The Skeptics Society has retired Skepticblog (while preserving all posts online at their original urls for future reference), but we’re proud to announce our bigger, better new blog: INSIGHT at Skeptic.com! Dedicated to the spirit of curiosity and grounded in scientific skepticism’s useful, investigative tradition of public service, INSIGHT continues and exp […]
Some people say, "Oh, there's anti-science on both sides of the political aisle." But that neglects one important fact: in only ONE political party are the leadership and the party platform dominated by science denial.
Would you believe there is a patch of trapped garbage floating in the North Pacific bigger than the state of Texas? It's called the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch".
I am happy to announce that the Women Thinking, Inc skeptical organization (of which I’m the secretary), in conjunction with Skepchick, is holding its annual March Madness bracket challenge to help raise funds for our efforts at promoting vaccines. My colleague Jacqueline elaborates:
Every year Women Thinking Inc. hosts a March Madness bracket challenge. This year is no exception. Compete with us to help a good cause and have tons of fun with your fellow Women Thinking Inc. super-heroins and superhero. Half of the proceeds go to the Hug Me! I’m Vaccinated campaign and the other half go to the super genius winner. This bracket challenge is also being adopted as the We Have Sports internet radio show (like us on fb!) official bracket challenge.
To enter donate $10 at womenthinking.org. Your Paypal email address (or add a different one in the message) will be sent an invitation to join our bracket challenge. When brackets come out on the 17th, go to the website in the following days and simply fill out your bracket by cutest mascots, best uniforms, sexiest point guard, or with teams you actually think will win.
Join us! This was so much fun last year and I can’t wait to lose again. In the end, no one is actually losing because you are helping a great cause. Do it now!!!
I’m a bit late in posting this, seeing as how it was time-sensitive, but I would still like to share it because it is an excellent example of how to engage in effective skeptical activism. My skeptical colleague – and general badass mofo – Elyse Anders, recently wrote an article at Skepchick regarding the appearance of actor Rob Schneider on a radio show. Who cares about Rob Schneider? (It’s an honest question, in one sense, because I’ve never been a fan, but I digress)
Well, in this case we skeptics should care about Schneider, because it seems he has become one of the newest celebrity darlings and spokesmen for the anti-vaccination movement. Elyse elaborates in her Skepchick post…
… Tomorrow [this was Friday, Oct. 5th], he’s going to be on the KXRK 96.3 in Salt Lake City to promote his new… oh, I honestly don’t know. Who cares? It’s probably more awful than measles. But the measles thing we can at least do something about.
Last time he was on the show, he was promoting something related to his “career” and decided the best way to fill that time was to start yelling about how Big Vax is in bed with Big Brother. Full-on foil hat style.
Reader Atropos provided a clip of the show you can listen to here (or by clicking the poster from his Oscar Winning Drama Hot Chicks which I’ve provided in place of an embedded player.)
Favorite points/quick and dirty highlights:
Polio just runs its course. It infects a few million people, gets bored, then stops infecting people. And eradicates itself. But then comes back again… maybe to avenge it’s eradication. Exactly how evolution works.
Vaccines are not tested. Ever. On anyone. Or anything. A bunch of wild-haired men in lab coats run around making vats of Big Pharma’s HAHAHA WHATEVER patented mix then they stick it into vials and inject it into you then PROFIT!
Vaccines are not tested. And don’t work. And we know they don’t work despite not testing. Ever. On anyone. Or anything.
THE GOVERNMENT PAYS YOU TO GET AUTISM! Because??? Autistic people are easy to control? It seems like a poor long term government investment.
Rob Schneider can read. Why is no one talking about this? …
Yup, a lot of the usual anti-vax talking points and conspiracy mongering. But what I wanted to point out isn’t so much that Elyse was venting her spleen about some idiot celebrity spewing nonsense on the radio, it was that she was willing to DO SOMETHING about it!!! (Which is one reason I love her 🙂 )
… If you’re local, tune into X 96 (96.3 FM) tomorrow morning at 7 am local time. If you’re not near Salt Lake City, listen online at X96.com. 7 am MDT which is 10 am 9 am EDT. Call in during the show to talk to Mr. Schneider* and confront him with weird ass facts that he’s discussing. 877-602-9696
So yeah, I missed the boat on this one. But take a moment to learn from Elyse’s activism, and read her links. The next time you hear that Rob Schneider (or Jim Carrey or Jenny McCarthy or any celebrity whack-a-loon) is going to be on a program where he could spew his anti-vaccine garbage, consider calling/emailing/texting in and holding him accountable. If more and more skeptics take their cue from Elyse and act in a like manner more often when some pseudoscientist or conspiracy theorist spews their nonsense in a public forum, it will help go a long way towards countering that nonsense.
