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European court vaccine ruling

European court vaccine ruling – the vaccine deniers think they won

On 21 June 2017, the European Court of Justice ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in a case that examined whether Sanofi-Pasteur’s hepatitis B vaccine caused multiple sclerosis (MS) in a patient. Although the ruling might, on the surface, be considered bad for vaccines, we need to look more carefully at that European court vaccine ruling.

There are several questions that we need to answer. First, what did the court actually rule? What can courts say about science? And, is there any evidence that the hepatitis B vaccine causes multiple sclerosis?Read More »European court vaccine ruling – the vaccine deniers think they won

correlation

Correlation does not imply causation – except when it does.

Editor’s note – this article has been substantially updated, and the new version has been republished here.

One of the central tenets of the pro-vaccine world is that correlation does not imply causation – but it is misused and frequently abused by many writers. We, the pro-science/pro-vaccine world, dismiss correlation, if real correlation can be shown, as robust evidence indicative of any causal relationship.

Conflating causation and correlation is somewhat different than the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, where one thinks one event follows the first event because of the existence of the first event. I’m sure all good luck charms and superstitions, like walking under a ladder, are related to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. So if I walk under a ladder, then trip on a black cat, then crash into a mirror, I don’t immediately blame the initial act of walking under the ladder. I just assume I’m clumsy.

Correlation and causation are a very critical part of scientific research. Basically, correlation is the statistical relationship between two random sets of data. The closer the relationship, the higher the correlation. However, without further data, correlation may not imply causation, that the one set of data has some influence over the other.Read More »Correlation does not imply causation – except when it does.