Vaccine misinformation persists as measles cases are soaring.
  • Godort@lemm.ee
    1492·
    6 months ago

    Im almost positive that Andrew Wakefield has caused more harm to modern medicine than any other person in the last 200 years.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
    732·
    6 months ago

    There’s a correlation between wearing socks and athlete’s foot. Socks cause athletes foot, clearly, and so we shouldn’t wear socks when wearing shoes.

  • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
    631·
    6 months ago

    It’s because there is no punishment for spreading false information. These cunt celebrities and politicians spread their fucking lies and if they are found out, they make an empty apology that reaches 1% of the people that they lied to, and it’s all forgive and forget. Fuck all of that. Every anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-education cunt out there needs to be strung up from the societal rafters. They have to be made an example of. At the bare minimum they should be doing tours helping to correct the lies they have spread, spending time on social media and running commercials like fucking community service hours. There has to be a punishment for this shit.

      • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
        18·
        6 months ago

        Ideally, you wouldn’t have to write a law for it, and the people would be held accountable by others. That’s a BIG wish, though, and I’m a realist–it’ll never happen. Instead, if it were written into law, it would have to be done the same ways that libel and slander laws are written, and there would have to be a criminal trial for it. I understand that up front that seems like a lot of extra work for the courts, but if the punishments were severe enough, then hopefully we would see an outright reduction on it.

        Some precedent for it would be libel laws as previously stated, false advertising laws, and public health laws like what Germany has instituted (NetzDG) that required social media to remove false health information within 24 hours.

        And just to make it clear, I don’t want to infringe on anyone’s right to free speech, but just like libel and slander laws, when that free speech damages others, then it has to be curbed. The scientific evidence is there for things like the mask mandate and the efficacy of vaccines, we just have to prove it in court and punish those who are guilty of spreading that false information.

        • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
          41·
          6 months ago

          I’m all in favour of this, and I try to do keep people accountable for what they say, even though I often end up getting insults for it. But to judge in court someone for spreading lies you would need to know the objective truth, and setting truth into stone would compromise science’a ability to propose radical new ideas.

          I think there are ways to do this without compromising science, though. But they are all susceptible to the 50% attack, made famous by cryptocurrencies. If you rely on a community to certify what truth is, you are exposed to a potential attack where a powerful enemy buys more than 50% of the network to make them say their lie is true and the actual truth is a lie. I don’t have a solution for that yet.

          • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
            1·
            6 months ago

            I’m not saying that the idea is perfect by any stretch, but we also can’t be beholden to what ifs. If we give up before we try because we might see failure down the line, then we might as well just start drinking bleach to cure our illnesses. Science can be proven. Mask mandates weren’t a hypothesis. Vaccine efficacy isn’t a hypothesis. If we get to where people in power are buying facts and we can no longer prove a truth in court, then we are beyond “mis-information” already.

  • GluWu@lemm.ee
    582·
    6 months ago

    I’m collecting vaccines like infinity stones. I’m going to unlock complete autism.

  • Mocking Moniker@lemmy.world
    412·
    6 months ago

    So, the universe is like a video game but the lesson is morality. Long story short, i have met the antivaxers and i understand. They are dishonest people. I dated their daughter. They will not listen because they’re arrogant. They will face horrors until they learn their lesson. The point is, this is a morality problem, not an education problem. Nothing will save them but their own misery you’re honestly trying to prevent.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
      4·
      6 months ago

      I’d say it is ,at least partly, an education problem.

      Sure, education is less likely to correct a deeply engraned false belief, but education is one of the most effective tools to prevent the lies, misinformation, and manipulation from taking hold in the first place.

      However, like most preventative measures, it will take a long time to see results.

      • Mocking Moniker@lemmy.world
        32·
        6 months ago

        OK, if you can educate them early, yeah. However, these folks were homeschooled. They were elitist and arrogant.

          • Mocking Moniker@lemmy.world
            21·
            5 months ago

            Yes, but i bet you don’t know how bad homeschooling is. It’s one of the few beliefs i share with the left that homeschooling is bad. It’s so bad that when people defend homeschooling, they get the objections wrong. Homeschooling fails so socialize children, and homeschooling advocates say that means children have no friends. Nobody says that. It’s so embarrassing. I dealt with homeschool kids and they’re fragile and weak.

