The limited value of ‘statistical significance’ in the real World
Posted on 23 May 2008
Earlier this week I was working from home in the morning. I had the radio on in the background. My normal choice of oral wallpaper is BBC Radio 4. It
Published May 23, 2008 . Filed under: Food and Medical Politics
As usual – just excellent – thank you John!
May 23, 2008 @ 9:47 am
Dear Dr Briffa,
This is an excellent article that highlights not only the issues of statistics in medicine but also in using them in general. To use a similar example as the babies being born prematurely, they may only have a small chance of survival, but as pointed out, it is literally a matter of life and death so incredibly significant.
I note here that you didn’t give your personal opinion either way – and whilst this article is excellent it isn’t too telling. Do you personally believe the abortion limit should change?
May 23, 2008 @ 10:12 am
re: MMR and other regular vaccinations/immunisations: these are good for the population but not necessarily good for the individual.
Many practitioners work using population ‘events’, eg. I have a tummy upset, Oh yes there is a lot of this going around, have some ‘X’ that will clear it up! This is on the basis of ‘common ailments occur commonly and uncommon ailments occur rarely’. The really smart practitioner will be very, very aware of the limitations of such approaches.
Or again as one Dr put it to me, when I consulted about a chest infection, It wont be TB, we’ve had our four cases in this area already this year! To this day I do not know if this was said with tongue in cheek….but I do hope it was.
May 23, 2008 @ 10:15 am
I think the limit for termination should have been set at the time in gestation when it can be proven that a child has survived outside the womb, and has managed,with a initial period of assistance if necessary,to maintain its own breathing, heart and other vital organ functions for a period of time determined by the medical scientific community, with oversite by legal personnel and lay people.The period of time when assistance can be given should also be determined by the medical scientific community, with oversight by legal personnel and lay people.
May 23, 2008 @ 11:21 am
Gary
This blog post isn’t really about abortion time limits, it’s about the limitations of the scientific method. My personal opinion on the time limits for abortion (which, by the way, is quite uninformed) isn’t really relevant to the real issue at hand, here.
May 23, 2008 @ 11:31 am
Need more of this kind of scientific questioning. The use of statistical significance is problematic – all it really tells us is that at a 95% significance if we repeated the study we would get comparable results 95% of the time. It doesn’t tell us if the answer is correct, merely that the results are consistent.
To my way of thinking there is a difference ininterpretation and scientists should be careful to point that out.
May 23, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
Great topic. I’m always annoyed at the way relative and absolute risk percentages are used in the media. Most people don’t understand those, either. Another post topic?
May 23, 2008 @ 3:32 pm
yes totally agree
“science”.. statistics.. are black and white
life is grey, a vague misty kind of grey
May 24, 2008 @ 8:39 am
Thank you for this.. It is not just about abortion of course, it is about what constitues “objective” measures; you have here helped to demonstrate a clear and insightful way to convey the blanket use/misuse of probability in statistics in medicine. While those subcsribing to your blog “get” the misuse of statistics, the road accident scenario made it much more immedate. I shall use this analogy to further the questioning of the status quo by my friends… Neat. Cars, road accidents, ubiquitious understanding. Well, perhaps. Thank you for giving me a suggestion to aid understanding from others.
May 24, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
I appreciate the valid comments regarding statistical significance but hope that the unfortunate choice of using the mmr vaccine as an example doesnt fire up dissenters again. Consider the ‘significance’ of the rise in infant morbidity and mortality if measles becomes endemic in communities again due to lack of uptake of vaccination.
Any vaccine has potential to cause harm, however rare.
May 24, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
The problem with statistical significance tests is that they are answering a different question than what is often assumed. Experiments are usually done to test some hypothesis. Statistical significance essentially answers the question “What is the probability that I would have observed this data GIVEN that a particular hypothesis is true”. In other words, it tells you how well the hypothesis supports the data, not how well the data supports the hypothesis. The proper question is is “What is the probability that the hypothesis is true given that I observed this data” (and you also have to include effects of other background information, such as prior experiments). Not only does this answer the right question, it allows you to do things like compare competing hypotheses. For example, one might find that the lipid hypothesis of CHD is supported at the 90% level; but that doesn’t make it right, just 90% certain. If you test an alternative hypothesis such as “Refined carbohydrates cause CHD” and find it supported at the 98% level, then it’s obviously more desirable (I’m oversimplifying the process, but that’s the basic idea).
