"They're not anecdotes, that's small batch artisanal data"
— Sara (@pikelet) February 24, 2015
I suppose there’s some comfort in knowing anti-science anti-vaxxers are not all Americans. Sarah Kaplan reports at the Washington Post:
… All reporters face dueling pressures when covering medicine and other science issues. On the one hand, they want to craft a compelling narrative. On the other, science values statistics, not stories and anecdotes. The Toronto Star’s vaccine article, which the paper retracted Friday after it was thoroughly panned by doctors and other experts, epitomized the failure to strike that balance. As the paper’s publisher put it in a note, the Star’s story “led to confusion between anecdotes and evidence.”…
The story was built around the accounts of five young women who suffered muscle pain, swelling, heart attacks and other health problems in the weeks after receiving shots of Gardasil, a vaccine that protects against the sexually-transmitted human papillomavirus. Published Feb. 5 under the headline “A wonder drug’s dark side,” it said that doctors and health officials are pushing the vaccine on patients without fully informing them of potential side effects. The Star also reported that it had found more than 50 self-reports of “serious” adverse reactions to the drug in a regulatory database maintained by Health Canada and thousands of suspected cases in a similar American database known as VAERS (an acronym for Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System).
The article acknowledged that none of the cases it discussed were conclusively proven to have been caused by the Gardasil injections and obliquely alluded to “comprehensive clinical trials and other data that show the vaccine’s well-studied safety and efficacy.” But those caveats were overwhelmed by descriptions of a 13-year-old athlete who’d been sapped of her strength by debilitating joint pain, a 14-year-old who was hospitalized for over a month after suffering a heart attack and, horrifyingly, another 14-year-old who was found drowned in her bathtub two weeks after receiving the vaccine…
A week after the story came out, it was updated to reflect doctors’ criticism of the piece. The online headline was changed to the less-inflammatory “Families seek more transparency on HPV vaccine,” and a subhead was added stating “there is no scientific medical evidence of any ‘dark side’ of this vaccine.”
Last Friday, the story was removed altogether…
***********
Apart from marveling, yet again, on the general human inability to calculate potential risks, what’s on the agenda for the day?
raven
The Northern part of Georgia will be closed at 1pm. That is all.
balconesfault
I suggested to a young woman that we should have sex, and she turned me down. The next week I caught a cold. I’m absolutely convinced there’s a correlation and she bears responsibility.
Mustang Bobby
The traffic lights on US 1 in Miami were out of sync this morning on the way to the office and I got stopped at almost every one. Thanks, Obama.
stibbert
Statistically I’m doing rather well, anecdotally not so much. Today will be a major clean in the kitchen, including a thorough scrub of the fridge innards, & the grey area under the sink.
ThresherK
@balconesfault: I once caught a cold which I’m convinced could be traced to my filling in a DJing slot at the college radio station. The germs were on the microphones, turntables (don’t ask my age) and pots. Ergo, I believe I “took that cold” for my friend.
It is no longer dark when I wake up. We are at 11 hours of daylight in CT.
OzarkHillbilly
I blame Obama.
Mustang Bobby
Shockwave Flash keeps crashing my Firefox, and that’s no anecdote. Damn you, Obama.
xenos
Young children get frequent vaccines. Indeed, some pediatricians try to help by spacing oit the shots, so A child might get ten vaccines in ten different visits over à year, basically monthly. So declaring “my child became (whatever ) just 2 weeks after a shot is just meaningless.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
Actually, there is an antidote. There are plug ins for Firefox you can install that will keep flash turned off until you click to start it. I have one on my Firefox.
Take that, Obama.
ThresherK
@Mustang Bobby: NoScript is recommended. No scripts run until you tell them. And all that crap which detonates when your cursor goes over it without clicking, doesn’t.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: I thought that only happened to me. I think this is just the tip of a Kenyan Muslim Socialist conspiracy rearing it’s ugly head.
JPL
@raven: I decided to order a snow shovel from amazon prime. Even with prime, it wouldn’t arrive to next week, so I canceled the order. I have a nice size driveway with a slope, so if forecasts are right, I’ll just stay home.
