Who says scientists have no sense of humor?
Published July 20th, 2008 in MMR Vaccine, Science Education, Vaccines
Weekend Sick Humor Edition
On Friday, both Orac and PalMD had posts covering the issue of science education about vaccines and immunization. I highly recommend both posts and the discussion (comments) after each article. Even “Framing” theorists Matthew Nisbet and Chris Mooney got into the discussion at Respectful Insolence. (See also A Paediatricians Series on Vaccinations.)
One common view is that a movie star or other celebrity will have more influence on the common man or woman than a boring, nerdy scientist: “No matter what McCarthy did in her heyday, in the court of public opinion, she will always win when up against anyone with a PhD.”
Okay, the anti-vaccination movement has their Dumb and Dumber:
It seems that scientists who would like to educate the public about vaccines have found an ally in Amanda Peet and her cute (vaccinated) toddler.
Now the question becomes: Who could be our male celebrity representative? It should be somebody with a sense of humor, to match the appeal of Jim Carrey. Well, recently I came across the Country Profile for Kazakhstan. Based on survey data, the percentage of children immunized against measles has been ranging between 95 and 99 percent for the last several years. So what better science educator than a representative from that great nation? And he even has the same taste in bathing suits as Mr. Carrey.
VOILA!:
Borat is a good choice for another reason apart from Kazakhstan’s vaccination stats and his startling choice in beachwear. His alter ego, Sacha Baron-Cohen, is the first cousin of noted autism expert and Cambridge Professor Simon Baron-Cohen.
Professor Baron-Cohen has commented publicly several times (e.g. here) that the so-called “autism epidemic” (so beloved of the “poisons in vaccines” crazies) is almost certainly non-existent, and that the changing autism statistics reflect improved diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorders, together with widening of the diagnostic criteria.
PS Apart from Amanda Peet, the other female celeb who has appeared in vaccination campaigns is Jennifer Garner, who is the face and spokesperson of the American Lung Association’s ‘flu vaccine campaign. For doing this she has been denounced , predictably, as a “Big Pharma patsy” on innumerable “natural nutrition” sites.
Say,
I’m faceblind (prosopagnosic). The people in the first picture are not referenced, and I’m sure that the majority of the “People” magazine-reading population knows who they are, but I sure don’t.
Also, please give some kind of coffee-spew warning before including pictures like these guys … I will have to go calculate dihybrid Punnett Squares for a while to get over the visual agony!
andrea
@andrea: Sorry. I’ll edit the post and identify the people in the pictures. Meanwhile: the top photo is of Jim Carrey and Jenny MCarthy. The middle three photos are of Amanda Peet and her baby. The bottom photo is of the fictional Kazakhstani “Borat,” AKA the British comedian Sacha Baron-Cohen.
@Dr Aust: Thanks for informing us about the connection to Professor Simon Baron-Cohen. If you haven’t seen them already, you may be interested in my previous posts on autism prevalence and diagonostic substitution at http://epiwonk.com/?p=38, http://epiwonk.com/?p=39, and http://epiwonk.com/?p=82.
Thanks, Epiwonk. I kind of figured you knew already, but though I’d post the connection just in case.
I do read the blog, (though more often Orac’s paraphrases of your work - lazy, I know) but hadn’t read all the autism prevalence ones.
The letter Simon Baron-Cohen wrote to the British newspaper the Observer was after they published an utterly dire story talking about the “rising tide of autism” almost exactly a year ago (coinciding, not in the least coincidentally, with the start of the medical licensing misconduct hearing against Dr Andrew Wakefield). The story generated an enormous (largely blog-based) backlash in the UK; Ben Goldacre did several scathing stories on it which can be found here if you are interested (scroll down to find them).
I am a physiologist by trade so I tend to avoid blogging the MMR / vaccine / autism story as there are others much better qualified (like yourself). Though occasionally my annoyance with the credulous media coverage gets the better of me (and here).
One epidemiology-related issue I have written about is the “increased cancer risk from chlorinated water” idea that some of the water-woo people like to riff on. I did my take on this here, mostly dealing with the way risk is “framed”, though it sort of alludes to the epidemiology here and there.
Anyway, keep up the good work. There seems to be so much misuse of epidemiology at the “mock-scientific” end of woo that it is good to know you are out there shooting down their nonsense. It also helps no end as a blogger to know, when someone sticks up an idiotic claim, that you can say “well here’s a real epidemiologist explaining in detail exactly why that idea / letter / paper was a crock”.
One of the latest posts in the thread on Jay Gordon at Orac’s website refers to Hugh Heffner’s “Gardasil Girls”, who apparently promote use of Gardasil. (I have to admit I did a double take on reading that, but it does at least seem serious.) Not really sure that Hugh is everyone’s idea of the best supporter, but its interesting…!
From that post: “I hear that someone told him [Hugh Heffner] that GR [Generation Rescue] was against girls and boys getting the Gardasil vaccine to prevent them from getting genital herpes and cancer, but Hugh’s hearing went a few years ago and he thought that Jenny McCarthy was hosting a benefit to pay for Gardasil for preschoolers. A natural mistake. But embarassing for Hef and the Gardasil Girls (TM), not to mention for GR.”
Just for amusement value. (Sorry if this isn’t a terribly erudite contribution… maybe I really should start reading those papers instead of procrastinating…)
I was going to post this over at PalMD, but I thought that you might actually know how to answer my questions.
How useful would it be as a public health practice to put up signs in public places that people who are not vaccinated should avoid them? For their own safety and for the safety of people who have compromised immune systems.
I am mostly thinking about hospitals because there are people there that are immunocompromised, but also places like sports stadiums, concerts, supermarkets, malls, airports, mass transit and any other place that many people congregate. In the past, didn’t they close theaters during epidemics?
I don’t know how feasible it would be to calculate the degree of risk that the congregating of certain groups would have, depending on the degree of immunization in the community. Then when the “risk” reaches a certain level gatherings of certain types could be discouraged.
For example something like the superbowl is the ideal place to spread something pretty contageous. The people who run the superbowl would do virtually anything to prevent it from being canceled, including making a vaccination record a condition of entry.
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points I disagree with some, but most seems accurate. Thanks.
Tr?s bon article, merci
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