Annoyingly, nearly all scientific experiments are interpreted in this backward manner, despite there being a rigorously derived mathematical framework (called Probability Theory) to do it the right way. Edwin Jaynes is the modern father of Probability Theory, and has an excellent (albeit mathematically dense) book on the topic, called Probability Theory: The Logic of Science. It’s not an easy read, but worthwhile.
May 25, 2008 @ 5:11 pm
Your analysis of the statistics reminds me of the American weather reports where they say things like “There’s a 30% chance of rain”.
Whatever the percentage, if it rains you get wet.
Which shows the limitations of statistics.
May 25, 2008 @ 5:55 pm
The real power of the Probability Theory approach is that when combined with Information Theory allows you to do logical reasoning in the face incomplete information. The limitations of what you know become clear, especially when trying to make decisions. This is important in a number of places, not the least of which making medical treatment decisions.
“30% chance of rain” simply tells you the degree of belief about a future outcome. How that affects your decisions has to do with how much you care about whether or not you get wet.
May 25, 2008 @ 6:44 pm
Sometimes people are right for the wrong reason, sometimes they are wrong for the right reason, you have managed to be wrong for the wrong reason.
Never mind, try again.
Oh I’ve just realised you have a book published, ghost writen was it?
May 27, 2008 @ 11:40 pm
Hi Dr Briffa,
I am intrigued by your criticism of academics dismissal of the placebo effect in medical trials. I would be surprised if any academics really question the efficacy of the placebo effect in certain cases as it has been well documented.
It is quite obvious that handing out sugar pills to patients instead of pills containing active ingredients (and therefore inevitably side effects) is safer and cheaper in these cases. The reason this is not done in practice is ethics rather than science. It is not considered ethical to give a patient a pill and lie to them about its content. Whether these ethical guidelines are correct or not is a grey area, but it s not the issue here.
The reason scientist are careful to take into account the placebo effect in medical trials is because they want to specifically test the active ingredients within the drugs. To test the drugs without also testing the placebo effect through double-blind trials would not allow the efficacy of the drug to be measure.
May 28, 2008 @ 12:24 am
Lex
I entirely understand the need of some people to perform randomised, placebo controlled trials (chiefly, in an effort to discern whether what is being tested has a
May 28, 2008 @ 8:00 am
Derrik
Oh do please tell us why I’ve got it wrong for the wrong reason, or are we just to take your word for it?
And what’s that too – some wild speculation about whether I write my own books for not (like that’s got anything to do with it anyway….).
Indulge me in some idle speculation of my own. I see from the information that comes with the IP address of your computer that you have a connection with one of England’s ‘finest’ seats of learning. Maybe you are an academic yourself?
Perhaps you could tell us? And while you’re at it, why not reveal your identity, and let us all see who it is that makes assertions that he/she does not feel the need to substantiate in any way whatsoever….
May 28, 2008 @ 8:10 am
Dr Briffa,
I read your post with interest, after my attention had been drawn to it by another blogger, and I thought I’d ask a couple of questions of you / share a couple of views with you.
Of your section on statistical significance and p-values, one person has pointed out: ‘that
May 28, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
Just one more thing: “You tell us that
May 28, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
jdc – in response to post no. 18
You
May 29, 2008 @ 11:28 am
jdc – in response to post no. 19
Lex wrote
May 29, 2008 @ 11:38 am
In partial reply to jdc’s various comments:- the website known as “mmrthefacts” is regarded by parents of “allegedly” vaccine-damaged autistic children with considerable disdain. At one point it recommended that a child who had reacted badly to the first MMR should be given the so-called booster MMR regardless of its prior adverse vaccination reaction. Surely this goes against commonsense as well as good medical practice?
The example I always use is that penicillin has been a great boon to mankind but my doctor has warned me that the next time I receive it could prove fatal (he wasn’t joking). My Medicalert medallion is in my purse.
