Back To Vaccines

This topic just keeps coming back this year, and I beginning to feel more and more passionate about it, especially when I hear the news that children are becoming seriously sick, or are dying, because they are not receiving their recommended shots.

I'm following the Science-Based Medicine Blog almost every day, since its contributors are top notch professionals in their fields. There are two worthy articles posted today that give you an amazing overview of the topic:

14 Studies Later* - this one is by Mark Crislip, who's a great authority on infectious diseases (and has a great podcast Quackcast). He gives you a first hand analysis of the whole debate, and the validity if the recent studies that show absolutely no connection between vaccines (and specifically MMR), mercury and autism.

J.B. Handley, Generation Rescue, and attacks on critics - great post, as always, by David Gorsky.

As I Was Saying...

Just yesterday, I was blogging about The Huffington Post, as I saw a great post about it on the Science-Based Medicine, and what do you know... today, it serves us the best piece of science dong we could collectively imagine: a commentary by no other than Jim Carrey (yes, the actor) on a science-related issue:

The Judgment on Vaccines Is In???

This is as good as it gets: a person, who has no clue about science, take a stand on science topic and thinks he knows best!!!

We just have to keep it in mind, not to use The Huffington Post as anything but entertainment, since they don't do real news and facts for sure.

Pseudoscience in the New Media

The so called "new media" has been grabbing my attention for some time now. First, there were blogs (just like this one), then social sites, and now it's the never ending stream of information from our smart phones, Twitter, RSS and such...
However, the controls are gone, there is no "time to press" anymore, since every piece of information is instantly available, not only on the Net, but in the palms of our hands. How bad it can get? Well, take one of the most popular blog/news sites on the Internet: The Huffington Post. You can hear about it everywhere: on the Internet, in the print media, TV, you name it. It has an aura of authority, if not by the fact that it is cited in a vast number of places on a regular basis. But, is it really a reliable source of news?
Politically, it has it's own "color", but that can be good, or bad, depending on where you stand in the political spectrum. From the scientific point of view, there are no opinions, only facts, which can be either correct, or not (and that's easily verifiable). It is this arena that sites like The Huffington Post fail miserably. As I am no authority on scientific matters, I refer you to the recent post on the Science-Based Medicine blog:

Pseudoscience In Medical News at the Huffington Post

More on vaccines.

I guess, I have been writing about vaccines more than anything else, but the news just keep coming. If you want to know more about some of the recent, and really good studies that still fail to link vaccines and autism (no surprise there), check the latest post on the Science-Based Medicine blog:

More On Fourteen Studies

Larry King... get some facts and a backbone.

Well, along Oprah, Larry King must be the king (pun intended) of misinformation and (more, and more often) just pure stupidity. I know it's all about the ratings and the $$$, but come on, CNN, don't sink any lower, the bottom can't be far away. I'm not sure who goes to CNN for real news anymore, since they have been selling off to ratings for a while, but it is time to dump Larry. His handling of the facts (easily verifiable ones too!!!) puts him in a really bad spot.

Last Friday, he had Jenny McCarthy (and her boyfriend, Jim Carrey) on again, and they spilled their dumbness, like last year. It was hard to watch!!! There is a nice writeup about it on the Science Based Medicine Blog:

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends: The Jenny and Jim antivaccine propaganda tour has begun

It's good to see that Ms. McCarthy has a real body count attached to her stupidity:
www.jennymccarthybodycount.com

Let's hope it helps!!!

One cool game...

If you like physics and astronomy, you'd love this on-line game:

Star Formation: The Game

It sure is fun.

Do we want our children to get sick... some of the parents do!

Here is an interesting tidbit from our favorite "mom", Jenny McCarthy:

TIME: Your collaborator recommends that parents accept only the haemophilus
influenzae type B (HIB) and tetanus vaccine for newborns and then think about
the rest. Not polio? What about the polio clusters in unvaccinated communities
like the Amish in the U.S.? What about the 2004 outbreak that swept across
Africa and Southeast Asia after a single province in northern Nigeria banned
vaccines?
JM: I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming
back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If
the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it's their f___ing fault that the
diseases are coming back. They're making a product that's s___. If you give us a
safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio versus autism.

Here is the entire interview:
Jenny McCarthy Talks About Autism and Vaccines

Ok... can you be any dumber?

Read a blog entry about this topic on the Science Based Medicine blog:
In Jenny McCarthy's own words

In a related news, some of those diseases are really coming back as drop our herd immunity:
State issues measles alert after suspected cases at Children's Hospital

Busy Monday

Looks like a busy day.

Work is getting crazy, projects piling up, and so many things are happening in the blogosphere.

First, I'm happy to report that an e-mail I had sent to St. Petersburg Times got published both on line and in print (in the Sat, 03/28/2009 edition). I write the letter to the editor because I got mildly annoyed by an article published in the LivingTimes add-on the the paper on Wednesday, March 25th. Its topic was acupuncture, and it was very uncritical and, in my opinion, should be labeled as "Advertisement". To make the story short, the original article is here:

Some folks find pain relief with acupuncture

and my letter:

Higher standards needed


On to the other topics...

Everyone was a bit too optimistic about Texas last week, however, at least my home state of Florida seems to be safe when it comes to education standards: A bit of confusion, but all is good

Let's hope it stays that way, at least in the Sunshine State.

Ouch Florida... Do we have to do it every year?

Just like I mentioned yesterday, some of our "enlightened" leaders in the State of Florida, came up with another brilliant idea:

State Sen Steve Wise, R-Jacksonville has quietly filed legislation that would
change the way Florida schools teach Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Evolution Bill Quietly Filed In State Senate

This nonsense is coming back every year (or even more often). Yet another proof that you don't have to be smart to be a politician...

Science Wins!!!

Good news from Texas:

Incredible news out of Texas: creationists have lost a big battle to destroy
science education in the Lone Star State!

Breaking news: SCIENCE WINS IN TEXAS!! Barely.

Let's hope this will not come back in the future in Texas, but it is brewing in Florida for sure, as you can see below:

Florida Citizens for Science