The article suggests not everyone has 'an equal right to be heard'. It's not really clear what that means in practical terms.

Most agree the anti-vaccination case is spurious. That's really a red herring. The issue is how we - laypeople, the media, academia, government - respond to dodgy ideas.

Going by the last paragraph, I think Patrick is simply saying we should challenge bad arguments. However the name of the article (chosen by an editor?) suggests people should be prevented from expressing illogical thoughts. It's a little unclear.

Geoffrey Edwards, you say that, "all opinions must be weighed using the tools we have to hand - the inductive, deductive and adductive capacities. Scientific methdology and valid inference."

But who is to determine the validity of the scientific methodology used? What you seem to be inferring is that only those who are 'scientifically qualified' are able to determine the truth of an argument and therefore, these same 'scientists' should be able to block what those less well-informed can and cannot know and say.

That makes these self-appointed arbiters no better then the priests in the middle ages who preached in Latin so the common folk wouldn't understand what they were saying and would just have to take it as read that the clergy were telling the truth as though spoken by God.

I say that dissenting opinions, information and evidence on the subject of vaccination ARE rejected out of hand. There is a true tyranny at play when it comes to this issue - it is the tyranny of what we know to be true. And because it is so well-founded, so set in stone, any and all dissenters are automatically named to be anti-vaccine and discounted. It doesn't matter how many scientific experts there are on our side or how much proof we have of a particular vaccine's ineffectiveness or risks - all that matters is that we are questioning a subject which people like Patrick Stokes have said is above question.

Well, let me state right here - nothing in science is above question. Science is all about questioning - over and over and over again - because science is not infallible and a look at every edition of any peer-reviewed journal will provide ample proof of that fact.

So don't stifle the debate - welcome it. And if what the AVN is saying is so invalid, it will be proven to be so by the court of public opinion since people have the right to weigh up these issues for themselves and are very capable of doing so without the intervention of the scientific 'elite'.

Meryl Dorey
Australian Vaccination Network, Inc.
Because every issue has two sides

I might suggest, Meryl, to make this a level playing field; and to remove all suggestion that that science is a form of priveleged obscurism, that you enrol for a Bachelors in Medical Science. Your dissenting opinion may be regarded with more gravity should it be backed with evidence.

http://www.rmit.edu.au/healthmedical?gclid=CPrulPm86LICFbBUpgodgiwA8g

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/courses/health-sciences?gclid=CLPK5fq86LICFYZgpQodXAYAhw

http://sydney.edu.au/science/fstudent/undergrad/course/bmedical.shtml

I think to take the article to its conclusion those in the media who are responsible for framing debates should have sufficient critical faculties to realise the relative expertise and worth of those on opposing ends of the debate. Media Watch's point is that it is irresponsible for the media to represent a fringe element has having an equally valid argument as the vast body of science. That filter should already be applied by a reporter versed in medical science (which is why some media have science reporters).
This is the responsibility of the media, I would think, as the vast proportion of the audience are not versed in discriminating between science, pseudo-science, flat-earthers and con-jobs. I include you, me and probably all contributors to this site; as cognitive biases are the norm not the exception and it's a rare person indeed who can think critically all of the time.

Dear David (I hope you don't mind if I call you David?).

You have made a broad statement - "To date, no evidence has supported the claims of the Australian Vaccination Network." Would you mind being more specific. Can you please cite one claim that either our organisation or myself personally have made which you believe is not backed by scientific evidence? That will give me an opportunity to provide you with my evidence which, you can either agree or disagree with, but at least it will show you that there is evidence for the things we state. We're pretty careful about that though we have made mistakes in the past and admitted them when we've been shown that something we've said was wrong.

Oh, and thank you for your kind words about my comments. For 15 years, until the formation of the organisation Stop the AVN - a group which uses hatred, intimidation, personal threats and cyberbullying to argue their viewpoint (all in the name of science), we had always conducted ourselves in a respectful manner when it came to those who were not vaccine critical. I have always felt that a scientific debate should be carried out in that way and appreciate the fact that you agree.

Meryl Dorey
Investigate before you vaccinate
www.avn.org.au

Meryl, the thing is - you have no education in any of the sciences in order to be able to make a qualified opinion on anything.

As I mentioned earlier, you rely on pseudoscience and misinterpretations of actual science to bolster your insane case.

There are not "thousands and thousands" of trained medical professionals that agree with you at all. If I am wrong, then please compile a list, include their profession and qualifications, and put it on your website. I think you'll find there are very few in comparison to the majority that definitely disagree with you. If there are thousands, then there are hundreds of thousands that disagree.

If you graduated with any medical qualification, and were honest about the evidence - you wouldn't be the frothing anti vaxer you are at the moment.

Why?

Evidence.

Ms Dorey says: "Can you please cite one claim that either our organisation or myself personally have made which you believe is not backed by scientific evidence?"

How about "you didn't die from it thirty years ago, and you're not going to die from it today"?

http://reasonablehank.com/2012/08/18/that-measles-lie-by-meryl-dorey/

Ms Dorey says: "Can you please cite one claim that either our organisation or myself personally have made which you believe is not backed by scientific evidence?"

How about "…the child that died a couple of years ago, in New South Wales, was the first death from Whooping Cough, in over a decade, um, in Australia…", made even after being corrected months before.

http://reasonablehank.com/2012/03/24/meryl-doreys-other-pertussis-lie/

Remarking on your lack of qualifications is hardly irrelevant (considering the topic of the article). No, I do not know you personally (I am thankful for that). However, we do know that you do not hold any qualifications in immunology, microbiology, virology or medicine.

When your dog got bitten by a snake, you gave him homeopathic treatments. If that doesn't say something about your overall knowledge of medicine and science, I do not know what does.

"You don't need a science degree to understand science any more than possession of a degree will guarantee your understanding."

No, but it most certainly helps. Without the relevant training and education you have no way of interpreting the data, no way of understanding the nuances that are involved in any given study. Without the relevant education, and clearly without understanding a single thing about how science actually works (remember, facts are not determined by debate, and ultimately - opinion).

Would you set about wiring an entire house without first gaining the correct education and experience? I don't think you would.

All you have is opinion, and a dangerous one at that.

Its not just the degrees Meryl, its about being involved as well.
You have NO clue how to interpret the data correctly because you are not part of the full conversation, just the bits you want.

An example for you. My area of work is hospital data. Morbidity and mortality from injury and external causes.
Now, you could read my report and make all kinds of statements based on it. But without being part of the conversation (ie in the field) you really cant make quality judgements on the data.

I know where the issues lie in the data we get, because states do things differently. I know to what degree I can make judgements about Victoria's mortality rate from say, falls and know whether that is something I'd be supremely confident in making life or death decisions about, compared to NSW.

Everyone else in this field knows the SAME THINGS about data issues. It's these nuances that you are ignorant of (reports generally have a data issues section) that mean the difference between a lay person's interpretation and a policy maker who would ASK for the expert to interpret their report.
YOU don't ask the experts opinion and even when you get it, you completely ignore it.

That is why you generally need the degrees to understand the science. So you understand how to look for the WHOLE picture, not just the bits you want to.

Your education is not that of the medical experts, so you're right, your education is irrelevant. "I have a brain" is not a qualification, because the qualified people have brains too, and they use theirs a lot better than you. The thing is, you want us to stop making personal comments about you and deal with the issue, but you are the issue, Meryl. You're the one spreading junk science and demonstrating why we require credentials of our medical professionals in the first place. Sure, you don't need a degree to understand science, but think of it as a driver's license - we don't let unlicensed drivers drive cars because they haven't demonstrated they have the ability to do so according to the law. The same applies to medical qualifications - and you don't have any, so regardless of your education, without those credentials, how can you expect anyone to take you seriously, and why should we? You're like an unlicensed driver possibly threatening the lives of motorists and pedestrians alike.

But you're worse than that - you're sitting there telling doctors they're all wrong. You can take that trash and shove it - it's like an unlicensed driver telling a licenced driver how to drive. Until you have some kind of medical credentials demonstrating that you've put in the work to establish yourself in the field, then you aren't even worth having a conversation with about medical matters. You want us to stop talking about you? Then stop giving us something to talk about.

Hi Meryl,

As I asked above, why have you decided against undertaking any formal studies in science over the past twenty years that you have spent researching vaccine safety and efficacy?

If I wanted to devote myself to campaigning for something I felt strongly about, I would do what I could to obtain the best education on the topic as possible. In your case, attending university could give you insights into how researchers operate, a solid background in biomedical science and an opportunity to be involved in discourse with professionals in the field.

"I asked you to show me something that I have said which you can prove is scientifically not correct."

People have already done so (Peter Tierney, Dennis Alexander, Katie Brockie) 5 days before you wrote this comment. They await your replies.

"But who is to determine the validity of the scientific methodology used?"

Well anyone can, provided they understand the principles of fair testing, the differences between correlation and causation, the factors that comprise a valid design of a scientific investigation, what sample size is reasonable to make more general conclusions from, statistical analysis and the significance of various parameters that accompany any trends in the data such as r values, how to account for variables that cannot be controlled e.g. in human studies where experimenters cannot manipulate every aspect of an individual's life to conform to methodological protocols, how to account for underlying genetic diversity in the population being studied, the limits of extrapolation of data from studies on various subpopulations of the world (e.g. do data from Japanese populations apply to sub-Saharan Africans?)...and so on.

I know enough to know that I don't know enough to be able to do a good job of this in most instances. I look particularly at graphs and regressions and squiggles and numbers and go blluuuuergh.

However, I can identify obvious flaws in methodology. For example:
a) A study of only 12 subjects is nowhere near enough to make any conclusions from. At most, it might only be enough to start to collect together a hazy concept of a potential future investigation.
b) Data obtained from a study of the effect of something on people who already have a specific medical condition cannot reasonably be applied to a population of people who don't have that specific medical condition.

For those reasons alone, I can determine that Andrew Wakefield's infamous MMR study has pretty much no value in terms of its applicability. If it showed anything, it was merely that something *might* be worth investigating further with some proper and rigorous science. Unfortunately, too many people took his conclusion, misstated it, then attempted to apply it universally, which (as is obvious) was totally misguided.

And yet, his hypothesis was indeed studied further, with much larger sample sizes (e.g. tens of thousands, as compared to his 12) and even though the link he proposed was specifically looked for in the data, it has not been found. Multiple studies on different populations with a much wider range of genetic diversity and uncontrollable other lifestyle factors have pretty much all confirmed there was nothing to this hypothesis.

That is an example of how anyone, even a comparatively uneducated B.Sc (Hons) like me, with 7 years of Science education, almost 9 years of teaching Science, and an additional 4 years of reading Science now behind me, can evaluate a scientific method.