Baud
@ThresherK:
NoScript was too blunt an instrument for me. I know it can be customized, but I’m lazy.
ThresherK
@Baud: To each their own.
I love it to death, but I had to dial it waaaay back on my wife’s computer, because every time she’d go to a new website I’d get a “HoneyDo” call. I just leave it there and turn it on only for her favorite website’s extraneous bits.
danielx
In particular, teenage males’ insane disregard of danger and the laws of probability.
Botsplainer
After last night’s fall on the melt and refreeze in the drive, I wound up decided to take two lortab from a bottle we had laying around. Woke up, the damn wrist and forearm still hurt but the swelling on the back of the hand has diminished. Don’t think there was a break, just a sprain, because the pain is ache-y as opposed to sharp.
NorthLeft12
The Toronto Star article was universally panned and derided in Canada. I am sure there were some who pointed to it and said “SEE! I told you so!”, but most people seemed to recognize it for what it was. A terribly written and misleading waste of newspaper space.
Patricia Kayden
Oh Canada!
At least they’ve backpedalled after the backlash. Fox News would have double downed.
MattF
Yeah, ‘risk’ and probability generally is actually a rather subtle subject. People think, e.g., that ‘random’ means ‘no pattern’– but it actually means nearly the opposite. In fact, one sees every possible pattern in a random process, you just don’t know when it’s going to happen. Also, rare events aren’t rare, particularly when they happen to you.
Phylllis
@raven: Ok, that tickled me.
JPL
@Phylllis: Not me, since I live here.
btw, I blame Gore.
ThresherK
@Patricia Kayden: Apologizing for something that American right-wingers would have kept doing?
That is, per Dave Foley’s proposed motto, “As Canadian as possible, given the circumstances”.
Cermet
Yet Tylenol is used by millions – even on babies! – and destorys the livers (requiring transplants) to hundreds and causes tens of thousands of serious cases of liver damage (luckily, the liver can regenerate) but people are afraid/fear vaccines!?
AS for Tylenol – the issues are two specific problems – first and foremost is even just a double dose can harm livers in some people (but not the vast majority, of course.) The real problem is that most people do not know this. Certainly, higher doses than twice can have very bad effects for most people. That this drug is ubiquitous is the issue. Second, alcohol – a few drinks combined with Tylenol will do serious damage (read non-reversal) and even death. No over-the-counter med should be that dangerous due to either dose level or having even just one drink that is high in alcohol.
Stupid
see http://www.drugs.com/tylenol.html for more professional details. Yes, even the maker posts a rather damning statement on dose
Iowa Old Lady
Snow is on the agenda. 7 inches, maybe. But next week is March, so I have hope.
brantl
You know when “anecdotes” become “evidence”? When medical personnel actually follow up with people about their conditions after medical treatment, and investigate bad reactions. Which doesn’t happen, much of anywhere. And oddly, when we finally get around to getting rid of bad medications, you find out all sorts of shit that should have been discovered earlier, and were shoved under the rug.
Buddy H
@Cermet: I’m old enough to remember when tylenol was marketed as the safe alternative to aspirin. All the benefits of aspirin, with none of the side effects.
I also remember the time before the tylenol poisonings, when everything I bought wasn’t shrink wrapped and sealed like a crypt. I actually hurt myself trying to open a pack of batteries.
Younger people don’t remember the poisonings, which resulted in overpackaging of every last product on the shelves, food and non-food alike.
And they never caught the maniac?
Ryan
Central NC to get hit with 4 to 8 more inches of snow tonight. Better stock up on booze and Mac and Cheese on the way home from work.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone.
Go my Chicago folks….we have an election in April.
Not only has Rahm been forced into a runoff….
But 40% of the Alderman have been forced into a runoff….