            If i was on the left, i would cerebrate this like crazy. They are scared and they’re running away and what’s more their making their children weak.

    • Facebones@reddthat.com
      1·
      6 months ago

      My friends family is a bunch of trumpers, she’s apolitical and vaguely socially liberal.

      At her graduation party, they hung up a HUGE Trump banner. It wasn’t already up, they put it up before most people started showing up. Fucking insane.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    324·
    6 months ago

    Can we convince people that Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy and RFK, Jr. cause autism?

    (I don’t believe there’s anything actually wrong with being autistic, I have multiple autistic people in my family. I just think that would be amusing.)

    • OpenStars@discuss.onlineEnglish
      11·
      6 months ago

      Steps:

      1. be (usually born) rich
      2. have an agenda
      3. use your wealth to accomplish it
      4. lie, cheat, steal, do whatever you have to in order to “win”

      Did I leave anything out? :-P

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.caEnglish
      5·
      6 months ago

      Can we convince people that Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy and RFK, Jr. cause autism?

      Not autism. They cause death.

      • pivot_root@lemmy.world
        91·
        6 months ago

        For the idiots who avoid vaccinating their kids because “it causes autism,” death is preferable. Consider that they would rather take that risk than be put in a situation of having to parent a neuroatypical child.

        • WideEyedStupid@lemmy.world
          7·
          6 months ago

          This is what always got to me the most. Even if vaccines caused autism, wouldn’t that be preferable to your kid dying? Like, what the fuck is wrong with these people.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      6 months ago

      (I don’t believe there’s anything actually wrong with being autistic, I have multiple autistic people in my family. I just think that would be amusing.)

      there’s probably a less tenuous correlation there, though. just saying. Granted, correlation is not causation, but, eh… yeah.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        2·
        6 months ago

        I know, but imagine all of these people in this ludicrous panic suddenly thinking Wakefield is the culprit for autism…

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
    256·
    6 months ago

    We run into a few interesting possibilities here. Start with the assumption that more children are being diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. That gives us a few possibilities.

    1. Because there’s more and better screening autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is being caught more often. Okay, maybe. But.

    1.a) If more children are being appropriately diagnosed with ASD, then perhaps the criteria needs to be tightened up; at a certain point, behavior/feelings/thoughts are just normal.

    1. Because there’s more screening–but not necessarily better screening–children are being pathologized as having ASD when they do not, because too many clinicians don’t have the necessary expertise. This is a distinct possibility, in much the same way that kids are being labelled as having ADD/ADHD–and then getting drugs–when they’re more frequently just being kids.

    2. More children are actually on the autism spectrum now than there were 30 years ago. E.g., it’s not that more kids slipped through the cracks 30 years ago, but there is actually a higher rate of ASD than there was 30 years ago. This is the one that should cause the most concern; if this is actually the case, and can be demonstrated to be the case, then what factor is causing this maladaption?

    • thisisnotgoingwell@programming.dev
      8·
      6 months ago

      Agree on the better testing for ASD. According to the CDC, autism rates have doubled from the year 2000(1 in 68, vs 1 in 150).

      The consensus is that ASD is mostly genetic, however, there is some research going into other causes of autism, such environmental/biological causes. Personally, I think growing up with modern technology(kids being raised by YouTube/TikTok) impacts brain development/connections, so there are people with symptoms of ASD that otherwise would be “normal”

      The issue with diagnoses like this is that you arrive to the conclusion by looking at the symptoms. And there’s a lot of fucked up things going on right now that could cause more and more people to show symptoms.

      i’ve worked on building better habits such as exercise, maintaining social connections, and working through my emotions instead of repressing them, and I’ve noticed that many symptoms that I used to associate with ASD were really depression. Like some sort of coping, catatonic state. I’d imagine that with mental health being what it is, there’s probably a lot of people similar to me. Surprise, did you know ASD is far more common in males? 1 in 42, vs 1 in 189, for females.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
        3·
        6 months ago

        There’s some thought that autism rates are identical in men and women, and that the difference in diagnosis has more to do with the presentation. It’s plausible.

