I turned off the video once she said 'to each their own'.

No, fuck you. 'To each their own' is not the sort of shit you say when your decision directly impacts the health and welfare of not only your own child, but all the children your child will ever interact with. If I can't get my child vaccinated because they have a compromised immune system -- and you decide not to get your child vaccinated because you're a fucking moron -- you have now put my child in jeopardy.

If my child dies because you're too much of an idiot to understand how science works, you responding with a shrug and 'Well, to each their own' will end with your teeth jammed so far down your throat that they'll have to bring in a proctologist to retrieve your dental records.

To clarify, I'm not trying to be threatening and maybe I should apologize for that, because that is really violent imagery. Just, this issue gets me really angry, particularly the flippancy with which anti-vaccination proponents treat the indisputable fact that their decisions *put people's lives at risk*.

No need to apologize -- people like this are fair game to vent about.

I'm not even convinced they can grasp a world where children die from infectious diseases or suffer permanent disability. To them (I imagine) it's about standing out from the crowd, and being better moms than the rest.

Sure, there's some appeal to taking the Road Less Traveled, because it may make you smarter than the crowd. Then again, sometimes that road is less traveled because it's the stupid road. Sometimes the crowd knows best, for example an America in which childhood diseases have been tamed.

> To them (I imagine) it's about standing out from the crowd, and being better moms than the rest.

I dread parenthood because of this. Loud mouthed people caring more about being self-righteous about parenting than being good parents, people who call the cops when they see a child playing in the park alone, and people looking down on others without all organic everything can all eat a dick, but anti-vaxers are the worst of the lot.

What the hell are you talking about? Say what you want about what she does professionally, she clearly says over and over she didn't want to talk about vaccination or her family. It's the Huff Post harpy that keeps asking about it. There's no 'standing out from the crowd & being a better mom than the rest", you fucking idiot.

But it's the interviewer that made all of you angry, but since you're angry *at* this woman, you see nothing. I'm sure you think that since I'm not mocking the woman's soon-to-be dead child that I agree that vaccinations cause autism.

No, I think you're a fucking idiot for concluding that, just because she doesn't want to be known far and wide as an anti-vaxxer, she isn't trying to stand out and be smarter than everyone else. Even if it's only she and her private circle of friends know that she's so much better than the mere "normals" out there, that still provides the emotional satisfaction she's looking for.

What they need is to be thrown in jail for child endangerment.

Jenny McCarthy calls it "the University of Google". Apparently without irony.

I think autism has increased quite a bit, and they have proved this, so it is more than just being able to diagnose it. I know breast cancer rates have gone up by nine times, too. I think these diseases are the result of environmental pollution and most doctors that study this for a living are concentrating on that and trying to isolate what is doing it.

I think it's a far more likely answer.

"Since 2004, the incidence of breast cancer has remained stable"

http://ww5.komen.org/BreastCancer/Statistics.html#sthash.7stGZ usj.dpuf

Plus, you know, the unspoken message is 'I'd rather my child died than became autistic'.

Now, I'm not some 'PRO AUTISM NEURODIVERSITY BLARGH' sort, but...that's pretty damn fucked up, you know?

I actually meant since a hundred years ago.

Bobonne - I don't think that's entirely fair. One can be skeptical of the necessity, or even safety, of certain courses of action without actively preferring a worst-case scenario, particularly if you're convinced that the alternative will almost certainly lead to harm.

Anyway, I'm with magnesium on this one. I've always been under the impression that the apparent prevalence of autism was a simply an illusion produced the shifting focus of diagnoses, with perhaps a healthy dose of under-qualified medical professionals over-diagnosing a trendy new ailment thrown into the mix (I myself was "diagnosed" as autistic at one point, but the doctor in question was clearly wrong). HOWEVER! I am not a qualified expert, either, and I do not personally know of any solid clinical data that supports this position. If you can provide sources that support your hypothesis, RoUS, I would love to see them.

Rodents, even 100 years ago, cancer rates weren't significantly higher than they are today.

http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/cancer- prevalent-usa-another-myth-debunked/

I also think you're mistaken that it's been "proved" that autism has "increased quite a bit." Autism isn't like cancer, in that its identification is frequently subjective. "Autism" is a diagnosis being given to people who would have received a different diagnosis for the same condition 20-30 years ago.

Sorry, meant to write that cancer rates weren't significantly LOWER than they are today.

well there's this

http://blog.autismspeaks.org/2010/10/22/got-questions-answers- to-your-questions-from-the-autism-speaks%E2%80%99-science-staff-2/

which has some citations

and

http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/April-2013/CDC-Reports-1 -in-50-American-Children-Diagnosed-wi.aspx

goddamit the last link was to a shitty anti vacc site and I thought it was pro vaccine. I'm tired and the Internet is shitty.

You know what, I might have been wrong.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2012/07/11/is-autism-an -epidemic-or-are-we-just-noticing-more-people-who-have-it/#.VGhEcs k46vQ

Surely, the fact that so many kids today are diagnosed with autism has nothing to do with the fact that children diagnosed with autism get more attention in the public schools than the kids not diagnosed with autism, and the vast majority of children diagnosed with autism are caucasian. Autism is a wildly overdiagnosed syndrome that is frequently used as a mental workaround to avoid considering one's self racist while also coming up with many diverse reasons why your little Aryan needs special attention.

I suggest, personally, that the number of diagnosed cases of autism will, in fact, drop with more access to healthcare. More children will not be diagnosed, and thus it will normalize the study pool.

Also, just as a warning, be very skeptical of anything 'Autism Speaks' throws out there as 'fact'. They're a bunch of paternalistic loons.

Too-OOO ma-a-ny boo-ooks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCItH8faMZw

Thanks, Bort! Excellent documentary about Ethics in gaming journalism!

I just got the subtle and insightful double meaning of spikestoyiu's comment. Neatly spiked, spike!

WTF, That guy?

Nope, try again. Too many ______

Don't mind if I don't.

Aw c'mon, here's a hint: it's a filthy slur for Koreans.

U GOT SPIKED

Okay, fine, the answer is: Too Many Kim Jong-un Fanatuks.

WTF are you WTFing about?

I want to say that the prejudice against government getting between parents and kids is a good thing more often than it's a bad thing, I believe it is, but I don't know if I have any data that can prove it. What's weird about the anti-vax thing is that it runs counter to the usual expectations. Educated liberal parents against, proving that noone has a monopoly on being a dipshit.

Wanted to say "Educated Liberal Parents Against Science"

A SPOOF of TOO MANY COOKS? Are you fucking kidding me?

Oh wait. I just realized, you probably are

But which side is lying to us?!

I typed out a wall of text rant, but decided I was meandering and deleted it.

You have to start with some level of trust in the scientific community, and you have to be able to have the reading comprehension / scientific literacy to be able to get the gist of a scientific paper. Otherwise, how can you claim to be able to differentiate between this source and that source based on anything other than whim or which idea conforms more closely to your specific prejudices and paranoias?

Anyone who rejects this premise (ie someone who shrugs and says "what the hell, we are lied to a lot) is an enemy of knowledge and progress by definition.

Fair nothing. Fair would be for media personalities to pointedly ask these people to provide sources for their claims, and then ridicule them into silence when they provide none.

Science gets shit done. We have faith in science because of its track record.

Yeah, in general, I'm going to trust doctors -- particularly doctors who have spent their lives studying immunology and vaccines.

A lot of these problems are solved once you build a suite of good tools to identify who the experts are (and what their agenda is), then go about listening to what they have to say.

That's exactly what I did.