In 37 out of the 50 wards, there was a non-binding referendum question about whether Chicago should have an ELECTED School Board. The lowest…I say the LOWEST percentage YES was 83%
That was the lowest.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cermet: I took Tylenol for years because I am allergic to aspirin, which means I can not take most anti-inflammatorys as well (cross reactions). Now I am on blood thinners which means I can’t take any of the few remaining anti-inflammatorys. Which considering all my “itises” means I’m screwed.
PurpleGirl
@Baud: Which plug-in do you use? I use Flashblock but it won’t let me see any YouTube at the YouTube channel. I someone embeds a video in a comment or other site, I do get asked about activating Flash but at YouTube itself it doesn’t ask me. And I’ve fixed the setting to work at YouTube. It’s frustrating.
PurpleGirl
@JPL: Staying home in bad weather is always a good decision.
Phylllis
@JPL: Yes, I imagine not so much.
Baud
@PurpleGirl:
Not at home, so can’t check. Remember to ask me another time, and I’ll look it up.
ThresherK
@PurpleGirl: I don’t know the particulars of your setup, but FlashControl may be better for you if navigating FlashBlock is a sticking point.
(I’ve had decent experience with each, but each of those computers are in drydock, so I can’t offer you chapter and verse instrux.)
Ultraviolet Thunder
After updating IOS on my iPhone I can no longer plug into my Windows laptop and find picture files.
What did Obama know and when did he know it? The stonewalling must stop.
Sherparick
@Buddy H: Just because it “over-the-counter” does not mean it safe if you don’t follow the directions or read the small print about the warnings (and that is where the criticism should be directed). Ibuprofein (Advil) is bad for the kidneys. Aspirin rots the stomach and intestines. Tylenol, especially with alcohol, cad destroy your liver. Anti-histamines will put you asleep at the wheel. http://www.livescience.com/42205-ibuprofen.html But balance against this is the vast amount of pain reduction and functionality the vast majority of people get when they “use the drugs as directed.” (By the way, in my opinion, most birth control and morning after pills should be “over the counter” at this point.)
The power of anecdotes over statistics in human psychology is a pretty obvious “Duh, you think.” We humans love a good story and once we buy in to it, it takes a tremendous shock to move us off it. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/the-storytelling-animal-by-jonathan-gottschall.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
JPL
This is really cool. https://twitter.com/thereaIbanksy/status/570415097505452033
Maddow had it on her blog.
NotMax
@Mustang Bobby
Is it the newest Shockwave plug-in for FF (16.0.0.305)? Wouldn’t hurt to have Firefox check that all your plug-ins are up to date (Tools- Add-ons – Plugins – “Check to see if up to date” link at top of list).
My must haves for Firefox (YMMV):
NoScript
Ghostery
Better Privacy
AdBlock Plus
CookieSafe
QuickJava
Tab Mix Plus
Classic Theme Restorer
DownloadHelper
RefControl
VLC Web Plugin
Have some others installed which I could live without, so not bothering to list those. Haven’t seen an FF crash since before Obama took office. Should be pretty intuitive which ones have options to configure and which just do what they do out of the box, as it were.
Also, should you happen to have a mouse from Logitech, download and install the correct version for your computer of Set Point from Logitech’s site and install the FF add-on it has. The complete Set Point program does not need to be running all the time – shut it down (even delete it if you want) once you’ve done all the configuring you want within it.
rikyrah
the Chicago April election will be when the Chicago Public Schools is on School Break.
All those teachers..with all that time on their hands….
Karma…it’s what’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner
NotMax
@NotMax
Oh, should clarify that there’s no point in having the VLC Web Plugin for Firefox unless you have the VLC media player installed on your machine. (The best media player around, IMHO. And free.)
PurpleGirl
@Cermet: I’ve found that Tylenol didn’t do anything for inflammation or fevers and I’ve largely stopped using it. Luckily, I can aspirin and ibuprofen. I use Aleve for muscle aches.
PurpleGirl
@Baud: TY
@ThresherK: TY
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: ‘Elected’ school boards are generally how the nutwads get their nutwads on the board.
rikyrah
Lifelong Chicagoan (outside of the times I left the city for college and graduate schools)
Rahm’s arrogance knew no bounds.