        • spikespaz@programming.dev
          3·
          6 months ago

          My ex wasn’t diagnosed with anything, but has an autistic sister and strange behaviors herself. Being suspicious of myself (I was diagnosed with ADHD during a time you couldn’t have both) and having always carefully observed people (to mask better), I noticed some qualities the two shared, but the symptoms were more subtle in my ex. She has been tested but not diagnosed, and I think the doctors were wrong. But, yes, symptoms observed had a distinctly feminine skew, or even a different mode of application. She did not get the help I know she needed (and she mistakenly held the opinion that the doctors are nigh-infallible, and that I am not ASD either).

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
        1·
        6 months ago

        Yeah, I’ve suspected for a while that some of the autism spectrum is just the brain allocating resources differently to different things. It has a finite number of neurons (which is true even if it can grow new ones over time), so a higher emphasis on learning one thing could come at the cost of something else.

        Or it could even be a matter of some people not building as strong of a foundation in some areas because their brain didn’t figure out something that others did, and it snowballs from there as peers develop on that stronger foundation of things they think they just inherently know and can’t imagine someone not knowing it and those without that strong foundation try to develop along with their peers but can’t because of what they are missing.

        Like imagine that while learning math, you somehow miss learning the number 3. This would be pretty obvious because math is a rigid system, but imagine it wasn’t as strictly logical like language or social interactions. Maybe a better example would be developing drawing skills without knowing anything about perspective or lighting. Sure, there’s plenty of styles that don’t need that foundation, but if you want to draw photorealistic pictures, they are going to look off or even bad, even though they might still be recognizable. Kinda like socializing with someone with autism who isn’t good at masking.

        Though the ability to mask itself might indicate it’s deeper than that. It indicates that some are capable of adjusting for their foundation, does being able to mask while still having those gaps mean the gaps are genetic? Or can we only develop by building on what we have, so the best we can do is put patches over the shortcomings we recognize in ourselves and want to correct instead of being able to truly fill those gaps in the foundation?

        And all of this doesn’t even go into sensory issues related to autism. If there’s different mechanisms that result in the different aspects of autism, should they even be considered the same thing? How would one even figure out if they share mechanisms?

    • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
      7·
      6 months ago

      1)a) you missed the part where you clearly said “spectrum” before.

      maybe instead, you/we need to change how we react to parts of the spectrum. That is a) it isn’t “normal” and b) that’s okay.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
        42·
        6 months ago

        Even though it’s a spectrum–in that it’s comprised of a number of different characteristics that are present to varying degrees–I think that perhaps some of those characteristics have been overly pathologized. I’m not sure exactly how to explain it. If I made up a disease–I’m going to call it Short-Man Syndrome (SMS)–and said that any male under 5’2" had SMS, then someone that was 5’2.1" wouldn’t fit the criteria. But wait!, he says, I feel short. So maybe that definition gets widened a little bit. So now a person that’s 5’2.5" says, well, I feel short too, and maybe a doctor disagrees, since 5’2.5" is pretty short, and that definition gets even wider. Eventually maybe someone that’s 5’11" is saying, well I feel short compared to Yao Ming…

        And maybe that’s what’s happening here. I don’t know. Even though all of these characteristics may exist on a continuum, you need to have a definite cut off point where you say, this point and beyond is pathological, and anything up to that, no matter how close, isn’t. Otherwise your definition becomes pointless.

    • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
      6·
      6 months ago

      If there ARE more cases of autism(which we dont know if there are, or if it’s a result of better screening. Smarter people than me would have to determine that) my first instinct would be to look at microplastics and other environmental pollutants. Again, more qualified people than me would have to look into that, but it seems to be a better hypothesis than the conspiracy theory about vaccines.

    • Sigilos@ttrpg.network
      5·
      6 months ago

      This is pure speculation, but since we found Lead caused so many development issues when it was so prominent in everyday life, and plastic has been likened to this generations lead- poisoning, I wonder if there is a link between the prevalence of micro plastics and the increase in ADHD and ASD.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      42·
      6 months ago

      kids are being labelled as having ADD/ADHD–and then getting drugs–when they’re more frequently just being kids.