Here's another Meryl,

http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/ijlink?linkType=ABST&journalCode=pediatrics&resid=112/5/1039

"In the United States, using the Vaccine Safety Data Link, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined 140,887 US children born during 1991–1999, including >200 children with autism. The researchers found no relationship between receipt of thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism."

No link between autism and thimerosal.

John

Don't forget this one, which suggests vaccinated kids in the Phillippines do better on cognitive tests than their unvaccinated counterparts:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/pgda/WorkingPapers/2011/PGDA_WP_69.pdf (PDF file)

"We find no effect of vaccination on later height or weight, but full childhood vaccination for measles, polio, TB, and DPT significantly increases cognitive test scores relative to matched children who received no vaccinations. The size of the effect is large, raising test scores, on average, by about half a standard deviation."

Because this <uppercase=fact> IS </uppercase> science, after all.

Here is Meryl Dorey trying to evaluate what others (most of whom she doesn't know and has never met) are capable of evaluating:

"“It is true that oftentimes, our information will contradict the conclusions or summaries of the studies. This is because, as opposed to most doctors and government officials, we actually read the studies and frequently, the summary and conclusion does not agree with the raw data itself…"

From here: http://scepticsbook.com/2010/10/05/hypocrites-much/

Meryl, the study you suggest doing (using medicare data to make a comparison between groups that quite clearly access health care differently) is grossly flawed due to a problem known as selection bias.

Your inability to grasp this concept when it is pointed out to you demonstrates that you, simply put, don't understand some of the simplest concepts of study design.

We don't need your lack of qualifications as a demonstration that you don't know what you are talking about. Your suggestions prove that in spectacular fashion.

By the way, I pointed out that German study for you a while back, and you *still* claimed today that such a study didn't exist. Is this dishonesty, or is your memory really that short?

Meryl's been quiet. She must be studying all those studies that don't exist.

Science Works. The evidence is there for everyone to see. You are typing on it.

http://xkcd.com/836/

"Because every issue has two sides."

No. They don't.

Geoffrey - Exactly, I totally agree. Can we please spread the word to all media outlets!

Louise, I agree, of course some so-called arguments are bulldust.

But the interesting question is what do 'we' do about bulldust arguments.

Is it just about me saying 'That's rubbish, I'm not going to listen' to an acquaintance? Or should tutors prevent students from speaking in tutorials? Or should the ABC not air a view that a certain percentage of scientists disagree with?

I assume journalists all have these smart phone things. These could be configured to afford the journalist with ready access to considered expert advice which they could present to interviewees?

There are FOUR lights!

Geoffrey Edwards - you say - "Thanks for the astro-turfing, Meryl!"

I believe you need to look up the definition for astroturfing - it's possible you may have used it incorrectly here, at least according to my reading.

And a debate using the scientific literature is the one I am and have been asking for. My peer-reviewed references vs yours. Are you volunteering to debate me, Geoffrey? That would be wonderful! Please let me know and we can get together and set a time, date and place.

Thanks,
Meryl

"Are you omnipotent or do you feel that your opinion is so much more valid then someone else's and that validity entitles you to censor a debate?"

- Yes, I feel that my opinion is significantly more valid than yours. In the same way that you feel that your opinions are more valid than mine. If you didn't feel this way you would not be spamming this discussion.

I am not censoring debate - I am declining to participate because I deem that particular debate to have no merit and, just like you, I am not a scientist. Unlike you, I don't pick and choose the science I am willing to accept.

"I cannot interpret what you've said in any other way but would love to hear your alternative explanation."

- I will assume this is mere rhetorical strategy rather than make any assumptions about your lack of imagination.

"I'm asking you to debate the evidence."

- The evidence is not up for debate. Only the inferences drawn from that evidence.

"Now surely, if you are so assured that your evidence is superior, you should be happy to debate someone who hasn't quite got your grasp on this issue."

- Why are you sure I would be interested in debating someone inferior to me?

"You can't be saying that your evidence is superior 'because you said so', are you Geoffrey?"

No. I am not becuase it is not "my" evidence in opposition to "your" evidence.

"If we are talking about science, then your evidence against mine - how about it?"

- No, Meryl. The evidence is the evidence. Again, you don't understand. Fact's do not negate other fact's. Logical inference is the issue. The same evidence can be interpreted in different ways to a given conclusion P. P is either true or false. P is the item of debate, not the evidence.

Science is not done via debate Meryl. All you are doing here is showing the world just how ignorant you are of the scientific process.

omnipotent? Censor a debate? Lol, as soon as you don't get your way, you're always being "censored" or "bullied", aren't you, Meryl? When are you just going to face the fact that actual academics, and the people that are smarter than you, consider you and your "opinion" a waste of time that could be better spent making more scientific discoveries, such as the REAL cause of autism?

All you're doing is asking for a debate on an issue that, in regular circles, has already been debated, and decided upon. In other words, the conversation you want to have.... we had that one long ago. It's just like if you asked to debate someone on the merits of heliocentricity - you would be laughed out of academia.

Elizabeth, if it is your opinion that the NIP 'arbitrarily' has two doses of MMR in the schedule - do you honestly think the addition of a second dose to the schedule (at incredible cost and resource cost) *hasn't* been thoroughly debated by the subject matter experts?

On a slightly different note, you claim in your letter that the emphasis should be on getting everyone vaccinated with one dose.
Surely you understand the basic logistics of getting *every* child in Australia vaccinated with only one-dose on the schedule is pretty darn hard to do - combine that with the one-dose 5% failure to confer immunity and the vaccination coverage for one-dose on the schedule for MMR in Australia would be well below what is needed for herd immunity.

Adding a second dose to the schedule *is* maximising one-dose MMR coverage, it's ensuring the most opportunity for children to get at LEAST one-dose.

Patrick says: "My only qualification on that topic is that I have a brain, and that’s not qualification enough to tell scientists they’re wrong about science."

Peter says: "oh snap"

Further to my previous comment, I also forwarded my letter querying the arbitrary second dose of the MMR vaccine to Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network, Paul Arthur of the US National Vaccination Information Center, and John Stone of the Age of Autism. None of these people have responded to my letter either.
It appears the argument I have put forward in my letter doesn’t fit the mindset of the Minister’s office, nor that of those who are perceived as the ‘anti-vaccination’ brigade. As a result, I suspect parents are not being informed that there is an option of serological testing to verify a response to MMR vaccination for their child, i.e. evidence based medicine. I understand serological testing costs around $50, and suggest there may be some parents who might prefer to pay for this option rather than have an arbitrary revaccination for their child. But how many parents are informed about this?

Peter correct me if I am wrong, but it isnt expertise that is most relevant to an argument, it is evidence?
My education is in medical sciences yet I understand your article and have raised such points in arguments before (just think of every time you have discussed climate change with a 'non believer'). Yet my lack of an education in philosophy does not make me wrong?

It may be Meryl Dorey's lack of scientific education that leads her to her indefensible beliefs, but it is really her lack of evidence that makes her wrong.

"By not accepting this, you are saying that you can't possible oppose my evidence and that is an admission that you have none."

Good grief, Meryl. Do you seriously think for just one moment that an unwillingness to attend a "public debate" by default is an admission that someone has no references or cannot oppose your evidence? This is like saying that the refusal of most credible scientists to debate creationists is a tacit admission that the scientific evidence shows the Earth really is only 6000 years old and puffed into existence over 7 days.

No, it simply means that your views are so fringe-dwelling that they're not considered worthy of genuine debate.

Meryl, just because someone does not want to debate you, does not mean that you are correct. How many NASA scientists do you see debating idiots that believe that the moon landings didn't happen? How many geologists do you see debating "flat Earthers"?

None.

Why give someone like you a platform alongside actual experts?

You are a frothing fringe dweller. The only difference between your opinion and those of a flat Earther is that your views are dangerous to our society.

Meryl, you lack the qualifications/education in any of the sciences to be able to accurately read and interpret the studies you claim back your ridiculous stance.

All of the studies you have provided in the past week have already been thoroughly debunked by others much more qualified than yourself.

You are a fringe dweller (even though you clearly don't see yourself as one). Your opinion on vaccination is as valid as a flat Earther.

Again - science is not decided by debate. It is decided by evidence. You have been shown to be wrong on nearly everything you have ever dribbled on the internet. One must wonder why you decide to continue in such a way, especially on an article that explains in detail why your opinion is wrong - only giving us yet more evidence that you clearly lack the expertise to evaluate the science in any meaningful way.

So no, my argument is not ridiculous. You are a fringe dweller, as are all anti vaxers. Your opinion (without the evidence, and without the relevant qualifications) means absolutely nothing in comparison to the people that actually know what they are talking about.

"Who are you to determine what is valuable to debate and what is not? Are you omnipotent or do you feel that your opinion is so much more valid then someone else's and that validity entitles you to censor a debate? I cannot interpret what you've said in any other way but would love to hear your alternative explanation."

There you go again Meryl using that word "censorship" again. Censorship has nothing to do with this. The issue is fraud. You pretend to run a legitimate vaccination information service. You don't. You pretend to know what you are talking about with regard to; immunology, interpretation of scientific papers, correlation & causality, health statistics and logical reasoning. You don't. As an immunology expert / public commentator Meryl, you fail. You lack the knowledge, skills, qualifications, intelligence - and as much as anything else - the humility to be taken in any way seriously on the topic of vaccination health. Go and farm your nuts.

Now before you pair come to fisticuffs we are lucky. We can easily get first hand eyeball to eyeball experience of a non-vaccinated population. No shortage of them in fact. A sort of "Go back to where you came from" doco of a tour package to a few virally challenged communities. Heaps of unvaccinated populations in Africa, India, South America ... An live experiment, in fact.

Not often one can do such an experiment. Who's up for that?

"So because you and many within the mainstream medical professions don't agree with my data - most of which is sourced from within the mainstream medical profession...."

It's not "your" data Meryl. It's *their* data. You are not the one who conducts the trials, the investigations, the lab research. You are not the one who studies disease-causing pathogens using an electron microscope. You are not the one who takes the lab notes. You are not the one processing blood samples through a centrifuge, or performing the DNA analyses, or designing experiments. You don't writeup the research results, and you don't review them prior to publishing.

The reason for this is that you are unlikely to know a leukocyte from a platelet or a bacteria from a virus if they were presented on a slide in front of you. You demonstrated earlier on this thread that even your concept of a "placebo" is rather vague (see your "true placebo" comment). How then can you claim, as you seem to do, that all these vaccine and immunology research results really should've been interpreted differently?

