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The "vaccination causes autism" fraud

theincidentaleconomist.com

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Re: The "vaccination causes autism" fraud

#61

Post by Alex3917 »

Locke1689 wrote: post #51
Alex3917 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most doctors get their information about medical issues by reading the marketing pamphlets from drug companies. If you actually read the relevant journal articles then you'd be significantly more knowledgeable about any given topic than the average doctor.

That's just not true. Is it necessary for me to say any more about this?

This is what I found within a couple minutes of Googling. Do you have any contrary information suggesting that the majority of doctors are in fact up-to-date with the latest academic journal articles published within their fields?

"One New England Journal of Medicine study found that patients get only 55 percent of the care that's recommended for the leading causes of death and disability. Similar research in children showed they get just 47 percent—and a mere 41 percent of preventive steps that are proved to help."[1]

"Despite 15 years of advances about what is known of [sinusitis], the information isn't making its way to internists because it is not been published in journals or other sources often reviewed by internists, who most often treat sinusitis. For instance, many internists are unaware that chronic sinusitis can cause serious chronic fatigue, Chester says."[2]

"It’s unrealistic to expect the majority of physicians to go back to the original literature or even to go back to systematic reviews of the original literature,” said Gordon Guyatt, MD, of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who is credited with coining the term “evidence-based medicine."[3]

"In a 2005 systematic review in the Archives of Internal Medicine, most studies found a correlation between increasing years in practice and decreasing quality of care."[3]

[1]http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/is-your-doctor-out-of-date/...

[2] http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2010/08/17/Doctors-need-more-...

[3] http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/12/doctors-stay-date-curren...

Re: The "vaccination causes autism" fraud

#62

Post by SeanDav »

carey wrote: post #57
SeanDav wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please justify that comment, references?

tokenadult is probably referring to the BMJ article at http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full , which finds that at least four of the children in Wakefield’s study were referred to him by JABS activists.

fair enough - I last looked at it in detail about the time my daughter had her seizures and found it useful. If you look beyond the emotional content there were some fairly balanced opinions. I think it is unfair to call concerned parents "activists" though.

Re: The "vaccination causes autism" fraud

#63

Post by carey »

SeanDav wrote: post #62
carey wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tokenadult is probably referring to the BMJ article at http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full , which finds that at least four of the children in Wakefield’s study were referred to him by JABS activists.

fair enough - I last looked at it in detail about the time my daughter had her seizures and found it useful. If you look beyond the emotional content there were some fairly balanced opinions. I think it is unfair to call concerned parents "activists" though.

Fair enough. According to the article, the mother of two children in the original study, who referred a third, was referred to by other media as a “JABS activist”. I shouldn’t have used that term myself.

Re: The "vaccination causes autism" fraud

#64

Post by burgerbrain »

Alex3917 wrote: post #61
Locke1689 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not true. Is it necessary for me to say any more about this?

This is what I found within a couple minutes of Googling. Do you have any contrary information suggesting that the majority of doctors are in fact up-to-date with the latest academic journal articles published within their fields? "One New England Journal of Medicine study found that patients get only 55 percent of the care that's recommended for the leading causes of death and disability. Similar research in childre…

"the information isn't making its way to internists because it is not been published in journals or other sources often reviewed by internists"

Implying that doctors do keep up to date with peer reviewed journals, and that if all you're doing is trying to read journals with none of the medical background require to understand them, you're certainly not going to be any more informed than your average doctor.

Gordon Guyatt, MD, of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who is credited with coining the term "evidence-based medicine."

You quote him, yet you are so quick to discredit all evidence that you don't agree with.

Re: The "vaccination causes autism" fraud

#65

Post by Alex3917 »

burgerbrain wrote: post #64
Alex3917 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I found within a couple minutes of Googling. Do you have any contrary information suggesting that the majority of doctors are in fact up-to-date with the latest academic journal articles published within their fields? "One New England Journal of Medicine study found that patients get only 55 percent of the care that's recommended for the leading causes of death and disability. Similar research in childre…

"the information isn't making its way to internists because it is not been published in journals or other sources often reviewed by internists" Implying that doctors do keep up to date with peer reviewed journals, and that if all you're doing is trying to read journals with none of the medical background require to understand them, you're certainly not going to be any more informed than your average doctor. Gordon Gu…

"Implying that doctors do keep up to date with peer reviewed journals"

This implication, assuming that really is what they are trying to imply, is nothing more than speculation. But if you have better information then by all means post it.

