Conservatives are more likely to believe that vaccines cause autism

Is it really true that conservatives are more likely to believe that vaccines cause autism?  Yes.

Dan Kahan pointed me to a recent post by Robert Lupton and Christopher Hare, who report, based on recent survey data, that “conservatives are more likely to believe that vaccines cause autism.” Lupton and Hare write:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico More specifically: So far, so good. They have the information needed to see whether conservatives are more likely to believe that vaccines cause autism (assuming, as usual, that the survey responses accurately represent people’s views and that the sample is representative of the population). Here’s what Lupton and Hare report: And here’s my problem (and Kahan’s). The above graph, and the associated regression analysis, _does not directly answer the question by the title of this post_. To directly answer that question, you want to make a direct comparison: a simple plot (or even a tabulation) of the percentage of respondents who believe in the vaccines-autism link, as a function of political ideology.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico [See P.P.S. below for a graph that shows the direct comparison, sent to me by the authors in response to this post.] Once you’ve shown the basic comparisons, it makes a lot of sense to do more elaborate analyses. I have every reason to believe that, if you look directly at the data collected by Lupton and Hare, that you’ll find the pattern they claim, that conservatives are more likely to believe that vaccines cause autism. I just want to see it. More generally, when we claim X, we should show X. This comes up a lot in statistical analysis, that there’s a tendency to do one thing and describe it as another. None of the above should be taken as a criticism of Lupton and Hare’s research. Rather, it’s an opportunity for them to show the direct comparisons and use these as a baseline to better understand their more elaborate analysis. It’s not just about showing something simple for the general public; it’s also about understanding regression models by linking them to the numbers. **P.S.** Just to clarify: The above post is _not_ a criticism of Lupton and Hare’s research, nor does it represent a disbelief in their claim. Given the analyses they’ve shown, I have every reason to believe their claim that conservatives are more likely to believe that vaccines cause autism. And it’s an important thing to know. That’s why I’d like to see the direct comparison, to confirm that their claim is correct.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **P.P.S.** Hare and Lupton sent the following graph showing the direct relationship between political ideology and belief in the autism/vaccines link:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico So, yes, a direct look at the data reveals a real difference. According to this graph, the percentage of autism/vaccine believers is twice as high among extreme conservatives, as among liberals and moderates. Hare emphasizes: “the lowess smoother is NOT based on the jittered values, I simply jitter the points to illustrate density.” And Lupton points to “previous research suggests that low trust in government is related to requests for non-medical exemptions to vaccine-preventable diseases,” for example this paper: Salmon, Daniel A., Lawrence H. Moulton, Saad B. Omer, Patricia deHart, Shannon Stokley, and Neal A. Halsey. 2005. “Factors Associated with Refusal of Childhood Vaccines among Parents of School-aged Children.” Archives of Adolescent Medicine 159 (5): 470-476. I’m glad to have had the chance to clear this up. It’s good to see the raw data as well as the more elaborate statistical analysis.

The truth about vaccines, autism and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s conspiracy theory

First things first: Vaccines do not cause autism.   The debunked claim that there is a causal relationship between vaccines and autism largely stems from the late 1990s. At the time, autism diagnoses had been increasing, and doctors didn't know why. In 1998, British researcher Andrew Wakefield published his infamous paper linking autism to the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). Prompted in part by Wakefield's research, U.S. agencies investigated a mercury-based vaccine additive called thimerosal, which was widely used as an antifungal and antiseptic agent. Because of new research on the dangers of mercury poisoning, the government wanted to ensure that thimerosal didn't pose a risk to children who were being vaccinated. The Food and Drug Administration, along with the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, the AAP and several other agencies, concluded that there was no evidence that thimerosal caused any harm. But the additive was removed from most vaccines anyway, as a precautionary measure. Meanwhile, research linking the MMR vaccine to autism was unraveling. Evidence emerged that Wakefield had been paid by attorneys for parents who were suing MMR manufacturers and that Wakefield's data were fraudulent. The Lancet retracted his study in February 2010. That year, Wakefield was found guilty of professional misconduct by Britain's General Medical Council and his license was revoked.  The consensus of the medical and scientific establishment hasn't deterred vaccine skeptics, many of whom say that the government must be covering up the risk. This conspiracy theory found fertile ground in Kennedy.  The article contained several factual errors, and Salon.com eventually retracted it. Rolling Stone left the piece on its site but had to publish more than half a dozen corrections. A decade later, the evidence continues to reaffirm the conclusion that vaccines have no connection of any kind to autism.  Kennedy says he is “pro-vaccine,” insisting that he just wants to ensure vaccines are “as safe as they possibly can be.” But medical professionals argue that the seeds of doubt that Kennedy and others like him have planted can have dangerous consequences, weakening parents' faith in something the medical establishment knows is vital.  Soon after news of Kennedy's appointment broke, the AAP issued a statement from its president, Fernando Stein, and vice president, Karen Remley, affirming the “safety and importance of vaccines.” They emphasized the risks of delaying vaccinations, something that Trump said he was in favor of during a 2015 Republican primary debate. “I want smaller doses over a longer period of time,” Trump said. The AAP's response was blunt: “Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines save lives,” Stein and Remley wrote. “We stand ready to work with the White House and the federal government to share the extensive scientific evidence demonstrating the safety of vaccines, including the recommended schedule.” The real danger, they point out, lies in refusing or delaying vaccines.

Rand Paul is a stark reminder that some on the right also distrust vaccines

The whole vaccine mess, in the United States and abroad, is a story of allowing anecdotes to trump statistical reasoning. Some parents who saw their children get their shots, and then tragically saw them develop autism, inferred a causal relationship that wasn’t there. Fortunately, we have science to correct such errors, and in this case, science has done that.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But there’s another error of anecdotal reasoning here — not about vaccinations and the development of autism, but rather about a perceived correlation between leftwing, hippie-types and vaccine distrust. And thus was born another myth — that denying vaccine safety, or avoiding vaccinations, is a liberal, granola thing. That’s the myth that began to shatter on Monday, when libertarian leaning senator and possible presidential contender Rand Paul said some truly alarming things about vaccines — suggesting they should be voluntary in many cases, and citing “many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.”** (Don’t worry, I’m not only using the anecdote of Rand Paul to make this point. Stand by for the data.)    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The truth is, the idea that vaccine skepticism lies on the political left never stood up to statistical scrutiny. I won’t belabor this point, since I’ve made it before, but this chart from Yale’s Dan Kahan says it all — while many beliefs change as you move from the left to the right of the political spectrum, doubts about vaccine safety really don’t move much, and if anything, _increase_ slightly as you move to the right:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico This suggests that political ideology is not the chief factor that predicts how a person feels about the safety of childhood vaccines. And indeed, we know that a much better predictor is being a conspiracy theorist, and holding beliefs like these: “The Apollo Moon landings never happened and were staged in a Hollywood studio” and “The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., was the result of an organized conspiracy by U.S. government agencies such as the CIA and FBI.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Nonetheless, there is a relatively weak correlation in the figure above between political conservatism and an increased distrust of vaccines. But that probably shouldn’t be taken at face value, in light of other research suggesting that the association is really only with one branch of the complicated stew that we call American conservatism — namely, with libertarians or free market believers.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Indeed, a new study suggests that in 2009, in the wake of the swine flu (H1N1) scare, people who were less trusting of government were also less likely to get a swine flu vaccine.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico All of this suggests that there may be an important tie between libertarian thinking — which puts great emphasis on preserving individual liberties from government intrusions — and doubts about government-required vaccinations. You don’t have to listen to Rand Paul to discern that; you can also get a taste by going over and reading _Reason_ magazine, which hosted a 2014 debate over vaccinations that began with the observation, “Few issues divide libertarians so emphatically as government-mandated vaccinations against communicable diseases.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The key word here, though, is “divide.” Even if there’s a strain in the community that doesn’t want the government telling them to vaccinate their kids, not all libertarians are against requiring vaccinations. Sure enough, in the _Reason_ debate, science correspondent Ronald Bailey valiantly defends vaccines against their critics, and does so from a libertarian perspective. For after all, everybody’s freedom has limits — and those limits are most clear when it comes to causing harm to others.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico To this effect, Bailey quotes Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ observation that “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins,” and then goes on to note: “People who refuse vaccination are asserting that they have a right to ‘swing’ their microbes at other people. That is wrong.” Right now, with Rand Paul — and to a lesser extent, Chris Christie — pushing certain buttons that potentially yoke together required vaccinations and government intrusions in the minds of conservatives, we badly need those on the right to read and heed someone like Bailey — who just called Paul out in a blog post.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico That is, before the vaccine issue tips over into truly dangerous partisanship. ** **Update:** Later on Tuesday, Rand Paul tweeted a picture of himself getting vaccinated and said his views had been mischaracterized by the “liberal media.” If Paul does think vaccines are safe after all, that’s great to hear. The fact remains that concern about vaccines exists on the libertarian right, as well as on the left.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

The Disneyland measles outbreak and the disgraced doctor who whipped up vaccination fear

Officials from Mexico to California are now scrambling to contain an outbreak that began at Disneyland but has now spilled across state lines, infecting dozens, many of whom never received the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR).         Wakefield had what he needed to publish a study. It was based on 12 kids. And it broadcast concern that MMR could cause a bowel disorder and autism. Nine of the immunized children were found to be autistic. “If there is a causal link between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and this syndrome, a rising incidence might be anticipated after the introduction of this vaccine in the UK in 1988,” he wrote. The news rocketed across the globe; the media ran hot with the story. “A controversial study has suggested that autism may be a side effect of immunization against measles, mumps and rubella,” New Scientist reported weeks later.     Under such circumstances, most doctors would retreat into obscurity. But not Wakefield. He still believes in the mission, attracting scores of supplicants. Even today, he fiercely defends his campaign against vaccines and has found a sympathetic community in his adopted state of Texas. Asked in 2011 by the New York Times if he still believed MMR had caused the autism in his now discredited paper, he was unequivocal. “Is that a serious question?” he asked. “Yes, I do still think MMR was causing it.”

Why facts don’t matter to Trump’s supporters

How did Donald Trump win the Republican nomination, despite clear evidence that he had misrepresented or falsified key issues throughout the campaign? Social scientists have some intriguing explanations for why people persist in misjudgments despite strong contrary evidence. Trump is a vivid and, to his critics, a frightening present-day illustration of this perception problem. But it has been studied carefully by researchers for more than 30 years. Basically, the studies show that attempts to refute false information often backfire and lead people to hold on to their misperceptions even more strongly. This literature about misperception was lucidly summarized by Christopher Graves, the global chairman of Ogilvy Public Relations, in a February 2015 article in the Harvard Business Review, months before Trump surfaced as a candidate. Graves is now writing a book about his research at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy. Graves’s article examined the puzzle of why nearly one-third of U.S. parents believe that childhood vaccines cause autism, despite overwhelming medical evidence that there’s no such link. In such cases, he noted, “arguing the facts doesn’t help — in fact, it makes the situation worse.” The reason is that people tend to accept arguments that confirm their views and discount facts that challenge what they believe. This “confirmation bias” was outlined in a 1979 article by psychologist Charles Lord, cited by Graves. Lord found that his test subjects, when asked questions about capital punishment, responded with answers shaped by their prior beliefs. “Instead of changing their minds, most will dig in their heels and cling even more firmly to their originally held views,” Graves explained in summarizing the study. Trying to correct misperceptions can actually reinforce them, according to a 2006 paper by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, also cited by Graves. They documented what they called a “backfire effect” by showing the persistence of the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in 2005 and 2006, after the United States had publicly admitted that they didn’t exist. “The results show that direct factual contradictions can actually _strengthen_ ideologically grounded factual belief,” they wrote. Next Graves examined how attempts to debunk myths can reinforce them, simply by repeating the untruth. He cited a 2005 study in the Journal of Consumer Research on “How Warnings about False Claims Become Recommendations.” It seems that people remember the assertion and forget whether it’s a lie. The authors wrote: “The more often older adults were told that a given claim was false, the more likely they were to accept it as true after several days have passed.” When critics challenge false assertions — say, Trump’s claim that thousands of Muslims cheered in New Jersey when the twin towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001 — their refutations can threaten people, rather than convince them. Graves noted that if people feel attacked, they resist the facts all the more. He cited a study by Nyhan and Reifler that examined why people misperceived three demonstrable facts: that violence in Iraq declined after President George W. Bush’s troop surge; that jobs have increased during President Obama’s tenure; and that global temperatures are rising. The study showed two interesting things: People are more likely to accept information if it’s presented unemotionally, in graphs; and they’re even more accepting if the factual presentation is accompanied by “affirmation” that asks respondents to recall an experience that made them feel good about themselves. Bottom line: Vilifying Trump voters — or, alternatively, parents who don’t want to have their children vaccinated — won’t convince them they’re wrong. Probably it will have the opposite effect. The final point that emerged from Graves’s survey is that people will resist abandoning a false belief unless they have a compelling alternative explanation. That point was made in an article called “The Debunking Handbook,” by Australian researchers John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. They wrote: “Unless great care is taken, any effort to debunk misinformation can inadvertently reinforce the very myths one seeks to correct.” Trump’s campaign pushes buttons that social scientists understand. When the GOP nominee paints a dark picture of a violent, frightening America, he triggers the “fight or flight” response that’s hardwired in our brains. For the body politic, it can produce a kind of panic attack. Screaming back at Trump for these past 12 months may have been satisfying for his critics, but it hasn’t dented his support much. What seems to be hurting Trump in the polls now are self-destructive comments that trouble even his most passionate supporters. Attempts to aggressively “correct” his remaining fans may only deepen their attachment. _Read more fromDavid Ignatius’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook._ **Read more on this issue:** Ruth Marcus: Donald Trump makes his most dangerous comments yet George F. Will: Trump’s shallowness runs deep Eugene Robinson: Is Donald Trump just plain crazy? Ruth Marcus: When it comes to lying, Trump is in a class by himself Dana Milbank: Nobody brings the crazy quite like Trump

Chili’s schedules autism fundraiser, draws fire over vaccine issue. Chili’s cancels fundraiser, draws fire.

Chili’s is in the hot seat. It began when the restaurant chain agreed to a fundraiser for National Autism Association, which has drawn controversy because of its (discredited) claim of a connection between autism and vaccinations.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University The restaurant agreed to donate 10 percent of a day’s proceeds on Monday to the group. Suddenly it was immersed in a vaccination controversy. Hundreds took to the Chili’s Facebook page. Some threatened a boycott if Chili’s went ahead with the fundraiser. Others came on to support the autism group.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University In response, Chili’s canceled the fundraiser. On Monday, Chili’s updated its statement:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University A Chili’s spokesman said in an e-mail to CNNMoney: “The intent of this fundraiser was not to express a view on this matter, but rather to support the families affected by autism.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Despite the absence of evidence linking vaccines to autism, the National Autism Association’s Web site states, “Vaccinations can trigger or exacerbate autism in some, if not many, children, especially those who are genetically predisposed to immune, autoimmune or inflammatory conditions.” The organization states its findings are based on “parent reports” — fueling a decade-old debate. Many early vaccine opponents based their beliefs on a 1998 study later declared fraudulent, CNN reported. Michele Bachmann then resurrected the alleged connection in 2011 when she was running for the Republican presidential nomination.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University An estimated 1 in 88 children has some form of autism, according to government researchers. That’s a 78-percent increase from a decade ago, CNN reported.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University But experts, including the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health and the American Academy of Pediatrics, agree there’s no evidence for the connection. A 2013 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed no link between the number of vaccine antigens and the risk of autism. An antigen is a substance in a vaccine that produces antibodies to protect the body. NPR reported the CDC compared vaccine histories and medical records of about 250 children who had autism with those of 750 who did not.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University And a more recent study, in New England Journal of Medicine last month, suggests autism begins in the womb when certain brain cells fail to mature, Bloomberg reported.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University The issue now, some argue, is not whether vaccinated children are more prone to autism but whether unvaccinated children pose health risks to others. Last year, researchers confirmed that a 2010 whooping cough outbreak in California was spread by children whose parents applied for non-medical exemptions to school vaccinations. The same year, Texas’s Eagle Mountain International Church, which had been against vaccinations, reported 21 cases of measles. Following the outbreak, it held vaccination clinics.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Nevertheless, the debate continues. Social media commenters told Chili’s that vaccinations led to their children’s autism. One said they “are not necessarily arguing against completely safe and necessary vaccinations, they are against using toxic vaccines and over vaccinating for unnecessary reasons.”

