A May 8th news story by Jon Walker in the Argus Leader reports on a talk by Andrew Moulden, Ph.D. on the “dangers” of vaccines. According to the story, the talk consisted of the same old claims: “Moulden, 44, said childhood vaccines introduce chemicals into the blood that can cause autism or strokes, and that annual flu shots for adults increase Alzheimer’s risk.” There was a token scientist in the story, but coverage of the science was outweighed by personal anecdotes and unsupported claims from the anti-vaccination side.
I would like to make a couple of points here. First, it is telling that the meeting was not affiliated with any legitimate medical establishment. Andrew Moulden is said to be “a specialist in neuropsychology from Toronto” and the meeting was hosted by Ben Rall, “a local chiropractor.” While I generally have a great appreciation for neuropsychologists–many of the findings that drive research in my own field of cognitive psychology come from neuropsychology–I can imagine a neuropsychologist being more prone than a medical doctor to fall for neuro-woo. After all, the major point of neuropsychology is diagnosing and classifying mental problems, not elaborating the biochemical mechanisms by which those problems come about. In fact, this Moulden character even claimed “‘It’s not the germs that are causing disease.’” As for chiropracty…well, ’nuff said.
Second, I think it is scandalous, but not surprising, that the Argus Leader would send a journalist to this meeting who would do such a poor job reporting it. The story follows the typical line that non-science reporters fall into: a report of the main speaker, with obligatory overly strong statements (Moulden is quoted as saying about immunization “‘This is a global catastrophe that’s happening daily’”), followed by a two sentence rebuttal by a legitimate doctor (props to Dr. Wendell Hoffman at Sanford Clinic for pointing out risks both to unvaccinated children and the general public), followed by quotes from several misled parents expressing fear of vaccines. The story ends again with a single statement by Dr. Hoffman pointing out that research does not support a link between thimerosal and autism, but immediately then quotes a mother from Florida who claims “her daughter..died at age 4 after vaccines caused autism.” (Autism killing a 4-year-old? Not to minimize the mother’s loss, but I suspect that she has misinterpreted the events surrounding her child’s death. There are no details in the report to even begin trying to put together a picture of events.) Jon Walker follows the “opposing sides” script of the debate, with one side having the scientific evidence but the other side having the quotable anecdotes. Guess which side he focused on? What’s worse, the Argus Leader editors saw fit to publish this hackneyed piece of reporting.
ADDENDUM (11-May, 4:30 p.m. local time): WordPress automatically generated a link on one of my pages to a video of a speech by Andrew Moulden, in case any readers are interested in hearing his basic argument. Extensive non-technical discussions of the vaccine-autism research, at greater level of sophistication than I can provide, can be found at these science blogs: Neurologica, Respectful Insolence, and Science Based Medicine.
May 11, 2009 at 1:22 pm |
Don’t you think, though, that these are the “stories” that the editors want, and it’s not just about incompetent reporters? These stories provide easy answers and blame, and that’s what people want.
I’m not making excuses for the article’s comment, btw.
I went to a meeting in SF where David Kirby was speaking. My son had been diagnosed about a year earlier, and my friend was trying to wade through information. I questioned some contradictory statements made by Mr. Kirby, and if looks could kill…I shut my mouth and tried to remember that I was in a yoga studio in SF.
My point is that people will hear what they want to hear. It’s a terrifying thing to me that parents are being encouraged to not vaccinate their children. Maybe I’m naive, but I choose to believe that this group is a small, but vocal, minority. I hope so, anyway.