It was not an "cold fusion awareness" facebook group which proved the cold fusion experiments flawed many years ago. It was other scientists. It was not a rag-tag bunch of bloggers who overturned conventional wisdom on peptic ulcers. It was two scientists who did the hard research and experiments themselves, and scored a Nobel Prize for it. It was not an "anti-faster-than-the-speed-of-light" lobby group which proved the Large Hadron Collider experiment showing neutrinos travelling faster that the speed of light was flawed. It was the same scientists who conducted the original experiment! It wasn't an activist housewife from Bangalow who first suspected and later proved the link between Thalidomide and birth defects. It was two mainstream doctors and a pharmacologist, and they were widely recognised and awarded later for their work.

More than 20 years on and you have no such recognition. Why not? Scientific credibility, Meryl. You need to find some. Exhaustive research which withstands the intense scrutiny of your fellow scientists, Meryl. You need to do some.

Meryl,
Time and time again I've accepted your challenge to a debate on your own terms, on your own website, with your own moderator, and each and every time you've backed away like a coward. Every time you've been shown to be making false claims you've found some excuse to withdraw.
It shows you have nothing. Your evidence? I claim you have nothing. Why? Because otherwise real scientists would be agreeing with you. and they don't.
John

Meryl, you are the one that consistently lies and tries to change tack every time you face John in comment. I hardly think that someone that has an *actual* grounding in science, more importantly medicine - has anything to fear from someone that lives on the fringes of pseudoscience and dangerous woo.

Dear Meryl,
Thanks so much for your mature and considerate reply. You set up the website, and you chose the moderator. What could be more public than a website, where people can read the debate, do their own research, and assess the claims of the debaters? What could lead to a better understanding of the issues than a place where your claims can be investigated, in each person's own time? I'm all for it Meryl, but you're the one that always finds an excuse not to take part. I can't blame you though. I would prefer a town hall argument too after your last efforts on the debate site. Town halls are good for politics, good for the "sound bite", but not good for education and science Meryl.
You know where you'll find me.
John

The ture issue of diagreement here arises NOT from these facts about vaccination but rather the psychological fact that people in general have a tendancy that sometimes works against logic. That is- when two thinks happen together in time, especially if they are somehow linked together in time for many people - everybody had the inclination to believe that those two things MUST be causally linked. They are not.

It is just like when a phobia arises when a child is stomping their foot and ligthning strikes. Those two things cannot be scientifically linked but try telling that kid that.

One of my own twin sons got a call to tell him he had won a bike just as he was carving an apple. To him now, apples are lucky. Right.

"I blame the interweb" - you're more right than you think, it is the internet.

the web is the biggest change in the under-pinning technology of civilization since phoenician phonetic literacy displaced the archaic oral culture of homer & the poets, replacing it with the classical, visual world of plato, aristotle, the academy - the beginnings of rational thinking and its institutional & technological support systems. bigger than gutenberg's moveable type invention & the unemployment of scribes.

massive social change is being wrought today, by new underlying communication technology of our time, the internet. it is not print that has got us here, it is not photography, it is electricity. this was inherent in the convergence of satellite telephony & computers in the sixties.

it is bigger than moving our institutions, our data, publications, etc. on to "the cloud". its a fundamental challenge to these & the values they sustain & are in turn sustained by. its a fundamental challenge, because it has displaced the centrality of the visual, eye-grounded values of phonetic literacy technology of the last 2000 years, replacing these with the tribal, acoustic, ear-grounded, electronic technology of the internet.

under conditions of speed of light massive information transfers, the social values & institutions of linear rationality are challenged everywhere as we enter every day further into an "acoustic space that has the basic character of a sphere whose focus or centre is simultaneously everywhere and whose margin is nowhere" (mcluhan). the satellite environment, mcluhan opined further, will open a virtual environment that "will replicate the art of drama - it will make the whole world a stage, everyone will do their thing." everyone's an expert and no one's an authority.

and i'll see yr kim kardassian on climate change & raise you a nicole kidman, for all her trouble. -a.v.

Precisely Mr V.

I've never trusted electricity myself - I am suspicious of anything I cannot see.

Speaking of not seeing things - I not with alarum that you seem to have dispensed with capital letters, apostophes and have even been driven to amphersands. I trust this is a technical failing of fingers or keyboard rather than some statement of new age principle. What next phonetic spelling????

There is also another factor in the decline of public thinking - the flimsy aluminium foil imported from the likes of China over recent years, and the declining market share of good thick Australian made Alfoil. I have a sneaking suspicion - most of my suspicions sneak actually - that this tinsel is totally ineffectual in keeping out those messages being beamed into the minds of our more unstable citizens by the forces of darkness.

Between that and the interweb, we have unleashed a demon.

Come on Ms Plibersek - put Alfoil on the PBS now.

Further to my previous comment… Citizens are entitled to ask well-founded questions about vaccination when it appears powerful vested interests are pressing questionable lucrative medical interventions upon healthy people. In my opinion the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine being urged upon 12/13 girls and boys is questionable. I am currently participating in an argument about this matter on The Conversation’s “Study should dispel HPV vaccine myths” discussion thread: https://theconversation.edu.au/study-should-dispel-hpv-vaccine-myths-9914 Discussion has also previously taken place on an article by Ian Frazer, the co-inventor of the technology enabling the HPV vaccines, i.e. “Catch cancer? No thanks, I’d rather have a shot!”: https://theconversation.edu.au/catch-cancer-no-thanks-id-rather-have-a-shot-7568

right/wrong. i do not think that there is more of a polar opposite than that, Elizabeth unless it is LIFE/Death and it is.

"Citizens are entitled to ask well-founded questions about vaccination."

They most certainly are. However, a problem arises due to our tendency to deny well founded science that disagrees with our particular predilictions.

I'm a determinist. Quantum Physics gives me the willies!

Absolutely Elizabeth!

And when pharmaceutical companies, medical authorities and government health officials are noted as being the only 'stakeholders' on this issue, we know there is a problem.

Independent research into vaccination should be a given - but it's not.

Double-blind, placebo controlled trials (using a true placebo - not a vaccine adjuvant, another vaccine or a vaccine solute) funded by our government which budgets hundreds of millions of dollars a year to vaccination without spending one cent on testing should be the order of the day - but it's not.

And a respectful and transparent debate on this subject (not the personal attacks and abuse as shown by organisations like Stop the AVN - organisations which Patrick Stokes openly participates in - so much for academic impartiality!) should be what we strive for - but there is very little evidence that those who call themselves scientists and wish to be considered the arbiters of this information care a whit for anything but defending their own biases at the expense of freedom of choice.

Meryl Dorey

Meryl,
until you learn what a placebo is, when it comes to drug trials, I don't think you can comment on vaccine safety trials. And I'm not censoring you. I just think it helps to have a scientific discussion if one understands what the terms involved mean.

FYI, pharmaceutical companies make a lot more money off cosmetics then they do vaccines. Vaccination is not as lucrative as you've been mislead to believe.

Hi Elizabeth,

"Citizens are entitled to ask well-founded questions about vaccination..."

I agree wholeheartedly and encourage such. I question though, whether some citizens are willing to accept answers which are not in alignment with their views on the matter. I have come across many cases in which anti-vaccinationists have requested evidence for the safety and efficacy of vaccines or insights into the way phaemecutical trials work or public health decisions are made, only to ignore or dismiss it when it is presented to them. Calls to present and debate the evidence which are followed by refusals to acknowledge the evidence are tiring.

I would also like to note that it is important to distinguish the difference between a concerned citizen who is questioning vaccine safety and policy and an anti-vaccination advocate who promotes herself as an authority on the safety and efficacy of vaccines and believes that she is on such equal footing with experts that she should be consulted when the media covers news relating to vaccine safety, vaccine innovation and epidemics of vaccine preventable diseases.

Dear Elizabeth, we have all been straight forward and clear about our beliefs and position. ONly those who are happy to play games are pretending or hiding where they stand and in such an important debate that seems reasonalbe. So no more game playing- scientists are rigorously schooled to avoid assumptions- not so the other side- please just declare yourself rather than playing peek a boo. These are all busy professional people and a tiny bit of respect for their time and effort is not unwarranted.

Meryl,

"there is very little evidence that those who call themselves scientists and wish to be considered the arbiters of this information care a whit for anything but defending their own biases at the expense of freedom of choice"

You appear to put very little stock in what scientists do and have to say on this issue, while basically implying that no scientists, researchers, doctors or nurses care about anything other than being right. That's a pretty bold claim, a fairly black view of the human condition, and, quite frankly, incredibly insulting, not to mention hypocritical.

By what method do you propose these double-blind, placebo controlled trials be carried out, if not a scientific one?

"...who is to dictate which side gets to present their view?'

I think Patrick's position is not so much about dictating who gets to present a view. It is about what views are deserving of our respect.

It is the shift to pragmatic relativism in which all opinions are "equal"

I say that Soctrate's mortality leads us to conclude that all humans are mortal. You say that Socrates humanity leads us to conclude that Socrates is mortal.

One is valid, the other is not. I can state my case, but I cannot claim that my case should be respected just because it is my case when it is clearly not the case.

Great article.

I agree Joseph that we should not dictate debate but unfortunately I don't think the public and "current affair" shows such as Today Tonight would ever present both sides nor state that there is no scrap of peer reviewed data for one side of the debate because that wouldn't be sensational enough or draw a crowd. (Plus a lot of people wouldn't know what a peer review entails or how important real evidence is).

The problem with vaccination though is that there was once a debate but that was over many years ago.
It's quite disconcerting that anti-vaccination groups are still active in 2012. It's equivalent to someone believing the earth is flat.

I work as a doctor and it pains me to see that propagating unscientific "opinion" by anti-vax groups is acceptable under the guise of free speech - surely they would need to work in the field or have research in the area?
Doctors support vaccination because we have seen the difference in saving lives. My grandparents were doctors in the mid to late 1900s and saw many infectious diseases which are now preventable because of vaccines, whereas us docs of today work mainly in chronic diseases.

It's also jolly selfish for people to refuse vaccinations for themselves or their children because the premise of vaccination is "herd immunity" i.e. population health and I don't think it is the right of one person to put others at risk by refusing immunisation when it is safe to do so and the evidence is unequivocal, unless it is for some exceptional reason.

Valli, surely it is the role of the educated and of the media to yell FOWL! at the top of our lungs when FALSE information which made its way into the mainstream is killing people, NO?

As the very proud carer for a small group of delightful Wyandotte chooks I fear I must protest. My chickens have simple wants and needs. They do not deceive and present me with nothing but an earthy factual realism. Not to mention very nice eggs.

Let us cry out FOUL instead - which would be far more pertinent.