Data: The vaccine issue is nowhere near as polarizing as climate change

As the vaccine issue has been thrust into mainstream politics, there has been intense focus — and frantic poll-crawling — to try to find out who thinks what about it. So let’s play along. It turns out there’s revealing new data on this front this morning from Yale researcher Dan Kahan — who finds that members of the tea party are _slightly_ more skeptical of vaccines than Democrats or mainstream Republicans. But he also finds that this is absolutely nothing like the gap between the tea party and the other groups on climate change.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Here’s the first chart that Kahan provides, examining Democrat, mainline conservative Republican, and tea party beliefs on whether vaccines are worth the risk. Both the central and right column depict the views of conservative Republicans, but they are separated by whether they self identified as members of the tea party (on the far right) or not (in the center): Kahan does not think this signals a very partisan issue. I think most informed observers would agree. However, it is nonetheless noteworthy that tea partiers are 10 percent less supportive than Democrats (84 percent to 74 percent). This certainly undermines further the myth that vaccine skepticism is a left wing phenomenon.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But now look at the same breakdown on climate change: Here, political polarization is just off the charts. So I think there is a complex message here, overall. It may be that on the right, there is slightly _more_ vaccine hesitancy than on the left. But this fact must be considered in a key context: In all political groups, more than 70 percent of people believe that the benefits that come from vaccinating outweigh any purported health risks.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico With data like these, we can therefore explain two things: 1) why conservative politicians seem to be the ones saying things that appear to at least partly question mandatory vaccinations lately; but why 2) the issue still shouldn’t be taken as partisan,  or polarizing — and why we should keep it that way.

Engineering an enhanced human? The more religious you are, the less likely you’ll want to.

Most Americans are put off by the idea of using science to ‘enhance’ human abilities — and these attitudes are strongly connected with people’s religiosity.    Religion played a big role in shaping people’s views. On avera ge, the more religious Americans were, the less likely they were to want these biomedical enhancements, whether it was for themselves or for their babies. David Masci, a senior writer and editor at Pew, said he wasn’t “terribly surprised” that people with higher levels of religious commitment, as well as those belonging to more theologically conservative traditions, tended to be more wary about the prospect of human enhancement. Only 41 percent of Protestants and 48 percent of Catholics said that they would want gene editing for babies to greatly reduce the risk of serious disease. This contrasts with 75 percent of atheists and 67 percent of agnostics who said they would want gene editing for their baby. By and large, atheists and agnostics believe that gene editing does more good than harm. About six-in-ten atheists and half of agnostics said that gene editing has more benefits than downsides. Those who are religious, however, were more divided on the issue. For example, Protestants were roughly divided into thirds in saying that gene editing does more good than bad, vice versa, or has equal benefits and harms. Similarly, the majority of religious Americans, regardless of whether they claimed to have a high, medium or low level of religious commitment, said that they would not want a brain chip implant. White evangelical Protestants were the least likely to want any of the three enhancement technologies, while across the board, atheists and agnostics were the most ready to embrace the technologies. Of the three technologies, atheists and agnostics most readily accepted gene editing for babies. Three-quarters of atheists said they would want gene editing for their baby, compared with just over half who were comfortable with synthetic blood transfusions and brain chip implants. Masci said that this may be because gene editing “is often presented as something that could help your child grow up to be a healthier person” by editing out genetic predispositions to specific diseases. In this way, gene editing “can be seen in a more therapeutic light” than the other two enhancement technologies, because it is not necessarily about making a child “blonde, strong, a super genius,” he said. In several cases, those who described their religious affiliation as “nothing in particular” had similar levels of aversion to these technologies. For example, 33 percent of these “nothing in particular” respondents said they would want an implanted device to improve concentration and information processing capabilities, similar to the 31 percent of Catholics who said the same. Similarly, 37 percent of “nothing in particular” respondents were comfortable with synthetic blood transfusions, closely resembling the 35 percent of Catholics who said the same. Masci explained that this is because those who describe their religious affiliations as “nothing in particular” do not necessarily reject the existence of a god. They may still be spiritual and believe in a higher supreme being, Masci said, and those beliefs may inform their attitudes towards enhancement technologies. For some, the question of whether to accept technology-enabled human enhancements is much easier to answer in the abstract than in person.  Others thought that concerns about meddling with God’s plans are overblown because, as one man in Atlanta put it, doctors are “already playing God now.” A 44-year-old white mainline Protestant man from Birmingham, Ala. said, “I think God has given a doctor the talents to fix us. … I think he has given these people the talents to do so. I don’t think it is the doctors or medical gurus [trying] to play God.” Some took the view that future enhancements aren’t that much different from the existing medical technologies that we already use without qualms. “It’s just enhancing what we already have. It doesn’t imply that it’s changing how we think,” said a 46-year-old white evangelical Christian woman in Atlanta “…Really, what’s the difference between [a brain chip] and taking a bunch of vitamins that improve our memory?” Still, fears and worries about the ethics of tinkering with our mind and body persist. Some Christian respondents said that these new technologies hark back to the “mark of the beast” in the Bible’s book of Revelation. Asked a 34-year-old white evangelical Protestant woman in Birmingham, “If you have studied the Bible or gone to church or whatever, could this be like the mark of the beast?” However, while white evangelical Protestants are the most wary about human enhancements, mainline Protestant denominations are much more open to their members taking advantage of enhancement technologies. Buddhists and Jews are also likely to embrace human enhancement because the technologies align well with the religions’ tenets of helping others, improving the world, and alleviating suffering, Masci quoted Jewish and Buddhist experts as saying. And, as a Lutheran theologian put it to Masci, “I think [mainline churches] will see much of this for what it is: an effort to take advantage of these new technologies to help improve human life.”

Science that is hard to swallow

Sophisticated readers know a science denier when they see one: the libertarian irresponsibly attacking vaccine safety, the oil-state senator mocking climate theory, the southern Bible-thumper denying the fossil in front of his nose. But the biggest gap between public opinion and scientific consensus in the United States is not in the realm of vaccines, global warming or evolution but regarding the safety of genetically modified (GM) foods. And the science deniers on this topic are more likely to be Democratic than Republican, with college-educated Americans almost evenly split. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in association with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 88 percent of scientists believe GM foods are safe to eat, compared with only 37 percent of the public — a gap of 51 percentage points. An equally overwhelming majority of scientists (87 percent) believe that climate change is mostly caused by human activity, and 50 percent of the public agrees — a gap of 37 percentage points. Fully 98 percent of scientists believe that humans have evolved over time, and 65 percent of the public agrees — a gap of 33 points. The Pew/AAAS report does not attempt to explain why so many Americans reject the scientific consensus on GM foods. It notes that educated Americans are less skeptical of the science than the public at large, but not by that much: 49 percent of people with college degrees believe eating GM foods is safe, while 47 percent believe it isn’t. The report also doesn’t delve into political differences on these issues, but Lee Rainie, Pew’s director of Internet, science, and technology, shared some background. On climate change, the political breakdown is what you might expect: Republicans believe by 53 to 43 percent that the evidence is real, whereas Democrats are convinced 87 to 10 percent. On vaccine policy, there was no difference between parties when Pew asked in 2009: 68 percent thought vaccination should be mandatory, while 30 percent thought parents should decide. Since then, Rainie said, the share of Republicans favoring parental choice rose by eight points, while the share of Democrats favoring parental choice declined by five. And on genetically modified foods? “Declared Republicans were more likely than declared Democrats to say GM foods are generally safe – 44% vs. 34%,” Rainie said in an e-mail. “But when you add those leaning towards each party to the mix, the differences between them become statistically insignificant. There are no differences on this issue among people who describe themselves as conservative, moderate, or liberal.” Could it be that in this one case the public is right and the scientists are wrong? I’d say, only if you believe Gregor Mendel was risking our health when he began playing around with pea shoots in the 1850s. A more sober analysis, from the World Resources Institute last June, granted that “genetic modifications using genes from diverse species pose a greater risk of producing unexpected effects than conventional crossbreeding,” which “justifies mandatory safety studies.” But WRI concluded that “there is no evidence that GM crops have actually harmed human health” and that “food safety does not justify rejecting genetic modification outright.” The anti-GM movement seems to be fueled by a combination of anti-corporate suspicion, small-farm nostalgia and anxiety about unfamiliar technologies. It raises questions of environmental safety and corporate control as well as food safety. Some would argue that, unlike climate-change denialism or vaccine resistance, it’s harmless even if baseless — who cares if Manischewitz now feels compelled to offer a line of GM-free kosher foods? Unfortunately, this form of denialism also has victims, and they’re not the folks who may choose to pay a few cents more for GM-free matzo. As the WRI paper points out, farmers need to close a 69 percent gap between the crops they produced in 2006 and the food the world will need, given population growth, by 2050. Though far from the only solution to this challenge, genetic modification can provide seeds that are more resistant to pests, drought or disease and that produce greater yields with less water or in poorer soil. They could be, in other words, one significant component to avoiding mass hunger over the next generation. Unfortunately, resistance in rich, consuming nations discourages innovation and makes it more difficult for farmers in poor countries to adopt useful new technologies. It’s no less an affront than ever that the U.S. Senate has installed as chairman of its environment committee a man who believes that global warming is “the greatest hoax,” or that a senator who is also a medical doctor would stoke unwarranted fears about vaccine safety. But the Pew survey suggests we might want to check our Whole Foods grocery carts before dialing up the outrage too high. _Read more fromFred Hiatt’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook._ **Read more on this:** The Post’s View: Genetically modified crops could help improve the lives of millions

Seeking a vaccine for ignorance

Flashback: Galileo is under house arrest pondering the unyielding ignorance of The Church for refusing to consider his heliocentric proposition that the Earth circled the sun. We find this historical anecdote preposterous today, but people were persecuted for lesser heresies in Galileo’s time. Though we are now centuries removed from such dim-wittery, we find ourselves in a not-dissimilar pickle. After decades free of many crippling and deadly diseases thanks to the miracle of vaccines, some people are skeptical. Parents fearful of side effects, often on account of anecdotal evidence or discredited studies, are reluctant to vaccinate their children. Marin County, Calif., a liberal enclave famous for its beauty and wealth, seems to be the epicenter of the debate. Many have opted out of vaccinations as part of their evolution into honeybees. Some see vaccines as a conspiracy of Big Pharma. Elsewhere, especially in the South, people are simply distrustful of authority, especially government. The latter group is familiarly known as the GOP base. They tend to be litmus-test conservatives on social issues and place Scripture above science. On the bright side, the far left and the far right finally have found common ground. They’d rather let their children risk illness — and their country an epidemic — than contaminate their offspring’s pristine bodies with antibodies. Oh, to be a fly at that picnic! One wonders what public tortures Jonas Salk might have encountered had he presented his polio vaccine today rather than in the 1950s. One crucial difference is that polio left visual reminders of its assault on the human body. The 1952 epidemic affected nearly 58,000 people, more than 3,100 of whom died and some 21,000 were left disabled. Most Americans under the age of 50, including doctors, have never seen measles. Now, after decades of being a virtually measles-free nation, we have 100 cases spread across at least 14 states and the potential for more as stubborn purists resist common sense. Science and experience overwhelmingly support vaccines, and the single study to the contrary, suggesting a connection to autism, has been thoroughly discredited. Naturally, into this tar pit, the GOP presidential field has fallen. Or rather, been pushed. Asked about the vaccine controversy, both New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul have handed the media a fresh bone to gnaw. Christie initially said that parents “need to have some measure of choice,” though he later clarified by saying that children should be vaccinated against measles. Paul told radio host Laura Ingraham, “While I think it’s a good idea to take the vaccine, I think that’s a personal decision for individuals.” Neither comment standing alone is objectionable. Barring a time-release patch from God, vaccines are the best we’ve got. Eventually, most parents come around to this conclusion, despite reluctance to inject their children with a tiny dose of the virus. They do it because the alternative is unthinkable. While parents’ rights should always be protected in the absence of harm to their children, the public health of the nation also has to be protected. Individual rights are justifiably modified when the exercise of those rights adversely affects others. Smoking is a textbook example of this premise. Preserving individual freedom is one of the compelling forces of modern conservatism and remains its most attractive feature. Thus, Republican candidates are faced with a daunting balancing act of confirming to primary voters their allegiance to the principle while also signaling to the rest of the country that they’re not _that_ foolish. These conundrums are not new. The conflict between individual rights and the greater good is the fundamental argument in a democracy, the success of which relies upon an educated rather than only radio-informed citizenry, as well as leaders willing to defend science over ideology. Aspiring presidents would do well to articulate these conflicts with compassion, without condescension or pandering — while explaining why, in this case, vaccines are the right choice. For starters they might quote Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Study after study has shown that there are no negative long-term consequences. . . . And the more kids who are not vaccinated, the more they’re at risk and the more they put their neighbors’ kids at risk as well.” There. That didn’t hurt much, did it? _Read more fromKathleen Parker’s archive, follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook._ **Read more about this topic:** Michael Gerson: Vaccines and what we owe to our neighbors The Post’s View: The measles vaccine is a shot of common sense Michael Gerson: The enduring benefits of vaccination The Post’s View: As measles cases increase, a sharp call for vaccinations

Conservative professors live a closeted life. Here’s why.

Thus, the better question is this: Why are conservatives so poorly represented in much of the social sciences and humanities? There is no simple answer to this question. But we do know that conservatives have a much higher propensity to major in the hard sciences as undergraduates. In fact, politics is among the best predictors of undergraduate major choice. Conservatives steer clear of humanistic fields as undergraduates partly because they feel uncomfortable in those classes. A climate survey at the University of Colorado found that conservatives were far more likely to feel intimidated in the classroom because of their political views. And even a study of conservative activists on campus found that they tended to avoid these same fields, despite their strong interest in political and social issues. Liberals, meanwhile, feel more drawn to the social sciences and humanities because they speak to their deeper moral and political sensibilities.       It is also the case that our politics shapes the sort of questions we ask and the theories we find most plausible. This is not simply because of some partisan tribalism — it is because liberal and conservative thinkers tend to be drawn on different intellectual currents from the Enlightenment. Thus, conservative minds are often more informed by thinkers such as Hume, Burke and Smith, while progressive minds are more often shaped by Rousseau and Marx. Thus, political diversity is often a form of intellectual diversity. Teaching would benefit from a more diverse professoriate as well. In this polarized age, the university is one of the few institutions that could model civil and reasonable discussion — but that example is hard to provide with so few conservatives around. And while there is little evidence to support the contention that students are routinely indoctrinated by progressive professors, there are good reasons to suspect that students are not generally exposed to center-right perspectives. That’s a problem lots of liberal students seem to recognize.

If Trump keeps stoking vaccine fears, he will endanger children’s lives

PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald Trump’s transition team tried to tamp down the report from leading vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that Mr. Trump had asked him to lead a new panel on the safety of childhood inoculations. The president-elect, we were told, is only exploring the possibility of forming a government commission on autism. But by even entertaining the idea, Mr. Trump — who has his own troubling history when it comes to vaccine safety — gives new life to debunked conspiracy theories tying autism to vaccines. That in turn endangers children’s lives. Mr. Trump met Tuesday with Mr. Kennedy, a longtime opponent of mandatory vaccination laws who once characterized the shots children receive to guard against illness as a holocaust. The meeting at Trump Tower, which Mr. Kennedy told reporters was requested by Mr. Trump, caused immediate and understandable concern in the medical community. “It gives it a quasi-legitimacy that I frankly find frightening,” William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, told the New York Times. Theories about a link between vaccines and conditions such as autism have been thoroughly discredited in numerous scientific studies that have established — without any question — the safety of vaccines. Yet Mr. Trump, 10 days away from taking the oath of office for president, thought it important enough to meet with a leading proponent of conspiracy theories about vaccines, someone who, by the way, holds a law — not a medical — degree. Mr. Trump’s past comments about vaccines — “massive combined inoculations to small children is the cause for big increase in autism,” he tweeted in 2012 — betray an ignorant distrust of vaccines. If Mr. Trump wants to make attacking autism a priority, he should be applauded. But he needs to go about it responsibly. Experts will tell him that the diagnosis of autism is more prevalent than in the past not because there is an “epidemic,” as he once claimed, but because the definition of autism spectrum disorder has grown more inclusive. And they will assure him there is no connection to vaccines. He will endanger the health of millions of children if he fans doubts about vaccine safety. **Read more here:** Daniel Summers: Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just made pediatricians’ jobs a lot harder Saad B. Omer: How Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about vaccines could harm public health

