NVIC

Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic, oft-retracted anti-vaccine shills

I often put together articles that are indexes of all of my articles on a particular subject – I have ones on the cunning fraud Andrew Wakefield, the safety and effectiveness of HPV vaccines, GMO facts, and legal and public policy articles about vaccines from Dorit Rubinstein Reiss. I produce them as a one-stop resource on important topics that have been posted on this blog. After my recent article about the 4th retraction from the team of Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic, two “researchers’ who push pseudoscience and misinformation to support their anti-vaccine conclusions, it is time to give them their own index article.

I use these index articles to help the reader. If you link to this article, you can click on it to see the list of articles by the Skeptical Raptor that covers important topics. Now, one could argue that Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic aren’t exactly important – no their “research” fails to meet the minimum standards of quality scientific research, and that’s recognized by the frequency of retractions and the low quality of their research.

Of course, I use them personally because this feathered dinosaur is ancient, and sometimes forgets what was written in the past. Of course, I’ve written over 1100 articles over more than 6 years, so there are many times I say, “oh I wrote that?”

Anyway, let’s give you all the fun information about Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic. Read More »Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic, oft-retracted anti-vaccine shills

Bob Sears’ personal attacks on Paul Offit – anti-vaccine evidence

On March 13, 2015 Dr. Bob Sears, a California antivaccine physician, wrote a post on Facebook attacking Dr. Paul Offit, pediatrician, vaccine inventor, scientist, vaccine advocate and educator.

Dr. Sears wrote:

A FAILED ATTEMPT TO CHANGE HIS NAME FROM DR. PROFIT TO DR. PROPHET

Everyone’s favorite infectious disease doctor tried to write a compelling argument as to why parents should not have religious freedom to decline vaccines, and the New York Times shot it down. Here’s a link to the Time’s review. So, sorry to help publicize this waste of trees, but the more people who know that this vaccine advocate doesn’t care about religious freedom in the United States the better. Enjoy!
Dr. Bob.

Vaccine legislation in the USA – a state by state analysis

One of the most successful pieces of vaccine legislation in recent years has been SB277 in California, which eliminated personal belief exemptions (PBE), that allowed a parent to exclude a child from immunization requirements for school based on the parent’s personal beliefs, including religious objections. These PBEs had been used and abused by anti-vaccine parents to exempt their school-aged children from most, if not all, vaccines.

Other than California, only West Virginia and Mississippi have such strict prohibitions on these PBEs that they are effectively not allowed as a method to refuse vaccines before a child enters school. But many other states are considering vaccine legislation that could improve vaccine uptake. Unfortunately, there are also states on the other side of the equation that are considering laws that reduce restrictions on personal belief exemptions.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), which seems to conflate “information” with misinformation about vaccines, claims that there are 134 vaccine bills being considered in 35 states. I wish!

I thought we would could take a look at current vaccine legislation being considered by various states that could potentially increase vaccine uptake in those states. Then we’ll take a look at those states pushing legislation that might decrease vaccine uptake. This should provide real information about what’s going on with these laws, instead of the alternative facts from the vaccine deniers at NVIC.

Identifying who is anti-vaccine

It’s natural and important to ask questions about vaccines, to have hesitations and doubts. Luckily, for pretty much every question parents ask there are reassuring answers. There is a reason the expert consensus – across countries, and at the local, national, and international level – supports vaccines so uniformly: the data is clear that the vaccines we give children have tremendous benefits that far outweigh their small, if real, risks.

In addition to the reliable information available, there is also extensive misinformation from anti-vaccine sites and people who promote an anti-vaccine agenda. And identifying who is anti-vaccine should be an important objective.

As pointed out by several bloggers, including and especially Orac in this post and in this one, those promoting anti-vaccine information rarely admit that they are anti-vaccine. The National Vaccine Information Center, America’s largest, oldest and probably most savvy anti-vaccine organization denies being anti vaccine. The Australian Vaccination Network, as it was then known, does the same.

Similarly, individuals may deny they are anti-vaccine even when they are. This can be tricky, because people may sincerely believe they are not-anti-vaccine while actively promoting anti-vaccine claims.

It may be hard for those not constantly involved in the dialogue surrounding vaccines to identify who is, in fact, anti-vaccine. I previously found extremely useful Dr. David Gorski’s post on this issue where he addressed in detail several arguments that can help you identify someone as anti-vaccine. The problem is that Dr. Gorski’s article may be too long and complex for those wanting a quick way to identify whether their interlocutor is anti-vaccine – or those who want to point out to others that someone is anti-vaccine.

So, as a public service, here is a short checklist. I am including it as part of this post and also as a stand-alone handout (pdf) people can send to anyone who needs it or use themselves.Read More »Identifying who is anti-vaccine