Well, we’re ramping up again for another summer of skeptical awesomeness (including SkepchickCon at CONvergence, The Amazing Meeting 10, and Dragon*Con), and as in years past I am assisting with vaccine promotion. Along these lines, I wanted to pass along to you a recent blog post over at Skepchick by my colleague, Elyse Anders. Read on and please consider donating to help support this worthy cause:
From the Vaccine Clinic at TAM9: Who’s that handsome guy next to me? Oh yeah, it’s just Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer 🙂
Right now, we are in the middle of a severe pertussis (whooping cough) epidemic. In Washington state alone, cases over tentupled (which is a word that I made up for up more than times) since last year. In 2011, there were 146 confirmed pertusis cases through the first 20 weeks of the year. This year? 1738. That’s really bad, people. Really bad. And Washington, frankly, I’m a little disappointed in you.
Pertussis is a disease that, if contracted, often kills infants. And once they contract the disease, the only treatment they receive is to stop them form spreading it. There is no shortening of the illness. There is no medicine to help the body fight it. There’s just medication to stop you from spreading it.
And that “whoop” that gives whooping cough it’s name? That’s the sound of the sufferer struggling for air, being suffocated from inside their own body.
But worst of all, where they usually catch it is from an adult who hasn’t been vaccinated against pertussis.
So over here, in my little corner of the internet, with my tiny organization, we’re trying to fix this in every way we can… which is the only way we can, and that’s by vaccinating people against pertussis. If you can’t get infected with it, you can’t spread it.
The Women Thinking Free and the Hug Me! I’m Vaccinated campaign have partnered with the JREF and will be bringing yet another Tdap clinic to TAM2012. …
The Women Thinking Free Foundation, an organization of which I’m a board member, has come up with a great idea for skeptical activism: setting up NCAA tournament brackets and giving the proceeds to the promotion of vaccinations via the Hug Me I’m Vaccinated campaign! And how do I know this is such a great idea? Simple: because I know little to nothing about sports (and I don’t really care about them much either), and this got me to sign up for a bracket! Check it out and spread the word…
Do you like basketball? Do you hate deadly diseases? Have you been trying to find a way to use basketball to fight deadly diseases? Well, now you can by joining the Vax Your Bracket NCAA Tournament Pool. It costs a mere $10 to enter! Half of the proceeds go to the winner …and the other half go to Women Thinking Free Foundation to help us do things like run our Hug Me! I’m Vaccinated! pro-vaccination campaign. Check out http://www.hugmeimvaccinated.org/to see where the money will be going.That’s right! You can now combine sports with saving the world!
We’re using simple CBS Tournament rules and there will be prizes for the top 3 winners. Plus, did I mention that you’ll be helping to save the world by promoting vaccinations?
Prizes:
1st place: 1/2 of the $$ collected
2nd: Hug Me T-shirt or Hug Me bear
3rd: Money back
The directions are simple:
1. Go to http://www.womenthinkingfree.org/ and click on the “Buy Now” button on the bottom right.
2. Once we get your payment, we’ll send you an invite to the Pool at the email you provided. You’ll have to create an account with CBS Sports. The deadline for sending us payment to join the tournament is Wed March 14 at 9am.
3. Starting on March 11, you can log on to CBS Sports and make your bracket. You must make your bracket before the first tournament game is played on Thursday night.
4. Log into CBS Sports during the tournament to see where your standing is compared with all the other players. We also approve of trash talk.
5. Save the World!
Just yesterday I learned that the National Vaccine Information Center, a deceptive title for one of the worst anti-vaccine propaganda groups out there, has a new ad playing in New York City’s Times Square. Worse yet, this ad is going to be playing on the megatron screen there during the New Year’s Eve celebration on Dec. 31st! Folks, this is bad, not just because of the content of the ad, which plays on the “pro-choice” mentality that parents are better equipped to make medical decisions than doctors and also directs viewers to the NVIC’s website, but because of the timing: due to the fact that millions (perhaps even billions) of people watch the Times Square festivities on television, this ad could easily get worldwide exposure.