Refusing vaccination is anti-social, not irrational

The recent outbreak of measles in Disneyland and the increase in measles cases nationwide have led to public health concerns, as well as a backlash against parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. Most media coverage has framed the issue as science versus irrationality, ignorance, and fear. However, this framing misses a key motivation for refusing vaccination. In some cases, the problem arguably isn’t the reluctance of anti-vaccine parents to accept overwhelming scientific evidence that vaccines are safe and effective. It’s that anti-vaccine parents are exploiting others by behaving rationally and strategically.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Public health experts see parents who refuse to vaccinate their children as irrational people who cannot accept clear and convincing evidence that vaccines are safe and effective. Public health experts encourage vaccination by emphasizing our vast historical experience with vaccines and the absence of significant side effects. Some commentators have linked parental decisions to refuse vaccines to broader skepticism about science and experts. However, vaccine skeptics have pushed back, claiming that they have conducted research and made independent judgments about risks of vaccination based on the evidence.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Public health experts do not argue that vaccination is risk free. Rather, they argue that the risk of vaccination is insignificant compared to the public health benefit from preventing the outbreak and spread of infectious diseases. This is settled science. However, parents who decide not to vaccinate their children are not deciding whether to have their children live in a world without vaccines. Their choice is whether or not to subject their own child to the very slight risk of vaccine-related side effects or instead to make their child a rare exception by refusing vaccination. Public health research reluctantly acknowledges that rational parents may refuse to vaccinate their kids. This survey looked at parents of intentionally undervaccinated children in San Diego following a measles outbreak in 2008. A child is intentionally undervaccinated when the parent refuses or delays vaccination. The survey revealed that most of the children’s families were affluent, white and college-educated. It’s extremely unlikely that most of these parents were motivated by religious concerns. Vaccine skeptics moderated their views when they considered the possibility of international travel (which would be likely to expose their kids to more infectious diseases). It’s also clear from the survey that these parents had accepted some debunked claims about the risks of vaccination, in particular the possibility that vaccination may cause autism or other adverse reactions. But this doesn’t fully explain why parents decided not to vaccinate.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico A second, experimental study of motivations for immunization provides a clue. This study identified altruism, free riding and bandwagon effects as affecting these decisions. This highlights, as the authors note, a clash between public health concerns and individual self-interest. People who accept vaccination not only reduce their own chances of contracting contagious diseases, they also reduce the possibility that they will transmit the disease to others. This “herd immunity” provides a social benefit. Altruistic people are motivated in part by this social benefit when they get vaccinated. However, others see things differently. As the proportion of the population that is vaccinated grows, the individual benefits of vaccination decline, because people are less likely to contract the disease. This makes it more attractive for people to free ride on the vaccination decisions of others. The results of the experiment show that people experience cross-cutting motivations when making vaccination decisions. Bandwagon effects were the most powerful motivating force, suggesting that people are most likely to get their children vaccinated when others around them are doing the same. However, differences in people’s levels of altruism and willingness to free ride also affected their decisions, especially when the issues of vaccination were framed in particular ways.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico This clinical report in Pediatrics provides further evidence that parents may refuse vaccination because they are making a strategic decision to exploit herd immunity by free riding on the affirmative vaccination decisions of others. Parents who refuse immunization on behalf of their children are, in a sense, free riders who take advantage of the benefit created by the participation and assumption of immunization risk or burden by others while refusing to participate in the program themselves (p. 1429).    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Anti-vaccine parents do not live in a world in which they weigh the risk of infectious diseases versus the risk of vaccination. They live in a world in which their child faces only very slight risks of contracting infectious disease, due to the decisions of all the other socially responsible parents around them who vaccinate their children. This allows them — if they are narrowly self-interested — to avoid the even slighter risk of side effects from vaccination. It is only the socially responsible decision of parents who vaccinate their children that allows anti-vaccine parents to live in that world. When you put it all together, this evidence suggests that vaccine refusal can be strategic and rational. Many people who refuse to vaccinate their children do not fit the profile of irrational science skeptics; they are affluent and well-educated. In addition, skeptics are more likely to accept vaccinations when there is lower protection from herd immunity (as during international travel). Experimental research shows that people are likely to recognize and exploit vaccination decisions made by others. Clinical advice from pediatricians identifies free riding as a substantial barrier to affirmative vaccination decisions. Free riders may be anti-social, but they are not irrational. To the contrary, free riders are rationally pursuing their narrow, individual self-interest by exploiting the socially responsible behavior of everyone else. This may, of course, eventually make things worse for everyone. It may also be self-defeating, especially if free riders are clustered together. However, education about the social benefits of vaccines is unlikely to solve the problem of selfishly rational people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. What’s needed instead is government intervention to enforce socially responsible (though not individually risk-free) norms. _Robert Stoker is an associate professor of political science and public policy at George Washington University._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

How can we convince parents to vaccinate? Acknowledge their fears.

“When I was a tenth-grader, there was a boy in my class whose name was Billy Lynn, and he had leukemia,” Dr. Paul Offit, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, reminisced at a panel at the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles on Wednesday. “This was in the 1960s, before we had very much in the way of good therapy to treat leukemia. And, you know, he was at risk. I can’t imagine any of our parents sending us into that classroom and putting that boy at increased risk because we weren’t vaccinated, because we owed him that, because we are all in this together.” The treatments for leukemia may have been less effective when Offit was a child. But at least Billy Lynn benefited from a consensus about childhood vaccination that has come under threat in recent years. Offit was at the conference to promote a new movie, “Vaccines: Calling the Shots,” which will air on PBS on September 10. The documentary, directed by Sonya Pemberton, is an attempt to walk viewers through the state of vaccine and autism science. Pemberton and her subjects also have another aim: to demonstrate new ways of talking about vaccines, childhood illness and risk that could help stem a persistent and unscientific tide of anti-vaccine sentiment. “Of parents who have chosen to delay or withhold or separate or space out vaccines, I would say 15 percent of them are hard-core, which is to say there is no convincing them,” Offit acknowledged. “They believe that vaccines are doing harm. They believe there’s a conspiracy to sell them. And they don’t want to hear what you have to say.” Alison Singer, co-founder and president of the Autism Science Foundation, said that parents who believe their childrens’ autism was caused by vaccination may be difficult to persuade until research has identified a definitive cause for that spectrum of conditions. “There are still pockets of parents,” she said, “who don’t care what the data show and state very clearly that they don’t care what the data show because they believe in their heart that their child’s autism was caused by vaccines.” But the panelists suggested that there is a clear difference between these hard-core holdouts and a more persuadable majority who, as Offit put it, have “smelled the smoke and want to know whether there’s any fire there.” Because of that, wielding scientific evidence like a club might not help. Paula Apsell, senior executive producer for Nova, said that one of the challenges in science programming and education is that “we need to really be finding ways, probably through tolerance, to be able to present the scientific facts to people in a convincing way that . . . is not so threatening and challenging to them that they can’t accept it.” Choosing not to vaccinate “is a bad decision that puts their children at risk, but I don’t think that parents are stupid,” Singer said. Pemberton admitted that finding the right tone was a challenge. She found it helpful to begin by listening rather than making assumptions. “Once you start having a conversation, you find out that they have all sorts of complex reasons, and most of them actually are not hard-core opposed to vaccines,” she said.” They just have questions and concerns that they want answered.” Parents also need help assessing the possibilities of different outcomes. One challenge, Offit suggested, is that vaccines have been so successful that they have blunted people’s sense of what the world would be like without them. “I think that, for the most part, they don’t fear these diseases. You didn’t have to convince my parents to vaccinate. They saw diphtheria as a major killer of children in the 1920s and ’30s,” he said. “You didn’t have to convince me to vaccinate my children, because I had many of these diseases. But my children not only don’t see these diseases now, they didn’t grow up with these diseases.” In other words, autism may seem more frightening because it is more familiar, while the measles, mumps and rubella may have no specific meaning for contemporary parents. With those fears out of proportion, it becomes difficult for parents to weigh the cost of not vaccinating because they cannot picture what it would be like for a child to become gravely ill or die of a disease with which they have had no experience. Pemberton included a risk analyst in the film to try to reframe the debate. “He says the question is not, ‘Is this a perfect choice, but is this a better choice than what we face if we do not vaccinate?’ ” she explained. “And I think this is the really big message.” It may be tempting to shout down or condemn as ignorant or malign people who express concerns about vaccines. Certainly the panelists gave no quarter to Jenny McCarthy, who enhanced her own celebrity by promoting a discredited study suggesting a link between vaccines and autism. But Pemberton suggested that such an approach may have its own scientific failings. “People think sometimes that, by acknowledging fear and concern, you make it worse,” she said. “And all the evidence is that how we deal with fear and concern is by talking about it, by processing it and then choosing to overcome it. And so acknowledging fear does not exacerbate fear. It does the opposite.”

Vaccines and what we owe to our neighbors

The measles outbreak that began at California’s Disneyland — and spread like pixie dust — along with several other, smaller flare-ups, has health officials warning of worse to come. Preventable infectious disease is making its return to the developed world, this time by invitation. The scientific consensus on measles is effectively unanimous: 1) It is not trivial. Children with measles can get seriously ill, and there is chance of complications such as middle ear infections, pneumonia and encephalitis. 2) Measles is highly transmissible — one of the easiest viruses to get or give. 3) The measles vaccine is highly effective — one of the most successful against any virus or microbe. I’ll turn “4)” over to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: “The ‘evidence’ that measles vaccination is associated with serious adverse events such as autism and other afflictions,” Fauci told me, “has been completely discredited by a number of independent scientific bodies.” Yet, a significant minority of parents — often well-educated parents — are opting out of vaccination. Many states (including California) make it relatively easy to refuse vaccination for “philosophic” reasons. This does not, I suspect, mean that people are reading Immanuel Kant or John Stuart Mill; it means they are consuming dodgy sources on the Internet. Resistance to vaccination on the left often reflects an obsession with purity. Vaccines are placed in the same mental category as genetically modified organisms (GMOs), DDT and gluten. But the problem with organic health care is that the “natural” rate of child mortality is unacceptably high. Organically raised children can get some very nasty diseases. Opposition to vaccination on the right often reflects an obsession with liberty — in this case, freedom from intrusive state mandates. It has always struck me as odd that a parent would defend his or her children with a gun but leave them vulnerable to a microbe. Some conservatives get especially exercised when vaccination has anything to do with sex — as with the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine — on the questionable theory that teenagers are more likely to fornicate if they have a medical permission slip (or less likely to without it). Whether hipsters or home-schoolers, parents who don’t vaccinate are free riders. Their children benefit from herd immunity without assuming the very small risk of adverse reaction to vaccination. It is a game that works — until too many play it. Herd immunity requires about 90 percent vaccine coverage. Some children with highly vulnerable immune systems — say, those being treated for leukemia — can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons. When the number of non-medical exemptions from vaccination gets large enough, the child with leukemia becomes the most vulnerable to the spread of disease. The government (in this case, state governments) has the responsibility to keep vaccination rates above 90 percent, which benefits everyone. This requires burdening the freedom of parents in a variety of ways — not putting them in jail if they refuse to vaccinate but instead denying them some public good (such as public education) and subjecting them to stigma (which they generally deserve). As the rate of vaccination goes lower, the level of coercion must increase — making exemptions more difficult and burdensome to secure (as California needs to do). This issue is important in itself. It also demonstrates a point that is properly called “philosophic.” Vaccination is communitarianism in its purest, laboratory form. The choices of citizens are restricted for a clearly (even mathematically) defined social good. Things get murkier with other kinds of goods. Does the same coercive power apply to chronic diseases involving lifestyle choices? Government has taken a position against the use of tobacco. What about substances such as sugar, salt and saturated fat? Does the common good extend to the moral and social health of a community? Maybe just to the moral health of people younger than 21 or 18, who can’t buy or consume certain things? How about prostitution, which degrades women and men (even as willing participants) and results in a squalid social atmosphere? How about the legal availability of concentrated forms of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana? In all these matters, there is a balance between individual rights and the common good. This may sound commonplace. But some Americans seem to believe that the mere assertion of a right is sufficient to end a public argument. It is not, when the exercise of that right has unacceptable public consequences, or when the sum of likely choices is dangerous to a community. Sometimes we need 90 percent of the public to make the right choice, or innocent people suffer. _Read more fromMichael Gerson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook _. **Read more on this topic:** The Post’s View: The measles vaccine is a shot of common sense The Post’s View: As measles cases increase, a sharp call for vaccinations Michael Gerson: The enduring benefits of vaccination Paul Waldman: What Chris Christie gets wrong about vaccine deniers

Mark Zuckerberg angers anti-vaxxers with photo of baby at doctor’s office getting vaccinations

The latest was a trip to the doctor’s office Friday. Behold the wide-eyed tech scion sitting in Zuckerberg’s lap, bundled in a colorful Patagonia onesie: It is of course another milestone, complete with an “aww”-inducing photo of Max. But this one set the Internet aflame in a way a gingerbread house never could, because this post is not really about Max at all — many see it as her billionaire father showing his hand in the vaccine debate. Many of Zuckerberg’s 47 million-some followers saw the post as a not-so-subtle expression of support for vaccinations, the public health matter at the center of an ongoing debate on modern science and civil liberties. “Thanks for protecting your child, and other children who can’t be vaccinated, and for supporting science!” wrote user Allison Hagood. “Adorable baby.” (A major element of vaccine advocacy is “herd immunity,” which protects an entire community, including those who are not immune, when a critical portion of the population has been immunized.) Another user, Elsa Sakz, countered: “Vaccine is poison for human kind. It kills more people than it helps. I wish people don’t take it as an example here.”   The notion that vaccines cause autism was disseminated in 1998, when a paper published by researcher Andrew Wakefield speculated that there was a causal link between the neurobehavioral disorder and the standard measles, mumps and rubella (MMRS) vaccine. The movement against vaccines was then taken up by a number of celebrities, including Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey. In 2010, Wakefield’s article was retracted after it was discovered that his work had been funded by parents suing vaccine companies. What’s more, some parts of the paper were found to be fabricated, labeling children without autism as having the disorder.   Some of Zuckerberg’s commenters remain dubious. “I am sorry to see you unnecessarily putting your kid at risk by responding to faux science and propaganda,” wrote user Stuart Morgan Kunkle. Others doubted that Zuckerberg had actually gotten his child vaccinated. User Matthew H. Benedict commented: “Any of you ever read the inserts on vaccines? The ingredients? I didn’t think so. Zuckerberg has, and I’d bet the farm, that he has no intention of vaccinating and dumbing down his child. However, what he, Bill Gates, and other elites, wants [sic] for your children, and a whole generation, is much, much different than what they want [for] their own kids. It saddens me you people can’t see how blatant this post is.”      Zuckerberg, at least, appears to have made his.

Michael Gerson: The enduring benefits of vaccination

Recently I wrote about a type of scientific denialism — often practiced by religious people — that cheats children out of the wonders of modern cosmology and encourages unnecessary religious doubt. But there is another sort of scientific skepticism — often displayed by affluent and educated parents — that withholds routine childhood vaccinations and encourages unnecessary disease. These should be kept in proportion. The belief that human beings walked with dinosaurs is wrong. The belief that vaccinations cause autism or brain damage is wrong and dangerous. In the latter case (as in the former), the scientific argument is not merely lopsided but single-sided. Like any medicine, vaccines have a very small risk of serious side effects, which doctors are trained to identify. But the association of the measles vaccination with autism has been entirely discredited. Childhood vaccinations do not involve dangerous levels of toxins and do not compromise the immune system. And vaccinations prevent a range of diseases — chickenpox, diphtheria, measles, mumps, pertussis, polio, rotavirus, rubella, tetanus — that used to routinely hospitalize, disable or kill children. In most health matters, defying medical authority mainly has individual consequences. Those who believe that cancer can be treated with coffee enemas are only killing themselves. But communicable diseases are different. Some people can’t be immunized for medical reasons, or their protective response to a vaccine is weak. They depend on the immunity of others to avoid infection. Immunization rates north of 90 percent are usually required to protect the whole herd. This means that if even a small portion of the herd refuses vaccination, the risks rise for everyone. Epidemiology grants marginal groups the power to do great harm. The United States generally has rates of immunization in the high 80s or low 90s. In some places, however, the rate dips lower, making it easier for an infected traveler (for example) to cause an outbreak. Recent examples can be found in Orange County, Calif., and New York City. The problem is even worse in Britain (where the immunization rate for measles is only about 80 percent) and in other parts of Europe. Those who resist vaccination are a varied group. The parents of autistic children seek and deserve an explanation. Unfortunately, vaccination is not the answer. Other “non-conformists” are a subset of home-schoolers, distrustful of government mandates and intent on the right to keep and bear viruses. A larger number of resisters are committed to an organic, chemical-free, natural lifestyle. This is attractive, except in the case of diseases in which the “natural” state — through most of history and still in much of the world — has been massive infant and child suffering and death. The achievements of science in this area are highly artificial — and thank goodness. The ability to opt out of vaccinations (other than for diagnosed medical problems) is often miscast as a matter of parental choice, leading to a proliferation of state exemptions for vague religious and philosophic reasons. What could be wrong with choice? A lot, when you are choosing to endanger your neighbors. Vaccination — in a little-used but useful term — is a social responsibility. It is a duty we owe each other as members of a community. Opting out should be difficult and burdensome. And there is no parental right to send a purposely unvaccinated child to public school, exposing other children to unnecessary risk. Resistance to immunization is not new. In the late 1700s, some believed that the smallpox vaccine could turn people into cows. Today, however, there would be 1,000 Web sites alleging a sinister connection between Big Pharma and Big Dairy. The problem of vaccine denialism is closely tied to the problem of information and authority in the digital age. People prone to skepticism can cover themselves with layers of pseudo-science and conspiracy theories that thicken and harden like papier mache. On medical issues, the United States needs not more sources of questionable information but more trust in knowledgeable authority. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and your local pediatrician are not lying about immunization. Many Web sites are. The seriousness of this discussion must somehow reflect the seriousness of the stakes. Vaccine denialism is not the equivalent of advocating for diaper-free children or sleeping in the family bed. During the lifetimes of American children born from 1994 to 2013, according to the CDC, childhood vaccinations will prevent an estimated 21 million hospitalizations and 732,000 deaths. This is miraculous but not natural. _Read more fromMichael Gerson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook _. **Read more about this issue:** Alexandra Petri: The one problem with that Jenny McCarthy Twitter backlash Seth Mnookin: An early cure for parents’ vaccine panic Sandra G. Boodman: Inside the vaccine-autism scare

Arguing with anti-vaxers: Maybe not a good idea

"These results suggest that correcting vaccine myths may not be an effective approach to promoting vaccination," the authors concluded. How to explain this seeming paradox? "Our explanation is that when you're challenged, you often try to defend the underlying belief or attitude that's come into question," said Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth. That's especially true when the issue is something a person cares deeply about. Anyone who has followed the vaccinate-or-don't-vaccinate debate knows that it qualifies. "If misperceptions are the expression of a more generalized antipathy toward vaccines," the study notes, "then addressing these myths piecemeal is unlikely to be effective. A more comprehensive strategy is likely to be required."  Currently, there is little evidence-based research on vaccine messaging, Nyhan said. In the end, public health advocates may have to accept that while the vast majority of people in this country still vaccinate, some never will, Nyhan said. "We have to be realistic," he said. "It doesn't mean we should give up hope."

