Peacenik has read a cross section of articles. Pro vaccine and con vaccine. Vaccines are becoming publicly available in Guelph on Friday. There will be clinics running all day for weeks. The Canadian vaccine will have adjuvants. But Canada has ordered some vaccine without adjuvants for pregnant women. This fact has added to any apprehension Peacenik has about the vaccines.
Peacenik doesn't know if the Canadian vaccine will create side effects that a vaccine without adjuvants will have. Helen Branswell, a respected Canadian medical reporter, says that this year's Canadian vaccine will cause sorer arms than last year's due to the adjuvants. Peacenik is hoping to golf on Saturday. Peacenik doesn't want a sore arm. So Peacenik will delay getting vaccinated until the first available chance after Saturday. Peacenik will get the swine flu vaccine and the seasonal vaccine.
But Peacenik also has a question. Peacenik Jr. almost certainly had the swine flu. But no tests were taken to confirm it. Should Peacenik Jr. still get vaccinated? Should Punditman? Should Don Cherry? Should Taxi Guy?
Posted on: October 27, 2009 6:31 AM, by revere
On Saturday we posted our take on The Atlantic magazine article by Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer. It's a major story in the November issue, a banner across the top of the cover page reading: Swine flu: Does the vaccine really work? We tried to ignore it. People kept asking us to comment on it, but we didn't want to get entangled in vaccine controversies. As Orac warned me, it's a game of Whac-A-Mole. But we got fed up and posted our global response, not a point by point refutation, since that wasn't what the issue was. Our main point was that it was a straw man argument built around the narrative device of the brave, mavericky truth teller who is shunned by colleagues and has to eat alone at conferences. A scientific Enemy of the People. Not unexpectedly it drew a sharp response from the authors here and elsewhere. So like the worker who gets his sleeve caught in the machine, we are being drawn inexorably into the gears of the vaccine controversy. Sigh. We should have known better. But what's done is done, so we will add this to our initial immediate reply to the authors.
Brownlee/Lenzer title their response to us, "Faith-based science not methodolatry is the problem." This is apparently a reference to our use of the neologism methodolatry to describe what we see as Dr. Jefferson's overweaning fealty to the randomized trial as the only reliable knowledge. It was actually a rather minor point, but not to hear the authors tell it:
Read on...
Peacenik doesn't know if the Canadian vaccine will create side effects that a vaccine without adjuvants will have. Helen Branswell, a respected Canadian medical reporter, says that this year's Canadian vaccine will cause sorer arms than last year's due to the adjuvants. Peacenik is hoping to golf on Saturday. Peacenik doesn't want a sore arm. So Peacenik will delay getting vaccinated until the first available chance after Saturday. Peacenik will get the swine flu vaccine and the seasonal vaccine.
But Peacenik also has a question. Peacenik Jr. almost certainly had the swine flu. But no tests were taken to confirm it. Should Peacenik Jr. still get vaccinated? Should Punditman? Should Don Cherry? Should Taxi Guy?
Posted on: October 27, 2009 6:31 AM, by revere
On Saturday we posted our take on The Atlantic magazine article by Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer. It's a major story in the November issue, a banner across the top of the cover page reading: Swine flu: Does the vaccine really work? We tried to ignore it. People kept asking us to comment on it, but we didn't want to get entangled in vaccine controversies. As Orac warned me, it's a game of Whac-A-Mole. But we got fed up and posted our global response, not a point by point refutation, since that wasn't what the issue was. Our main point was that it was a straw man argument built around the narrative device of the brave, mavericky truth teller who is shunned by colleagues and has to eat alone at conferences. A scientific Enemy of the People. Not unexpectedly it drew a sharp response from the authors here and elsewhere. So like the worker who gets his sleeve caught in the machine, we are being drawn inexorably into the gears of the vaccine controversy. Sigh. We should have known better. But what's done is done, so we will add this to our initial immediate reply to the authors.
Brownlee/Lenzer title their response to us, "Faith-based science not methodolatry is the problem." This is apparently a reference to our use of the neologism methodolatry to describe what we see as Dr. Jefferson's overweaning fealty to the randomized trial as the only reliable knowledge. It was actually a rather minor point, but not to hear the authors tell it:
Read on...
