OT: fraudulent study exposed - responses

[Guest guest]

We received two responses to the following query, copied further down. Many

thanks!

News item: On our local news, just after the piece, the station interviewed

a mom who refuses to believe that the study showing that vaccines cause

autism could be wrong. Her argument? " Why did so many parents see the same

thing? Our children receiving vaccines, and the onset of autism in our

children shortly afterwards. "

Question: Is this a valid argument? How would you explain the limits of

her observation?

==

A couple of factors, I think. First, it's easy to confuse correlation with

causation. Often, autism isn't able to be diagnosed until 12-18 months of

age...which is when the MMR vaccine is administered. So there's a

correlation between the two, because they both happen at roughly the same

age, which makes it easy to make the leap that one causes the other: " Hey,

my child didn't start showing signs of autism until he got that vaccine a

few months ago. " The signs of autism, and resulting diagnosis, get tied to

the vaccine--even though the truth is that signs of autism don't show up

until that age regardless.

Therefore, it becomes hard for people to let go of this notion: they've seen

the relationship with their own eyes, which carries more weight with them

than doctors crunching numbers in a medical journal.

On top of that, on very personal matters such as the health of our children,

I think it's easier and somehow more comforting to latch onto external

factors as causes of problems. Something about " an MMR vaccine caused my

child's autism " seems easier than " a genetic abnormality caused my child's

autism. " Genetic defects are random, and that's scary because it's totally

out of our control. On top of that, genetic defects are personal, because

they are tied to our own bodies...and so random defects springing from our

own physical characteristics are personal, and scary. Attaching blame to

external factors--evil pharma corporations angling for world domination--is

much easier and more comforting. When the woman interviewed is again

confronted with the reality that her son's autism may be random and

personal, it's hard to let go of that thought.

Finally, let's face it: this is one of the classic conspiracy theories. Big

pharma = world domination. The attraction of any conspiracy theory is: the

more someone presents evidence against the theory, the more the theorists

can say " This is more evidence the conspiracy is true. The conspirators are

doing everything they can to disprove the theory; why would they try so hard

if it weren't true in the first place? "

I'm not saying the woman is unreasonable, or consciously thinking in those

terms. But I am saying that many of our thoughts and decisions--maybe even

most of our thoughts and decisions--are affected far more by emotion and

hidden factors/triggers than they are by logic.

We're all guilty of it, in different areas of our lives. I think most of us,

after diagnosis, went through a period of " What caused this? " We wanted

answers about what may have caused lymphoma. So we read about fertilizer.

And we read about hair coloring products. And we read about Epstein-Barr

virus. And we read about benzine. Something inside us wanted an explanation

about what caused our bodies to turn against us. " We don't know what caused

this " is an unacceptable answer for the human imagination, and this is a

great thing. That need to describe, explain and solve everything is what has

led to every advancement in civilization.

From an emotional standpoint, however, " We don't know what caused this "

pretty much sucks.

TL H.

==

You asked:

1. Is this a valid argument? - No; however a flawed argument, anecdotal

evidence, or even a fraudulently-conducted study don't necessarily

invalidate the premise they set out to prove; similarly,

scientifically-proven " facts " have later turned out to be invalid. I don't

mean to say that I believe the premise, and I do believe that vaccines writ

large have done a lot of good; however, I won't say that I believe they are

uncategorically and universally good and safe.

2. How would you explain the limits of her observation? - A mental

scotoma; sometimes we see what we want to see, or fear to see. A person

frequently will latch onto things that support or reinforce their

preconceived notions that something is true despite overwhelming evidence to

the contrary.

Thanks for asking,

T

==

Re: even a fraudulently-conducted study don't necessarily invalidate the

premise they set out to prove; similarly, scientifically-proven " facts " have

later turned out to be invalid.

I think that's true, but this was the only study (of many) showing a

possible causal connection, which likely prompted the closer scrutiny.

Similarly, FDA will do direct examinations of evidence that is not

consistent with outcomes submitted by other centers in a multi-center

clinical trial submitted for marketing approval.

If vaccines were a causal factor leading to autism, the association would be

seen in multiple studies that have sufficient power (ie, sufficient sample

size) to detect it. When you get a result that deviates from the others,

you have to examine the study for bias - such as methods of selecting the

participants or how the outcomes was measured, or less often for fraud .

that may have led to the discordant findings.

Karl