The attitude “one size fits all” fails to take any notice of individual susceptibilities (see previous paragraph) and there is considerable evidence from the parents of autistic children that autoimmune disorders, allergies and gastrointestinal disorders appear with alarming frequency in the family medical histories of children who’ve descended into regressive autism following vaccination. Why isn’t this being investigated?
One thing that really worries me is the lack of intellectual curiosity in the orthodox medical profession – they’re being told about adverse vaccination reactions by parents of autistic children and yet no-one seems to think this should be investigated. I think we’re all aware that very few adverse vaccination reactions are notified via the “yellow card” system. Where are the U.K. research studies involving clinical examinations of allegedly vaccine-damaged children?
On a personal note I can inform jdc that, having had boy/girl twins and watching my normally developing daughter descend into regressive* autism immediately following MMR, there can be no doubt that something happened. The point when doctors go quiet and then hurriedly change the subject is when I point this out and then say “we’ve got dated camcorder footage”.
* Loss of eye contact, total loss of developing speech (mute for two years), appeared not to understand what was being said to her, etc. etc.
May 29, 2008 @ 6:15 pm
Your comments about 95% confidence limits and the analogy to road crossing casualties are not correct I’m afraid .
Statistics and the commonly accepted p=0.05 criterion is used to demonstrate CAUSE & EFFECT, not absolute numbers or relative risk ie the chance of being run over in your example, which is what you are talking about in your comment if you get run over then for sure its 100% as far as you are concerned.
95% confidence limits are an arbitary limit agreed, but its a bench mark, (although you can use p=0.1, but obviously with a lower level of confidence that the hypothesis is correct)
So you use confidence limits, in your analogy of roads to demonstrate the effect of different road surfaces, lighting, speed limits etc etc & determine which was most effective at reducing casualties.
Your last comment refers to incidence & risk, thewhole MMR/autism debate is around cause & effect and epidemiological studies on vaccinated v unvaccinated populations or if the autism rate dropped when vaccination policy changed.
May 30, 2008 @ 7:07 am
Occam
Yes, you can use probability values to assess different road conditions to, as you suggest, assess which is the most effective at reducing casualties, but you can also use them when assessing what effect
May 30, 2008 @ 7:39 am
Your comment on crossing roads says “assess the risk” exactely my point of course, you can calculate a rik of doing this and of course there will be a highly significant difference statistically in the risk of death if you cross the road compared to not crossing the road, so what’s your point?
MMR unfortunately as you will know you cannot prove a negative, ie that there is not any harm, but you can test whether there is harm statistically between the two populations, that’s the whole point testing the null hypothesis that there is a difference (ie harm) at the p=0.05 level. I stand to be corrected but I believe that this has not been demonstrated in epidemiological studies of MMR vaccination
May 30, 2008 @ 8:59 am
Occam – in response to comment no. 25
You state that:
May 30, 2008 @ 9:56 am
You’re wriggling, you would control & test that there was no significant difference from other causes of death, ie knocked down on the pavement between the control & experimental groups, the factor being tested for is the act of crossing the road, a properly controlled study, as in clinical trials, would ensure there were not confounding issues, look at the published epidemiological breakdown by race, age, sex etc etc in clinical trial reports comparing test and comparator drugs.
Again you wriggle re autism the conclusion has been drawn that there is no evidence that there is a causal relationship between MMR & autism, ie the null hypothesis that there is harm was not demonstrated.
May 30, 2008 @ 10:16 am
Occam – in response to comment no. 27
Fine by all means control as much as you like, but you didn
May 30, 2008 @ 10:35 am
Dr B,
Your road-crossing analogy has got a lot of people
May 30, 2008 @ 11:55 am
Cynic
You say: “In short p-values only work properly if studies have enough data points that the rare event can kinda be spotted a few times and separated out from randomness if you like..”
But what if study isn
May 30, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
If only we had had some PROBABILITY STUDIES on WMD and the time it takes to load (from storage..think what this really means) them, perhaps we would not be taxed quite so heavily now!
My initial comment still stands: immunisation/vaccination is good for the population, but not necesaarily good for the individual. Thus with diphtheria, more of the population might die of infection without immunisation than would die if the population was immunised. Single blind time dependent population studies do demonstrate that this is the case; but from what others have told me, I’m glad I havent had a damaged child from diphtheria immunisation.