A shot of politics in the vaccine debate

The Feb. 3 front-page article “Vaccination remarks show potency of debate,” on opposition from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to mandatory vaccination, did not convey just how outrageous Mr. Paul’s statements were. Aside from his political arguments, Mr. Paul, an ophthalmologist, also said that he had heard of “many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.” There are few better examples of how politicians trip over themselves when they let ideology trump facts. Time and again this occurs, whether by denying evolution, global climate change or the value of vaccines. It is particularly egregious when a physician violates his oath to “do no harm” by spreading falsehoods about a vital medical procedure. ****Stephen D. Wolpe** , Boyds** ● It was irresponsible for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to contend that because parents “own” their children, they should be allowed to opt out of vaccinations. Parents don’t “own” their children. Children are not chattel. Parents rear children and have a responsibility to their children and to society. As a doctor, Mr. Paul should be familiar with the social contract. As the current measles outbreak indicates, vaccinations protect the individual who receives the immunizations and those folks not medically eligible to receive them. It strikes me as odd that a physician would be willing to imperil the lives of children and those at risk of developing complications related to any disease that can be prevented by vaccinations. Mr. Paul’s position, however, is consistent with his act of forming his own board-certification organization [“A future senator set his sights on a rebellion that fizzled out,” front page, Feb. 2]. ****Pamela Kincheloe** , Manassas** ● The front-page article on childhood vaccinations did not mention that, in mandating vaccination, governments act in the public interest and, in particular, in the interest of children who otherwise could (and do) sicken and die because their parents are behaving irrationally. Potential presidential candidates ignore this rationale because it does not serve their demagogic thrust. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said, “The state doesn’t own your children. Parents own the children.” Let that sink in for a minute. “The government has no right to interfere in my family” actually means “Hands off. My children are mine to dispose of as I wish.” Here is contemporary “libertarianism” in a nutshell. “Liberty” means “power,” and the state has no right to interfere in my power over persons who, by reason of age, gender, minority status or economic standing, have less power than I do. ****Bernard Welt** , Takoma Park** ● In his Feb. 3 op-ed column, “Threatened by free riders,” Michael Gerson oversimplified the vaccine issue. We need a real debate in this country. Many parents oppose vaccinations because they know someone who has sustained a vaccine-related injury. Mr. Gerson admitted that there is a “small risk of adverse reaction.” Some parents are not willing to take this risk when the consequences are dire. This is why we have a national vaccine injury compensation fund. Although the scientific research may not back these parents’ concerns, we have heard over and over about a child’s health taking a turn right after a vaccine. Who knows these children better than their parents? We need an open and honest discussion of the risks and benefits and what can be done so that parents feel more comfortable with the “small risks” they are taking. ****Laura Simon** , Potomac** ● The Feb. 3 Post had two articles on “parental choice.” In the first, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) stated that the decision to vaccinate children should be left up to their parents. In the second, parents left their two toddlers in a locked car on a cold day so that they could go to a wine-tasting; the children were not physically harmed [“Police: Parents of toddlers in car were at wine-tasting,” Metro]. To be consistent in their beliefs, I can only assume that Mr. Paul and Mr. Christie support the rights of the parents to make that choice, too. ****Jon Matthew Farber** , Alexandria** ● Regarding the Feb. 4 front-page article “Parents with vaccination doubts face backlash”: A health-care lawyer, a graphic designer and an autism advocate don’t want to be labeled “crazy” and “selfish”; they just have “questions” and “want a safer [vaccine] schedule.” Never mind that the 62,000 members of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the hundreds of doctors and scientists employed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agree on the recommended immunization schedule. And who cares that years and years of research confirm the safety of vaccines and their criticality to a healthy society? Go ahead, believe in the unsupported links between immunization and autism, food allergies and autoimmune disorders. Just don’t get mad when the rest of us call you out on it. ****Chalin Smith** , Alexandria**

Conservative and liberal brains may be wired differently

Think your political beliefs arise from logic and reason? Think again. A team of scientists who studied the brains of liberal, moderate and conservative people found that they could tell who leaned left and who leaned right based on how their brains responded to disgusting pictures. The findings, published in the journal Current Biology, show that the brains of liberals and conservatives may indeed be wired differently and shed light on the biological factors at play in political beliefs. Biology and politics have long been seen by many researchers as two very separate realms. Some argue that biology is irrelevant to political questions or that the links between the two are murky or oversimplified. “Despite growing evidence from various fields, including genetics, cognitive neuroscience and psychology, many political scientists remain skeptical of research connecting biological factors with political ideology,” the study authors wrote. But many of the subjects at issue in certain political ideologies — attitudes toward sex, family, education and personal autonomy, for example — have an emotional component as much as a logic-based one. And some research has indicated that political leanings can be inherited, much in the way that height can be inherited though modified by such factors as nutrition and environment. A team led by Virginia Tech scientists tested 83 volunteers to determine their political leanings. Then the researchers put the participants in a functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, machine, had them look at 80 disgusting, threatening, pleasant or neutral images, and watched how the participants’ brains reacted. Later, the volunteers were asked to rate how disgusting, pleasant or threatening each image was. When shown a disgusting image — particularly one of a mutilated animal body — the conservatives’ brains reacted more strongly, and in different ways, compared with the liberals’ brains. “Although our results suggest that disgusting pictures evoke very different emotional processing in conservatives and liberals,” the authors wrote, “it will take a range of targeted studies in the future to tease apart the separate contribution of each brain circuit.” The difference between the two groups was stark; also, oddly enough, the fMRI responses didn’t match the conscious ratings that participants gave the pictures. Other images, whether threatening or pleasant or neutral, didn’t show the same link, but it’s possible that pictures of threats don’t register the same way a real threat would, the authors pointed out. “People tend to think that their political views are purely cognitive (i.e., rational),” the study authors wrote. “However, our results further support the notion that emotional processes are tightly coupled to complex and high-dimensional human belief systems, and such emotional processes might play a much larger role than we currently believe, possibly outside our awareness of its influence.” Certainly politics is more than a few (possibly subconscious) emotional reactions; life history and experience also affect political beliefs, the authors wrote. But the study does raise questions about whether partisans will need to develop new strategies to reach across the political aisle. “Would the recognition that those with different political beliefs from our own also exhibit different disgust responses from our own help us or hinder us in our ability to embrace them as co-equals in democratic governance?” the researchers wrote. “Future work will be necessary to answer these important questions.” ** — Los Angeles Times  **

You can blame CNN (and the news media) if childhood vaccinations go down

There were a lot of half-truths and out-right falsehoods peddled at CNN’s Republican debate Wednesday night, but perhaps the most damaging among them was the assertion by Donald Trump that childhood vaccinations cause autism, and others’ skepticism about the safety of the vaccine schedule set out by the American Academy of Pediatrics. It was particularly galling watching two physicians who are president candidates, Ben Carson and Rand Paul, pander when they clearly know better.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Those who saw the vaccine exchange during the debate will rightly castigate the Republican field for their refusal to stand up for medical science consensus. But CNN’s role in raising the issue in the first place should not be overlooked. If CNN, and other media, continues on the course of unprecedented politicization of vaccine safety by treating it as a campaign issue, the societal consensus on the safety and efficacy of vaccines may be eroded at tremendous cost. Here’s why. We are fortunate to have a rather broad societal consensus on the efficacy and safety of childhood vaccinations. For all the attention that the anti-vaxxer movement has generated, vaccination rates for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) remain above the 90 percent target in almost all states. Increasing resistance to vaccinations, while deeply troubling, has remained largely localized.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Further, as Kahan and others have noted, there are no striking partisan or ideological differences in vaccine attitudes. Notwithstanding the quackery on stage at the GOP debate on Wednesday, Republican voters are just as likely to believe in vaccine safety as Democrats, at least for now. That may change if party elites become polarized on the issue, and if this is communicated to the mass public through the national press.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico We fear that it might happen because something similar transpired with attitudes about global warming. In a paper we recently presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, we looked at the role mainstream media plays in promoting pseudo-scientific attitudes on several issues, such as global warming and childhood vaccinations. We fear that the story of global warming polarization should serve as a cautionary tale of how the media and the political establishment choose to proceed on vaccinations.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico So far the coverage of vaccinations has been reasonable, despite what we might intuitively infer from the rise of the anti-vaxxer movement. We know this because we gathered coverage of childhood vaccinations in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today, and constructed a keyword-based dictionary to capture cues from parties and party leaders, as well as experts using Lexicoder for automated content analysis.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The figure below shows that coverage of vaccines has increased since the bogus Wakefield study purportedly linked vaccines to autism. Salience has increased modestly, but politicization hasn’t. As the right panel shows, references to experts dominate coverage, and party cues have fallen to below 10 percent.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Do note that until recently, party elites were in consensus on vaccines. While some cues were present in the press, these did not have the potential to polarize the public. We fear that if party elites continue to polarize, the cues present in the press could begin to undermine the societal consensus on childhood vaccinations. Why are we reasonably sure this is the case? Because we have seen this movie before, with global warming. Climate scientists and others in the academic community have been at a loss as to why it has been so difficult to mobilize a societal consensus to take serious action in tackling global warming. The issue is polarized, with Republicans, particularly the most educated, being steadfastly against the scientific consensus. This fact has helped maintain a narrative in the press that Republicans and conservatives are inherently anti-science.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The narrative, however plausible on its face, ignores the fact conservative leaders in other countries got on board to deal with global warming (Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron, for example), and more importantly, over-time dynamics in the United States. Republican elites moved into a much more entrenched stance against dealing with global warming, and Republican voters became more skeptical over time. We gathered polls on global warming attitudes going back to 1992 from the Roper database, and constructed a climate skepticism “mood” measure using James Stimson’s WCalc software. The results are shown below in the furthest left panel.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Widespread polarization on global warming was not inevitable. As the left panel of the figure above demonstrates, skepticism has gradually crept upwards since 1992, almost certainly concentrated among Republican voters (for more details, please see our conference paper).    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Two periods in particular are worthy of note: a steady increase in skepticism between 1992 and 2000, and a steep increase after 2006. Why did this occur? In all likelihood, an important contributor was a steep increase in the politicization of coverage, and the issue’s increased salience over time. Republican voters were persuaded by Republican and Democratic elites whose stances on the issue were increasingly available in coverage. As we show in the center panel above, media attention on global warming skyrocketed after 2006, while the panel on the right shows coverage has gotten increasingly politicized. Parties and party leaders were hardly mentioned in the 1980s — now they are featured in over half of stories on global warming. The period of increasing climate skepticism between 1992 and 2000 shown above corresponds with a period of relentless increases in the politicization of coverage, and increasing skepticism after 2007 may well be linked to a massive increase in coverage that made politicized coverage ever more available to Republican voters. We believe the media played a critical role in polarizing the American public on climate change with potentially disastrous consequences in the future. Interest groups pressured Republican elites to reject action on climate change, and elite cues filtered through the press to erode Republican support of climate science. We fear we may begin to witness a similar dynamic on vaccines. Republican elites are increasingly voicing skepticism of the medical science consensus. The media sees this as fitting a pre-established narrative that Republicans are hostile to science, and thus CNN asked the GOP field a question about vaccines in front of a record breaking national audience of 23 million people.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico It would not be surprising if Democratic elites leap at this opportunity to solidify their own science-based credentials and make it a campaign issue, particularly if someone like Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination. These cues are then communicated to the public through the press, and we may be off to the polarization races. Even a slight erosion in public support for vaccines may cause tremendous damage. We need at least 90 percent of parents to vaccinate their kids, not 60 percent or even 80. We should definitely be critical about Republican leaders pandering to vaccine truther-ism, but we should be equally critical of CNN for making this an issue in the first place. If we value our societal consensus on vaccines, we must recognize that it’s potentially fragile, and that the best way to maintain it is to keep the issue out of the Republican primaries and out of the 2016 presidential election. _Eric Merkley and Dominik Stecula are PhD students in political science at the University of British Columbia._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Revoke the license of any doctor who opposes vaccination

_Arthur L. Caplan is the director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center’s Department of Population Health._ Amateurs and hucksters are not the only people telling parents not to vaccinate their children. Unfortunately some doctors — men and women sworn to the Hippocratic Oath — are purveying junk science. They say that vaccines cause autism, as in the famous case of Andrew Wakefield, whose study drawing the link has been retracted. Or that measles isn’t that bad, so your child can skip the shots, as Jack Wolfson, a cardiologist in Arizona, says, adding that “the facts” show vaccines to be full of “harmful things” like “chemicals.” Or that, according to some parents, vaccines cause “profound mental disorders,” as Sen. Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist, warned before he walked the statement back. Or that vaccines cause “permanent disability or death,” in the words of Bob Sears, a pediatrician in California. Thankfully, only a few physicians in America have embraced fear-mongering in the middle of this dangerous and costly measles epidemic. They deserve a place of honor next to climate-change skeptics, anti-fluoridation kooks and Holocaust deniers. They doubt the facts, ignore established evidence and concoct their own pet theories. They shouldn’t be allowed near patients, let alone TV cameras. But because their suggestions are so surprising and controversial, they often find themselves on cable news shows and in news reports about the “anti-vaxx” crowd. Their power, therefore, is radically disproportionate to their numbers. Doctors who purvey views based on anecdote, myth, hearsay, rumor, ideology, fraud or some combination of all of these, particularly during an epidemic, should have their medical licenses revoked. Thankfully, states have the right tools to do so. It’s time to use them. Going after doctors for speaking their minds is a tricky business. Doctors use their judgment and experience all the time to recommend things to patients that regulatory bodies have not approved or that their peers might think inadvisable: “Yes, there are risks involved, but I don’t wear a helmet when I ride my motorcycle, and I understand if you don’t want to, either.” This is generally okay: By the time someone is licensed to practice medicine, she has acquired so much knowledge and training — seven to 12 years, not including college — that she can balance any maverick ideas against best practices and known risks. Doctors are within their rights to take certain gambles with novel drugs such as Viagra (originally developed as a treatment for hypertension) or to espouse unusual lifestyles such as the paleo diet. The effect is generally limited to a physician’s patients. But a doctor is not just another person with First Amendment rights to free speech. When a doctor tells you not to vaccinate, it is not the same as when a layperson says the same thing. And when a doctor ignores the evidence to claim that the measles vaccine will harm your child, it is not the same as when your bartender or hairdresser says so. Physicians’ speech invokes medical authority, so when they speak, patients tend to listen. Especially when they speak on TV. Because lives hang in the balance, medical speech is held to a higher standard. A doctor must consider the public health and patient good in all that he says in his role as an expert. To do otherwise, as the ethics codes in medicine and nursing suggest, is unprofessional. It might even constitute misconduct if such talk contributed to an epidemic. Counseling against vaccination is exactly that kind of misconduct. The science is unimpeachable: Vaccines do not cause autism; measles is dangerous and contagious; inoculating against the disease is neither pointless nor riskier than abstention. Those doctors who counsel otherwise — who distort what patients need to know to preserve their health or that of their children — have crossed a bright red line. They have violated a patient’s right to informed consent, which depends on accurate information. That is why medical speech is subject to scrutiny by a doctor’s peers and can be curtailed by state licensing boards. My home state of New York, for instance, warns doctors that they may not use speech that is “false, fraudulent, deceptive, misleading” or relies on the use of “testimonials.” Violations may be punished by revoking a medical license. Those whose misinformation leads to harm can be charged by a patient, doctor or other health-care professional; investigated by the medical board; and found guilty by a hearing panel composed of doctors and a member of the public. I have testified in many court and licensing hearings about physicians who abjure the standard of care for their own pet theories. Many of them are now ex-doctors. The vaccine crisis has introduced several worthy candidates — proponents of distrust and dishonesty — for dismissal from the ranks of doctors, and the rules in their states provide the mechanism. Kentucky is home to Paul, the fear-mongering senator who said he could not support mandatory immunization because many parents had told him that vaccines can cause mental disorders. He walked those comments back but appears to have believed them for many years. Kentucky statute KRS 311.595(9) says that “dishonorable, unethical, or unprofessional conduct of a character likely to deceive, defraud, or harm the public or any member thereof” is grounds to consider yanking a physician’s license. He may also be sanctioned if he “issues, publishes, or makes oral or written representations in which grossly improbable or extravagant statements are made which have a tendency to deceive or defraud the public.” Arizona is home to cardiologist Wolfson, who told the Arizona Republic: “We should be getting measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox. These are the rights of our children to get it.” He told this newspaper, USA Today, CNN and anyone else who cared to listen to his unfounded views of vaccination: “Don’t be mad at me for speaking the truth about vaccines. Be mad at yourself, because you’re, frankly, a bad mother. You didn’t ask once about those vaccines. You didn’t ask about the chemicals in them. You didn’t ask about all the harmful things in those vaccines . . . People need to learn the facts.” Arizona’s Medical Practice Act says, “The board on its own motion may investigate any evidence that appears to show that a doctor of medicine is or may be medically incompetent, [or] is or may be guilty of unprofessional conduct.” Given that Wolfson has gone so far as to fulminate against “chemicals,” there is ample room for a charge of incompetence. California is home to Sears, the anti-vaxx pediatrician who favors alternative medicine and told CNN that “every year in the United States, between 3,000 and 4,500 severe vaccine reactions are reported to the Centers for Disease Control. Not mild reactions. Severe reactions that land somebody in the hospital, the intensive-care unit or cause a permanent disability or death.” You would have to be a child abuser to vaccinate your kid given those numbers! But of course his stats are drivel. The CDC maintains the database that Sears used to generate his irresponsibly scary figures, and it includes a clear warning that there is no evidence that the reported adverse events are actually related to vaccines. They are simply things that happened around the time vaccines were administered. Correlation does not show causality. Otherwise we might attribute the rise in autism to the increased consumption of organic food or the number of years Jenny McCarthy has existed on Earth. California’s medical licensing board frowns on doctors who endanger the public health — “whenever the protection of the public is inconsistent with other interests sought to be promoted, the protection of the public shall be paramount” — and says that “the board shall take action against any licensee” charged with unprofessional conduct, incompetence or dishonesty. That unprofessionalism is not, the courts have said, limited to “the actual treatment of a patient.” Sears is squarely in violation. The American Medical Association, too, has trouble with physicians like Sears who make up numbers in the middle of a measles epidemic and push them to a nervous public. Its Code of Ethics (in a section devoted to social media) says: “When physicians see content posted by colleagues that appears unprofessional they have a responsibility to bring that content to the attention of the individual, so that he or she can remove it and/or take other appropriate actions. If the behavior significantly violates professional norms and the individual does not take appropriate action to resolve the situation, the physician should report the matter to appropriate authorities,” meaning, in this case, the California licensing board. When politicians ignore the evidence, fail to cite appropriate medical authorities, and rely on hearsay and rumor, with the result that people — out of ignorance or error — don’t vaccinate their children, we can and should deny them elective office. When a doctor does so, we should demand that he forfeit his right to use his medical degree to misinform, confuse or lie. **_Twitter: @ArthurCaplan _ ** Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Debunking Donald Trump won’t work if you repeat what he got wrong