Valli Jones - the fundamental issue here is not about vaccination at all. The AVN and Meryl Dorey only appeared in Patrick Stoke's article as an example. The issue here is about opinions. If Patrick had used the issue of what brand of football to use in the AFL as an example we would not be debating footballs. As usual however, whenever the issue of vaccination is mentioned the AVN President and her minions flock to the comments to beat the anti vax drum. It is all getting rather old and tired.

> the fundamental goal of the AVN is to ensure freedom of information and freedom of choice

Then the committee should consider whether Meryl Dorey, who spends hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in 'expenses' whilst making the AVN look like a bunch of crazed anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, is really effective in achieving that goal.

I agree with you, Craig Minns. And appeals to authority are not the same as evidence of safety and effectiveness. This is science we are talking about here - not religion - let's treat it as such.

Craig, you make an interesting point but what panics people like me is when the author of the study that all the lies are based on admits that it was FALSE and no one listens. People continue to build on that information as though it were true. The children are being injured and the parents who are desperate to understand why their child has autism put their own lives virtually on the line to defend this crazy lie someone surely must say ENOUGH. Truth must prevail. Why is no one asking what the liars are gaining?

Science requires falsifiability, which requires reproducibility.

I have no great knowledge of the vaccination topic, but I do have a sense that the good outweighs the bad, mostly because I have confidence that those who have done the research have done their best to falsify their hypotheses and that their results are reproducible.

It's the scientific method I have confidence in, and that leads me to have confidence in the results that it produces.

Meryl, if I may, I have a question for you.

Why have you decided against undertaking any formal studies in science over the past twenty years that you have spent researching vaccine safety and efficacy?

I suggest that just undertaking a foundation unit through Open University would be of great value to you. SSK18, Rocket Science: Academic Skills for Science Students (http://www.open.edu.au/courses/arts/murdoch-university-rocket-science-academic-skills-for-science-students--ssk18-2012) covers basic statistical literacy, introduces skills in critical thought including assessing bias and outlines what science is and is not. It would be a fantastic starting point for you to begin to equip yourself with the skills and understanding to assess your information and argue your case from a more credible position.

Desperate parents are a gold mine. They will send themselves into debt and beg for donations from their community on the faint hope of curing their child. Who else can you convince to spend so much on useless junk?

"If antibodies don't equal immunity (and we know that they do not), then how are vaccines meant to prevent infection?"

Ummm, Meryl - nobody has ever claimed that vaccines prevent infection. They prevent the development of disease subsequent to an infection. The difference between infection and disease is significant (have you heard of lag time?). Similarly, it is not the presence of antibodies that is said to confer immunity, but the presence of memory B cells. The difference between proteins and cells is also significant.

It's surprising that in 20+ years of reading around the issue, you would make these elementary mistakes. Unless, of course, you have not understood what you have read.

"We're not all learned philosophers, or philosophy students, members of the public are entitled to their opinions because of the possibility that their opinions might indeed be correct."

If I'm reading Stokes's post correctly, he would agree that members of the public are all absolutely "allowed-to-say"-entitled to have their opinions, full stop. (And they're "entitled"-entitled to have opinions, but only some of the time, depending on how well they can vouch for them.)

I'm vaguely miffed that he's introduced two definitions for the same phrase. It makes it impossible to tell whether commenters on this article are talking at cross purposes :(

Indeed. For someone that bangs on about censorship, she sure does being a complete and utter hypocrite.

Meryl; your comment suggests you have not actually spoken to many scientists, or you decided to simply ignore the predominant findings of peer-reviewed research. I hear this nonsense about how scientists "do not like to examine evidence contrary to currently-held dogma" all the time on media outlets. As a scientist, I have never known a colleague to act this way. Yes, fraud and bias have rarely occurred. But you base your argument on your belief that there is resounding scientific bias. If you actually integrated yourself into the lives of scientists you would quickly learn that this is not true.

Meryl I have read all your comments on here and other fora in which you have posted. You question how people can know what you have studied or to whom you have spoken. I think that the bottom line here is that you don't have any paper qualifications. Having a brain is simply not enough. Having read alt med websites and publications for 23 years, is not enough. Despite what you might say to your critics, in order to have your opinion about vaccination and other health issues taken seriously, you need paper qualifications. Such qualifications show that you have been taught, that you have learned and that your knowledge has been tested through exams and assessments. All this happens to ensure that you know your stuff.

Strutting around, constantly challenging people to debate you simply makes you look ridiculous. Put your ego to one side for a moment and think about it. Why would a medical/scientific professional with 10 years or more tertiary qualifications and years of experience bother to debate you? Quite simply, if they did, they would be tarnishing their credibility and at the same time lending undeserved credibility to you. You constantly talk about challenging "their" data with "your" data. You don't have any data. You simply have scooped up muck from crank sites such as whale.to And the data that you claim comes from mainstream medical journals - well that is cherry picked, misinterpreted and misunderstood by you. Here is a classic example of how people like you in the anti vax/alt med world operate. A homeopath who is well know to you, recently claimed on their website that they had read an article in BMJ supporting homeopathy. Wow! Just wow! Really? Well, it turns out that when this claim was checked that the article in question was actually a letter to the editor and it was written by a naturopath. Now that is quite different to BMJ supporting homeopathy isn't it? Now you are probably saying "oh but that wasn't me - I didn't do that" but the point is that you do, do it - frequently.

Now Meryl, I hope that you have noted that I have not discussed vaccination at all here. Not once. The reason for that is that I don't hold any scientific or medical qualifications. None. Also note that this is not a personal attack. I am addressing what you have said with regards to your entitlement to have an opinion. What I have is an opinion on your behaviour. I think, having read hours and hours of your writing, that I am entitled to hold that opinion and I am entitled to have that opinion taken seriously. My opinion? You are getting an absolute hiding from all sectors of society and you think it is some conspiracy against you. Did it ever occur to you, with so many many people disagreeing with you, that you might be wrong? Your behaviour reminds me of a spoilt three year old child, screaming "listen to me - I'm right" and then when others try to respond you stick your fingers in your ears and chant "la la la I'm not listening". So please, Meryl, listen. The world is trying to tell you something and you just might learn from it.

"The fact is that this article wants us all to defer to the greater knowledge and expertise of doctors who - the author claims - are the REAL experts when it comes to vaccination. But I have spoken with literally hundreds of doctors who are totally clueless on this subject - and that includes immunologists, paediatricians, rheumatologists and other specialists.

As opposed to the opinion of many people here and in the greater community, a degree in medicine does not give one any 'magical' powers to determine the truth or otherwise of scientific issues. Doctors are not trained in research and in fact, that majority of their information about drugs and vaccines comes directly from the manufacturers of those same products."

You seem to get clinicians confused with real doctors who write the research, you know, PhDs.
Instead of whinging you have 'spoken to the delivery people', then claim they're clueless on the subject, why don't you go to the source?
Doctors (PhD) in virology (I happen to know one, but you refuse to listen to them), immunology, epidemiology etc
these are the real experts, surely you know that?

As far as having an opinion on bias, 'reading' journals over 20 years makes you know more of an expert on the research, writing, peer review, and publication than when you started. You're an observer.
You could read music and watch someone play piano for years, until you actually sit down and play, you really can't claim superior skills, no matter how sure you are that you could play better than everyone.

It is this divide that makes your opinion not worthy of being taken seriously. You can comment all you want on the process, nobody is bothering to listen because you don't even attempt to get involved and broaden your knowledge to, at the very least, be equal to the basic knowledge of the other players.
If you think you possess the exact same knowledge, then step up, start publishing, start attending conferences and become part of the conversation with your peers.

Whinging isn't a valid opinion.

Funny, calling out the "fraud and bias" in scientific journals... when you've happily defended frauds such as Andrew Wakefield.

And honestly.... I know high schoolers with a better grasp on vaccines and medical matters than you

Then please inform us of your professional qualifications, Meryl.

You claim Meryl..." Doctors are not trained in research and in fact, that majority of their information about drugs and vaccines comes directly from the manufacturers of those same products."......
NO
Pharmaceutical Reps are not qulaified to train Dr's in medicine.The role in Pharmacuetical medicines, of a Representative, is the content of the PI, which is very important, the TGA indication and PBS listing. The role extends for those who work in Specialist medicine is to discuss ( not write!) peer reviewed articles on a disease state, or new information on a drug that has an approved indication.
How to evaluate a patient is nothing to do with Pharma.
You make this false statement regulary!

"Having a brain is simply not enough. Having read alt med websites and publications for 23 years, is not enough. Despite what you might say to your critics, in order to have your opinion about vaccination and other health issues taken seriously, you need paper qualifications."

Although I agree with the rest, I strongly disagree with this statement.

As a homeschooled teenager, I developed an interest in genetics. I used to spend hours hanging out in the Health Sciences library, reading American Journal of Medical Genetics and other similar journals. I looked up stuff on PubMed and Google Scholar. I read pretty much everything I could find on rare genetic syndromes, especially chromosome disorders.

My only formal training in the subject comes from Biology 100. But in the area of genetics (though not other areas), I have been told by trained professionals that my understanding is as good as someone with a medical degree.

It is possible to be a self-taught expert. We should not judge the claims on who is making them, but on how well they match up to the facts.

In psychology (which is my major, and I studied this in much the same way as genetics), the predominant model of persuasion is the Elaboration Likelihood Model. They postulate two modes of processing an argument - central and peripheral. The central mode involves a reasoned, logical analysis of their statements and the corresponding facts. The peripheral mode involves deciding based on superficial features, such as the number of arguments (regardless of quality) or how 'official' the paper looks - or the qualifications of the one writing.

Trained experts are still human, and they still make mistakes. Self-taught people can be quite knowledgable, if they put enough time and effort into learning. Although the probability is higher that a trained expert is correct, we must not assume that - we must look at how well the facts back up their statements.

In the case of the cause of autism, I can tell you by my research into the topic that autism is predominantly genetic. If you want I could cite a pile of journal articles about it. There are hundreds of candidate genes for autism, each of which likely accounts for some autistics, because autism isn't one condition, it's many. Are there some kids whose autism was caused by vaccination? Yes - I know of at least one, who had an undetected mitochondrial disorder and the fever and lack of appetite after vaccination sent her into a metabolic crisis. But these kids are a very small proportion of autistic kids. I don't need a degree to know this. I've done my reading, medical journals instead of quack science. Many journals are free to the public, and if you live near a university, by visiting it you can find many more. Not having a degree doesn't stop you from finding stuff out.

"Self-taught people can be quite knowledgable, if they put enough time and effort into learning."

Stephanie - of course it is possible to learn a great deal by reading - many interested amateurs know a lot more of the theory about their specific area of interest than professionals who are not specialists in that area.

There is a huge gap, however, between knowing theory on a topic and actually practising a profession or making policy decisions where you are responsible for health outcomes of real human beings.