RE: statistics etc.discussed;we all need to remember that stats profile a POPULATION, not individuals. and the Pvalues are probabiities NOT necessarily certainties!!
THE POPULATION needs more of these discussions to try and get more people to understand what “the figures” mean. If I could make it really interesting, I would teach it in schools and it would be on the GCSE maths syllabus – and before someone says it is taught, It would seem from these discussions that not many understand it; and then we have the conudrum,badly taught or mental inability to understand?
May 30, 2008 @ 1:37 pm
Peter
If the flimsy, unscientific, biased and sometimes irrelevant arguments put forward here (by people I think would describe themselves as ‘scientists’) are anything to go by, I suggest that the issue of scientific illiteracy is mainly a problem of how science is taught, and not so much an issue of comprehension.
I wish the aims of those in the field were as laudable as yours, I really do. Because I reckon that not everyone in the field of science actually wants members of the public to understand science, because if they did, it would be a whole lot harder to ‘persuade’ the public of things that have no basis in truth or fact, but are rooted in some ideological, political or commercial agenda.
May 30, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
If there’s not enough data points then surely, we simply cannot say either way. The scientific thing to do, you must agree, would be to investigate further and seek out more data?
Or how else can we hope to move forward from that point?
I am not familiar with but imagine evidence of MMR/autism link is pretty complicated and not clear-cut at all. However in my view your overly-simplified and hyperbolic road-crossing example does no one any favours. Within this example though you have also definitely given the impression that if something is a rare event then any kind of statistical tools used to examine it cannot be trusted. This technical point is not true and was all I was seeking to correct. I notice you did not engage with that point at all.
We should of course always be very cautious when using statistics. They can be very useful if used properly so maybe we should try and encourage better use of them rather than making them the bad guy?
I of course agree that epidemiological evidence cannot prove or disprove any causal relationships.
May 30, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
Cynic
“If there
May 30, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
Now tell that to the scientists who cite epidemiological evidence as
May 30, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
Anthony
“Epidemiological evidence is not the only evidence that has shown no evidence for an association between MMR vaccine and autism. There are virological studies which also undermine the hypothesis, as well as testimony from one of Wakefield
May 30, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
There is another aspect to NMR immunisation that I have never seen/heard anyone mention. And that is the adjuvanrt effect of one “active principle” on the other two “actrive principles”. For this reason alone, if I had to have children immunised I would insist on separate N,M and R and they would given separated by about 14days, by which time immediate imflammatory reactions would have subsided.
May 30, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
Elizabeth, I think your point about lack of intellectual curiosity about MMR is underlined by Angela Howe’s comment: “I hope that the unfortunate choice of using the mmr vaccine as an example doesnt fire up dissenters again.”
If anyone raises doubts about the safety of the MMR vaccine they are dismissed as irresponsible for expressing views that might dissuade parents from giving the vaccine, and therefore putting lives at risk. If the medical profession were so sure of their ground they would welcome further research in this area .
May 30, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
May 30, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
Anthony
May 30, 2008 @ 5:58 pm
May 30, 2008 @ 6:03 pm
Andrew
You’re joking, right? Check out the UK Government’s very own summary of the
May 30, 2008 @ 6:37 pm
Anthony and Andrew
I forgot to mention something: While I clearly don’t see eye-to-eye with you, I do genuinely respect your willingness to be transparent regarding to your identities. Personally, I’d like to see a bit more of that here and elsewhere.
May 30, 2008 @ 6:56 pm
John,
May 30, 2008 @ 10:40 pm
Anthony
May 31, 2008 @ 6:41 am
Dear John,
Oh dear. That’s just the sort of response I was expecting.
I think further meaningful discussion is unlikely.
Regards
May 31, 2008 @ 8:05 am
Anthony
Let’s please get to they crux of this:
1. You, more than once, have alluded to ‘evidence’ that appears to vindicate MMR with regard to any potential to cause autism.
2. I have, more than once, asked you to provide that ‘evidence’.
3. It turns out you are unwilling or unable to provide this ‘evidence’
I asked to see your hand, and it appears it wasn’t such a strong one after all (or perhaps you have no cards at all, we don’t know).
And now you appear ‘cry off’ from the debate, just when it’s getting really interesting and ‘meaningful’.