      I might go a level deeper and argue that the formal education process requires a degree of attention and focus that lots of kids don’t have. The “autism” diagnosis and subsequent treatment is more about fitting round kids into square holes than it is treating an actual mental disorder.

      I can say from personal experience that Adderall helped me study even without ADD. Its a performance enhancing drug, of sorts. And if landing a diagnosis means giving your kids a chemical edge on the next state exam, then more parents are going to discover their children have a problem.

      I might take this one step deeper and assert that the real problem we’re attempting to medicate isn’t autism, its poverty. The underlying fear of an autistic diagnosis is that the child won’t grow up to be self-sufficient. The drugs (whether they’re necessary or simply a competitive edge) are intended to turn children into the successful mindless drones who are capable of churning mechanically through rote exercises that the school system / workforce demands of them.

      This is the one that should cause the most concern; if this is actually the case, and can be demonstrated to be the case, then what factor is causing this maladaption?

      Its possible that this is entirely due to a survivorship bias. Kids with autism are considered “salvageable” in an age where drowning the weakest of six children in the bath tube because they’re dead weight on the family income is no longer consider practical (fewer kids) or acceptable (surveillance state).

      Also possible that autism - like a number of other disorders - is linked to aging mothers or sunlight deficiency or toxic food/water/air in a heavily industrial society.

      Autism could arguably even be a kind-of beneficial mutation - the result of increasingly smart people having increasingly more mentally adapt babies with mental talents the rest of us dumb-dumbs only see as a handicap, because we’re trying to fit them into those aforementioned square holes.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
        1·
        6 months ago

        I might go a level deeper and argue that the formal education process requires a degree of attention and focus that lots of kids don’t have. The “autism” diagnosis and subsequent treatment is more about fitting round kids into square holes than it is treating an actual mental disorder.

        Okay, but that seems to be more prevalent now than it used to be. Is it really more prevalent? Or maybe the way we teach things has changed, leading to worse outcomes? Full disclosure: I was formally diagnosed with ASD in my later 30s; Asperger’s didn’t even exist as a diagnosis until after I had graduated from public schools. I had a very hard time focusing in all of my classes.

        Also possible that autism - like a number of other disorders - is linked to aging mothers

        I know that there’s a strong link between trisomy-23 (Downs Syndrome) and older mothers, but I hadn’t heard of other genetic issues. I’m not disputing it, just saying I wasn’t aware of them.

        more mentally adapt babies with mental talents the rest of us dumb-dumbs only see as a handicap,

        It is absolutely a handicap. This is undeniable. It’s a handicap because it hinders your ability to interact appropriately with the world. I have greatly reduced empathy and communication ability; I can usually guess how people are feeling, but I don’t really feel it in the way that most people say they do, and I don’t really feel much of my own emotions. I can’t just power through shit like some people can either; I’ll sometimes go into complete shutdown when there’s too much going on, things that most people have no issues with. There’s a lot more, really. But trust me, it’s a handicap in dealing with life.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
          1·
          6 months ago

          Okay, but that seems to be more prevalent now than it used to be. Is it really more prevalent? Or maybe the way we teach things has changed, leading to worse outcomes?

          Our education system has grown more rigid, more test-centric, and more exhausting under iterative attempts at reform. I’m not even speaking to “worse outcomes” so much as maladaptation. Kids with ADD are going to be more prone to exhibit symptoms in an environment that buckles them down and compels them to concentrate on singular tasks for longer amounts of time.

          I know that there’s a strong link between trisomy-23 (Downs Syndrome) and older mothers, but I hadn’t heard of other genetic issues.

          There’s a number of physical and psychological correlations but not a ton of causation. So its mostly a conjecture.

          I have greatly reduced empathy and communication ability; I can usually guess how people are feeling, but I don’t really feel it in the way that most people say they do, and I don’t really feel much of my own emotions. I can’t just power through shit like some people can either; I’ll sometimes go into complete shutdown when there’s too much going on, things that most people have no issues with.