We need to fight back, and we’ve already started. Elyse Anders has already written a post at Skepchick on this, and I’ve also blown the whistle via the JREF Swift blog. But more needs to be done, so here’s what you can do:
1. Direct people to reliable and trustworthy outlets for vaccine information – a quick and handy one is the Women Thinking Free Foundation’s Hug Me I’m Vaccinated FAQ.
5. Share this information on Facebook and other social media outlets.
6. Contact Gerald Griffin at ABC Full Circle by emailing Gerald.T.Griffin@abc.com or calling 212.456.7389 to voice your displeasure with them playing the NVIC ad.
And this campaign needs to be mounted from the inside as well as the outside: it seems we in the skeptical and pro-science community need media connections within the companies which rent out space for these high-profile ads. We need to inform and educate these companies about the part they are playing in spreading this dangerous anti-vaccination misinformation, and we need to raise such a fuss that they’ll simply refuse the NVIC the next time they come wanting to rent the space.
Of course, none of this will work without you, because we are going up against an organization that has literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on anti-vaccine propaganda. So please take some time to get involved and take action now – it really is a matter of life or death.
In a recent blog post – Deceptive Anti-Vaccination Ad by the NVIC on Delta Airlines – I mentioned an online petition at Change.org that is gathering signatures to convince Delta Airlines to pull the deceptive anti-vaccine ad being run on some of their flights. I wanted to pass along to you a recent update I received about this situation from my friend and skeptical colleague, Elyse Anders:
Update about ‘Tell Delta to Stop Putting their Passengers’ Health at Risk’ on Change.org
Hi,
Thank you so much for signing the petition, “Tell Delta to Stop Putting Passengers’ Health At Risk.” Delta has already committed to make some big changes: they are instituting a new review policies for future ads and will be showing a pro-vaccine Public Service Announcement beginning in December.
But we think they can do better. Do you think Delta should pull their anti-vaccine ad immediately? If so, here’s how you can help keep on the pressure:
2) Are you on Twitter? Delta sure is. They invest a lot of resources to customer service on Twitter, and this is a great way to get Delta’s attention. Here are some ideas for tweets. Feel free to write your own, just be sure to mention #fludelta and @delta or @deltaassist:
#FluDelta @DeltaAssist @Delta Thank you for changing your review process. Please, stop airing the anti-vaccine ad now! http://chn.ge/vbtnDt
When you fly, you shouldn’t have to worry about the flu. Tell @Delta to drop the anti-flu #vaccination in-flight ad now. #FluDelta
Thanks so much for supporting this important campaign,
For the most part, it seems pretty much okay, until you hit the 1:56 mark in the video and they start discussing the influenza vaccine. At that point, they flash a couple of shots of the NVIC website…
And here is where the real problem lies: the fact that the NVIC wants to use this seemingly innocuous ad to direct people to their website (which they would like people to think is a valid clearinghouse on vaccines) which contains all manner of dangerous nonsense and pseudoscience regarding vaccination. I think my skeptical colleague, Elyse Anders of Skepchick, says it very well…
And let’s not forget that NVIC’s ultimate goal here is not to get people to opt out of just the flu shot. The ultimate goal of this ad is to get people to visit the NVIC website, trick them into thinking they’re looking at a legitimate government website, and get them to stop vaccinating altogether. And then put those people on planes. Which is how many vaccine-preventable outbreaks happen in the US.
The bad news is that these anti-vax loons have gotten their sneaky ad onto Delta Airlines; the good news is that the skeptical community is all over it, and a hard response is swinging into action. Here are some things you can do to help (stolen from Elyse Anders’s post on Skepchick, btw)…
Last, but definitely not least, if you communicate with the people at Delta Airlines, tell them that you will take your business elsewhere, like to airlines that communicate responsible information regarding vaccines (because money talks and bullshit walks). For more information on this, take a look at this PSA by Every Child By Two, a pro-vaccine group, which is running on US Airways and American Airlines through the month of November:
I’m very excited to (finally!) let you all know about a behind-the-scenes project that I’ve been assisting with for quite some time now: a joint effort between two skeptical organizations, the Women Thinking Free Foundation and James Randi Educational Foundation, to conduct survey research & understand the opinions of parents regarding vaccines, vaccine safety, and the effect(s) that anti-vaccine propaganda might have upon their decisions. We feel that this information is vital to have if we are to be effective in countering the spread of this deceitful & dangerous fear-mongering.
