Skip to content

NJCVC – Purveyors of Nonsense


What is NJCVC?

So in honor of all the recent attention my blog has attracted from NJ anti-vaccinationists, I thought I’d take a moment to point out what NJCVC really is: A coalition of, at best, misinformed parents, and at worst, intellectually dishonest fear mongerers. 

A quick look at their web page finds that if you attended yesterdays rally, you may have been one of the 200 to receive a free Gary Null DVD. I’m so sorry I missed that.

For those of you that don’t know, Gary Null is a pretty well documented quack. Boasting bogus credentials and pseudoscientific research methods, one would wonder why any association would want to align themselves with him in any way. I suppose, however, that when a quack’s findings line up pretty well with your own beliefs, you tend to deny his quackery. 

I especially love the portion of the page dedicated to sign ideas. They include such gems as “Too Many Sick Kids”, “1 in 60 NJ Boys Autistic”, and “Vaccine Choice: Moms Know Best”. And yet, I continue to receive comments and emails telling me that NJCVC is not “claiming that vaccines cause autism”. Interesting, it seems like they are. 

The entire site is much too rife with non-sequiturs and vague allusions to “toxins” to debunk all the claims made. The irony is organizations are taking donations and wasting money on a completely useless endeavor, chasing a causal link that doesn’t exist. I really and truly feel sorry for those parents of autistic children whose bills for their development might be helped by the money wasted by organizations such as this one.

I apologize to those who have had comments deleted, but I am not trying to assist you in spreading your misinformation. So if you post a comment that does not contain any claims different from another, I will not approve its posting.

Posted 17 October 2008 § Health § Skepticism ‡ View Comments ° Tagged: , , ,

Trenton, NJ Anti-Vaccination Rally


Do Vaccines Cause Autism?

There is a lovely little gathering just wrapping up in NJ’s state capitol of Trenton this afternoon. Somewhere near 1000 200 protesters are rallying for the passing of a pair of new proposed bills (A260 and S1071) that would allow for conscientious exemption by parents for their children’s routine vaccinations. It is just one more example of unfounded allegations leading to a hysteria of the uninformed.

The organization at the forefront, organizing the rally and pushing hard the agenda, is the innocuously-named New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice. They have a perfectly distilled down list of reasons why vaccination should not be mandatory, distilled down for the simple folk who might not understand all the complicated study results regarding the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccines. And, without fail, coming in at number 8:

Vaccination has been proven to cause Autism.

This is exciting news! They’ve obviously conducted some sort of clinical trial, and found a causal link?! Nope, guess again. They just regurgitate the same tired claims; including the incredibly scientific SurveyUSA study. Conducted by telephone. And I quote:

“of more than 9,000 boys in California and Oregon and found that vaccinated boys had a 155% greater chance of having a neurological disorder like ADHD or autism than unvaccinated boys.”

Well, lets take a look at this claim. What is it really saying, if anything. 

First, the survey is limited to California and Oregon. So we have not eliminated the possibility of a geographic factor. Second, and as I said before it was a telephone-based study. This relies on people responding honestly to a telephone soliciter — this is not how real scientific studies are conducted. Any number of factors could be at play here, conspiring to create this result. Perhaps a certain percentage of the respondents lied. Still more may have self-diagnosed their children.

Furthermore, I find the wording of the statement interesting. Why do they only mention the statistics for boys? Could it be because the statistics for girls do not make their case for them? If you whittle a dataset down enough, cherrypicking your limiters, you can find a correlation between almost anything. If you look at a specific enough sample group, you can probably find a positive correlative link between cigarette smoking and Olympic achievements.

Another telling portion of their statement is that they say a “neurological disorder like ADHD or autism”. Like is a weasal word; your definition of like may not be my definition of like. Who knows how many different self-reported-by-telephone disorders were marked as an autism “hit”?

The organizations entire premise is based on worthless studies and conjecture. The other 9 reasons autism shouldn’t be mandatory range from being patently false, to creating straw-man arguments for vaccination proponents and tearing down positions they don’t hold. 

In conclusion. If you’re for vaccination choice, thats just fine. We live in a democratic society, and what the people want they should get. But, they, along with organizations such as NJCVC have a responsibility to be informed.

Posted 16 October 2008 § Skepticism ‡ View Comments ° Tagged: , , , ,

Papal Logical Fallacy


You may have read recent headlines quoting Pope Benedict giving his professional opinion on the current state of the worlds economies. 
 
Just thought I’d really quickly run down the logical fallacy his Holiness has committed.
 
First, his quote.
”We are now seeing, in the collapse of major banks, that money vanishes, it is nothing. All these things that appear to be real are in fact secondary. Only God’s words are a solid reality”.
His entire premise, as I understand it, is built on a false dichotomy. That is to say, what has been going on isn’t working, therefore my solution is the only viable alternative.  This is similar to the “alternative” healer who, instead of defending his medical modality, points out the less-than 100% success rate of traditional medicine. 
Its possible the worlds economy is built on sand, and perhaps it cannot last, but this in itself does not speak one breath of support for “God’s words”.
Furthermore, religions are a luxury of a civilization with leisure time to spend on them and funds to donate to their support. Benedict’s religion is kept afloat by donations. Donations syphoned from the pool of funds he is chastising as being built on sand.
From a strictly factual stance, he continues to be incorrect. He quotes ”We are now seeing, in the collapse of major banks, that money vanishes, it is nothing.” Which shows a lack of any real knowledge of the financial system, or the current crisis.      

Ironically enough, he is the nephew of Georg Ratzinger, a politician and economist of some note who shared his opinions. Wikipedia quotes:

“[Ratzinger] maintains the ethical principles of Christianity as the only sure basis of political economy and opposes the materialistic system of what is called the “classical political economy” of Adam Smith.”
I am continually astounded at the willingness of religious leaders to step in to arenas outside of their scope and use serious situations for, what amounts to, political purposes.
Posted 09 October 2008 § Skepticism ‡ View Comments ° Tagged: , , ,