          I’ve heard different takes on this from different people. And I’ve seen at least a few people horrified at the idea of any kind of change in their condition, for fear of it taking away something fundamental about them.

          So… idk. I definitely understand wanting relief from a handicap. But I’ve also heard people describe the tunnel vision and detachment as comparable to the deep immersion one gets in a state of flow.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
      11·
      6 months ago

      While I hate what the internet is becoming because of AI, and I dread what’s going to come from the better systems down the road, and all the people who will be utterly lost as they fall in love with their phones, I am wondering if just maaaybe these LLM’s will be able to satisfy some people’s desperate craving for attention and acceptance with simulated social circles and virtual supportive communities and give people at least some kind of outlet or if nothing else keep them out of the way while the rest of us make progress.

  • Hello_there@fedia.io
    151·
    6 months ago

    One of my high school acquaintances posted on Facebook that Peppa the Pig causes autism.
    I like that conspiracy theory much better, despite how illogical it is that watching a cartoon pig can cause a neurological disorder.

  • Reygle@lemmy.world
    14·
    6 months ago

    And the tech school I got a degree from now hosts courses on “Reiki healing” and “Crystal healing”. America is fucking doomed.

  • exanime@lemmy.world
    141·
    6 months ago

    … but you know what will eventually die? People who do not believe in vaccines

    Too bad they will take many with them because of their wilful ignorance… but eventually the problem will correct itself

    Someday I hope to live in a society where confidently saying something idiotic is shameful as crapping your pants in public or realizing you have a bugger hanging off your nostril

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
      5·
      6 months ago

      It’ll take a really deadly disease for that to happen. Smallpox and the plague could kill over 50% of the population in an area they hit. No one had vaccines (though some portion would have had incidental previous exposure to cow pox, which became the first vaccine, but I wouldn’t guess that all survivors had been previously exposed to cow pox). Note that that’s 50% of the total population, it’s not just looking at those who were confirmed to be infected. Nothing that currently exists (considering treatment options, since the plague does still exist) comes even close to that, so don’t hold your breath that they’ll go extinct from catching easily preventable diseases that they chose not to prevent.

      And personally, I think shame isn’t a great teaching tool and is a mechanism that leads to people doubling down on incorrect beliefs rather than correcting them as well as attacking new ideas that conflict with currently accepted ideas. I’d like to see a society where being willing to admit you were wrong is respected and where everyone can appreciate that whatever they currently believe, reality is likely more nuanced and complex than their model of it suggests, if it’s even on the right track at all.

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
        2·
        6 months ago

        And personally, I think shame isn’t a great teaching tool and is a mechanism that leads to people doubling down on incorrect beliefs rather than correcting them as well as attacking new ideas that conflict with currently accepted ideas.

        I don’t really get this about people. Someone told me I should eat less meat and I went, “Yeah, you’re right” instead of doubling down into shame insanity.

        I probably do it sometimes without realizing it.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
          2·
          6 months ago

          It does depend on the way it’s said. Some people think aggression or condescension helps convince others when it might be more likely to make the person rather be wrong than agree with them. People like that can say a few words and increase resistance to their beliefs even if someone later presents them in a less offensive way. And unfortunately, Russian troll farms (and others wanting to sow division and discontent) know about this and lean into it.

          It also makes a difference if you already feel that way. Like if you have a bad habit and know it but just have trouble stopping or reducing it, it’s easier to agree when someone points it out vs if you’re in denial about it and want reasons to continue.

          Though I should have said some people because it doesn’t apply to everyone. Once you’re aware of how you might react to that, you can adjust. Personally, I’m of the mind that if what you think is true, then it can’t hurt to challenge it or follow other lines of thought that contradict it, and if what you think isn’t true, then it’s better to realize that.

          I want to be right about everything, but in the sense that I will change my positions over time to align with my current experience and knowledge, not in the sense that I insist that what I’ve previously said is true. What past me believed is irrelevant, only current me matters, and future me will likely think current me is an idiot about some things, and then I’ll die later (or sooner, who knows) and it won’t matter either way.

  • Pringles@lemm.ee
    121·
    6 months ago

    Just give the option to be injected with a vaccine or with chlorine. Watch the numbers drop spectacularly.