For more details on this joint effort, I now refer you to this press release from the JREF…
LOS ANGELES—At the start of National Infant Immunization Week, the Women Thinking Free Foundation (WTFF) and the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) announced they are joining together for a new research project aimed at understanding the spread of the unfounded “vaccine panic” that prevents some parents from getting important immunizations for their children.
“Misinformation about vaccines isn’t just a concern for scientific skeptics, it’s now a public health concern.” said WTFF President Elyse Anders. “There are millions of parents right now who are making decisions about immunization for their children, who are trying to make sense of the conflicting information they’re getting from the media. The research we’re conducting with the JREF will help us understand how parents make those decisions, and what information will help them give their kids the best start in life.”
The joint project is an opinion survey, already underway, that will include data from hundreds of parents of young children by the time survey gathering is complete. The surveys are being collected by volunteers at events where parents may be especially vulnerable to anti-vaccine messages. When the research is completed next spring, the JREF will be make the results freely available to public health advocates to help inform their efforts to support childhood immunity.
“Our goal is to help save lives,” said JREF President D.J. Grothe. “Although the scientific community has done a good job refuting the misinformation of the most vocal anti-scientific anti-vaccine campaigners, we don’t really know what information is getting through to the parents who need it. We want to help parents get the unbiased information they need to know that they’re making the healthiest choice when they give their child immunity from dangerous diseases.”
The JREF-WTFF project aims to fill gaps in the skeptical movement’s understanding of the vaccine panic. The opinion survey asks specific questions about parents’ beliefs and fears about immunization, their media consumption, and their conversations with friends, family, and doctors. The survey should identify the ideas and information parents have heard both for and against immunization, and which they found most important in making their decisions. …
[**Update (4-11-11): It seems the ads have already started to run. Here’s more information from Elyse Anders over at Skepchick on this developing situation. Please take action now!]
Okay folks, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get skeptically active. I have found out that CBS plans to air an anti-vaccination ad on the Jumbotron at 42nd Street in New York’s Times Square starting on April 28th. The sponsoring organizations are the notoriously anti-vaccinationist Mercola and National Vaccine Information Center. These are a couple of the biggest groups out there promoting the falsehood that, among other things, vaccines cause autism (they don’t, btw). And while their ad gives the impression that they want to simply inform people about their “vaccine choices”, what they are really about is spreading flagrantly non-scientific, incorrect, and fear-mongering bilge about vaccines. If you’d like to see some accurate info on vaccines, check out this link to the Hug Me, I’m Vaccinated website.
Folks, we have to do something to stop this. Why? Simple: because vaccines save lives. Period.
Thus I propose that we not only light candles in the gathering darkness, I propose that we start up a huge frakkin’ bonfire! So what can we do about this nonsense? Elyse Anders of Skepchick has a few ideas on that…
While at The Amazing Meeting 8 this past weekend in Las Vegas, one thing I did was attend the workshop on “Feminism & Skepticism” which was hosted by my pals over at Skepchick. Included in the discussion were Rebecca Watson, Carrie Iwan, Maria Walters, Amy Davis Roth (aka Surly Amy), and Debbie Goddard. Included in the discussion were a variety of topics specific to women (most of which I honestly had never thought of, seeing as how I’m male), along with some fun related to what Rebecca called “Angry Vagina Craft” – LOLZ 🙂
In any case, I decided to attend partly because I am a board member on the Women Thinking Free Foundation, and also because I’m curious to see skeptical things from a female perspective. I transcribed what I could of the discussion, and I include it below for your edification…
Feminist Skepticism Workshop @ TAM8
What Skepticism is and isn’t
Feminist topics that skeptics can love
Angry vagina craft time
Skeptical topics that feminists can love
Group talk (w/ ray gun of verbosity)
Feminism: (dictionary definition) the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of sexual equality. This is the kind of definition that Rebecca and many other women go by.
The Skeptical Teacher 