[sci, med, current events, psych/anthro/soc] Interesting Conjunction
Somebody on my flist posted two links recently.
The first was "The Creeping Danger of Conspiracy Theorists", a blog post by Kurt Eichenwald, which starts off "The results are in: we’re a nation of idiots" and says: That doesn’t mean that these uninformed folk are harmless. Fifty-four percent of Americans-more than half the country!-either believes that childhood vaccinations cause autism or aren’t sure whether they do. Never mind that study after study, including one just released by the Centers for Disease Control, say this belief is uneducated malarkey. Why should anyone consider that when we have former Playboy model and B-movie actress Jenny McCarthy disagreeing? Yes, that is where we are: Americans are more likely to believe a nursing-school dropout than PhDs from America’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning.
The second was "I Went to the Nutritionists' Annual Confab. It Was Catered by McDonald's." an article at Mother Jones by Kiera Butler. I recommend Americans read it, in its entirety. It's hard to excerpt one representative part, because each sentence is more damning than the last. But here's some: With 75,000 members [...] the national Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) is the world's largest professional association for nutritionists and dietitians. It accredits undergraduate and graduate programs in nutrition science and awards credentials to dietitian degree candidates who pass its exam. In Washington, its lobbying arm is active on issues including childhood obesity, Medicare, and the farm bill.
It also has strong ties to the food industry. [... in] 2011, [it had] 38 [corporate sponsors], including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Mars, and many others. Corporate contributions are its largest source of income, generating nearly 40 percent of its total revenue.
[...] The academy's position papers, she noted, state that its sponsors do not influence its positions on controversial issues. And yet it often takes a pro-industry stance. When New York City was considering a ban on sales of oversized sodas, for example, the academy opposed it.
So, yes, Americans don't consider medical professionals authoritative sources of health information. Funny that.
I say this as someone with zero sympathy for antivaxxers, who considers a refusal to vaccinate your kid due to a (baseless!) fear of autism frankly despicable.
Medical science has burned away its moral authority.
We live in a society in which millions of people are treated according to bogus studies, in which surgeons have been caught having performed hundreds of fake surgeries, in which pharmaceutical companies sold bogus or tainted medication by the truckload, and in which industries have been caught acting to suppress evidence their products are dangerous and used medical researchers to do it.
Nobody gets to complain that hoi polloi don't listen to their scientific betters. Nobody gets to complain that the masses don't uncritically accept everything said to them by somebody in a white lab coat. Or scrubs. Or from a newspaper. Nobody gets to complain that the little people are so susceptible to panics about nefarious plots to sell them poison as medicine.
We live in a society in which it is not stupid or paranoid to suspect you are being lied to by medical professionals, or by the media about medical matters. It is not ridiculous to be cynical about the motives of those who produce medical information for our consumption.
Medical science has an ethics problem. And until it figures out how to clean house, this is how its going to be.
The first was "The Creeping Danger of Conspiracy Theorists", a blog post by Kurt Eichenwald, which starts off "The results are in: we’re a nation of idiots" and says: That doesn’t mean that these uninformed folk are harmless. Fifty-four percent of Americans-more than half the country!-either believes that childhood vaccinations cause autism or aren’t sure whether they do. Never mind that study after study, including one just released by the Centers for Disease Control, say this belief is uneducated malarkey. Why should anyone consider that when we have former Playboy model and B-movie actress Jenny McCarthy disagreeing? Yes, that is where we are: Americans are more likely to believe a nursing-school dropout than PhDs from America’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning.
The second was "I Went to the Nutritionists' Annual Confab. It Was Catered by McDonald's." an article at Mother Jones by Kiera Butler. I recommend Americans read it, in its entirety. It's hard to excerpt one representative part, because each sentence is more damning than the last. But here's some: With 75,000 members [...] the national Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) is the world's largest professional association for nutritionists and dietitians. It accredits undergraduate and graduate programs in nutrition science and awards credentials to dietitian degree candidates who pass its exam. In Washington, its lobbying arm is active on issues including childhood obesity, Medicare, and the farm bill.
It also has strong ties to the food industry. [... in] 2011, [it had] 38 [corporate sponsors], including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Mars, and many others. Corporate contributions are its largest source of income, generating nearly 40 percent of its total revenue.
[...] The academy's position papers, she noted, state that its sponsors do not influence its positions on controversial issues. And yet it often takes a pro-industry stance. When New York City was considering a ban on sales of oversized sodas, for example, the academy opposed it.
So, yes, Americans don't consider medical professionals authoritative sources of health information. Funny that.
I say this as someone with zero sympathy for antivaxxers, who considers a refusal to vaccinate your kid due to a (baseless!) fear of autism frankly despicable.
Medical science has burned away its moral authority.
We live in a society in which millions of people are treated according to bogus studies, in which surgeons have been caught having performed hundreds of fake surgeries, in which pharmaceutical companies sold bogus or tainted medication by the truckload, and in which industries have been caught acting to suppress evidence their products are dangerous and used medical researchers to do it.
Nobody gets to complain that hoi polloi don't listen to their scientific betters. Nobody gets to complain that the masses don't uncritically accept everything said to them by somebody in a white lab coat. Or scrubs. Or from a newspaper. Nobody gets to complain that the little people are so susceptible to panics about nefarious plots to sell them poison as medicine.
We live in a society in which it is not stupid or paranoid to suspect you are being lied to by medical professionals, or by the media about medical matters. It is not ridiculous to be cynical about the motives of those who produce medical information for our consumption.
Medical science has an ethics problem. And until it figures out how to clean house, this is how its going to be.