Don't Let Facts Get in the Way...
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Smitty's post about people warning Congress not to be distracted by "studies" reminded me of a fairly recent example of a similar event. There are people so entrenched in their beliefs that they refuse to accept anything else. A few weeks ago, Andrew Wakefield's study that linked vaccinations to autism was shown to be an outright fraud. As it was said in the article, there were plenty of warning sign and the research overwhelmingly showed that Wakefield was wrong. Despite this, there were an increasing number of parents that were buying into this and using it as the main reason for not getting a vaccine.
Over the course of my professional career, I have run into a number of parents that believed as Wakefield believed. Strangely enough, this was a very diverse group, from hippy, tree huggers, to super evangelical, conservative Christians. In some cases, these people were of the type that just didn't want to be bothered by doing the research and just heard it from someone they respected and let it go unchallenged. In other cases, these were very smart people, so I don't know why the believed what they believed. The author points out:
The most mindboggling aspect of this dangerous game of chicken is that it's being played by earnest, well-intended parents looking out for their children's best interests — in the face of dubious scientific data. After all, no other credible scientist or researcher could duplicate Wakefield's work over the past decade, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the Institute of Medicine and just about every other credible scientist working in the area of childhood diseases have all said in various ways that there's no discernable link between vaccinations and autism. No fewer than 14 studies involving millions of children in several countries have found no meaningful difference in autism rates among kids who were vaccinated and those who weren't. Remember, Wakefield's study involved only 12 kids.
And yet the anti-vaccination crowd pushed on, its traction already firmly established.
Why does this happen? Read more...