It wasn’t just the closing of 55 schools in BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS..
it was turning around and giving the money – that they said wasn’t there to help improve the public schools..
to Charter School scams.
It was not being able to find TIFF monies for the Black and Brown neighborhoods …
but, the ability to find $125 million dollars for a stadium for DEPAUL who hasn’t had a winning team since I was a child.
It was closing 55 schools in Black neighborhoods..
but finding 20 million dollars for an expansion annex for a public school in the richest part of town….
it was his fundamental disrespect of Black people….
it was the scam of the redlight cameras that he expanded…
I could be with you here for hours discussing my rage everytime I drive by the one closest to my house and how utterly ridiculous they are.
And, don’t get me started on Chicago Snow Etiquette. I have never seen the streets of Chicago look this bad after a snow in the post-Bilandic Age…
and, I’m not just talking about the South Side….
I’m talking about DOWNTOWN CHICAGO looking pitiful after a snowstorm.
then, I could begin with you on the scam of the new paying system with the Chicago Transit Authority, when nothing was wrong with the old way we paid on the CTA, except for nobody was making money off of it.
The Ancient Randonneur
Most folks who fall for this nonsense live in the “all stories are true, some actually happened” world. I suppose selecting stories that confirm your bias make the daily grind more palatable.
gvg
The Tylenol murders may have caused alot of tamper resistant packaging but they aren’t the main cause of “over” packaging. The cause of that is theft. Stores like grocery stores lose alot more merchandise to theft than people realize and if it isn’t stopped, word gets out and it escalates at a certain store. Theft isn’t all customers either. It is a mix of employees, customers and even owners. Employees aren’t just the end store, its the whole supply chain. The packaging deliberately makes items bigger and more visible and nowadays includes tracking.
On drugs, the packaging is meant to keep small children out of it. In fact I have to complain that the kid safe tops have become rarer and not reliable. I guess the elderly have trouble too and complained but I have been upset at how easily some pill bottles open when I have a child in the house. the child hasn’t been interested but I don’t trust that luck. bottles that fall open in my purse are alarming.
A quick look on google says they think the tylenol murderer was the guy doing the extortion but they didn’t have enough evidence. doesn’t say what evidence they did have and he served 15 years and got out. there have been copycats too so the danger is still there.
The other good aspect of packaging is keeping food fresh. If it rots before sold, it’s lost profit. Modern methods actually do make a big difference.
The not so clearly good aspect is advertising. Packaging can make a difference.
I still wish that most packaging was less wasteful but I have to say I don’t think the companies would be spending the money on it if they didn’t think they had good reasons.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Go rikyrah!
The Moar You Know
Sad to see the Canadians, who I’d previously considered sane people, embarking on a voyage into American-style fucktardery.
I guess it’s the inevitable fate of a former Crown colony. Australia, India and America are all economic powerhouses without a lick of sense to their collective name.
Central Planning
Chrome has been acting worse and worse for me since Republicans took over the Senate. I’ll thank Obama for that one too.
Jasmine Bleach
And the vaccine media frenzy continues (gotta have that story!).
Since my last posting about a month ago when there had been 110 measles cases in 2015 in the United States, now there have been 154 cases–the data show things are slowing down and not speeding up as some here suggested to me they would.
Oh, and out of those cases, one hospitalization from the disease that I can find and zero deaths. Actually, there have been zero measles deaths in the United States since 2004. (Which is a little bit surprising to me because, for instance, in 2014 alone there were 644 cases.)
Those are the data, folks. It’s pretty much only a media show to create panic and hits/views.
If anything, this year’s breakout shows that the Philippines and India need better measles control (that’s where two of the main outbreak strains were from). Until that happens, we’ll always have tens or hundreds of cases every year here because the vaccine is not effective in 1 out of every 100 people, and that means people traveling abroad do have real potential to pick it up if exposed and bring it back even if vaccinated.
shortstop
@rikyrah: What a pleasant semi-surprise last night was. I look forward to the next six weeks in this town.