Re: The "vaccination causes autism" fraud

#66

Post by tokenadult »

SeanDav wrote: post #62
carey wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tokenadult is probably referring to the BMJ article at http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full , which finds that at least four of the children in Wakefield’s study were referred to him by JABS activists.

fair enough - I last looked at it in detail about the time my daughter had her seizures and found it useful. If you look beyond the emotional content there were some fairly balanced opinions. I think it is unfair to call concerned parents "activists" though.

Here in the United States it is rather routine to call people who are active in support of a cause "activists." Some people seem to consider that term derogatory, but many people just think that distinguishes interested persons from more deeply involved persons.

Re: The "vaccination causes autism" fraud

#67

Post by [deleted] »

burgerbrain wrote: post #43
cynicalkane wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sufficiently intelligent and reasonable person should be able to, with enough consideration, make up his mind about just about anything that lives in a knowledge domain. It's not like the medical profession emerged fully-formed from the head of Zeus.

Any sufficiently intelligent and reasonable person could decide for themselves if gravity exists, It's not like our understanding of physics emerged fully-formed from the head of Zeus. Any sufficiently intelligent and reasonable person wouldn't be questioning the established medical fact that vaccines provide an overwhelming net benefit. If they are, they almost certainly are not qualified to make an educated decisio…

[deleted]

Re: The "vaccination causes autism" fraud

#68

Post by Locke1689 »

Alex3917 wrote: post #61
Locke1689 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not true. Is it necessary for me to say any more about this?

This is what I found within a couple minutes of Googling. Do you have any contrary information suggesting that the majority of doctors are in fact up-to-date with the latest academic journal articles published within their fields? "One New England Journal of Medicine study found that patients get only 55 percent of the care that's recommended for the leading causes of death and disability. Similar research in childre…

That's not what you said at all. Here's what you said:

Most doctors get their information about medical issues by reading the marketing pamphlets from drug companies. If you actually read the relevant journal articles then you'd be significantly more knowledgeable about any given topic than the average doctor.

Re: The "vaccination causes autism" fraud

#69

Post by burgerbrain »

Alex3917 wrote: post #65
burgerbrain wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the information isn't making its way to internists because it is not been published in journals or other sources often reviewed by internists" Implying that doctors do keep up to date with peer reviewed journals, and that if all you're doing is trying to read journals with none of the medical background require to understand them, you're certainly not going to be any more informed than your average doctor. Gordon Gu…

"Implying that doctors do keep up to date with peer reviewed journals" This implication, assuming that really is what they are trying to imply, is nothing more than speculation. But if you have better information then by all means post it.

The point is that your previous post does not imply what you thought it did, whatsoever. The original assertion was that by reading peer review journals you would be more qualified to preform medicine than a doctor. You have yet to provide any supporting evidence that shows that doctors don't read peer reviewed journals as well. The only thing that it indicates is that if information isn't published, then doctors are unlikely to know about it. What a fucking shocker.

I can't really say I'm surprised to encounter inexplicable lapses in critical thinking and logic here though.

Re: The "vaccination causes autism" fraud

#70

Post by Alex3917 »

Locke1689 wrote: post #68
Alex3917 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I found within a couple minutes of Googling. Do you have any contrary information suggesting that the majority of doctors are in fact up-to-date with the latest academic journal articles published within their fields? "One New England Journal of Medicine study found that patients get only 55 percent of the care that's recommended for the leading causes of death and disability. Similar research in childre…

That's not what you said at all. Here's what you said: Most doctors get their information about medical issues by reading the marketing pamphlets from drug companies. If you actually read the relevant journal articles then you'd be significantly more knowledgeable about any given topic than the average doctor.

The first statement is trivially provable by looking at how well the popularity of treatments correlates with corporate marketing budgets, e.g. the list on page 2 here: http://www.erowid.org/general/newsletter/erowid_newsletter18...

Why would doctors be so eager to prescribe Lexapro as late as 2009 even though they knew that the manufacturer had faked the science behind it, for which it was later fined over 300 million dollars? Especially since the drug was unambiguously shown to be no more effective than previous generic versions of the drug, which were only a fraction of the price? Obviously because they are getting most of their information from the marketing campaigns and not the science, plus the massive amounts of bribes and kickbacks. There are tons of examples like this.

As for the second statement, if doctors aren't up to date on the research about any given condition, then it shouldn't be that difficult to learn more about your doctor about any given condition. Almost all of the academic research in medicine is written for a lay audience, unlike in physics or continental philosophy where you really can't understand it unless you're an expert. Plus there are tons of other resources to help you make sense of the research, everything from wikipedia to academic search engines that show you which papers are cited by which other papers.

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