I just want to know one thing.

[semillama]

How long until anti-vaxxers make a connection between an increase in reported rates of autism and the Apollo program?

AUTISM IS CAUSED BY MOON DUST!!!!


(happy valentine's day, fellow skeptics)

[Orrex]

1. What I'd like to know

Is why there isn't a specific Health Dungeon into which all of these bullshit anti-vax threads are thrown. If you post about a devious (and nonsensical) 9/11 conspiracy, you're thrown into the 9/11 Dungeon. But if you post about a devious (and nonsensical) Big Pharma Thimerosal conspiracy, you get 50 recs and are as likely as not to remain in GD.

I'm not calling out the mods or anyone else. This is clearly a matter of DU policy. At some point a number of topics were identified as being unsuitable for front-page coverage, and the mods do a great job of shunting these crank threads to their respective padded cells (e.g., "WTC7 was destroyed by a tactical nuke").

But for some reason, the Thimerosal/Autism crap just keeps on stinking wherever it's crapped, even though the science supporting that belief is as dubious as the science supporting the "controlled demolition" theory.

[mr blur]

2. Good question

but then if a Kennedy believes it, it must be true.

[Orrex]

4. Don't forget their other esteemed spokesperson

[trotsky]

5. Well, it could be argued that the Health forum is itself that dungeon.

I alert on woo threads in GD, and they usually wind up in Health. I'd like to see DU go a little further and require that people starting those kind of threads have some kind of reasonable article or paper instead of shrieking and arm-waving and screams of "Go Democrats!" to try and silence anyone who voices an opinion based on factual data.

Of course lots of non-9/11 conspiracy junk finds a home in that cesspool - perhaps we should lobby to have the vaccine/thimerosal conspiracy be one of those. Should we write the admins? Take it up with some mods? I honestly don't know - but the ranting and raving that goes on with vaccines is virtually indistinguishable from the chemtrail/building collapse bullshit.

[Orrex]

7. Your second paragraph nicely sums up my thoughts on the matter

If I posted a serious rant about the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids, I suspect that it would rightly wind up in the 9/11 Dungeon (which is, as you note, a catch-all conspiracy pit).

I'm reluctant to presume to write the admins about it directly, but perhaps a missive to a mod might give us at least an idea of how to start.

[trotsky]

11. UPDATE: I wrote a PM to a mod.

Their response was that it will be talked over. Since the anti-vax threads are always flamewars, this might just work.

[Orrex]

12. Nice. Thanks for contacting them.

As someone who's alerted on more than a few of those threads, I'm sure that I could come across as a bit too fanatical if I were to initiate such a petition. Hopefully your cooler noggin will yield a more positive result.

Let us know!

[trotsky]

14. BWAH HA HA, you are sadly mistaken...

to refer to ME of all people as having a "cooler noggin". :rofl:
;-)

[Orrex]

16. I was trying to be nice

That'll teach me!

[beam me up scottie]

13. If they cite conspiracy websites they should be thrown in with the rest of them.

I've seen two links to Alex Jones and an anti-semitic website just in the past week.

[trotsky]

15. Absofuckinglutely.

Rense, whale.to, all that crap. They love their anti-vaccine woo as much as they hate the Illuminati.

[Warpy]

9. I've said for a long time that all the bullshit

needs to go to the group that's specifically set up for it, the Astrology, Spirituality and Alternative Medicine Group.

People can get as nuts as they want to in there. I won't go there. Honest.

[Orrex]

10. Nicely said

Heck, I've even visited the ASAM group a bunch of times just to see what goes on there, but I've never posted because I'm not quite that much of an asshole.

But the trick, it seems to me, is in getting anti-vax hysteria recognized as alternative medicine. The current tendency is to tolerate it as a different-but-equal medical theory, when of course it's anything but...

[onager]

3. Never. The Apollo moon landing was faked.

:hi:

[lizerdbits]

6. It's the aliens abducting us that are bringing the moon dust!

Seriously, this latest ruling has got them shitting their pants so bad I can't even go into the health dungeon. IF WE REPEAT IT OVER AND OVER IT WILL MAKE IT TRUE!!1!ONE!!1ELEVENS!!

[cosmik debris]

8. Liberal Veteran already linked it to cream of wheat.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=222&topic_id=53387&mesg_id=53498

Sarcastically of course.