The same infographic kept appearing in my Twitter feed again and again around Thanksgiving. The graphic, originally shared by Donald Trump, showed a series of statistics about race and gun deaths in 2015, alongside an image of a dark-skinned man with a handgun. Every single one of the statistics in the graphic was false. But here’s the thing: The people I follow on Twitter weren’t endorsing the bogus statistics — quite the opposite. News organizations shared the image along with links to their articles debunking it. Pundits shared the image to poke fun at Trump’s credulity. Liberals shared the image along with their concerns that someone who would traffic in such fabrications could become president. (Trump, meanwhile, said the whole thing didn’t matter: “All it was was a retweet.”) Even as they debunked and ridiculed the image, though, his critics continued to share it. Their intention in fact-checking Trump was to counteract the effect that these false statistics had on people’s attitudes — but in sharing them, they may have done exactly the opposite. My research shows that even successfully corrected misinformation creates “belief echoes”: effects on attitudes that persist even when you know that a piece of information is false. A great deal of research has examined how and why people refuse to accept corrections. When it comes to politics, most people tend to engage in a process called “motivated reasoning,” meaning that their existing attitudes (for example, their partisanship) affect what facts they choose to believe and which arguments they find convincing. Motivated reasoning is part of why many people incorrectly think that President Obama is a Muslim, that vaccines cause autism or that former president George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks before they happened. In some ways, belief echoes are even more insidious than motivated reasoning: Their existence suggests that even if we accept intellectually that a piece of information is false, it still has the power to affect how we think. In my research, I conducted three online experiments with a total of 905 participants. Each study lasted about eight minutes and followed a similar format. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of three different versions of a news article from the fictional Iowa Ledger describing a fictional congressional candidate named John McKenna. The first version (or the “control”) simply described the campaign. The second version included a paragraph in which McKenna’s opponents accused him of accepting donations from a convicted felon. The third version also included the accusation, but it was immediately followed by a correction: specifically, that an independent investigation by the Ledger had shown the accusation to be false. After reading the article, participants answered several questions about McKenna. Those in the control group (who never saw the misinformation) evaluated him significantly more positively than those who read only the accusation. However, in each of the three experiments, those in the third group (who read the accusation and the correction) also evaluated him more negatively than the control group. Why did the people in the third group dislike the candidate, even though the article clearly stated that the accusation against him was false? One possible explanation is that some people simply did not believe the correction. After all, people often reject corrections of misinformation — especially when those corrections run counter to their existing beliefs. To test for this possibility, I asked all the participants a number of factual questions about the article, including whether McKenna had accepted donations from a felon. The results showed that the correction worked: People who read it knew that McKenna was innocent. But they still evaluated him more negatively than did participants who had never read the false accusation. Even when the correction worked, it wasn’t enough to “unring the bell” of exposure to misinformation. This remained true when the misinformation was corrected right away — even in the sentence immediately after the falsehood. Belief echoes can arise through several processes. First, if the misinformation is vivid and emotionally affecting, it has a strong initial effect on attitudes. In contrast, the correction has a much smaller emotional impact. Participants’ opinions about McKenna were like a thermometer; while the accusation of misconduct caused the thermometer to drop precipitously, the correction did not cause a symmetrical rise. The second process through which misinformation creates belief echoes is driven by our brains’ instinct to create plausible causal narratives. In the few seconds after participants read about the accusation, their minds automatically went to work recalling facts that matched that narrative — even in the case of an imaginary politician. They may have remembered other sleazy politicians they’d heard of, or thought about their general dislike of Congress. After they learned that the misinformation was false, those memories remained, and they could continue to affect attitudes. For example, one participant wrote that even though they believed that the accusation was untrue, “it made me more suspicious of him — he might be covering something up.” The experiments also varied another factor: the party of the candidate. Half the participants were told that McKenna shared their partisanship, and half were told that he was from the opposing party. The results showed that belief echoes can cross partisan lines: Misinformation continues to affect how a person feels about a candidate even when they are both of the same party. Belief echoes are not limited to the political world. Research in psychology, including several studies by Ullrich Ecker at the University of Western Australia and Stephan Lewandowsky at the University of Bristol, shows that effectively corrected misinformation can continue to affect attitudes in other domains as well. The existence of belief echoes means that if we want to minimize the impact of misinformation on attitudes, it is critical not to repeat it. Sometimes this might be unavoidable — for instance, fact-checking sites need to repeat the original statement in order to correct it. But when we spread a correction, whether it’s through tweeting or conversation, we should do our best to avoid repeating the false information. Belief echoes are more likely when the misinformation is vivid (for example, videos or images) and less likely when it is not (dry statistics and policy details). Unfortunately, this means that the times when we are most tempted to repeat misinformation — a horrifyingly inaccurate graph, an offensive comment in a debate — are also the times when it is most likely to create belief echoes. So, as frustrated as we might be when Donald Trump makes things up on the campaign trail, the best advice may be to deal with him the same way we’re told to deal with bees, small children throwing tantrums and Internet trolls: Just ignore him. **Twitter:@emilythorson ** Follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter. And read more from Outlook: College sports exploits unpaid black athletes. But they could force a change. Not punishing the Bundys for the Nevada standoff led to the occupation in Oregon North Korea is a joke. And that’s the problem. Why are there so few girls in children’s books? Five myths about China’s economy Ted Cruz had the worst week in Washington

Biased interpretations of science? Liberals do it, too.

Confidence in the scientific community has diverged along ideological lines over the past two decades. Conservatives’ trust in science has declined, while the trust of liberals and moderates has remained relatively stable. This divergence threatens policymakers’ ability to engage in scientifically informed decisionmaking and makes political consensus less likely. But are conservatives unique in discounting science? Our new research suggests not. It turns out that liberals do it, too.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico One explanation for the decline in scientific trust among conservatives is the “Republican War on Science,” purported to have emerged in the late 1990s. The claim is that fundamental psychological differences linked to ideology contribute to a “scientific deficit” unique to conservatives. In other words, conservatives are inherently predisposed to reject scientific evidence and to distrust the scientific community.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico We are skeptical of this interpretation and join other researchers in arguing that conservatives and liberals can _both_ be biased in how they process scientific information or trust scientists. Whether liberals or conservatives are more likely to distrust in science will depend on the specific issue under debate.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico We recruited a diverse group of 1,500 adults from a national online panel of volunteers and randomly assigned them to read scientifically accurate statements about different science topics. Some read about issues where there is significant partisan divide, including climate change, evolution, nuclear power, and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of natural gas, while others read about issues that tend to be viewed as ideologically neutral, namely geology and astronomy.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Unsurprisingly, we found that conservatives who read statements about climate change or evolution reported more negative emotions and greater resistance to the information, compared to liberals who read the same statements and compared to other conservatives who read statements about geology or astronomy. This lead conservatives who read these messages to report significantly lower trust in the scientific community. But we found a similar pattern among liberals who read about nuclear power or fracking. Liberals exhibited the same negative emotions and resistance to the information.  They also expressed less trust in the scientific community. One finding was more surprising, and perhaps more distressing.  Although liberals who read statements about climate change and evolution reported greater trust in science than conservatives who did the same, these liberals also reported less trust in the scientific community than liberals who read ideologically neutral statements about geology or astronomy. This suggests that partisan battles over science can erode public confidence in the scientific community, even among those predisposed to trust the evidence. Even though both conservatives and liberals interpret science in a biased fashion, this is not an excuse for either side to do so. Our findings neither exempt nor validate the well-organized and heavily funded “climate denialist movement.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico We believe that our experiment has two important lessons for science communicators. The first is that political journalism too often treats science like a political issue to be debated by non-experts in televised partisan theater. This type of coverage often obscures the actual scientific evidence and consensus, deepens polarization by providing partisan cues for both conservatives and liberals, and depresses confidence in the scientific community among liberals and conservatives alike.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The second lesson is that that science communicators who target conservatives as uniquely deficient in understanding science turn the focus to ideological countermobilization or conversion (“If only everyone were liberal!”) and away from communication that bridges ideological gaps about science issues — since the implication is that conservatives cannot be moved. Demonizing a third of the population does nothing to solve the challenges of effective science communication. _Erik C. Nisbet and R. Kelly Garrett are professors in the School of Communication at Ohio State University._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _This post is part of a series on politics and science. Other posts in the series include:_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _“A scientific perspective on politics and science”_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _“You can change the mind of climate change skeptics. Here’s how.”_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _“Why science teachers sow doubt about evolution (even when they don’t mean to)”_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _“Neuroscience is coming to law. Can we keep politics out of it?”_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Here’s how irrational flu vaccine deniers are

It's flu season, a time when health authorities loudly advise getting a flu shot (even if, yes, this year's shot may be somewhat less effective than in other years). But unfortunately -- as with all things vaccine related -- it's also the season for misinformation, especially among the subset of the U.S. public that is worried about vaccines or that, erroneously, believes them to be somehow dangerous.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico In particular, one myth about the flu vaccine -- widely enough held that the FDA and CDC have tried to directly debunk it \-- is that you can actually get the flu from getting the shot. The reality, of course, is that the shot contains viruses that have been inactivated and can't make you sick. Nonetheless, the prevalence of this false belief may partly explain why flu vaccine rates are quite low -- only about 42 percent among U.S. adults.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico So what do you do to rid people's heads of myths like these, and get them to vaccinate? Unfortunately, suggests a new study, telling them the straight up facts may not work -- it may even backfire.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The new study is by Dartmouth's Brendan Nyhan and the University of Exeter's Jason Reifler, two longtime scholarly chroniclers of people's irrationality when it comes to accepting facts that challenge their belief systems -- a phenomenon that is pervasive in public debates about science, health, the environment, and much more. Nyhan and Reifler have previously documented a so- called "backfire effect" in studies of conservative views about George W. Bush's tax cuts and the Iraq war -- where providing a factual correction of false statements attributed to Bush in a newspaper article led conservatives to believe them more strongly afterwards . Moreover, in a study last year, they similarly showed that a variety of pro-vaccine messages not only failed to sway opponents of vaccinations, but some messages actually decreased their intent to vaccinate or made their wrong beliefs worse.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Now, in their new study in the journal _Vaccine_ , Nyhan and Reifler present test subjects with messages about the flu vaccine. One message (based on language from the CDC) directly debunked the idea that the vaccine can give you the flu. Another message (also based on CDC language) simply described how dangerous the flu can be. Finally, there was a control group, in which subjects didn't hear a message about the flu at all, but were simply asked (as were all participants) about their views on how risky vaccines are, whether the flu vaccine can cause you to get sick, and whether they intended to get a flu shot.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico There was some bad news right off the bat: Fully 43 percent of people believed that getting the flu vaccine can actually cause you to get the flu. When it came to hearing a correction of this myth, though, results were a little better:  The correction did seem to make people less likely to believe the myth about the dangers of the vaccine -- and even did so among those research subjects who were most fearful of vaccine side effects in general. However, when the researchers then examined subjects' likeliness to vaccinate themselves against the flu, they found -- disturbingly -- that among these vaccine fearful individuals, hearing a debunking of flu vaccine risks actually led to them being _less likely_ to say they planned on getting the flu vaccine. That's right -- the CDC's language was "actually counterproductive among the group that we’d be most concerned about from a public health perspective, which is the people who are most hesitant about vaccines," explains Dartmouth's Nyhan.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Here's a figure from the study, showing this effect -- the vaccine hesitant people are on the right ("High side effects concern"), and the "Correction" group is the one in which subjects heard the flu vaccine myth actively debunked: In sum, it looks like yet another backfire effect! So –what’s up with this? Or more precisely, how can vaccine skeptics simultaneously be swayed by good and accurate pro-vaccine information, and yet simultaneously become less likely to get vaccinated? The result, says Nyhan, suggests that factual misperceptions about vaccines -- like the myth that the flu vaccine causes the flu --"are more a consequence of people’s mixed or negative attitudes towards vaccines, rather than the cause. So when we challenge one misperception, people may simply bring to mind other misconceptions or concerns that they have, and remind themselves of their more general concern about vaccines in the first place." In light of recent revelations that the flu vaccine may be less effective than usual this season, public health authorities already have their  hands full trying to explain why people should, nonetheless, go out and get a flu shot. The latest research suggests they're not going to get a lot of help from the human mind.

“The Tea Party is better understood as a reactionary conservative force.”