A real understanding of clinical genetics means understanding all the clinical sciences - you can't understand the way the human organism functions by learning only the anatomy of the lower limb, or only the function of the renal tubules.

FOr example, you quote a case of a child where "the fever and lack of appetite after vaccination sent her into a metabolic crisis." But did you know that a much more frequent cause of fever and lack of appetite is An infective illness - something as simple as a minor viral infection? The vast majority of simple febrile convulsions in childhood are caused by relatively minor infective illnesses. So, if the child you know had not been vaccinated, could the same reaction not have occurred when they caught any infective illness?

Ms Dorey makes these proclamations while having no idea what doctors are trained in - either in medical school or during life-long ongoing education.

She names a couple of American paediatricians: the first is a general paediatrician who has no scientifc publications in the area of vaccination - nor in any other area.

Dr Fouad Yazbak (not "Foad Yabak") was a co-author on papers about the impact of rubella on pregnancies in the 1960's. Accuracy is important.

IN the meantime, the overwhelming majority of paediatricians understand and promote the enormous benefits of vaccination, while acknowledging the small incidence of significant side-effects.

When we don't have enough

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

we get

http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/infectious/pages/measles.aspx

Just saying....

Most people understand that human life involves non-zero risk, Craig.

Wearing seat-belts and having vehicle air-bags also entails non-zero risk, but our cooperative society has agreed that these tiny risks should be systematically borne for the much larger benefits. The risks and benefits have been studied and quantified - as they have been with vaccination.

I don't ignore a non-zero-risk - I live with it, as does all of humanity.

Well said, Sue.

The issue remains this- Craig- that if you knowingly choose to accept the risks of riding a motorcylce- it is your skin and bone and brain tissue or those of your knowling passenger that remain like skid marks on Australia's roadways where as when you choose not to vaccinate your child- you choose danger for everyone who intersects with your child's life and they never consciously assumed that risk.

Thanks Craig, this is actually helpful dialogue but here is where i am as an individual. I will work to ensure that people in general begin to understand that those who willfully choose the path of the antivaxers are antisocial, that it has astoudning consequences for society in general and for those who are exposed to these people in particular so that they will not blindly encourage such madness. There is a huge difference between informed concent and playing along and it is beginning to cost innocent and formerly uninformed lives.

This is fascinating. Are you aware that the world is or might be observing? To diminish someone in this manner is way beyond the normal rules of discourse but some of you seem to feel that personal attacks are warranted and as long as you do not generally stand behind them or suggest that the other is a blood sucking entity who refuses to lie down when dead- it is all OK.

Man, this is normally exciting but I hope you wait while I put my boots on!

Elizabeth, am I correct in surmising that you have no tertiary degrees in immunology? If I have read Patrick correctly, I think he is saying that without the appropriate qualifications and experience, people who pose as experts are not entitled to have their opinions respected.

"Elizabeth is a Research Officer, with a degree majoring in
politics and philosophy. This background has assisted her in
researching and lobbying on this subject. The ethical aspects
are of particular interest to her.
She is working with other concerned pet owners, Bea Mies
and Pat Styles, who have also been campaigning on this issue
since they strongly suspect their dogs were also adversely
affected by unnecessary vaccination."

Thank you Patrick - seems Elizabeth is only concerned about her own say and not reading the comments people put in reply to it. So I'll quote myself here for Elizabeth's benefit.

There are some things in health policy that are about the bigger picture Elizabeth.

"

Elizabeth, if it is your opinion that the NIP 'arbitrarily' has two doses of MMR in the schedule - do you honestly think the addition of a second dose to the schedule (at incredible cost and resource cost) *hasn't* been thoroughly debated by the subject matter experts?

On a slightly different note, you claim in your letter that the emphasis should be on getting everyone vaccinated with one dose.
Surely you understand the basic logistics of getting *every* child in Australia vaccinated with only one-dose on the schedule is pretty darn hard to do - combine that with the one-dose 5% failure to confer immunity and the vaccination coverage for one-dose on the schedule for MMR in Australia would be well below what is needed for herd immunity.

Adding a second dose to the schedule *is* maximising one-dose MMR coverage, it's ensuring the most opportunity for children to get at LEAST one-dose."

In other words, the addition of another vaccine to the schedule is incredibly expensive for the government to fund and administer. THAT is how serious they take measles in this country. They don't cross their fingers and dilly dally with one-dose on the schedule. When you combine the percentage vaccinated at 12months with MMR and then consider another 5% of those will not get immunity from the vaccine. We are dropping below herd immunity numbers.

What else is taken into consideration is the R0 this is the reproduction rate of the disease (ie how many people ONE case would infect) in the case of measles it is 12-18. to put that in perspective influenza is 2-3.
There are so many more factors taken into consideration such as complications from the disease, economic cost etc etc.

Your 'opinion' isn't taken seriously because you haven't even scratched the surface of what a decision like this entails. To write a letter to that effect, stomping your feet just clearly shows how little you know.

now I have given you a really really basic heads up of what goes into making these types of decisions (and I mean REALLY basic) and so you know these are not my 'opinions' this is what I learned in my Master of Public Health.
To fully inform you of the entire process, you'd at minimum have the same qualification as me by the end of it!

some parts of your arguement are outside the scope of my expertise.
"Is there a medical reason why separate vaccinations are not routinely available?"
there will always be *some* reason why people who oppose vaccination will have issue with any vaccine.
However. Sure, entertain the idea of giving a baby of 12months *3* seperate needles when they dont need too, just because the mummy warrior feels she knows more than every immunologist etc etc.
These developments and approvals are NOT taken lightly. The better question would be 'why are the vaccines combined? what is the benefit?'

The second issue of testing. To date no antivaxxer has suggested what to actually test for?
How do you 'test health?'
Is it merely the absence of disease?

My OPINION on the matter is that parents, and mothers especially, (and I am a single mother so don't think i'm speaking out of turn) have this drive to be in control of everything. I believe there is some odd cultural shift with women who are now in the workplace as dominant forces, having to apply their natural 'control' to parenting and believe they can apply the same logic they use in their jobs to fields WELL outside their expertise, *just* because it is involving their child. Somehow giving them some pseudo expertise on the matter.

Thank you Ken for this clarification. I think it is a basic tenet in most disciplines that one CANNOT generalize from animals to human beings. If you are an expert in D|OGS I think you are probably needed in that field.

3 points to Keith for that astute observation, however what happens in other species is NOT exactly what happens in humans and while we can gain cues from that research we have to do human research and rely on human research to reach any conclusions. Human beings have proven to be diverse enough as recent DNA studies and calamities like the Vioxx drug have proven.

Is it bad that it is all of those things combined? or does it need to be 'pure' for you to accept it?
The child receives ONE needle instead fo three. Epidemiologically there is 3 diseases done in one go. Logistically there are 3 diseases done in one go. This is also financially beneficial too, on a delivery level (storage, delivery costs, time to administer 3 needles to already upset child etc)

You can suggest appropriate tests to measure 'health enough for vaccination' I'd be hoping you have evidence to back up why those tests are appropriate for such a purpose?
Not only that but be ably to quantify why such a test would be necessary and economically viable?
Taking into consideration the lag between testing, results and subsequent vaccination as a potential exposure for disease transmission? the economic cost to the parent for the extra Doctors appointment? ummm pathology cost for the test? Cost-benefit ratio for what you are going to actually find? (ie are all these costs worth avoiding...what?)

But sure. Educate us all on what tests we can all get to *ensure* we will not get anaphylaxis from a vaccination.
I'm genunitely interested on your expert input on this matter... your expertise are in what exactly?

Ms Hart - since this thread is still open, and you apparently wanted to answer my question (though didn't do so before), I'll re-post it for you here:

"Elizabeth Hart, when you refer to "paternalistic 'experts' ", do you mean immunologists, padiatricians, infectious diseases experts, epidemiologists, early chidlhood nurses, or NICU nurses and doctors?

All these people research and promote vaccination. Which of them do you find "paternalistic" or not to hold expertise?"

Keith Thomas - vaccine policy is a combination of immunology and public health practice. The reasons for the timing of the various vaccines include:
- Age at which the child is able to mount an effective immune response
- Age at which the condition being vaccinated for is most prevalent
- Age at which the child is most exposed to other children (eg pre-school)

Most anti-vaccinationists are less concerned about the antigens in the vaccines so much as the fluid they are carried in and the preservatives (although all these have been found to be safe). Combining vaccines reduces the number and volume if the injections and the load of diluent and preservative.

ALthough I can understand why people might ask these questions, I find it hard to understand when they don't accept the answers. IN the extreme case, Neonatal ICU nurses and doctors, who look aft er the most vulnerable micro-premmies, promote the vaccination schedule, why would the rest of us disagree? These people know a newborn's immune system intimately, and dedicate their lives to the welfare of babies. How would it make sense that they are part of some world-wide conspiracy, or just have a blind spot in this area.

Ms Hart and Mr Beattie like to use the term 'experts'. For NICU nurses and doctors, I prefer the term experts.

Mr Thomas - on what basis would you choose tests to be "healthy enough to withstand the special impact of each vaccine before it's administered."?

Do you mean whether they have a normal immune system and are therefore able to mount an immune response, or do you mean whether they might have an egg allergy and react to some components of some vaccines? If they are not "healthy", don't they need immunisation all the more, as they might not be able to withstand the actual infections?

I wonder why you imagine that there has not been supremely detailed consideration of all these factors when vaccine policy is made? I fyou have not been part of a process of developing, for example, a clinical guideline, you might not appreciate the degree of detail and expertise that goes into clinical policy. Not only does it have to be rationally argued, but it also has to be visibly backed up by evidence, and regularly reviewed. I don't know what work you did before retirement, but do you imagine that someone untrained in the area could have done it better than you?

You say "Both sides in these major controversies can be seen attempting to frame the questions to suit their own expertise and to focus the debate on areas where they have most likelihood of "winning" (in their eyes)."

In my personal case, I frame my comments from my personal area of training and expertise. You will not see me questioning the evidence in climate science, or economics, or political strategy - I am neither trained in those disciplines, nor experienced in practising those professions.

On the other hand, the anti-vaccine posters here wish to argue on the basis of their lay opinions, without having been health care providers, or even trained in the clinical sciences.

Of course one can ask questions, but when the answers repeatedly go against what your originally thought, it's time to ask different ones. The questions about vaccine efficacy and safety posed by Ms Dorey, Mr Beattie and colleagues have not been ignored. On the contrary - they have been refuted with evidence over and over.

All the way over here in Canada we have learned an Australian expression - "Fair Dinkum"- which we love because it says so much so rightly.

Have I got it wrong in believing that it is only 'Fair Dinkum" for one person to answer the questions posed to her before expecting to ask and have their own questions responded to?

