| MMR – the vaccine damage myth that will not die Despite the disproving of a link between MMR vaccination and autism, MMR is under attack againIt is now well-established that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of the view that MMR does not cause autism. The front page of the Mail on Sunday at the weekend has the headline "FAMILY WIN 18YR FIGHT OVER MMR DAMAGE TO SON" and a strap-line reading "£90,000 pay out is first since concerns over vaccine surfaced". This is the case of a boy called Robert, who is now 18 and has severe brain damage such that he is unable to talk, stand unaided or feed himself, following a severe convulsion and onset of epilepsy at the age of 13 months. It is impossible not to feel sympathy and admiration for Robert and his family for his condition, their circumstances and their long battle for compensation. In fact I share the view of Robert's mother that £90,000 is not very much given the financial costs involved with a case like this. The text of the story makes clear in three places that Robert does not have autism, but it implies through repeated reference to the MMR/autism "controversy" that compensation pay-outs may now be forthcoming for those families who claim that MMR caused autism in their child. The article refers to the judgment of a three-person appeal panel under the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme who, by a majority decision, decided that Robert suffered convulsions, epilepsy and severe brain damage as a result of a serious reaction to the vaccination 10 days after receiving it. The ruling makes clear that it does not apply to autism, and even Robert's mother – who runs a campaign group which is, to put it charitably, sceptical about vaccines – points out that claims of autism are not considered under the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme. Robert's mother asserts there are 120 MMR cases waiting to be heard, which presumably refers to claims in respect of non-autism-related ill-health.The story states that the "judgement will give hope to hundreds of other parents whose children have been severely affected by routine vaccinations." And Robert's mother is also reported as saying that the ruling would give hope to hundreds of other parents fighting to prove that their children's disabilities were caused by MMR injection. There is an accompanying analysis article written by Sally Beck, who I had rather expected to be a doctor but is instead a journalist with a history of writing MMR-causes-autism stories. The analysis piece is headlined "New hope for parents who claim MMR jab blighted their children". It says: "Up to 2,000 parents remain convinced their children have suffered significant harm from MMR but have been unable to prove it. This new decision will give them hope even though compensation panels do not officially recognise autism claims."Surely therefore any hope would be false hope? The panel say in their ruling: "We would stress that this decision is fact-specific and it should not be seen as a precedent for any other case. In particular, it has no relevance to the issue ... as to whether there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism."The story has been picked up in the Daily Telegraph who said "A man who suffered severe brain damage after being given the MMR vaccine as a baby has been awarded £90,000 in a landmark ruling expected to pave the way for thousands of similar compensation claims."Even the Daily Mail story only talked of hundreds. Where did "thousands" come from?Step forward Tory MP Nadine Dorries – described as "a member of the powerful Commons Health Committee". She is quoted in the article as saying that:"If an independent panel has reached the conclusion that there has been a link between the MMR vaccine and the brain damage suffered by this boy in this case, then it is fair to assume that there could be as many as thousands of children and parents in the same position. "Asserting that there are thousands of cases of brain damage being ascribed to MMR might well have the effect of deterring parents from having the vaccination. It is of course well established that a measles outbreak could well cause severe brain damage as that is a recognised complication of measles infection. It does not seem responsible for any MP to be creating an MMR scare all over again without good evidence to back it up.Evan Harrisguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Fish with chips predict future stocks British scientists will implant fish with sensors similar to those used in computer game consoles to better understand their movements under water. abc.net.au |
Quantum leap towards computer of the future An Australian-led team of scientists have taken a big step forward in the race to develop a quantum computer. abc.net.au |
US, China blame each other for slow climate talks By TINI TRAN 2010-10-09T12:47:02ZTIANJIN, China (AP) -- Modest progress at U.N. climate talks Saturday was overshadowed by a continuing deadlock between China and the United States, clouding prospects for a major climate conference in Mexico in less than two months' time.... hosted.ap.org |
William James, part 2: The scientific study of religion | Mark Vernon James demonstrates how identifying the physiological bases for religious experience explains very littleThe Scotsman of May 1901 records how William James began the lectures that became The Varieties of Religious Experience, "in the English class-room of [Edinburgh] University, where a crowded audience assembled". He was the kind of communicator who attracted more and more auditors as a course proceeded. When, in 1908, he gave the Hibbert lectures in Oxford, the venue had to be changed from a modest library to the vast rooms of the Examination Schools building."It is with no small amount of trepidation that I take my place behind this desk," he opened, "and face this learned audience." The reasons for his strikingly humble tone were several. American universities had only recently started to award higher degrees, so thinkers of James' generation travelled to Europe to research. James himself had no such academic qualification.That said, it quickly became clear that he had all the boldness of the brilliant amateur. His lectures would examine the perennial human phenomenon of religious experience, from a psychological not ecclesiastical or theological perspective. He would confine his evidence to records produced by articulate, often remarkable individuals. He would be clear to draw a difference between the nature of religious experiences, and the value of religious truths to humankind. It is easy, he notes, to slip from explaining the former to passing judgment on the latter, though the move is fallacious.James explains why in the first lecture. He was a keen Darwinian, and so he asks us to consider the kind of evolutionary explanation for religion that argues it has some survival advantage, or that draws a connection between, say, religious emotions and sexual life. It's a reasonable hypothesis. Everything has causes. What's a mistake, though, is to think these aetiologies explain away the authority the experiences carry.James calls that error "medical materialism". This "too simple-minded system … finishes up Saint Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffs out Saint Teresa as an hysteric." Paul may well have had an epileptic episode. But that's only to say that there is a biological component to all human experience. "Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see "the liver" determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul."Thus, critics discredit states of mind of which they disapprove, not those of which they approve, and it is entirely arbitrary and illogical to do so. If you explain away religious experience, then you evacuate the truth content of all utterances made by human beings.Instead, we must discern what's true by making intellectual, philosophical and spiritual judgments, James continues. This might be said to be the first lesson he offers to the discipline he is fathering: the psychology of religion. It is also the first lesson that many of his successors appear to forget.James, then, is a man who does not pull his punches, and he has other points to make that are relevant now as then. For example, happiness is no measure of what's right in life. Indeed, many religious experiences are distressing in the extreme. Take George Fox, the founder of Quakerism. From the point of view of his wellbeing, James describes him as "a psychopath … of the deepest dye." And yet, the religion he founded is "impossible to overpraise".Another mistake is to discredit a belief by mocking its pontifical source or supernatural origin. Why? As James observes, in just one of many witty phrases: "By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots." The work of discernment and discrimination is very necessary. But to judge simply by source is to confuse origins with truth.James' pragmatism is coming through here. Neither appearance nor reason are, of themselves, infallible adjudicators of human value, because to be human is more than appearance or reason alone can assess. Instead, practice – life led in the round – must have the casting vote.So why bother studying religious experiences at all, he then asks for his listeners in Edinburgh, and other readers since? For one thing, it's of interest: curiosity drives him on. For another, a better understanding of religion may be gained, and that might aid the work of discernment. Explanations don't explain away, but they may help identify exaggerations and excesses.In fact, it's not clear that the scientific study of religion could ever offer a full explanation. The clue is in the very title of his lectures: religious experience is nothing if not various. Explanations will struggle with this variety as they typically require a single essence to get started – religion stems from the tendency to ascribe agency to inanimate forces, say. But such approaches always leave too much out, and the evidence is often forced to fit the prior assertions.Better, then, to see the psychology of religion as a taxonomical endeavour, one which attempts to categorise. James will return to more metaphysical questions. But he is now ready to begin his examination.ReligionPsychologyMark Vernonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |