick, people are dying. I thnk it’s time skeptics step things up a little.
The Jenny McCarthy Body Count website is a great first step. This youtube video is also droping the gloves. I think more is needed. For example what we call them… “Anti-vaxxers” sounds innocent enough to the average joe, why not call them “Pro-disease”, “Anti-Health” or “Pro-Epidemic”? Facts and stories get diluted, labels stick.
Just my 2 cents
I agree with Amanda Marcotte. To me the video shows some odd obsession with Jenny’s sexuality, and it gets really creepy to me. It’s like the people can’t decide to hate her, bang her, or both.
She is an idiot who is spreading dangerous information around that will potentially harm children. She also promotes an idea I strongly disagree with, the myth of mommy intuition.
However, the fact that men have seen her boobies does not mean that it is not creepy when they attack her for that. Her boobies have nothing to do with her idiocy. In fact, I have seen many skeptical boobies, including my own, that are impressively awesome, but have NOTHING TO DO WITH MY BRAIN!!!
One more for the video. Different people require different language to get the message. The more levels covered the more people are likely to hear it. Ridiculing and shocking are just mechanisms of sattire and on top of this we all have the freedom NOT TO watch things we don’t like as well.
PS. Heidi, I’m a bit skeptic about the statement at the end of your comment. I believe that scientific method requires some evidence on that… ;)