Gin & Tonic
@Jasmine Bleach: Here’s an actual old-guy question. I do not know whether (or which) vaccines I’ve had, other than definite recollections of the polio and smallpox. How do I know whether I have the relevant immunity?
shortstop
@Gin & Tonic: it’s in your medical records.
Buddy H
@Gin & Tonic: I believe they can do a blood test as well, to see what your immunities are.
Gin & Tonic
@shortstop: I do not have medical records from that period.
Buddy H
@Gin & Tonic: I’m old enough to remember ash trays in the waiting room of my family doctor. I also remember him making a housecall once to give me a shot. So that makes me old.
I’d be surprised if my vaccination records are still on file, but maybe they are.
The last shot I got was about ten years ago (tetanus booster).. my arm still aches in the spot where the nurse jabbed me, not because of the vaccine, but because she poked me like I was pin the tail on the donkey. After asking around, I noticed other people had similar problems with treatment at that hospital. I don’t mean to put down nurses (my mom was a nurse) but some of the staff at the hospital were less than professional in their behavior and in their treatment of patients.
ruemara
@rikyrah: good morning! Beyond the good election news, how are you?
Gin & Tonic
@Buddy H: I know records do not exist for me; I wouldn’t have asked this question otherwise.
The “tetanus booster” was most likely the TDAP, as that’s been standard practice for years now. I got one a couple of years ago after an accident. So I’m presumably covered for whooping cough, but I have no idea about measles or chicken pox or those things. In fact, I’m not even sure whether or not I had chicken pox; I’m pretty certain I did not have measles.
Jasmine Bleach
@Gin & Tonic:
As others have mentioned, a blood test might be possible (not sure about measles in particular–probably). I know you can get a blood test for varicella (chicken pox), for example, to either see if you’ve been vaccinated or had the disease already. I’d ask your doctor.
Or, just get the vaccination again (probably cheaper). Some sites (for old timers like us) are suggesting that anyone vaccinated before 1985 get an MMR booster because some vaccination schedules earlier than that only included one measles shot, and not a second booster shot. With just one shot, you’re 95% covered, and you have to be careful there because that’s statistics-speak. In reality what that means is that the first shot is ineffective AT ALL in 5% of people. With a second shot it’s 99% effective, which basically means that the vaccine will be completely ineffective in only 1% of people.
And I shouldn’t probably say completely ineffective. People who catch measles who have had the shots generally get lighter cases compared to most.
So, it might just be best to get another MMR shot (but as always, consult your doctor because I know squat about you or your medical disposition!).
ThresherK
@NotMax: All that (your list of Ffx must-haves) and VLC, too?
I would trust you to have my proveribal maiden aunt’s back in the proverbial dark alley of the internet. Good show, sir.
rikyrah
@ruemara:
doing a lot better.
PurpleGirl
I should probably ask at the clinic I go to about what vaccines I should have or what boosters. I’m sort of sure I had measles and rubella but I don’t know about any of the other ‘childhood’ diseases. My mother didn’t keep written records on us kids and the last time I asked her 20 or 30 years ago, she didn’t remember. (She passed in 2009.) What I’m concerned about is shingles.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Jasmine Bleach:
I’m not sure where you’re getting your information from, but the state of California alone is reporting 17 hospitalizations due to the recent outbreak (PDF):
http://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Jasmine Bleach:
Also, the CDC’s report is that there have been three measles outbreaks so far this year, with the Disneyland one being the largest:
http://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html
Last year, the U.S. had over 600 reported cases of measles, the largest number since the disease was reported as being eradicated in 2000. So I don’t really share your confidence that the number of cases is going to be down this year.
rikyrah
In Mayoral Runoff, Rahm Emanuel’s Corrupt Governance Has Finally Caught Up With Him
It’s become increasingly clear to Chicagoans that Rahm Emanuel is out for himself and his rich friends, not for us.
