"Swine flu and hype - a media illness" - Ben Goldacre

[mr blur]

<snip>

I'm not showing off. I know I'm a D-list public intellectual, but I just think it's interesting: because not only have the public lost all faith in the media; not only do so many people assume, now, that they are being misled; but more than that, the media themselves have lost all confidence in their own ability to give us the facts.

<snip>

Sane and well-reasoned piece:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/29/swine-flu-hype

[TZ]

1. See here's what gets me..

In that article it talks about SARS and bird flu as being not real threats..which is not true. Just because the entire world didn't get sick doesn't mean those things should be scoffed at. I went off on some jackass in GD who insisted bird flu was a total hoax because he didn't know anybody who got sick...think about what damage it did in Asia and parts of Africa.
But yeah, the media doesn't handle this well and thats making the woos here think its all media hype when the WHO is working and watching very hard. I am again surprised by the utter CONTEMPT on this board for scientists.

[mr blur]

4. No, but HE doesn't say that they're not real threats

In fact he says,

"It's not true, I said. They were risks, risks that didn't materialise, but they were still risks. That's what a risk is. I've never been hit by a car, but it's not idiotic to think about it."

[cosmik debris]

2. I never cease to be amazed

When people expect capitalist organizations (like media corporations) to behave as if their sole purpose was to benefit the public.

They make their money selling emotions, and it can be a very lucrative business. But the people who don't understand that will be perpetually befuddled.

[TZ]

3. But yet these same people who bash the msm

about fear mongering...will believe them on ANYTHING to do with science..especially anything that buys into their tin foil hat beliefs! If say CNN came out tomorrow with an "expose" showing that the epidemiologists at WHO were all on the take from a Pharma company, the same people who complain about them would totally believe it.

[bluedawg12]

5. Interesting article.

What I think is going on is that people expect instant information.

We are data hungry. We also have a short attention span.

Coverage of daily changes from reputable sources makes sense. Monitor WHO and the CDC, while hourly internet reporting of ER visits in a little town somewhere makes no sense.
It may reflect public fear and a seasonal increase in allergies.

Kind of like when a local factory reported a brief toxic fume exposure, something mild, a few years ago and suddenly a significant percentage of workers suddenly developed unrelated symptoms.

Likewise, hourly local flu reporting may reflect the power of suggestion response and spike in ER visits, reported by an over zealous bloggosphere?

Science is hard. Epidemiology is hard. There is a temptation to take raw data and to interpret it in lieu of the experts. Ahead of the experts.

My hunch is that by Sunday no one will be talking about H1N1. It appears moderately contagious but not particularly virulent.

Information is good and an informed public is needed to contain spread and prevent infection. However, with
> 6 billion people on this planet, all with an opinion and many with internet access, a simple story can get out of focus fast.

Someone, shortly after this H1N1 story broke was certain that antigenic shift could not account for this, “it was too soon too know.” An oxymoron in action.

Yes, it was too soon to know that it wasn’t. The simple idea that,“it was too soon too know,”
ergo it wasn’t antigenic shift because of the supposed three species recombination and there were no precursors in any animals for this virus.

See where they were headed? It was an engineered virus. It seems it was not too soon to know a good conspiracy.

By today, we have an article that three independent researchers found fragments of H1N1 linked to a NC virus from 1998! So, there was a precursor and there was a live reservoir prior to this strain.

I don’t blame the media, nor anyone, it’s human nature and science is hard and people operate from many motives.

I think this is my favorite line from the piece:

“We are poorly equipped to think around issues involving risk, and infectious diseases epidemiology is a tricky business: the error margins on the models are wide, and it's extremely hard to make clear predictions.”

Yesterday I started writing about slowing down on “interpreting data” and today I am writing about how it is becoming clearer that this is a moderately quickly spreading novel new virus with apparent low morbidity and mortality.

In the meantime, this epidemic brought out a number of things and an after action retrospective might be interesting on the variety of human responses from functional to dysfunctional.

[uppityperson]

6. Very interesting, thank you for this.

[bluedawg12]

7. There is mistrust of more than the media.

The other thing this article reminded me of is the nearly knee jerk mistrust by many of the public on several levels:

1.) Science

2.) Government

3.) Media

4.) Health care professionals


This is odd, because it reminds me a lot of rightwing ideology about global climate change, or poor old Darwin et al.

The other thing this article brought ought is factual relativism. That every crackpot counter-theory deserves as much respect and air time as say the opinions on 99% legitimate researchers and their data, to be "fair and balanced." *ack.*

[TZ]

8. nailed it.

Its particularly bothersome to see this on DU..Its clear that many here only give lip service to respecting science..What they mean is they respect the science that fits THEIR POLITICAL BELIEFS. Look at the health scare lounge..The tactics the woos use to try to discredit established medical fact sounds to me like straight out of a RW playbook. Just go to show that wingnuts of both ends share a lot of traits.

[bluedawg12]

9. This is the fallout from a concerted rw attack on science , check out this book>

This is a book that has documented the rw tactics - and the confusion we see today is part of a reichwing process that started 30 years ago as a concerted decision to keep people off balance and confused.

Global climate change deniers often were paid shills for energy corps. and Big business.

RW also used confusion about science to push their wedge issues and social agenda, which was a great way to keep people in line and voting on social issues even against their own broader political interests.

This link has some free excerpts by a book writen by Chris Mooney, it's fascinating reading to see what lengths the rw has gone to in order to disseminate confusion about science, so then, naturally, they want people to fall into line with their agenda.

http://www.waronscience.com/book.php
Science has never been more crucial to deciding the political issues facing the country. Yet science and scientists have less influence with the federal government than at any time since the Eisenhower administration.

In the White House and Congress today, findings are reported in a politicized manner; spun or distorted to fit the speaker’s agenda; or, when they’re too inconvenient, ignored entirely. On a broad array of issues—stem cell research, climate change, abstinence education, mercury pollution, and many others—the Bush administration’s positions fly in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus.

In The Republican War on Science, Chris Mooney tied together the disparate strands of the attack on science into a compelling and frightening account of our government’s increasing unwillingness to distinguish between legitimate research and ideologically driven pseudoscience.

Now, in a revised and expanded paperback edition, Mooney brings us up to date on the war on science, relates the phenomenon to the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina—and ends with a call to arms to scientists and their allies.

[Odin2005]

14. It's also pushed by Postmodernist philosophers and New Age charlatans like Deepak Chopra

The nasty side effect of the 60s and 70s, pretty soon even good authorities become suspect in the mind of the average person.

[uppityperson]

10. FWIW, posted topid about Mexico flu deaths and not seeking health care soon enough

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=222&topic_id=58834&mesg_id=58834

[TZ]

11. And I see the responses are pretty much

So what? Definitely an anti-doctor theme developing there.

[uppityperson]

12. yup. Not surprising, considering it is a forum for Health matters

[bluedawg12]

13. Always the bad doctors, except you own.

"My doctor exceptionalizm theory."

My physician is the best, most renown, the rest are shit.

Nice.

Ignorant.