And then you wonder why individuals express doubt about the safety of MMR in relation to autism. Just for the record, it has at least something to do with people like you – who give the distinct impression that MMR does not cause autism, but don’t care to or simply can’t provide the evidence that shows this to be so).
I can’t wait to see you discuss our exchanges here on your own blog, where I trust you’ll permit me the right of reply.
May 31, 2008 @ 8:32 am
John,
Are you saying that you don’t even know where to look to find the studies?
I have the papers on this computer, but I am surprised that you are so sure it is shoddy science when you don’t even know which studies you are talking about. You could start by searching my blog for some of the studies, although not all of them are there.
I’m not crying off debate, I’m waiting for you to put forward evidence for your claims. which we now know to be based on nothing more than supposition, rather than knowledge of the studies concerned.
By the way the word evidence does not have scare quotes round it. Do they signify some sort of prejudice at all?
May 31, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
Anthony
May 31, 2008 @ 1:37 pm
So your claim the science is shoddy is based merely on your observation that epidemiological studies do not prove cause and effect?
Devastating stuff.
Your opinion is based on supposition and credulity in the face of emotive anecdotes.
If it isn’t lay out your detailed critiques of the studies you say do not prove the safety of MMR vaccine.
The burden of proof lies in your court.
May 31, 2008 @ 3:19 pm
Anthony
May 31, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
Dear John,
This is the last comment I am making on your blog, since arguing with wilfully ignorant people is only a minor hobby of mine.
1. Epidemiology. You don’t like it do you? Funny then that while you do not feel it tells us anything useful about MMR vaccine and autism, you are quite willing to use it when it suits eh?
Like for example:
Lof M, et al. Dietary fat and breast cancer risk in fhte [sic] Swedish women
May 31, 2008 @ 8:30 pm
What I’ve seen in the last 10 years is a very expensive attempt to avoid doing any real research on the autism vaccine connection. For people to now be complaining about the amount of money which has been wasted on bad research which is trying to cover up a connection…is disingenous. Why in the world couldn’t they just look at the children?
June 1, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
How to spend a saturday:
me – go camping with my ASD child
PharmaShill – argue, then chicken out when the going gets tough, with Dr John Briffa
June 1, 2008 @ 4:27 pm
Anthony
You start by insulting me and then claim this is the last comment you
June 1, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
Re comment 53
I can’t get two of the links to work properly above.
Link to newspaper report of Walker study is:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-388051/Scientists-fear-MMR-link-autism.html
Link to the original post where I used the word ‘shoddy’ is:
http://www.drbriffa.com/blog/2008/05/30/why-the-mmr-autism-war-is-not-over/
June 1, 2008 @ 6:12 pm
Dr John
Don’t waste your time on Cox – he has a habit of “cutting and running” – even on one of “Pharmacist only” sites (although not this topic). He’s been avoiding Pluralist, Cybertiger and Cliff Miller (and others) like the plague – or should i say measles!
June 1, 2008 @ 6:25 pm
Spongebob
I fear it is too late, because even after Anthony Cox appeared to cut and run, I felt compelled to answer his last post (geddit?) in excruciating detail – see comment 54.
June 1, 2008 @ 6:31 pm
Dr John
I see that you and Cox had a further exchange on his blog – and as usual he won’t respond to the questions asked.
But if you persist (on his site) he will block your posts, as happens frequently there. Also happens on other sites such as LeftBrain/No Brain, Goldacres forum, Orac etc. They make sweeping statements, and to prove that these are true they prevent any dissenting voices from posting comments, and hey presto – no dissent = must be true.
June 2, 2008 @ 7:40 am
Spongebob
Yes, the debate (I call it that for ease, because it’s not really a debate because as you say, my questions are simply going answered) is unfolding here:
http://www.blacktriangle.org/blog/?p=1799#comment-33804
June 2, 2008 @ 8:14 am
Dr Briffa, in an earlier post you dismissed the Peltola papers as not providing any evidence to dispute a causal link between MMR and autism.