This is a guest post by University of Washington political scientist Christopher Parker, a co-author of _Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America_. His interview with Ezra Klein from last week is here.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University ***** The sustained opposition to the Affordable Care Act and the government shutdown have demonstrated the considerable power that the Tea Party retains among congressional Republicans, even as its support among voters has slipped. Tea-Party conservatives justify their views based on conservative principles. For example, they contend that the ACA is a symptom of a government grown so big that it encroaches on Americans’ freedoms.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University But if Tea Partyism is just conservatism, why don’t all congressional conservatives embrace the Tea Party’s approach to politics and public policy? Why does John Boehner, speaker of the House, often appear reluctant to embrace Tea Party tactics? Why did John McCain call congressional Tea Partiers “wacko birds” a while back? Why did Bob Dole say neither he nor Ronald Reagan would feel comfortable in today’s Republican Party?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University My new book on the Tea Party, co-authored with Matthew Barreto, seeks to better understand the Tea Party’s motivations. We find that the Tea Party is driven by far more than garden-variety conservatism.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University We argue that the Tea Party is better understood as a _reactionary_ conservative force. It prefers the sorts of dramatic changes that threaten the stability traditional conservatives usually seek to preserve. Reactionary conservatives fear losing their way of life amid social change. To preserve their group’s social prestige, they’re willing to undermine long-established norms and institutions. Furthermore, reactionary conservatives are more likely to subscribe to conspiracy theories as a means of explaining the perceived erosion of their dominance. Reactionary conservatives will, therefore, claim that their “enemies” are destroying their way of life. Compromise is commensurate with defeat, not political expediency.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University The difference between traditional and reaction conservatism is evident in an analysis that Barreto and I did of 42 Tea-Party websites in 15 states _ **,**_ alongside content from the website of a traditional conservative publication, the _National Review_. We found that the vast majority of _National Review_ content emphasized core postwar conservative beliefs: small government, an emphasis on values, and strong national defense. Only five percent of the _National Review_ ’s content focused upon conspiratorial themes. On the Tea- Party websites, only 30 percent of the content concentrated on postwar conservative beliefs. However, 33 percent of the content here was conspiratorial.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University In our survey research, a list experiment also revealed how Tea Party conservatives think differently than other conservatives. We randomly divided survey respondents into two groups and asked them how many of a list of statements — but not which statements — they agreed with. The only thing that differed across the two groups was whether the list of statements included the proposition that “Obama is destroying the country.” The results showed a striking divergence: 71 percent of Tea-Party conservatives agreed with this statement but six percent of non-Tea Party conservatives did.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University We also explored the roots of identification with the Tea Party.  We found that, even after controlling a host of factors — including ideology and attitudes toward African-Americans — Tea Party identifiers were more common among those believing that Obama actively promotes socialism.  This again suggests motives more akin to reactionary conservatism. The rift between Tea Party conservatives and others conservatives is one that challenges the Republican Party and potentially imperils the American economy if the debt ceiling is not raised.  Although House Republicans rode a Tea Party wave to victory in 2010, Tea Party candidates arguably cost Republicans at least four Senate seats. In 2012, Republicans lost eight House seats, and two possible seats in the Senate. An open question is whether the Republican Party will ultimately emulate William Buckley’s handiwork from the 1960s. When Robert Welch and his John Birch Society continued to allege that establishment conservatives were in cahoots with the Soviet Union, Buckley essentially ejected them from the conservative movement. To his mind, the movement would cease to survive if burdened with the baggage of Welch’s rhetoric. Buckley’s move ultimately paid off. It set the stage for the success of a conservative movement that has been a force in American politics for almost 50 years. The question is whether the conservative movement of today will remember that lesson.

More parents believe vaccines are ‘unnecessary,’ while a mumps outbreak grows

The AAP study involves a random sampling of about 630 members in 2006 and again in 2013. They found that in 2006, 75 percent of pediatricians who responded had encountered parents who refused vaccines. By 2013, it was up to 87 percent. That’s a big change, but the more interesting part of the survey is why. In 2006, the No. 1 reason parents were refusing vaccines was because of concerns about the ingredient thimerosal causing autism. In 2006, 74 said it was about autism. In 2013, that number had declined to 64 percent. Now, more parents are refusing the vaccine on the grounds that they are “unnecessary” — 73.1 percent in 2013 vs. 63.4 percent in 2006. Moreover, even parents who believe in vaccines appear to be delaying the shots that are supposed to be given on a strict schedule to maximize their effectiveness. Seventy-five percent of pediatricians said that parents asked for delays because of worries about their child's "discomfort" and 72.5 percent because of a concern "for immune system burden."  The rapid speed at which a modern outbreak can spread was underscored in 2014-2015 when a single unvaccinated child with measles at Disneyland in California started an outbreak that spread to 146 people, many of whom were also unvaccinated. There were no deaths, but many became so seriously ill that they had to be hospitalized.  The AAP paper’s publication coincidentally comes during a week when there’s yet another outbreak in the United States of an infectious disease we can prevent through immunizations. In recent months, at least 36 people have contracted mumps — whose symptoms include puffy cheeks and possibly serious respiratory symptoms — in one Long Island town.  The AAP expressed alarm about the findings of the study, stating that "parental noncompliance" with the recommended schedule of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "is an increasing public health concern." If the AAP’s urging and the description of some of these outbreaks isn’t enough to persuade you to get yourself or your kids vaccinated, there’s also this. The pediatrician survey also showed that more doctors are pushing back at parents who refuse vaccines for their children. In 2006, only 6.1 percent said they “always” dismiss patients for this. In 2014, 11.7 percent said they always dismiss patients. So if you continue to refuse vaccines, it’s your right — but it may be harder to find a pediatrician willing to support that choice than before.

Social conservatives: What to do?

These days news stories about social conservatives “wrestling” with gay marriage abound. True, there have been a raft of states that have recognized gay marriage. And true, the Supreme Court largely sided with gay marriage defenders. And it is true that social conservatives have been losing repeatedly. Certainly many religious people are maintaining beliefs while conceding society has made a different choice.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University So I think it’s more accurate to say that, when not deflated, social conservatives are more _restless_ than wrestling these days. What if anything can they do, and what’s the future of social conservatism?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University First, liberals tend to lump abortion and gay marriage together, which ignores a very large segment of Americans who generally oppose abortion but have come to accept gay marriage. Moreover, it disregards the degree to which pro-life forces, aided in part by medical technology, have changed or held in place public opinion whereas anti-gay marriage forces are swiftly losing the argument. One place for social conservatives, then, will be continued advocacy, which has been mostly successful, to regulate abortion and move public opinion. The pro-adoption movement continues to grow, allowing conservatives to be _for_ making couples happy and _for_ protection of the unborn.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Second, you’ll see conservatives continue to focus on intact family units as the essential element in reducing poverty. There is sometimes a policy element (e.g. in tax reform, structuring entitlements), but often the issue is, like abortion, about changing hearts and behavior through public advocacy. Third, you’ll continue to see, I think, more involvement on issues such as immigration, in which religious values motivate political action, just as they did in the civil rights era. And most important, you’re going to see many more fights like the one we saw this week about the contraception mandate. The desire to escape government coercion, which sometimes takes the form of a religious accommodation, goes to the heart of social conservatives’ desire to erect a realm in which their religious beliefs can be free from government coercion. This is what makes the Hobby Lobby case so interesting. By far the most thoughtful analysis as to why the Hobby Lobby owners should win comes from Prof. Michael McConnell. His discussion goes to the heart of religious liberty. He lays out the main issues in the case:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University He goes on to make a compelling argument that the answer to each is no. Hobby Lobby will experience a financial burden if it has to drop coverage and dropt employees in the exchanges because “(1) employer-provided health insurance is tax-exempt to the employee, but the compensatory increase in salary would not be; (2) the provision of insurance is tax-deductible to the employer, but payment of the tax is not; and (3) employer-based group coverage is cheaper and usually better than individual plans on the exchanges.” Requiring employers to provide four specific drugs is hardly _compelling_ given that Congress left all the specific requirements for coverage to Department of Health and Human Services, which in turn put out a slew of other exemptions and then went further by grandfathering in a whole raft of plans that may not have contraception coverage. Moreover, Hobby Lobby was willing to cover all but four abortion-inducing drugs.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University And in this case the less restrictive alternative is obvious: “Ultimately, the government’s problem here is that it has essentially reduced its own compelling interest to a funding question: Who should pay for the contraceptive coverage the government has decided people should have? Almost by definition, where the government’s claimed interest is merely a question of who should fund something, there will always be less restrictive alternatives, because the government can always choose to fund its own priorities (which it of course does with a great many things that even the government would not claim to be compelling interests).” The nub of the public debate, if not in the Hobby Lobby case itself, is the issue of slippery slope, or, if you will, figuring out when it’s important enough to allow religious believers to opt out of societal rules. It’s hardly a new issue since decades ago religious people obtained the right to opt out of everything from Society Security taxes to public schooling. It’s unsatisfying to answer the “How far do we go?” question with “It depends,” but that is the essence of First Amendment jurisprudence these days. Moreover, it comports with common sense: If violating a devout person’s belief would be hugely harmful (a “substantial  burden” in legalese), then the law should tread gently; if the violation is slight (e.g. interacting with people whose lifestyle your religion would disapprove of), the law can be more rigorous, especially when the  rights of others are implicated. That is how discrimination law has worked for generations — whether in the public or private sector. And this, I think, is where social conservatives come in — to persuade and advocate on behalf of people of faith and to sensitize nonbelievers that we all benefit when people of faith don’t have their core beliefs trampled on, at least not without a hugely important reason. The First Amendment drafters thought so. They understood that in restricting government to respect people of faith we tame government for all of us and avoid, when possible, the unpleasant coercion that is entailed when you try to bend peoples’ will on matters that implicate deeply held convictions. Liberals like to call social conservatives “intolerant,” but here it is social conservatives who are asking the society at large to let them operate out of step, if you will. It is an important value in a free society, namely toleration and even celebration of non-uniformity. In this social conservatives have a role, in fact a calling.

Researchers may have finally found an antidote to biased thinking about science

Even when it comes to the most objective source of information there is — science — people can’t be objective.   But now, one of the researchers who has duly documented this very polarization over science — Yale’s Dan Kahan — reports that he may have found a cure: simple science curiosity. The finding emerged out of research on documentary science films, which was aimed at determining how to make them engaging, and to whom they appealed. “It just so happened that, when we looked at the characteristics of these people, they seemed to be distinct politically,” Kahan said. They stood out by being, as a group, less likely to feed the current polarization of political opinion on scientific matters such as climate change.   People with this disposition, based on the research, also enjoyed watching science-focused documentaries of the PBS variety — proving that the scale measures what it is supposed to. They are also more likely to be scientifically literate and good at scientific reasoning. Nonetheless, this is not what makes them stand out. It really is their fascination with science itself that does so. Armed with the scientific curiosity scale, Kahan’s new study first demonstrated that while liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans with higher levels of proficiency in scientific thinking (which he calls “ordinary science intelligence”) tend to become more polarized and divided over the scientifically supported risks involved in both climate change and fracking, Democrats and Republicans with higher levels of science curiosity don’t. Rather, for both groups, the more curious they are, the more their perceptions of the risks tend to increase (although Republicans never become nearly as worried about either subject as Democrats do). Here’s a figure from the study showing this result: The data were quite similar when it came to how Democrats and Republicans feel about whether climate change is caused by humans. Again, the scientifically curious ones didn’t show the standard effect of polarizing over the evidence — rather, with more science curiosity, members of both groups became more convinced of human-caused climate change. Finally, the study also contained an experiment, demonstrating that being possessed of heightened levels of scientific curiosity appeared to make political partisans more likely to read scientific information that went against their predilections.  The idea here is that in each pairing, one headline presents an ordinary, humdrum, expected story  line and one presents something “surprising.” But sometimes, the unsurprising information supports a climate skeptic or doubter viewpoint (global warming slowed) and sometimes it does not (global warming is driving weather extremes). Ditto for the surprising evidence. Sometimes it humors the predilections of Democrats (Arctic melting even faster than expected), and sometimes, of Republicans (Antarctica gaining ice). Sure enough, the research found that the science-curious in both parties were more inclined to read “surprising” information over humdrum information, and that was so even when it went against their own views. The less scientifically curious were more inclined to simply read information that agreed with what they already think. Here’s the result — “SCS” refers to “science curiosity scale”: “This result would suggest that individuals higher in science curiosity more readily engage rather than spurn evidence contrary to their predispositions,” the study reported. “I think it’s pretty robust,” Kahan said of the finding. “If they’re just going to sit there and say, ‘I’m going to read something on climate change that goes against my political predispositions,’ it’s pretty hard to imagine putting them in a tougher position, in terms of choosing between that appetite and their identity. And they can’t resist.” Granted, the impact of this revelation may be limited, in that curiosity is not something that we generally think we can impart to people through training or education; rather, it’s something we tend to see as more part of their core cognitive architecture. Kahan agrees that science curiosity is a “disposition,” not just something ephemeral we are struck by now and again. “Around the 90th percentile, interesting things seem to happen,” he said. The question then is whether there is an effective way to prime people to be more science-curious — which could then also have political ramifications. “It’s an asset that there’s a segment of the population that has that kind of disposition, so what you want to do is exploit it to the greatest extent,” Kahan says. “And if we’re lucky, it will percolate into other people with whom they have interactions.”

Vaccine debate presents a political minefield — as Hillary Clinton can attest

The latest tweet from Hillary Rodham Clinton sounded straightforward enough: “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork.” But the issue of vaccinations has long been politically and emotionally fraught — involving not just public health but also the proper role of government, the prerogatives of parents and medical riddles that have yet to be solved. Probably no one in public life today has felt those crosscurrents more strongly than the presumed front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination. On the issue of vaccination over the past two decades, Clinton has repeatedly found herself on the front lines of advocacy and criticism. Other politicians — including two potential GOP presidential hopefuls, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — have been learning those political lessons the hard way in recent days. Both made statements questioning whether childhood vaccinations should be mandatory, bringing a torrent of criticism, including from medical professionals who are alarmed over a recent rise in measles cases. As a new first lady in 1993, Clinton championed what became the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccines for Children program, designed to provide free inoculations against nine diseases to children who otherwise might not get them. It now covers 14 diseases. Clinton’s role in that endeavor landed her in the crossfire. Conservatives blamed her when shortfalls of some vaccines developed in subsequent years, arguing that the private market was better at allocating resources. “One of her pet projects is a bust,” the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote in a 2003 piece headlined “Hillary’s Vaccine Shortage.” Meanwhile, Clinton also found herself the target of a burgeoning movement that linked the rising rate of autism to thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative that has since been removed from childhood vaccines. Some advocates of this theory went so far as to dub her “Thimerosal Hillary.” For reasons that scientists cannot explain, the incidence of autism is up markedly. Last year, the CDC estimated that 1 in 68 children age 8 had been identified with the range of conditions known as autism spectrum disorder. That was about 30 percent higher than previous estimates, reported in 2012, of 1 in 88 children. Clinton, as a presidential candidate in 2008, wrote in response to a candidate questionnaire: “I am committed to make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines. . . . We don’t know what, if any, kind of link there is between vaccines and autism — but we should find out.” Her then-rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), also called for more research into whether there was some correlation. And 2008 GOP presidential contender John McCain (R-Ariz.) went so far as to say there was “strong evidence” of a connection between vaccines and autism. But even in 2008, the weight of medical evidence was against such a link and the candidates who indulged such speculation were accused of pandering. In 2010, the argument against vaccination received a devastating blow from the Lancet, a medical journal that 12 years before had published a study alleging that inoculations for measles, mumps and rubella were a cause of autism. The journal retracted the study, saying the supposed research had been falsified. Another iteration of the vaccination issue flared in the 2012 Republican primary campaign, when then-Gov. Rick Perry of Texas found himself under fire for a mandate requiring most girls in his state to get inoculated against the human papillomavirus, a sexual infection that can lead to cervical cancer. Some social conservatives argued that it would encourage girls to have sex. Republican leaders have not welcomed the rekindling of the vaccine debate sparked by Christie’s comment Monday that parents should have “some measure of choice” in deciding whether to vaccinate their children. Paul — a physician with a libertarian philosophy — joined the argument with an unfounded claim that there are “many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.” Paul took to Twitter on Tuesday to defend himself, saying he supports vaccinations and posing for photographs as he received a booster shot. “I did not say vaccines caused disorders, just that they were temporally related — I did not allege causation,” he wrote in one tweet. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) sought to tamp the furor down by saying Tuesday, “I don’t know that we need another law, but I do believe that all children ought to be vaccinated.” Meanwhile, several other potential 2016 contenders distanced themselves from Christie and Paul. “Absolutely, all children in America should be vaccinated,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Tuesday. “Unless their immune [system is] suppressed, obviously, for medical exceptions, but I believe that all children, as is the law in most states in this country, before they can even attend school, have to be vaccinated for a certain panel.” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) also released a statement criticizing “fear mongering” and added: “Personally, I would not send my kids to a school that did not require vaccinations.”