"I apologise if I am complicit in letting the topic stray into the MMR debate, but I have a question about MMR. Some of the criticism of MMR is because the triple vaccine is a "triple whammy" and so it may have a greater impact on infants than would three separated vaccinations. Is there a medical reason why separate vaccinations are not routinely available? I may be wrong, but I get the impression that many people who oppose MMR are not opposed to all or even most vaccinations, just this one particular "king hit"."

I am not an expert in immunology, but from what I understand, the reason why they give all three together is to have earlier immunity. If you gave them separately, the kid would spend several more months susceptible to one or two of the trio of illnesses that vaccine defends against.

Unless you're proposing just having separate injections for each, which would accomplish nothing apart from giving the kid a bit more pain.

Yes, you can't always generalize from animals to humans, just like you can't generalize between different species of animals. For example, rabbits are one of the few species that don't have birth defects from prenatal exposure to thalidomide. Rats, for example (http://www.nature.com/pr/journal/v52/n4/abs/pr2002225a.html), have pretty much the same reaction to thalidomide as humans do.

We're not special. Every species has its unique quirks. Good use of animal models involves testing multiple species, and especially ones similar to us in the relevant mechanisms (for example, pigs are best for studying digestive issues, because their digestion is a lot like ours) in the hopes that if the medication has adverse effects on humans, we'll see similar effects in another species as well. It's not always perfect, but the alternatives are either to test it first on humans, risking ill effects for the human subjects, or else forego potentially beneficial treatments because we don't know if they're safe.

*exactly* Debra - one way conversation for Ms Hart. Something makes me believe she wouldn't pay attention if the answers are not what she wants to hear. She's already ignored my responses, twice.

Elizabeth, please do not think that people do not respect your experience. IT IS THE UNWARRANTED GENERALIZATION OF IT THAT WE FEAR AND FIGHT.

Your experience is compelling- for you-a one off that you seem to fear for the general population. Let me give you a hypothetical equivalent.

Last December I went in for a benign tumour in my spine. I had my friend drop me off at the front door in perfect health (besides that annoying tumour that threatened my lower half) and the surgeon told me the only risk was infection and as I was at a major hospital with a sterling reputation and as it was one of my own accounts -with one of the lowest infection rates anywhere- I felt good to go. So good in fact, that I walked in alone, and took only one change of clothing and 4 books as I expected to be out in 3 days- fixed. The surgoen was throughly vetted and i discovered has a good record.

Well almost 6 months later I left a rehab hospital after a coma and learning to walk and talk again. The surgery went wrong.

i DO NOT TELL OTHER PEOPLE NOT TO HAVE SURGERY FOR TUMOURS IN THEIR SPINE-for I would consider that irresponsible.

In science your situation is serious, and lamentable but it has no generalizable value other than a clue of what to watch out for. It would be called a case study and we are all taught to be VERY careful with what we think we learn from them>

I would suggest that all you might have learned just as I did -is that one practioner can be a bozo.

As a self-described "research officer", I'm surprised Elizabeth Hart doesn't understand the dynamics and significance of "peer-review" a bit better.

The purpose of placing research into the public domain is for an informed audience to critique the methodology and assess whether the conclusions made by the authors bear any merit. The peer review that occurs before publication is only a way of checking whether that paper appears to be suitable for publication in that particular journal. It has to reach a threshhold level of quality -in structure, methodology, language, presentation of data etc. Publication does not "validate" the findings - far from it. If all published research were totally valid and without fault, the letters pages would not be filled with debate and critique.

When journals were only on paper and people either subscribed or went to libraries, the readership was an informed one - people read the material within their professional areas, knowing the other research and understanding the principles behind the practice (whether this was engineering, arboriculture, immunology or paediatrics).

Now, anyone can find a huge variety of internet-accessed papers, generally without accessing the full papers, and without needing to have any knowledge or understanding of that field.

Have you produced any published output, Elizabeth? IF so, how do you think it should be handled and communicated to the world?

It is correct to report and consider information about potential biases in research - the majority of which are methodological and not intentional. These are generally discussed under "Study Limitations". They don't negate the study's findings - but declarations of potential bias should serve to make the reader's critique all the more sophisticated.

Elizabeth - I haven't found any answer to my previous question in any of your posts, so I'll post it for you again here:

""Elizabeth Hart, when you refer to "paternalistic 'experts' ", do you mean immunologists, padiatricians, infectious diseases experts, epidemiologists, early chidlhood nurses, or NICU nurses and doctors?

All these people research and promote vaccination. Which of them do you find "paternalistic" or not to hold expertise?"

Well there's peer-review and "peer-review", Ms Sue.

Sometimes one must examine the fine print.

Take for example the peer reviewed journal where one local climate expert claimed he'd had his research published. Well, according to the editor of Energy & Environment, it is a peer-reviewed journal - one of the biggest anti-warming journals in the world actually - but not all of it is peer reviewed. Folks of "like minds" can get a paper pubished in the short article section without even basic sub-editing let alone peer review apparently.

Or the weird but widely quoted journal on climate published by a retired agronomist and his sons in some rustic corner of middle America. Can't remember his name - it'll appear at 2.30am. When one submits an article for publication here one is prompted to provide the names and contact details of three of these very peers who you'd like to review your article. Now that must cut down the paperwork, not to mention the revisions.

Like everything Ms Sue ... it's buried in these damn satanic details.

"I did not say I knew what tests would ensure we will not get anaphylaxis from vaccination. All I said was I could suggest appropriate tests. And I meant - but did not say, sorry - that, surely, such tests would be prudent, understood in the context of patient history, as a means of identifying children who were at greater or lesser risk of suffering ill effects from vaccination at a particular time."

But Mr Thomas - it is the hypersensitivity reactions (such as to egg protein) that are easy to test for. What other tests for what other "ill effects" did you have in mind?

Just ran this through my usual check of the medical literature. There is currently no evidence available to support either argument.

Anyone want to take part in the double blind randomised placebo controlled crossover trial?

I know you will all have room:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1660594/

I can just see those multinational Big Gelato companies lining up to provide sponsorship, corrupt the investigators and skew the results. Whatever methods you use, I won't believe the results!

And those taste bud experiments are soooooooooo compelling!

Is this the crux of the argument from that side? PLEASE.

Scientist are not likely to want to and no ethics committee will approve an experiment that knowingly allows people to die (exept in rare drug trial where the people are already in end stage and know it and choose to make their end count for others).

Scientists appear to have a very high regard for LIFE and this is the crux of the provaccination side.

Yes, It was truly silly. The story I read said: "The bill from power firm Synergy also clearly stated that bills were going up by about 9.13 per cent because of the carbon tax." ..."Mrs Verolme believed the increase in her bill due to the carbon tax was more like 20 per cent ""I did the calculation this morning and it looks something like 19 point something, nearly or 20 per cent.""

So there you have it, she did her own maths (who knows how because she'd not have had access to all the necessary variables) and came up with a different figure than what is stated on the bill and believes her own calculation is more believable than the black-and-white figure on her bill. And, this gets reported as news! The headline was "Pensioner backs Abbott", it could easily have been "Pensioner disputes fact but fails to demonstrate how she's correct to do so".

The article I was thinking of is here: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/pensioner-backs-abbott-on-bill-20121011-27fau.html

"Remember, strong arguments don't need authority for their foundation".

That's right Greg. As Patrick explained eloquently they need evidence. And where does this evidence come from? From science. And who practices this science, and relays its discoveries to society? Scientists. That's right Greg, EXPERTS in immunology do that. Can non-experts present counter evidence? There is non censorship against them trying. Will they be taken seriously? Only if the evidence is good. There is no conspiracy against the provision of good evidence here.

You can pin your *argument from authority fallacy* tail on the evidence donkey all you like. It will fall off.

"Someone who is expert in the field of immunology will likely know precious little about the practical value in a community of a vaccine."

Lets test this claim by applying it in other domains:

"Someone who is expert in the field of air traffic control will likely know precious little about the practical value in a community of radar."

"Someone who is expert in the field of tourism / hospitality will likely know precious little about the practical value in a community of a hotel."

"Someone who is expert in the field of information technology will likely know precious little about the practical value in a community of an internet connection."

Epic fail, Greg.

Greg Beattie - you have just conclusively proven to me that you hold a strong bias against educated, knowledgeable and experienced people. Time and time again I have seen your attempts to take down people who are experts in their field, no matter what that field may be. I wonder what the psychology is of that behaviour? Is it education envy? Intellectual envy? Perhaps it is simply that you believe that you are more intelligent than these people be they nurses, doctors, immunologists or philosophers.

You showed your true colours when you finished your post with the misogynist, sexist comment "I think your slip is showing". Is that where you had to go? Implying that Patrick was behaving like a woman and therefore his beliefs and arguments were not worthy of a man.

You are all class Greg.

Greg Beattie says "Science is all about enabling valuable arguments to bubble to the top through robust discussion. "

Not so, Mr Beattie - science is about testing "valuable arguments" rigorously, looking at the evidence, and rejecting or revising the "argument" on the basis of the findings.

The arguments raised repeatedly by yourself, Ms Dorey and others have been examined and de-bunked, also repeatedly.

People who are inexpert in the area the argue about frequently use the (derogatory) allegation 'experts'', as if having knowledge, training and experience in an specific area of practice somehow disqualifies you from commenting in your own area.

What instead - prefer the views of the untrained and inexperienced because they are not 'experts'?

Dear Greg,
I think we all know people who have become so open minded that their brains have fallen out.
I repeat, it is entirely valid to dismiss arguments that have been proven wrong to our own safisfaction and when that happens- to feel that someone should have the good grace to stop repeating those things. It is not wrong- especially when the result of such inane stubborness is to harm unwitting people who think that they should be able to believe what is publically espouced.

You, of course are free to allow such harm to you and yours, and all we can do is grieve BUT do not expect us to rejoice in ignorance nor celebrate its application. Some of us feel duty bound to humanity to tell the TRUTH.

Annnnnnd your reply to Patrick, Greg?... [crickets]

A typical antivax drive-by... Arrive with bluster and bravado... Disappear faster than Speedy Gonzales when your arguments have been slayed as comprehensively as the "twenty seconds to comply" scene from RoboCop.

Patrick

Thanks for your friendly reply. I'll make this brief because I'm travelling and in and out of reception.

You say an appeal to authority is not automatically fallacious. Sure, but take note: I didn't claim your argument was fallacious. I said it was weak, as it rested exclusively on the appeal. The same applies to your commenters who've joined you in the attack on Meryl.