June 2, 2008 @ 11:54 am
One of the odd things about the whole debate in relation to vaccination is the fact that, for my generation (immediate post-WWII babies), measles, mumps and rubella were regarded as relativel unproblematic, routine childhood diseases. I had the first two as a child, as did most of the other children I knew, spending my time during the measles jumping up and down on the beds with my sister (I had rubella as an adult, which apart from avoiding pregnant friends and acquaintances, was entirely trivial). Overall they weren’t perceived as particularly dangerous diseases (unlike, say, diptheria). Maybe this had something to do with populations who were routinely exposed to these pathogens as against the ‘virgin’ populations now? (I can conceive of several ways in which the immune responses might have been different in that context.) This isn’t to say that no children were damaged by these diseases, but it was very very far from the scare stories we hear now about the consequences of a lack of vaccination.
June 2, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
David
“I am not claiming MMR is “completely safe”, since it clearly is not and it can have adverse effects. However, I doubt precipitating autism is one of them, but I keep an open mind to the possibility that MMR may be a trigger in a tiny percentage of susceptible individuals, in the same way that the natural infection itself (measles) might be a trigger.”
How refreshing (honestly and not in an ironic way) to find someone who brings what looks like an open mind to the arena. I agree with your sentiments quoted here, but I’m not sure about the ‘tiny percentage’ bit. I don’t claim to know any more than you. I find the Honda study critique linked to in my post no 54 quite concerning, for instance. I do think scientists should be looking at this to see if the data stacks up.
June 2, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
There is more discussion of some of Dr Briffa’s points here: http://jdc325.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/more-briffa/
June 2, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
[...] other day I posted about Dr John Briffa’s rant against p-values. He has since then posted some responses, in the form of several comments under the original post [...]
June 2, 2008 @ 4:03 pm
Re: comment 65:
The author of the apathysketchpad blog, you will discover, a one Andrew Taylor.
The link that he posts to above goes to a blog post, followed by a discussion he and I had on-line about a number of matters, mainly logic and science. Do, please read the posts, I urge you, because they aptly demonstrate lack of understanding of either of these two disciplines that I’m finding depressingly common in those who purport to be ‘scientists’. See him also demonstrate his very tenuous grasp of the science in the area of MMR and autism. I think, these exchanges demonstrate this particular brand of ignorance so well, that I’m linking to it again should anyone miss it. See here: http://www.apathysketchpad.com/blog/2008/05/30/a-briffas-wrong/
Now, something you need to know: Andrew Taylor has a dim attitude of parents who believe their child’s autism may have been caused by MMR vaccination. He takes delight, it seems, in belittling such parents. With no proof that their belief is incorrect, he still has no hesitation in pouring scorn on them. How lovely.
Now, in his defense, Andrew is a scientist, so we should take his word therefore for why parents who believe that MMR vaccination may have caused their child’s autism are deluded and need setting straight through chastisement. You see, expert Andrew is PhD student in 2D and 3D image analysis. How comforting that those who have autistic children to know that they can look to someone so aptly qualified for enlightenment and correction.
.
I’m warning you, Andrew Taylor’s site is not for those of a sensitive or caring disposition
June 2, 2008 @ 6:27 pm
“I
June 3, 2008 @ 11:16 am
jdc
I maintain that I have NEVER deleted posts. Now, please permit me some time to check the evidence, and get back to you. It may take a day or two, because I am seeing patients this afternoon and lecturing tomorrow. But I will look into it. Would that be OK?
In the meantime, you might like to get back to me about those questions I pose to you here, and well as the question posed to you this morning in an email about why you protect your identity.
June 3, 2008 @ 11:26 am
I thought I had dealt with the substance of your arguments in my blog post. I do not particularly wish to answer questions about my personal circumstances on either your blog or mine (I think it can often be very boring to do so, I don’t think it can tell you anything useful and frankly I think the discussion of evidence is far more interesting), but I hope I can satisfy your curiosity about my personal situation via email. Black Triangle, Left Brain/Right Brain and Apathy Sketchpad have also answered some of the points you made. For instance, I do not intend to respond on the point you made regarding the Poling case as LB/RB has already done so.
Perhaps you could highlight here the substantive points in your posts that you feel I have not yet answered?
Re deleted/unapproved posts – yes, I would be grateful if you would look into this. Perhaps if you explained how you moderate this blog it would be possible to clarify that particular point now?