The origins of Donald Trump’s autism/vaccine theory and how it was completely debunked eons ago

Donald Trump confidently strode on stage Wednesday night and explained to millions of Americans on live television his version of the heart-rending science of why so many children are being diagnosed with autism these days. "You take this little beautiful baby and you pump ... " he said, referring to mandatory childhood vaccines. "We had so many instances, people that work for me, just the other day, 2 years old, a beautiful child, went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic." To be fair, as far as medical hypotheses go, Trump's idea is not completely crazy. Or at least it wouldn't be if this were still 1998. [ _So much sweat: Why it was hard for the candidates to look cool during the GOP debate_]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico That year, a well-respected journal published a paper by researcher Andrew Wakefield and 12 of his colleagues linking a standard measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. Despite its tiny sample size of 12 and its speculative conclusions, the study was publicized far and wide -- launching a global movement involving celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey (and of course Trump) who warned parents to stop vaccinating their children. The result was what public health officials reported was a dangerous drop in MMR vaccinations. The problem: The study was an elaborate fraud. Editors of the Lancet, which published the original piece, discovered that Wakefield had been funded by attorneys for parents who were pursuing lawsuits against vaccine companies and that a number of elements of the paper were misreported.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico In February 2010, the journal retracted the piece, and in an investigative piece in 2011, in The BMJ found even more shenanigans in the way the study was conducted. Some parents of children in the study reported by Wakefield to have autism said they did not, and others who were listed in the study as having no problems before the vaccine actually had had developmental issues.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico [ _Carly Fiorina: "I buried a child to drug addiction." How addiction is changing America._ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Journalist Brian Deer wrote: "No case was free of misreporting or alteration. Taken together ... records cannot be reconciled with what was published, to such devastating effect, in the journal." Despite these revelations and reassurances from the federal health officials and other experts that vaccines are safe, the public remained fearful. Much of the alarm came from the case of Hannah Poling -- whose condition after she received five vaccines at 19 months old seemed to confirm every parent's nightmare. Hannah's parents had described their child as interactive, playful and communicative before she got those shots but reported that after she got the vaccine, she develop problems with language, communication  and behavior, features of autism spectrum disorder. _[The GOP's dangerous 'debate' on vaccines and autism]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico An article in the New England Journal of Medicine described the drama of what happened after her parents sued the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for compensation under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) and won:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The issue became so controversial back then that dozens of studies were launched to address the question Wakefield posed. The research, published in top journals including JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, is consistent and confident in its conclusions: There's no link between autism and vaccines. One of the largest was published in JAMA in April of this year and looked at 96,000 children in the United States and analyzed which ones got the shot and which ones were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. They found "no harmful association" between the two.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Another large study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002, involved a half-million children in Denmark's health registry. Its takeaway: "This study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism."    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _[All the ways the GOP candidates were wrong about vaccines]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico On Thursday, medical associations and patient advocacy groups decried Trump's remarks as false and potentially dangerous. The American Academy of Pediatrics said that "claims that vaccines are linked to autism, or are unsafe when administered according to the recommended schedule, have been disproven by a robust body of medical literature." Autism Speaks, a science and advocacy group, expressed similar sentiments noting that "extensive research has asked whether there is any link between childhood vaccinations and autism." "The results of this research are clear: Vaccines do not cause autism," the organization said in a statement. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explicitly states that there is no link between vaccines and autism, that vaccine ingredients do not cause autism and that vaccines in general are very safe.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico It cites numerous studies, including a 2013 study that looked at the substances in vaccines that cause the body’s immune system to produce disease- fighting antibodies, showed that the total amount from vaccines received was the same between children with autism and those without.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The CDC said it has looked specifically into thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in multidose vials of vaccines that has been a source of concern among those who believe in an autism-vaccine link, and found no link. A review in 2004 by the Institute of Medicine concluded that "the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism." Today, most scientists believe that autism there is no single cause of autism, but that genetics and abnormalities in brain structure or function may play a role. **Read more:**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Toddler brain images reveal which toddlers may have autism and may struggle with language    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Scientists: Why running makes you so happy    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Secrets of aging may be in long-lived smokers, a 'biologically distinct' group    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The world's myopia crisis and why children should spend more time outdoors    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico _For more health news, you can sign up for our weekly newsletterhere. _    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Vaccines are not to blame

Regarding the Jan. 11 front-page article “Vaccine skeptic says Trump asked him to lead panel on inoculations”: My heart goes out to any parent whose child has an autism spectrum disorder. I can empathize with their response to its devastating impact, but the truth is vaccines are not to blame. In January 2010, Britain’s General Medical Council found Andrew Wakefield, the original proponent of the theory that vaccines and autism are linked, guilty of more than 30 counts of clinical and scientific misconduct, including studying children without the approval of a human-use committee, subjecting some to lumbar punctures (spinal taps), failing to disclose attempts to profit from his research and altering medical records to falsify his results. After the council revoked his medical license, the journal the Lancet retracted his article and the British Medical Journal published articles condemning his “research.” In light of these events and subsequent studies, creating an “Autism Commission” would be utterly misguided. ****Edward N. Squire Jr.** , Fredericksburg **

Fever during pregnancy may increase autism risk in offspring

A mother’s fever during pregnancy, especially in the second trimester, is associated with a higher risk that her child will be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, researchers reported Tuesday. Three or more fevers after 12 weeks of gestation may be linked to an even greater risk of the condition. The study by researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health adds support for the theory that infectious agents that trigger a pregnant woman’s immune response may disrupt a fetus’s brain development and lead to disorders such as autism. “Fever seems to be the driving force here,” not the infection itself, said Mady Hornig, director of translational research at the school’s Center for Infection and Immunity. Fever can be part of the body’s immune response to an infection, and molecules produced by a mother’s immune system may be crossing into the baby’s neurological system at a critical time, she said.  Some families say that their children developed autism after vaccinations. The timing is a coincidence, however; symptoms of autism typically become clear at around 2 years of age, which happens to be the age when children get certain vaccines.  Other research has found a link between a father’s age at conception and a child’s chance of developing autism. The new study looked at 95,754 Norwegian children born between 1999 and 2009, identifying 15,701 children whose mothers said they had fevers at some point in their pregnancies. Of those, 583 had children later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The information was gathered during the pregnancies and shortly after birth, so the mothers’ “recall bias” was minimized, Hornig said. Women who had one or two fevers during their pregnancies were 1.3 times more likely to have a child eventually diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, the study found. Three fevers doubled the risk, although the number of cases was too small to be considered statistically significant, according to the research. Acetaminophen, the drug most commonly taken to reduce fever, had no significant impact on the rate of autism spectrum disorder, the researchers found, though the number of women who reported using the medication was small. Hornig said additional research into  inflammation and pregnancy is needed. “What I want to know is the mechanism,” she said. “I want to understand how this inflammation may relate” to autism spectrum disorder.

Republicans’ belief in evolution declining

One of the recurring themes here at _The Monkey Cage_ is just how a powerful predictor partisanship is of public opinion and political behavior. Recent research from Pew Research’s Religion and Public Life project drives home this point yet again. Tucked into a report that looks at the relationship between belief in evolution and all sorts of different demographic factors (age, religion, sex, etc.) is the following figure:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Three observations are readily apparent: First off, Republicans are simply systematically less likely to believe in evolution than Democrats or Independents. And according to Pew, neither the religious nor ethnic makeup of the Republican electorate can fully explain away this difference.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Second, there is almost no difference between Democrats and Independents: in both categories about two-thirds of respondents express a belief in evolution. Finally, while the beliefs of Democrats and Independents have been relatively stable over the past four years, Republican belief in evolution has fallen by almost one-fifth: while 54 percent of Republicans expressed a belief in evolution in 2009, only 43 percent did so in 2013. Now there is more than one possible explanations for this final observation. It may be the case that the underlying belief in evolution among Republicans has not really changed sine 2009, but Republican’s willingness to admit to believing (or not believing) in evolution to an interviewer may have changed in the intervening period. Conversely, it is possible that large numbers of Republicans have actually stopped believing in evolution in the past four years. Either trend would be interesting, but would have different implications for how we see the evolution of the Republican electorate.

There’s a surprisingly simple way to convince vaccine skeptics to reconsider

Here is a depressing fact about facts: In the face of beliefs, they often have little power. Fixing falsehoods — whether it's the closely held conviction of a birther or an anti-vaxxer — doesn't tend to work nearly as well as it seems it should. But maybe we're going about the business of changing people's minds all wrong. A new study found that while it may be tempting to lecture someone that they're just wrong about vaccines and autism, it may be more powerful to simply tell and show them exactly what it's like when a child gets sick from a disease that could have been prevented.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The idea that vaccines are linked to autism risk was born in a study that has been retracted, called "utterly false" by the editor of the journal that published it and refuted many times over by other studies. Nevertheless, the idea continues to seed anxiety among parents. As the number of parents who refuse vaccines has increased, so too have the number of cases of measles. Measles, once declared "eliminated" in the U.S., with 60 cases per year, on average, between 2001 and 2010 has roared back, with 644 cases last year.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico In a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, psychology researchers have found that a more effective way to persuade parents to change their attitudes about vaccinations is not to tell them they're wrong; It's to introduce new facts. A group of 315 people were split into three groups after their baseline feelings about vaccinations were assessed. One group received a parent's description of what it was like to have a child with measles, warnings about the importance of vaccination, and photos of a child covered with measles and rubella rashes, or a young boy's face horribly swollen by mumps. Another group received information about the absence of a link between vaccines and autism. A third group read about an unrelated scientific topic. "It was grounded in an old idea from economics, 'expected utility,' in which you weigh the positive and the negative," said Zach Horne, a graduate student in psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "What’s going on with anti-vaccination parents, we think, is because they haven’t seen kids with measles and mumps, those consequences aren’t that real to them. And the other consequence, the purported link between vaccination and autism, is." Horne and colleagues found that trying to tear down the original belief with facts was ineffective. The people who received the latest scientific research about the absence of a link between autism and vaccines changed their attitudes about vaccines about as much as the group that just got some random, unrelated reading material. But those who reviewed the family stories, photos, and a public health warning felt more positive toward vaccines. Those changes were biggest in people that were skeptical of vaccines at the start. That's a hopeful result, because a depressing study published in the journal Pediatrics last year found that none of these individual pieces of information alone worked against closely held beliefs. Giving parents correct information about vaccine risk, showing photos of children sick with preventable diseases, or providing information about what the diseases individually did not work — and even backfired. Those people who were most concerned about the safety of vaccines were less likely to vaccinate their children when given a dose of correct information.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College, who did the Pediatrics study, said in an e-mail that the new work was encouraging, but that future research should focus on what the differences were between the two studies that led to such different results. Understanding the conflicting findings might help shape an even more effective education campaign for parents making health care decisions for their children. This study alone isn't enough to change policy, but it does suggest that perhaps public health officials may not have been thinking enough about how to present information about disease risks and vaccine risks. Horne said that he began doing Google searches for the images he used in the study to see how easily accessible the information was on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was surprisingly hard to track down, he said, requiring multiple clicks — whereas lists of reasons to refuse vaccines popped up right away. "I think there are immediate steps we could take; we could make it more easy to access this information and put it on a single page that would hopefully become a top hit when you're Googling," Horne said. "The thing with these parents is they are ultimately interested in the health of their child. They just have incorrect beliefs of where the risks are, and their bet is on the wrong horse." Making disease risk information more prominent and accessible might be one way to make the correct information more persuasive.

Vaccination debate flares in GOP presidential race, alarming medical experts

CAMBRIDGE, England — Medical experts reacted with alarm Monday as two top contenders for the Republican presidential nomination appeared to question whether child vaccinations should be mandatory — injecting politics into an emotional issue that has taken on new resonance with a recent outbreak of measles in the United States. First, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, while visiting a vaccine laboratory here, called for “some measure of choice” on whether shots guarding against measles and other diseases should be required for children. _[Christie breaks with Obama over the measles vaccine, then walks back his comments]_ Then, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an ophthalmologist who is also readying a 2016 campaign, said in two U.S. television interviews that he thinks most vaccines should be voluntary, citing “many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.” “The state doesn’t own your children,” Paul said on CNBC, praising vaccines for their health benefits but insisting that the government should not mandate their use in most cases. “Parents own the children. And it is an issue of freedom and public health.” The vigorous outcry in response to the remarks underscored the sensitivity surrounding the vaccination debate, particularly given a widening multistate measles outbreak linked to a California theme park. Both Christie and Paul are leading GOP candidates who are likely to exercise significant influence over the direction of the 2016 primary race. The comments also illustrated persistent strains of skepticism within both parties over vaccination requirements, fueled in part by discredited claims of a connection between childhood shots and autism. Scientists have blamed a small but influential anti-vaccine movement for helping spark a new epidemic of measles, which was once virtually eliminated. _[Related: Everything you wanted to know about measles and the debate over vaccines]_ On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that more than 100 cases of the highly infectious disease were diagnosed in January. Most of the cases appear linked to victims who became ill after visiting Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., in mid-December. “When you see educated people or elected officials giving credence to things that have been completely debunked, an idea that’s been shown to be responsible for multiple measles and pertussis outbreaks in recent years, it’s very concerning,” said Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease physician at the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh. He called the comments from Paul particularly troubling because Paul is a doctor. Christie’s aides quickly tried to clarify his remarks, insisting in a statement that the Republican governor believes vaccines are “an important public health protection.” After visiting a MedImmune vaccine laboratory in Cambridge, Christie was asked to weigh in on the debate in the United States over the measles outbreak. President Obama told NBC News anchor Savannah Guthrie on Sunday, “You should get your kids vaccinated.” “The science is, you know, pretty indisputable,” Obama said. “We’ve looked at this again and again. There is every reason to get vaccinated, but there aren’t reasons to not.” [ _Related: Vox got it wrong when it said Obama “pandered to anti-vaxxers in 2008”_ ] Christie, however, said Monday that “there has to be a balance, and it depends on what the vaccine is, what the disease type is, and all the rest.” He added: “Not every vaccine is created equal, and not every disease type is as great a public health threat as others. “I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that’s the balance that the government has to decide,” he said. As for Paul, he told talk show host Laura Ingraham that he had chosen to hold off on vaccinating his children for some diseases. “I didn’t like them getting 10 vaccines at once, so I actually delayed my kids’ vaccines and had them staggered over time,” he said. Both men’s remarks drew immediate rebuke from experts on the issue. _[Related: The saddest story Roald Dahl ever wrote is about his daughter’s death from measles]_ Seth Mnookin, a professor at MIT who has written a book on the vaccination debate called “The Panic Virus,” called the comments from Christie and Paul “incredibly, incredibly irresponsible.” Such remarks, he said, “basically fail at the first duty of a politician, which is to calm his constituents in moments of irrational crisis.” The criticism came too from some political strategists, who wondered whether Christie in particular might have been attempting to appeal to Republicans suspicious of government mandates. “There’s only one of two options,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican operative from Florida. “Either he’s so tone-deaf that he doesn’t understand why saying this is bad for him, or this is a considered political strategy. And that would be even more troubling.” Christie aides said he was not questioning science, and they acknowledged that his initial comments could be misconstrued. “The Governor believes vaccines are an important public health protection and with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated,” said a statement issued from Christie’s office in Trenton, N.J., after the uproar. “At the same time different states require different degrees of vaccination, which is why he was calling for balance in which ones government should mandate.” In substance, Christie’s overseas comments did not differ dramatically from remarks he has made previously in New Jersey, which faces higher than average childhood autism rates and an active community of parents who have questioned vaccinations. In 2009, Christie met with parents concerned about autism rates and listened to some who expressed fears that the disease might be linked to vaccinations, said Louise Kuo Habakus, who co-edited a book called “Vaccine Epidemic” and is active with the group New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice. She said not everyone at the meeting held that view. Habakus said she gave Christie a copy of her book just before a 2011 town-hall meeting. During the public event that followed, Christie chose to call on her to ask a question, which she said she took as a sign that he wanted to allow her a forum to express her concerns. She praised Christie for supporting “greater dialogue” about parental rights but said she had never heard him link autism and vaccination or discourage parents from getting shots for their children. “I think he’s been very brave on this issue,” she said. “He’s been constant and courageous on this issue, saying parents should be more involved in the discussion.” The link between vaccinations and autism was alleged in a small 1998 study that has since been widely discredited in the scientific community. The journal that published the study retracted it in 2010, and its author lost his medical license. But many doctors had cast doubt on the study even before those actions, insisting that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was safe and effective at combating once-deadly but now preventable diseases. Both Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) drew fire in 2008 for seeming to give credence to the link. At one campaign appearance, Obama noted that “some people are suspicious” that skyrocketing rates of autism might be linked to vaccines. “The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it,” he said. McCain said at a town hall meeting in 2008 that there was “strong evidence that indicates it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.” Obama has said recently that the science is now settled and has urged vaccination. Nick Gillespie, editor in chief of the libertarian magazine Reason, said there is a vigorous debate over vaccines, particularly whether government should mandate their use. He said Christie may have been trying to curry favor with libertarian-leaning Republicans with his emphasis on parental choice. “There is a broadly ascending libertarian sentiment in the Republican Party,” he said. “Even mainstream establishment Republicans understand they need to speak to the libertarian wing.” Former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, who is considering a long-shot 2016 run, also appeared to endorse parental choice for vaccines in a BuzzFeed interview last week. “I think vaccinating for measles makes a lot of sense. But that’s me. I do think parents have to make those choices. I mean, I got measles as a kid. We used to all get measles,” she said. “I got chicken pox, I got measles, I got mumps.” Fiorina also drew a distinction between the measles vaccine and one intended to combat human papillomavirus (HPV), a common sexual infection that can lead to cervical cancer. The vaccine sparked controversy in the 2012 campaign when then-Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) blasted then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry for helping to institute a mandate requiring most girls in Texas to get the vaccine. Some social conservatives object to a mandate because they argue it would suggest to young girls that having sex is acceptable. Bachmann later falsely suggested that the HPV vaccine might cause mental retardation. Mnookin said various studies have tried to examine the political leanings of those who oppose vaccination, finding that they are drawn from both parties. “It’s not a homogenous group,” he said. “People who don’t vaccinate are not more likely to congregate politically one side of the aisle or the other.” Helderman reported from Washington.