As for the thrust of your article, I don't accept that all you're trying to say is some opinions deserve more weight than others. I'll tell you why. We all already know that some opinions deserve more weight. That's a given. Right or wrongly, we all tend to favour opinions and arguments pitched by experts. There's no need to throw your weight behind that notion. It simply doesn't make for an article worth writing or reading, in my opinion.

Think about it this way: the main thrust of Meryl's argument is that there are problems with the popular orthodox viewpoint. You write an article claiming she can't be taken seriously because she's not of the popular orthodoxy! Do I need to point out that if that's all you're saying then you're not really saying much?

I think it's quite obvious you're trying to convey much more. The reason I think this is you coloured the article in the following ways:

1. You made refernce to Meryl's views as 'bulldust'. Sure you didn't use your own words to do so because, as you pointed out, you aren't qualified to make that call. Only experts are. In this case your expert was TV presenter Jonathon Holmes.... mmm.

2. "Meryl Dorey is the leader of the Australian Vaccination Network, which despite the name is vehemently anti-vaccine." What do you suggest they change the name to? (Please don't say you don't know enough about the AVN to make that call).

3. The title is: "No, you're not entitled to your opinion". A title like that certainly sets the scene for a censorship call, don't you think? And surely censorship is merely the end play of a gradual campaign aimed at eroding the freedom to express, and broadcast.

So, in summary, I think you certainly are 1. buying into the scientific argument, although in a weak fashion, and 2. making a call designed to encourage censorship. I think it's fairly plain to see you don't like the fact that some media broadcasters have shown interest in Meryl's views. But ultimately, they've shown interest because people have shown interest.

An argument which doesn't have the support of authority needs to be quite robust/appealing to get anywhere. Meryl has gained some followers and Mediawatch (and now you) have responded with a call to diminish the effect she's having. Right or wrong, that's what you're doing.

I hope you didn't take my "slip" comment the way Linda did. I don't know how she dragged what she did from it. It refers to someone being unaware of a flaw in their outfit: one which others can see quite easily due to the fact that they're looking from a different angle. Like someone pointing out your fly is undone. In this case you presented yourself as a philosopher, but your argument was exclusively based on appeal to authority. I know you reject this, and I suppose I have to defer to your judgement, in line with the article. :-)

I know I'm pulling your rope a bit here. I've no doubt you have a greater knowledge and understanding of philosophy than I do, but I would hazard a guess and say you possibly don't know much about the vaccine issue. Perhaps you don't even understand why Meryl holds her views. Perhaps you don't want to know because you feel it's not your business. Your a philosopher... not a doctor, right? And only doctors should involve themselves with such things.

The other issue I'd like to address is that of who the 'experts' are. Someone took exception to me enclosing the word in quotes, but I do that because it's difficult to work out who the experts are. I know you disagree with this also, but I'll have to write more later (providing comments don't get closed down). I've been traveling for work and have just arrived in a city and managed to get internet access, and to be honest I'm tired. I said I would be brief but it turned out not so.

Thanks again
Greg

Patrick

No need to apologise. We all have busy lives. Thanks for taking the time.

1. You say we have two options if we wish to critique the orthodoxy: get 'training' then join the discussion, or discuss it from some other (I assume you mean non-scientific) paradigm. Some questions. For the first option, what is training? What about someone educated in statistics? Economics? Auditing? Or others. Is it only medical quals? Should GP's, who have no specialised training for our questions, bend our ears more than others? What about people who are self-educated? Some examples:

Darwin and Wallace (evolution, geology, geography...)
Faraday (electricity)
Herschel (astronomy)
Ramanujan (mathematics)
Mary Anning (geology)
Mendel (genetics)

These were some of the most influential scientists of all time, and all changed our world profoundly, despite no formal training in science. Einstein also had some interesting views on formal education. A couple of his quotes:

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."

So formal education is certainly not a prerequisite for contributing to or discussing science.

Quoting you - "What it’s not open to us to do is to make scientific claims while not working to the evidentiary standards of science, as those standards define the truth-value of a scientific claim." I don't think anyone here is proposing that. As I said, Meryl is asking to be judged by her arguments rather than by people's perceptions of her 'self' or how educated she is. This is a very reasonable request. I'd argue true science would regard it as an expectation.

2. Regarding the notion that we all have a tendency to defer to experts, you say I don't trump someone with similar ability plus extra training in their field. Sure, but that wasn't at all what I said. I said that (for example) immunologists are not in a better position by virtue of their extra training, unless that extra training is directly relevant to the question. And in relation to the questions I raised earlier, it most certainly isn't. I would add that they're obviously in a worse position if they haven't investigated the question anyway. Remember, you initially assumed immunologists were the 'experts'. This was a poor assumption, and your conclusion was based on it. Their specialised training won't help for the questions I posed earlier. It may help them shed light on mechanisms by which vaccines may help or harm our bodies, but it gives them no special skill in evaluating their track record in preventing death or suffering; nor of them doing so safely. And these are our primary questions. Although immunologists may be some of the loudest voices in the choir, remember, they have a vested interest in singing, as I guess do all medical people.

3. You missed the point of my choir analogy. We aren't trying to gauge how well the choir are singing. I was pointing out that, as it was a choir, we EXPECT them all to be singing the same tune. But that doesn't mean the tune is the right one. The whole choir may be singing the wrong tune. We can't judge that simply by noting that they're all singing the same. Yet that's the basis of your argument: that the 'experts' appear to be singing the same tune. I pointed out that we can expect that, because the choir is populated mostly by 'drones', who have no specialised training to offer the question, and haven't investigated it anyway. They are simply repeating the opinions of those who claim to have done so, who are very few in number.
(However, I'll take the blame for this misunderstanding, as I muddied the analogy by talking about singing off-key.... which you interpreted as the choir not singing together. I meant singing off-key 'as a choir').

Anyway, you shouldn't be debating this with me because I'm formally trained in music. :-)

Greg Beattie - your list of self-taught innovators shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the way scientific knowledge is built.

There is no branch of science - be it astronomy, immunology, geophysics or botany - that is built on the theoriy of a single person.

Yes, thinkers can develop revolutionary ideas. To be useful however, they need to be both feasible and demonstrable, measurable, repeatable. We don't treat stomach ulcers with anitbiotics just because someone thought it might be a good idea - the evidence was produced, as was the test to detect helicobacter pylori in an individual.

Darwin conceived the theory for evolution of the species, but it was the huge amount of subsequent evidence found that solidified the scientific model.

Your choir analogy - though drawn from your area of expertise - doesn't work in science. The choir doesn't keep singing the same tune of lyrics - they are constantly questioned, reviewed, updated. The fact that you are not aware of those processes does not mean that they don't occur.

I must have been unclear. All I'm saying is that knowing what the stats are isn't much benefit if you are coming from the POV that no amount of risk to your child is acceptable.

I agree completely with the public health argument and the common good, but unless the pro-vaxers can nominate a zero risk, I suspect the anti-vaxers will remain unconvinced. In that case, it comes down to whether the risk that they pose as unvaccinated potential hosts of the pathogen is sufficient to justify coercion.

My own children were properly vaccinated with no ill-effects as far as can be discerned.

There's also the coercion aspect. How much increase in stochastic hazard justifies coercive intervention? Where does parental responsibility give way to state authority?

It's a pretty vexed issue, really.

Sir, coersion?

Man, that position appears to me like worrying about a mosquito bite when a truck is bearing down on your child. We tend to get a bit vocal as communities when anyone is courting death and even more so when the death they are courting is not their own.

The response to your assertions says it all in my own estimation and is quite indicative of this battle. The assessement you made was startling especially in light of the rude tactics emplyed by the anit-vaxxers as you call them. They called names and took the personal attacks to new and utterly uncalled for heights of rudenss and yet they have met with measured responses that added more facts. Finally there is some real frustration when they (we) realized that it was clealy disingenous on the part of the antivaxxers to ask for more information- simply tactics thrown like spaghetti against a wall. If I have to pick a side here where it is clear to me that the people who love humanity are on- I choose those who stand with vaccinations and I would bet with my life that they are more noble.

I don't know enough about the subject to comment on whether coercion is justified, so I'll take your word for it.

The anti-vaxers have some right on their side though, I think. They don't necessarily deserve ridicule.

Hi Debra, you seem to be quite willing to require the coercion of others. I wonder if you'd be quite so keen on it if you were the one being compelled to do something you don't want to do, especially when the primary argument being used to justify the coercion is that it will be good for everybody, while you are of the view that it will be bad for you?

It's easy to sit back and say with great gravitas "this is a noble cause, everybody must be made to go along with it", but I'd like to see how you draw the line between noble causes that don't justify coercion and those that do.

When does the end justify the means and when is it just bullying? Is there any kind of empirical relationship in your mind, or is it simply ad hoc or even post hoc? The public health argument is essentially utilitarian, while the argument from the anti-vaxers is essentally libertarian, with a flavouring of liberalism. It's not easy to reconcile those two very different approaches, it seems to me, without resorting to a reduction per se in the rights of individuals to self-determine and possibly to take self-protective action. You musn't forget that the essential argument of the anti-vaxers is that the risk to their kids (of a negative outcome causing an ASD) is of greater import to them than the community benefit justifies. They see childhood diseases like the MMR set as a part of growing up, whilst ASD is seen as a pure negative. Some high-functioning Aspies might dispute that, but more severe debilitation is quite catastrophic.

Simply abusing them as stupid or somehow wilfully obstrucive doesn't actually address that point and nor does a public health stochastic analysis. The only thing that would be effective is showing that either the childhood diseases are themselves likely to be catastrophic and that they have a high risk of being contracted, or that the vaccines are absolutely benign with respect to the serious side-effects that are being claimed.

If it is your purpose to convince them, then you need to grow a thicker skin and use your superior understanding of the science to make your case.

It can't possibly be done if there is an assumption of bad faith on either side of the argument..

Nice, Craig, I repeat who is abusing whom? You make assumptions no scientist would make.

By the way, do you really think that you have out thought such committed people as are arguing for vaccinations and do you not think that the truth has been presented multiple times in every form? It has I assure you - to no avail for it is never information that is sought - rather it is another opportunity to put out false 'doctrine"- and raise more funds to keep such organizations afloat. Tantamount to killing more people.

I am a mother of five people. When my second precious son was born, I was leery of vaccinations because of this propaganda which seems so reasonable at first glance- especially in light of the supposed cost and when spouted by a zealot - then I got educated and reallized the risk that I was placing MY SON in and everyone else in the community. I think people should be allowed to think and act as they choose and that the community in general = which represents multiple people should equally have the right to say "Sorry you cannot have our resources like school time for your kids- if they bring danger to ours." With rights come responsibilities. One of those responsibilities in a society is to refrain from trucking danger into the community WILLFULLY. Another is to become fully and sensibly informed. Another might be to know what you are talking about.

