Should Anti-vaxxer's be liable?

[jschild]

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/...ting-fire.html

A very interesting article about what, if any, responsibility anti-vaxxer's should bear for spreading misinformation and outright lies about vaccines being linked to autism.

IE, if some foolish mother listens to someone like Jenny McCarthy (A real issue considering Oprah is working on getting her a show) and doesn't vaccinate her child and that child dies of an easily preventable disease (not realy a what if since it has been happening with greater frequency recently), should they bear any civil or criminal punishment for spreading that misinformation (ALA screaming fire in a theater)?

I personally think they should be libel for at least civil punishments, and be punished every time they blatently lie since they are putting children at risk.

How do you feel?

[A_Train]

Hmm, difficult subject.

I would never consider listening to Jenny or Oprah on how to care for my children, so I don't think I'll hold them responsible.

Maybe the parents of that child should be held responsible, but perhaps the loss of said child is punishment enough.

[jschild]

The problem is the general lack of respect for science in the US and some other countries - it doesn't matter how many studies you have, or what proof, people have their "intuition" and "gut" and their idols (celeberties who have not even the slightest training to speak about anything science related) to listen to. Yes, the parent is by far the one most responisible, but think of it this way.

Person A screams fire and Persons B-F trample Person G trying to "escape" said fire. Persons B-F did the actual trampling, not Person A. However, the chain of events would have never occured if not for Person A.

In this case, people like Oprah and Jenny and Jim Carrey are Person A, and are influencing Persons B-F. It would be interesting to see a court case regardign something like this - just to see what would happen if such an arguement was used.

[Aldin]

I think parents and parents alone should be responsible for raising their kids. They have access to sufficient information to make informed decisions. Absent abusive situations, and I suppose we could argue about what constitutes abuse, the government has absolutely no business getting involved.

The right and responsibility that government has to safeguard her citizens is derived from those citizens and should not supersede their individual rights. The authority of government over chldren is in every case derived from the parents of those children and should not be abused by being made superior to those individual rights.

~Aldin, who vaccinates but thinks defending the rights of parents is a good idea

ps A "general lack of respect for science in the US"? Prove it

[RabSheila]

I'm not sure you could hold the celebrities accountable. Don't get me wrong I think they should be, but all they are doing is giving bad advice. No one is forcing these stupid parents to follow it. I'm sketchy on law, but isn't this free speech? If the vaccine people came down on McCarthy, etc. and sued them for slander and won then you could probably hit them with some charge if a child was harmed because some parent followed their advice.

[jschild]

I'm sketchy on law, but isn't this free speech?

Did you read the article? It was equating the fact that Freedom of Speech does not allow you to scream "Fire" in a theater to idiots screaming "Vaccines cause Autism!" We know the first is not allowed by law, but the question is, is the second?

[jschild]

ps A "general lack of respect for science in the US"? Prove it

Respect may be the wrong word, a general lack of understanding of what science is and isn't would be far more accurate.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=120061&page=1

The prevalence of psudoscience and many people apparent inability to even look into the basics of elementary science is at the root of the problem. As the article represents, only one study ever showed a link, 10 out of the 12 authors have refuted that work, the primary author has been proven to have falsified evidence, and the study was done by someone who would directly profit if they got a certain conclusion. A few minutes work would show it to be an unsupportable premise, yet more and more americans (and others around the world, enspec Australia) are falling for it.

Again, would you think this reaches the level of "Fire" or not?

[Aldin]

By the way (since you stirred my curiousity), here's the FDA circa 2001 take on MMR/Autism:

Originally Posted by FDA

On April 23, 2001, the Immunization Safety Review Committee reported its finding that the current evidence does not favor the hypothesis that there is a link between MMR and autism, and that no changes should be made in the current policy of administering the MMR vaccine. The committee could not rule out the possibility that the MMR vaccine might be linked to autism in some sub-population, and recommended that targeted research in this area be conducted. To date, there is no indication as to whether there is any such subpopulation, or what the genetic makeup or other characteristics of such a subpopulation would be, Egan says.

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2001/401_vacc.html

Hardly a ringing endorsement to a concerned parent.

~Aldin, who thinks vaccines are a great idea

[RabSheila]

Sorry. Didn't read it. Just finished it now. My new answer:

Beats me. Raise your own kids and don't listen to the stars. The majority of them appear to be crazy.

[ollie]

Originally Posted by Aldin

ps A "general lack of respect for science in the US"? Prove it

Now that's an invitation...

You want top-down (the Bush administration doctoring climate change reports, for example) or bottom-up (that a quarter of Americans believe in astrology is a good start)? Not that there is anything especially anti-science about the US compared to many other countries but I'd certainly argue that there is insufficient respect for science here (different issues are dealt with differently: the US seems much happier with GM foods than other nations whereas it accepts evolution to a lesser extent on the whole).

Yup, I'd like to see the anti-vaccine brigade on trial too. It's not just the risk they put their own children in, but the risk they put other children in. See for example this recent article. While we're at it, can we lock up a few homeopaths too?

[Aldin]

Cross posts are always fun. No, it isn't the equivalent of yelling "fire" without the reasonable belief that there may be a fire. Heck, based on your article, it sounds like our schools need to spend more time teaching nuts and bolts science and less time speculating about evolution

~Aldin, suspecting we are never going to get remotely close to agreeing on anything

[jschild]

By the way (since you stirred my curiousity), here's the FDA circa 2001 take on MMR/Autism:

Info that is now 8 years out of date - I'm not arguing that there shouldn't have ever been a questioning of the possibility of a link, its just that its been reputed so many times through so many different methods that to continue to push what we now know to be nonsense is what is at least bordering on criminal.

Sorry. Didn't read it. Just finished it now. My new answer:

Beats me. Raise your own kids and don't listen to the stars. The majority of them appear to be crazy.

AMen!

Heck, based on your article, it sounds like our schools need to spend more time teaching nuts and bolts science and less time speculating about evolution

I agree, although if you think its mere spectulation and isn't directly supported by literally tons of evidence, then you might be a bit off. Heck, you might even find this recent article very interesting...

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog...t-weve-tr.html