BY RICK PERLSTEIN
Indeed, the mayor faced a drumbeat of outstanding journalistic exposes all throughout the campaign. The Chicago Sun-Times reported on Deborah Quazzo, an Emanuel school board appointee who runs an investment fund for companies that privatize school functions. They discovered that five companies in which she had an ownership stake have more than tripled their business with the Chicago Public Schools since she joined the board, many of them for contracts drawn up in the suspicious amount of $24,999—one dollar below the amount that required central office approval. (Chicago is the only municipality in Illinois whose school board is appointed by a mayor. But activists succeeded—in an arduous accomplishment against the obstruction attempts of Emanuel backers on the city council—to get an advisory referendum on the ballot in a majority of the city’s wards calling for an elected representative school board. Approximately 90 percent of the voters who could vote for the measure did.)
The Chicago Tribune reported that of Emanuel’s top 106 contributors, 60 of them received favors from the city. Another in-depth investigation discovered that City Hall had lied repeatedly about a signature initiative of the Emanuel years, automated cameras that issue tickets for the running of red lights. The administration insisted the cameras led to a 47 percent decline in “T-bone” crashes, when the true number was 15 percent—and they also caused a corresponding 22 percent increase in rear-end collisions. That reinforced suspicions that the cameras weren’t installed for the safety of “the children,” as Emanuel sanctimoniously insists, but are a revenue grab, a regressive tax that falls disproportionately on the poor.
The International Business Tribune discovered that Emanuel was evading his own, much-trumpeted executive order banning campaign contributions from city contractors by shoveling $38 million in city resources to his donors via “direct voucher payments,” a sketchy loophole that lets businesses get city money without bids or contracts—without, in fact, any way of documenting what the money is used for.
And a join investigation between public radio station WBEZ and the magazine Catalyst Chicago demonstrated that the Chicago Public Schools CEO Emanuel hired, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, was able to juke the statistics on high school graduation rates—which supposedly went from 70 to 85 percent over the lat decade—by contracting with for-profit online education companies that demanded very little work from students, while still allowing them to receive diplomas from the last school they attended.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/17681/rahm_emanuel_chuy_garcia_runoff
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: Can see why they are going for elected board now.
muddy
@Gin & Tonic: This is late, hope you see it. I recently asked my doctor about the measles vaccine, as I didn’t get it as a kid (disease or vaccine). He said it was preferable to test for the titer than just give it “in case”. The test showed I had been exposed. This was mysterious until I thought about going back to college in the 90s, I probably got the vaccine then.
As for the TDAP, he did give me that. I said I had gotten a tetanus shot a couple of years ago at the ER. It’s in the same system and he checked, the ER only gave me the tetanus. I was surprised by this, why not do the whole thing? Don’t know if they don’t give it because insurance only wants to pay for the thing you immediately need, or what. Anyway don’t count on having gotten the whole thing just because you got the tetanus.
EthylEster
The general takeaway message here is underwhelming: reporters FAIL when they try to write about subjects they are ignorant of.
MANY issues of a scientific nature need to be discussed.
But scientifically illiterate reporters cannot do it.
So…yet another way in which we are SO fucked!
Gin & Tonic
@muddy: Thanks. I know I got the TDAP because it was written up that way on the bill.
sm*t cl*de
Sadly, no!
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_04.pdf
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_04.pdf
(not counting delayed deaths from SSPE).
Jasmine Bleach
@sm*t cl*de:
Neither of those show any deaths from measles. The word measles doesn’t even appear in the first PDF, and it appears once in the second PDF with dashes showing no deaths associated with it. (Either that, or the word search function on my computer isn’t working, which I suppose is possible.)
Jasmine Bleach
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
There were 110 cases in January. An additional 44 in February. So far, 154 cases nationwide this year. So, clearly the outbreak rate is slowing. That’s all I meant. It’s not acting like a spiraling out-of-control outbreak.
And I’m not saying more won’t happen this year–of course they will. But we did have 644 cases in 2014 and from my memory nobody was really freaking out. So why all the freak out now? We very well might have fewer cases this year.