Craig, disingenuous apologies are not all that impactful when used as a way to stomp your feet when you do not get your way.
No dice, the issue is far too serious for silly games.

"The only thing that would be effective is showing that either the childhood diseases are themselves likely to be catastrophic and that they have a high risk of being contracted"

Sometimes I wish anti-vaxxers would all collect together in one community and, in so doing, allow this evidence to be collected. It is already known that measles, for example, is extremely contagious, and infants (who can't develop immunity) can die from pertussis.

It is only because vaccines have brought disease rates down that anti-vaxxers have the luxury of choosing not to vaccinate without being particularly likely to suffer the ill effects of that choice.

You will never get a zero risk with vaccines, just as you will never get zero risk when choosing what type of vehicle to buy. Parents that do not want to place their children at any risk will never take them (or let them travel) anywhere on roads. Most parents, however, would buy the safest they can afford, and accept whatever risk comes along with it. They concede that the benefits of transport are worth the risk of being driven into by a useless driver.

Baz Bardoe - you don't state your area of research, but it clearly isn't a clinical one.

The references you cite re-appear on so many of the anti-vax sites. Tomljanovic and Shaw have no clinical credibility - they have posed a theoretical question from their roles within non-clinical ophthalmology research. They are frequently quoted by anti-vaxers.

Blaylock is a retired neurosurgeon who is a "born again" anti-vaxer. He has no credibility in that specialist communities of immunology, infectious diseases or paediatrics.

The Italian court decision is likely to be overturned on appeal - it is an illogical legal opinion without the back-up of clinical science.

It's easy to manufacture a disagreement between specialists if you only quote the disagreers. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of paediatricians, early childhood nurses, GPs, immunologists, infectious diseases specialists and, in fact, parents, continue to agree about the benefits of vaccination and the vast dominance of benefit over risk.

Debra - you present a sound and reasoned point of view, but don't be misled into thinking that the references cited by Boz are "cutting edge" - they demonstrably are not. (see my other comments).

This site is so prone to people quoting abstracts off the net back and forth - generally only having read the title and perhaps the spin summarised in the conclusion. There is a big difference between doing a Google search and re-posting a few abstracts as opposed to reading - and understanding - the actual study, its methodology, its data and its findings.

We could improve the level of debate by citation by requiring anyone referring to a published paper to present a critical analysis - of the entire paper.

EEEEK! The Conversation's diligent editors are aquiver 'neath their desks at your suggestion Ms Sue....I have only just emerged from my security blanket myself. Encouraging critical analysis of academic papers !!!!? It's a conversation not a seminar.

And the whole purpose is so that smart well-read characters like yourself can wade in and correct some of the misconceptions and mythology creeping about out here under the cloak of science. I know I certainly find your contributions most helpful and direct.

But gee Ms Sue, don't turn it into a seminar with overheads and maybe powerpoint presentations. Too many years of my life, honestly. More importantly, how do we expect to know what the myths are unless we let the ANV and the anti-science Galileo Movement et al hurl their stuff onto the table where you lot can dissect it and pull it apart for us. Quite gladiatorial actually. Without the mess.

It's frustrating to read tripe spread about as fact or "cutting edge science" ... cutting edge reality more like - but this is what you valiant educators do isn't it? ... not just dispense knowledge and wisdom but also confront delusion and ignorance. We're knee deep in it out here you know.

I know - it's Tuesday and you didn't really mean it. One should never mean anything on Tuesdays.

Oh but I did mean it, Mr Peter - but perhaps not as you had envisioned.

No powerpoint or even over-heads required (do the GenY's even know what overheads are?) - just succinct statements showing that one has read and understood the full paper that one cites.

Let me illustrate:

Baz Bardoe posts this:
"The senior post doctoral researchers in vaccine safety at the Univeristy of British Columbia, Dr Lucija Tomijanovic and Professor Chris Shaw, contend that aluminium adjuvents are most probably linked to autism.. Their article here: http://omsj.org/reports/tomljenovic%202011.pdf";

Sue Ieraci goes to the article, and finds that:
1. Those researchers (whose papers she has previously seen used in anti-vax arguments) are not "researchers in vaccine safety" at all.
2. Their paper is not a research report but a theoretical discourse, which calls for more research.
3. WHere Baz Bardoe says "contend that aluminium adjuvents are most probably linked to autism..", the actual paper says nothing of the sort.

A reasonable (brief) critical analysis of this paper would then be:
"These authors are researchers within the Neural Dynamics Research Group, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, at the University of British Columbia. They have several publications in low-impact journals in the area of vaccination, although this is not their specialty area. The specific paper cited is in a journal of inorganic chemistry. The paper is a theoretical discourse - not a research report. What they do is correlate a rising incidence of ASD diagnoses with an expanding vaccination schedule. This has occurred during a time that ASD has been more precisely defined and more commonly diagnosed. They have only shown correlation of two things - not causation."

See? No need for powerpoints, graphs or long dissertations. Just a bit of effort and some intellectual honesty

Patrick, thank you very much for engaging in this conversation... I also lost the thread after JRSaul's early works.
I, like Craig, am troubled by the issue of humility before superior knowledge or expertise.

I think we are experiencing a fundamental shift, both in the ways our minds work and consequently in the way in which we, collectively, perceive the world... as our perception changes, our understanding of the truth also changes.

Most of our education systems have to date been based on a very linear model... a growth model, where new knowledge is built on the shoulders of existing knowledge. This is consistent with the use of logic and reason.

This has been extremely useful in building up the body of human knowledge but has meant that in order to continue to build we have to become more and more specialised. Existing knowledge in most disciplines is now so complex that it requires years of reading and learning and research just to get to the frontier of knowledge before you can think of adding to it. When following along this path it is appropriate that we acknowledge with humility those who have trodden this path before us.

I suggested that we are experiencing a fundamental shift because I believe that the internet is changing everything. Access to base level knowledge is significantly greater. This allows for a substantially greater ability to challenge expressed 'truths'. As a result, the holders of knowledge are no longer able to bluff their way through... this is particularly evident in government... most governments around the world are being challenged to an unprecedented degree... and 'fundamental truths' like 'economic growth is good' and so should be the principal purpose of government is no longer accepted.

The democratisation of knowledge, the free access to knowledge, is the best way to arrive at the truth. Provide all the existing knowledge freely to all and allow it to be challenged from any and all angles by all interested parties. This is the foundation of a truly democratic society.

Most of our society consists of churches of knowledge, whether its religion, or science, economics, law, medicine or immunology. The high priests of these churches demand humility, demand that the rest of us bow down to their superior knowledge.

In the same way that the printing press democratised access to knowledge and resulted in both the Protestant revolution and the Enlightenment, so will the internet and social networking again democratise knowledge, taking it out of the hands of self appointed 'experts'. It will do this, not using the linear model but by hyperlinking across disciplines to create a connected flow of ideas... and we will know the truth when it resonates across large sections, or all, of the population... not when we are simply told that it is the truth.

The ability to hyper-link across disciplines is an expression of the lateral thinking that is absent from our current systems and I can't wait to see the explosion of ideas to come.

LOL It's also a bit like arguing that a mechanic doesn't know how your car works because you're the one driving it.

Steve,

You're playing with a few words dishonestly, or you just don't know what they mean. I'm willing to grant the latter.

First, You can't "agree" that much about the theory AND craft of music is rational because I only asserted that the theory of music is rational, not the craft, so this is not agreeing with me. I do agree that the creative/artistic element of music is not rational, but only in the sense that it is not a question of rationality. You say that it's not a matter of preference and value and then proceed to point out that non-musicians 'value' music's creativity. This is part of the creative process though: What do I value and have preference for (this could relate to sounds, techniques, physical and technical capabilities etc.) and what do my (intended) audience value and have preference for?

As I said in my first post, I'm not going to suggest that this is a stupid argument to have because I have heck loads of musical knowledge to back me up and so therefore I'm right. But all you have to go on is the value you place in music and your preferences, which only serves to prove my point! What is it beyond preference and value that you think is involved?

2. Telling me what I can and can't teach is pretty dangerous territory. I actually do teach these things and I teach them well. Why can I only teach the rules which they will then break? I teach them the rational theory and I teach them what they can do to move beyond that and get creative, which is, by the way, completely a matter of preference and value. It's also my job to teach this. Beauty and art I'd like to point out, are matters of preference and value (personal or cultural), so again, you're proving my point.

I think we need a working definition of creativity to further this part of the conversation, I'm happy to receive amendments. Here's mine: creativity is taking existing ideas and applying them in new ways.

3. I don't think anybody is suggesting that having rational knowledge makes you superior. I'm not anyway. More rational, sure, but that's not superior, unless you measure superiority (which I have no interest in whatsoever) by that marker alone... You're misunderstanding something about music theory. Music theory, like scientific theories, is a model for how musical concepts interrelate. It is not a set of 'rules', it is a guide to help us understand and organise the things which we have discovered about music. Much as the laws of physics aren't rules about how physics is required to work, so much as a list of observations about how it does, in fact, work.

Anyway, great musicians without knowledge of music theory had only their preference and value for certain sounds, techniques and other musical ideas to go on.

4. I did not assert that God might exist after claiming that his existence is correct. I said that an assertion can be correct but irrational because you have no evidence for it. I then used God as an example for an irrational belief because of a lack of evidence.

Whether or not God is provable is based on how you define God. You have provided the definition that God is beyond understanding. I'd be interested in discussing this, and I'd ask what the point of something beyond our understanding is (and point out that that's a paradox because you understand that God is beyond understanding - how do you understand this?), but it's irrelevant to my main discussion, so I'll leave it to the side for now... Yes, I know I'm being cheeky getting my point in there.

Something being correct but not provable rationally only shows that it is not yet rationally understood, not that it is beyond understanding. If I don't know what a chair is made of, it's irrational to assert that it's made of wood, even if it is made of wood. I can later prove that it is made of wood, and only at that point is it rational to assert so. I do not assume that because I don't know something that it cannot be known (that would seem rather arrogant, or at least presumptuous).

I'm in total agreement that anyone insisting God exists is enforcing their opinion as if it was truth. There is absolutely no evidence for His existence. I think you may have thought that I was asserting this, but I think I've cleared that up.

5. You're missing the point about music and art. They are not questions of rationality, there is no 'established enforced truth' about music or art. You can't factually say "this is good art" or "this is bad art", even less "this is true art" or "this is false art". You could say these things based on your preferences and values; It's not a question of rationality. I agree everyone should be able to express themselves artistically however they like (that is according to their preferences and values!) because art has nothing to do with facts.

On matters of fact, however, you should not make assertions that contradict facts without proof and evidence to back up those assertions. Is that so hard to understand?