To ask you to help me argue with an anti-vaxxer on fb

[GoesDownLikeACupOfColdSick]

I know, I know. But it's Saturday night, DP is out and I am just home whilst our (fully vaccinated!) DD is asleep.

What do I say to someone who is convinced that we should all do our own research, that vaccines are only about big pharma making big bucks, and that the govt hushes up vaccine damage??

it is hilarious when a person with no education whatsoever who doesn't know what a cell or a gene are but can google things from their sofa tells someone with a PhD in molecular biology to "go educate yourself"

Aurynne, that is the most devastating reply of all time! The sad bit though is that mentioning you have made vaccines would promptly relegate you to the Dark Side. You'd be thought of as part of The Conspiracy, rather than as someone who has every reason to know what the hell they're talking about.

double blind, peer reviewed research
Eh? What's the annonimity of the author got to do with whether or not someone on the internet has or hasn't done any research?

I've had research submitted to medical journals and it wasn't double blind peer reviewed. Does that make it less valid?

Anniegetyourgun, probably, but easily refuted as I never worked for a private company, always for public ones with very public funding. However, arguing with dickheads for whom thinking, reasoning or - God forbids - changing their minds is an admission of weakness is usually a waste of time anyway. I just do it for the fun of showing them up.

Worryingly, the biggest anti-vaccer I know in real life is a midwife . She's a very nice person but I hope she doesn't push the anti-vacc stuff on vulnerable new mothers.

Tell him whenever there is a situation where working together gets the biggest benefit for both the whole and the individuals in it, there is always some prick who fucks it all up because of some percieved benefit they think they can get above the others by not joining in. The person who searches for the latest dated food but fucks up stick rotation, the person who gets the most expensive meal on a split bill because 'everyone in only subsidising me a little bit' amd the person who fucks up herd immunity because he thinks his kid will be slightly less poisoned than all the others if he doesn't join in...

I've met some anti vaxxers. You just can't have a sensible debate with them.

I've had research submitted to medical journals and it wasn't double blind peer reviewed. Does that make it less valid?

I have no idea, I'm not a scientist, which is exactly my point. I'm not competent to perform research which would be considered acceptable or really know what the difference is. Therefore me going off reading stuff of the Internet is useless. My better avenue is to accept that other people have trained for this competence and their universal judgement points one way.

MrsDustyBusty
All very well, but how do you know who has and who hasn't got that competence? There's no point in accusing antivaxxers of having done nothing but online research as most published medical papers are online.

I'm not suggesting that people do their own research at all. I'm suggesting that listening to what the vast majority of medical authorities agree on is safer and saner for people who aren't in a position to discuss adequate research.

I know you're spoiling for an argument and you're going to start talking about how gullible I must be to trust the likes of the WHO over my own independent findings but that's what I did.

I fear you have all met my dp he's recently become a huge government conspiracy nut, and his mom always told him that vaccines cause autism
I agree with 'you can't argue with stupid', I never pull the "I'm the mom I get final say" card, but, dd is being vaccinated, and he's accepted it now.

This is the problem with it. I'm a lawyer. I know how much training it takes to decipher legal terms, documents and court decisions. A good example is a break clause, where the lay person would think "and the tenant has complied with his covenants" means nothing because he's been a good tenant, whereas I know that means clouds of biblical thunder and lightning.

So I would never presume to believe that I was remotely qualified to do my own medical research! What these people mean is, read some of the more hysterical stuff online because it's written more persuasively and hyperbolically than the science.

As for the PPs who've said, "if you're so convinced about vaccines, why ask for help" - it's a discussion board, isn't it? Why are any of us here?!?

@MimiTheWonderGoat, what journal was that? Was it open-review or no peer-review at all? Was it a commissioned article, what was your conflict of interests statement?

Something I recently realised, GoesDownLikeACupOfColdSick, is that the law actually has higher standards for admissible evidence than science. In science, we can do a lot of cherry-picking in our lit reviews & analysis in our discussion (analysis = expert opinion - still just opinion). The stakes are higher in law, so the evidence is much more closely about legal principles & fact to the extent the facts can be known.

Not at all MrsDustyBusty (if that was directed at me).
I had a run in on fb about use of fluoride. I have done ooooooodles of research into fluoride and decided not to use it on my baby's teeth because she wasn't able to spit it out. It may have teeth strengthening properties but it's also a neurotoxin. She has a healthy diet and now as a toddler has perfect teeth, no erosion, no cavities.
Anyhow, on a fb breastfeeding page there were lots of comments about dentists saying breastfeeding at night causes cavities. Many women whose toddlers had cavities were blaming themselves for having breastfed at night. I piped up that not only had I breastfed day and night for over two years but we hadn't used fluoride toothpaste and my dd's teeth were perfect. I suggested it was perhaps lack of oral hygiene, upper lip tie or drinking juice from sippy cups/bottles that were the more likely causes of decay on top front teeth rather than breastfeeding. Well, I was jumped on as if I was the anti-fluoride brigade! Attacked by some lunatic claiming to be a scientist accusing me of having read nothing but Mercola sites and claiming I knew nothing about fluoride.
My point is, how the heck did she know what I'd read or researched. I presume she was a dentist. They aren't all as clued up as we'd like to think. I dated one, and he was a tosser!

MedSchoolRat, the JCPP for one.

@MimiTheWonderGoat, Can you make the case for non-systematic "Practitioner" Reviews? I don't understand how they are so popular & cited?

Commissioned reviews are often the worst documents for C. of Interest statements (either missing or shocking in stated bias). And they entrench the positions of top academics, stifling diversity of views. I also want to know who paid the Open Access Publishing fee on every article. THAT could be quite revealing.

Methinks you are just trying to make yourself look clever.

Sense about Science is a great resource for things like this, especially their Making Sense of... series. Link here: Link to website I've found it to be helpful when discussing issues like this without sounding condesending, or just plain overbearing.

Thereby avoiding the question Mimi

Seeking scientific rigour is "trying to look clever"?

Ah yes, the world is "sick of experts" (unless they say what people already want to believe). Silly me to forget that.

I had a run in on fb about use of fluoride. I have done ooooooodles of research into fluoride and decided not to use it on my baby's teeth because she wasn't able to spit it out. It may have teeth strengthening properties but it's also a neurotoxin

I used to eat toothpaste everyday when brushing my teeth. I also used to eat it when I went to the bathroom. I loved the taste. My mum wondered why we went thru it so quickly. I did this for many years from a young age. I also had flouride drops as a baby.

For a neuro toxin eating it daily for a long period of time did me no harm.

"It's OK, you don't have to vaccinate all your children.

Just the ones you want to keep"

FreeNiki, I'm glad you have no long-term consequences, because high levels of fluoride are known to be harmful.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoride#Ingestion

I guess I got lucky.

Gotta love Wikipedia.