June 3, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
Re censored posts, try posting about Goldacre’s conflict of interests. Goldacre writes in the Guardian as if he’s an independent journo, debunking concerns about mobile phones and mmr, and calling people who disagree with him morons. The Guardian hides the fact that he works at the Institute of Psychiatry, where they are funded to produce industry and government propaganda disguised as research.
http://www.cspinet.org/integrity/watch/200709241.html#3
June 4, 2008 @ 3:07 pm
I can scarcely believe I have read right to the end of this debate – packed, as it is, with long words which fly right over the top of my blonde head…my question is this:
Is the ultimate goal of the ever increasing number of baby vaccinations that no child will ever die of a childhood illness? Why are we brainwashed into being terrified of diseases that were a normal part of childhood when I was young.
Like Angie in the post above, I had measles, mumps and german measles – I got some time off school and lots of jelly. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? I dont know of anyone who suffered any long term problems from any of the diseases we all caught and gave to each other.
As a mum of 4 children, I wouldnt like any of them to die or become permanently damaged by measles. Equally I wouldnt like them to fall under the wheels of a bus, be stabbed or beaten to death by a mob or become heroin addicts. But I have to accept the possibility that any of these things could happen.
Maybe my children will live long enough to suffer a few years of neglect and dementia in a retirement home, perhaps they will die young. Death happens – we might as well get used to it.
The one thing I DO have proof of: my unvaccinated children are far far healthier than my vaccinated children.
June 6, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
“I maintain that I have NEVER deleted posts. Now, please permit me some time to check the evidence, and get back to you. It may take a day or two, because I am seeing patients this afternoon and lecturing tomorrow. But I will look into it. Would that be OK?”
[3rd June 2008 11.26am]
June 11, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
jdc
The claim is I’ve deleted comments. Yet, the ‘evidence’ suggests that comments that were not there at one point are there now.
In other words, this is not evidence of comment deletion at all.
It looks to me to be the usual diversion from the true issues. Some dietitians use these tactics a lot, it seems. And they do their profession a massive disservice when they do, I think.
June 12, 2008 @ 8:08 am
Spongebob, comment 59. Do you have any evidence for the comments you make here:
But if you persist (on his site) he will block your posts, as happens frequently there. Also happens on other sites such as LeftBrain/No Brain, Goldacres forum, Orac etc. They make sweeping statements, and to prove that these are true they prevent any dissenting voices from posting comments, and hey presto – no dissent = must be true.
Dr B – so what was the reason for the magic reappearance of the missing comments? Were they deleted and re-instated or was there a very long comment moderation period?
June 13, 2008 @ 11:24 am
Some sense at last from Sian post No:71. I too have read this post to the end (phew!) and like the road accident discussed, it has been hard to not look and see the impending mess.
I have three unvaccinated boys 3, 9 & 11 years old. We have only had one trip to the doctor out of all those years, never used antibiotics, do not use fluoride in toothpastes and none of them have fillings. This is replicated by all other non-vaccination families I know and am friends with. They are the healthiest kids I know and illness is seen as something important to the developing immune system (mumps was no bother). Other then non vaccination, no antibiotics (oral and household sprays), no fluoride and reduced chemicals (esp artificial sweeteners) and toxins in food and house, I can see no other things that we do differently to other friends. Why are the majority of my neighbours’ kids regularly very ill, on continuous rounds of antibiotics, steroids, suffering from asthma, autism, allergies. It may not all lie at the feet of vaccination but it is just another assault on the immune system.
One question though – Siam maybe you have an idea? Now that these diseases are harder to find, my kids have not had measles and I am not sure if I want to risk them having it during teenage due to the increased dangers of getting the disease naturally but later than normal, so should I have the oldest one vaccinated by single dose with Measles (they have had mumps naturally – very easily). Can’t decide what to do? It is healthier to get the disease naturally but may be risky to get it as a teenager or adult?
June 24, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
[...] Dr John Briffa has also indulged in some MMR scaremongering of his own (Briffa’s original post), which I covered here, here, and here [note: the first of my blog posts includes links to many [...]
March 15, 2009 @ 10:49 pm
[...] Dr Ioannidis also makes the point some trials limit their reporting of adverse effects to
February 17, 2010 @ 5:20 am