Libertarians may be fools gold for the GOP

The fourth annual values survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) provides a wealth of information on the relationship between the GOP, the tea party and libertarians.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Some highlights of the report include: Unsurprisingly, Libertarians share common ground with Republicans on some economic issues. “Nearly all (96%) libertarians have an unfavorable view of the 2010 health care law, compared to 83% of white evangelical Protestants, 78% of Tea Party members, and 89% of Republicans,” but they strongly disagree with evangelical and other religious Republicans (e.g. 57 percent oppose laws restricting abortion and 71 percent favor legalizing marijuana). With Ron Paul, and now Rand Paul, there’s been a great deal of talk about how Republicans can win over Libertarians as a means of widening their support. However, Libertarians’ small numbers and homogenized demographic as well as the intensity of some of Libertarians’ views shed considerable doubt on this strategy and pose problems for Rand Paul’s presidential ambitions. For starters, there is a real philosophical divide about what government should do, even between libertarians and limited-government Republicans. Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who speaks and writes frequently on the topic, says, about the ways the groups differ: “Tone and intensity are two [ways], although many people call themselves Libertarians nowadays but in fact are basically limited government conservatives. One large way, however, is the willingness to seriously think about using government. Conservatives are more willing to accept that government can be used well with reforms (premium support for Medicare, for example) while Libertarians will be suspicious even of that.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) may talk favorably about limited but vigorous government, but Libertarians would prefer smaller and inert government. “Libertarians are clearly at odds with the evangelical wing of the party on social issues,” Olsen tells me. “Many evangelicals are also  much more inclined to support interventions in the market that help working families” — such as Mike Huckabee. “Libertarian Republicans are motivated by a desire to cut spending and reduce taxation. They hold their other views, often quietly, but are Republicans rather than Libertarians because of their desire to promote smaller government. As such, they can form coalitions with groups like the tea party and certain business groups on certain government size, scope and responsibility issues, and they can remain in the GOP tent in general elections because of their visceral detest for liberals.” In electoral term, this means that the hunt for Libertarians may not pay off. For one thing, some people who call themselves “Libertarian” are in essence “limousine liberals.” (As Olsen says, “Once you take social issues off the table, you find the sort of people who [live in] Silicon Valley and Manhattan — affluent liberals who like to make money and like to tax themselves to give it back and aren’t afraid to use government power to promote their view of the world.”) Moreover, there aren’t enough of them either in the primary setting or in a general election if a candidate winds up turning off bigger parts of the coalition. However, an agenda that is additive — appealing to the lion’s share of Republicans, some independents and even some blue-collar Democrats without completely turning off Libertarians — has promise. Olsen posits: That sounds like what Ryan and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and others are offering. The language of reform, with a people-focused concern and a tone that does not scare voters who fear extremism of all stripes, also may have the benefit of appealing to women, some minorities and suburbanites. Sometimes good, smart policy does make for good politics. This, quite clearly, is also the path taken by most GOP governors, who are the most popular officials in the party. What Olsen’s formula entails, however, means that aggressive anti-government rhetoric and disdain for good governance are not going to fly. Libertarians may have rejoiced when the government closed, but this was unpopular across the board with most every other ideological slice of voters. Likewise, the idea that we would privatize Social Security or entities like the Food and Drug Administration or the Securities and Exchange Commission are a nonstarter with most gettable voters. There is a lot to chew on here. Republicans looking to revive their party would be wise to pay close attention.

Five tips for candidates who want to talk about autism — responsibly

_John Donvan and Caren Zucker are the co-authors of the new book “In A Different Key: The Story of Autism.”_ So far this election cycle, Hillary Clinton has been the only candidate to offer a detailed position on autism. Odds are she won’t be the last, considering that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there are more than 3 million Americans with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, and most of those people have families. That’s a constituency worth wooing. But let the wooers be warned: Autism has its own politics, and they are fraught. Throughout the approximately 75 years that the diagnosis has been on the books, the “autism community” — a term suggesting comity, cooperation and cohesion — has time and again been roiled by dispute. In years past, the clash between those who believed vaccines caused autism and those who didn’t reached epic proportions. And there has long been enormous tension between those who want to find a cure for autism and those who see autism as a neurological variation representing but one more way of being human. The autism world, like the world in general, needs less discord. And so, as two writers with personal interests in diminishing the strife in this conversation (both our families are affected by autism), we offer the candidates some pointers: ●Be careful with the word “cure.” As politicians, you know that words matter. You should be aware how much furor surrounds this one word. Pay heed to the burgeoning neurodiversity movement. A good many autistic people reject the idea that autism requires a cure. Rather, they embrace their brain wiring as essential to who they are, and they do so even if the challenge of social interaction with what they call the “neurotypical” world causes them pain and frustration or costs them opportunities. What is needed, they argue, is not a cure but an overhaul in attitudes such that people who are neurologically different are accepted and supported as they are. They believe that attempts to cure autism, or to suppress its distinctive behaviors with drugs or behavioral therapy, are tantamount to obliterating autistic identity. If you use the word “cure” in a speech on autism, you should not be surprised to be called out for “ableism.” Champions of neurodiversity want to hear instead that you respect and celebrate autistic difference. ●Be careful with the other c-word too. We just used it: “celebrate.” You will sound wildly off-key to some if you say this too often. Consider the parents of children who cannot speak, who hurt themselves relentlessly, who wander away from home and too often are found dead, who need help feeding themselves and who will have to wear diapers for the rest of their lives. Though these parents are adamant that their children deserve support and acceptance, they nevertheless see autism as a source of pain and struggle in their children’s lives, and they would do anything to change that. For them, autism is an emergency. ●Do not give new life to discredited ideas. In 2008, then-candidates Clinton and John McCain made statements leaving open the possibility that vaccines had unleashed an autism “epidemic.” (There is some argument over whether candidate Barack Obama did the same. Most think not.) Even then, science did not support that conclusion, but the public was sharply divided, and a vocal contingent of parents believed vaccines had harmed their children. Now the science disproving the link is overwhelming. Any candidate sounding the vaccine alarm today risks reigniting old controversies. It’s scaremongering. ●Seek common ground. This won’t be easy, given how polarized the conversation has become. The good news is that many people concerned about autism see the infighting as counterproductive. There are ways to address both camps, not only rhetorically but also with policy prescriptions. Calls for epidemiological studies focused on measuring the prevalence of autism or surveys designed to identify supports needed by the autism community will find few objectors. But be warned: Research into the genetic underpinnings of autism is a contentious subject. Some hope that gene therapy can diminish the array of struggles that autism presents to many children. Others fear that identifying the genes responsible for autism could lead to a prenatal test, with alarming consequences. ●Remember the adults. In our view, one of the most urgent and least controversial policy needs is more services for adults with autism. Such adults are too often treated as if they are invisible. It’s the children with autism who tug at our heartstrings; advocacy organizations know it, and you do, too. But those kids grow up. A half-million Americans with autism will turn 21 over the next 10 years, many of them in desperate need of appropriate housing and employment opportunities. Many of them could live with a greater degree of independence if there were more funding for affordable housing tailored to their needs. Many could have the satisfaction of a productive job if given the necessary training and support, and if corporations could be persuaded to make room for people with narrowly focused but highly developed skills. Don’t forget the children, but if you don’t remember the adults, you’ll be disappointing a large chunk of the autism community — which, on this question, happens to be united. Hillary Clinton might have been the first candidate out of the gate on autism issues, but we hope the other candidates will keep the conversation going. **Read more on this topic:** Kim Stagliano: My three daughters are autistic. I despise Autism Awareness Month. Kristelle Hudry: Parents don’t cause autism in their kids, and we need to stop blaming them for it Susan Senator: Why parents want to believe in a vaccine conspiracy

Here’s proof that making money makes you more right-wing and less egalitarian

Some people have long thought, and a number of studies have showed, that rich people tend to be more conservative and less likely to support government policies that spread the wealth around. But one open question has been whether it's simply correlation or causation. Do people who are right-leaning tend to make more money? Or is it the money that makes the person more conservative? Now, two researchers from the United Kingdom say they have proved that having money makes you more conservative and less egalitarian.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Nattavudh Powdthavee and Andrew J. Oswald studied the political opinions of people who won the lottery over time and found that the larger the lottery win, the more likely the winners are to adopt right-wing views and believe less in society's role in making sure ordinary people "get a fair share of society's wealth." The study found that 13 percent of non-winners favor a more conservative party after playing the lottery but that 18 percent of people who won more than 500 pounds joined a right-wing party. The authors concluded that their study confirms what many economists had already suggested: that people's political choices are often motivated by self-interest. The data are represented in this chart:

Liberals and conservatives don’t just vote differently. They think differently.

“Follow the money.” As a young journalist on the political left, I often heeded this well-worn advice. If conservatives were denying the science of global warming, I figured, big fossil-fuel companies must be behind it. After all, that was the story with the tobacco industry and the dangers of smoking. Why not here? And so I covered the attacks on the established scientific knowledge on climate change, evolution and many more issues as a kind of search for the wealthy bad guys behind the curtain. Like many in Washington, I tended to assume that political differences are either about contrasting philosophies or, more cynically, about money and special interests. There’s just one problem: Mounting scientific evidence suggests that this is a pretty limited way of understanding what divides us. And at a time of unprecedented polarization in America, we need a more convincing explanation for the staggering irrationality of our politics. Especially since we’re now split not just over what we ought to do politically but also over what we consider to be true. Liberals and conservatives have access to the same information, yet they hold wildly incompatible views on issues ranging from global warming to whether the president was born in the United States to whether his stimulus package created any jobs. But it’s not just that: Partisanship creates stunning intellectual contortions and inconsistencies. Republicans today can denounce a health-care reform plan that’s pretty similar to one passed in Massachusetts by a Republican — and the only apparent reason is that this one came from a Democrat. None of these things make sense — unless you view them through the lens of political psychology. There’s now a large body of evidence showing that those who opt for the political left and those who opt for the political right tend to process information in divergent ways and to differ on any number of psychological traits. Perhaps most important, liberals consistently score higher on a personality measure called “openness to experience,” one of the “Big Five” personality traits, which are easily assessed through standard questionnaires. That means liberals tend to be the kind of people who want to try new things, including new music, books, restaurants and vacation spots — and new ideas. “Open people everywhere tend to have more liberal values,” said psychologist Robert McCrae, who conducted voluminous studies on personality while at the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health. Conservatives, in contrast, tend to be less open — less exploratory, less in need of change — and more “conscientious,” a trait that indicates they appreciate order and structure in their lives. This gels nicely with the standard definition of conservatism as resistance to change — in the famous words of William F. Buckley Jr., a desire to stand “athwart history, yelling ‘Stop!’ ” I call myself a liberal, so this description of openness resonates with me. But I think it’s vital for everyone to understand, and it needn’t be seen as threatening or a put-down; it seems to be part of the nature of politics. We see the consequences of liberal openness and conservative conscientiousness everywhere — and especially in the political battle over facts. Liberal irrationalities tend toward the sudden, new and trendy, such as, say, subscribing to the now largely discredited idea that childhood vaccines cause autism. This assertion was tailor-made for plucking liberal heartstrings, activating a deeply felt need to protect children from harm, especially harm allegedly caused by big, rich drug companies. But the claims about vaccine risks happened to be factually wrong. And how do we know? Scientists — who themselves lean liberal — debunked them. Over time, so did many other liberals. And in significant measure, it worked: There are still many people who cling to this inaccurate belief, but it is much, much harder these days to defend it, especially in the news media. Compare this with a different irrationality: refusing to admit that humans are a product of evolution, a chief point of denial for the religious right. In a recent poll, just 43 percent of tea party adherents accepted the established science here. Yet unlike the vaccine issue, this denial is anything but new and trendy; it is well over 100 years old. The state of Tennessee is even hearkening back to the days of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial, more than 85 years ago. It just passed a bill that will weaken the teaching of evolution. Such are some of the probable consequences of openness, or the lack thereof. Now consider another related trait implicated in our divide over reality: the “need for cognitive closure.” This describes discomfort with uncertainty and a desire to resolve it into a firm belief. Someone with a high need for closure tends to seize on a piece of information that dispels doubt or ambiguity, and then freeze, refusing to consider new information. Those who have this trait can also be expected to spend less time processing information than those who are driven by different motivations, such as achieving accuracy. A number of studies show that conservatives tend to have a greater need for closure than do liberals, which is precisely what you would expect in light of the strong relationship between liberalism and openness. “The finding is very robust,” explained Arie Kruglanski, a University of Maryland psychologist who has pioneered research in this area and worked to develop a scale for measuring the need for closure. The trait is assessed based on responses to survey statements such as “I dislike questions which could be answered in many different ways” and “In most social conflicts, I can easily see which side is right and which is wrong.” Anti-evolutionists have been found to score higher on the need for closure. And in the global-warming debate, tea party followers not only strongly deny the science but also tend to say that they “do not need any more information” about the issue. I’m not saying that liberals have a monopoly on truth. Of course not. They aren’t always right; but when they’re wrong, they are wrong differently. When you combine key psychological traits with divergent streams of information from the left and the right, you get a world where there is no truth that we all agree upon. We wield different facts, and hold them close, because we truly experience things differently. The political psychological divide goes beyond science. Factual disputes over many issues feature the same dynamics: Does the health-care reform law contain “death panels”? Did the stimulus package create any jobs? Even American history is up for debate: Did the founders intend this to be a Christian nation? However, there only is one reality — and we don’t get to discount it forever. And liberal-conservative differences are part of reality, too; inescapable, and increasingly difficult to deny. **Chris Mooney** is the author of “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science — and Reality.”

Why so many Americans believe Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories

_This is a guest post by University of Miami political scientists Joseph Uscinski and  Joseph Parent. This article is based on portions of their forthcoming book “American Conspiracy Theories” (Oxford University Press, 2014)._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Conspiracy theories  are conquering the country, leading us into a dark age of cynicism. Americans are bombarded by a growing barrage of outlandish tales, aided and abetted by a polarizing media, and amplified by the echo chamber of the Internet. While all sides indulge in conspiracy theories,  Republicans and conservatives are particularly prone to them. Such inflamed rhetoric divides nations and  destroys deliberative democracy.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Actually, there is not much truth in any of the above. Journalists have been quick to proclaim a “new age of conspiracy theories.” The only problem is that “new age” is typically just a synonym for “now.” For example, see  2011, 2010,  2004, 1994,  1991 and  1964. Fortunately, we have a much better sense of where conspiracy theories come from and why so many people believe them.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Conspiracy theories ignite when motive meets opportunity. For reasons we mostly attribute to socialization, some individuals tend to see the world more through a conspiratorial lens than others. We can think of this predisposition as a strong bias against powerful disliked actors that is not caused by partisanship, stupidity or psychopathology. In fact, people disposed to see conspiracies are just as likely to be Democrats as Republicans, and appear just as likely to be lauded (e.g. Thomas Jefferson) as reviled (e.g. Joseph McCarthy).    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Once socialization stacks the tinder, political opportunity sets off the sparks.  This means that the predisposition to see conspiracies must harmonize with political ideology and partisanship.  Different conspiracy theories will therefore appeal to different people.  Normally, when possibly incriminating information comes out, at best half of the political spectrum has an incentive to use it.  And, depending on the quality of that information, about half of that half has the predispositions to try. Because of this, most conspiracy theories will only attract a quarter to a third of the population. The Truther and Birther theories are good examples. (Respectively, these are the theories that the Bush administration either directed or permitted the 9/11 attacks, and that Barack Obama was foreign-born and faked his Hawaiian birth certificate.) They resonate with about 25 percent of the population, largely those with conspiratorial worldviews whose party stands to gain from the accusations. Polls show there is a great deal of symmetry between the popularity of the left-leaning Truther theory and the right-leaning Birther theory, despite each side’s wishes to the contrary.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University But Kennedy conspiracy theories are significantly  more popular. Polls find that between 60 and 80 percent of Americans reject the idea that Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone. In fact, more Americans believe that a shadowy conspiracy was behind a president’s death 50 years ago than  know who Joe Biden is. Why are Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories so popular? The distinguishing feature of a successful conspiracy theory is power, and the Kennedy assassination has that in spades. The victim was an American president and the potential villains include actors of immense reach and influence. There are so many accused conspirators that anyone, regardless of political affiliation, can find a detested powerful actor to blame. For those on the right there is Lyndon Johnson, Fidel Castro and the Soviet Union; for the left there is Lyndon Johnson, defense contractors and the military. And this is only a partial list.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Conspiracy theories are not only about power but proof.  High-quality information does change minds: When the Watergate story first broke, many dismissed the charges as partisan. Because high-quality evidence became available — hearings were held, evidence was presented, co-conspirators admitted to their crimes — virtually everyone now believes that Nixon conspired to commit and cover up crimes.  But unlike the Birther and Truther theories, which languish for lack of impartial support, JFK conspiracy theories have some impartial support. Calling it “proof” might be generous, but Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories clear higher evidentiary bars. There is evidence that the government hurried the investigation of the president’s murder and was not eager to find high-profile scapegoats. Most accounts attribute that rush to a pragmatic desire not to wrongfully implicate the Soviets and dangerously destabilize superpower relations. Most notably an  official congressional inquiry seemed convinced of a conspiracy, so even those with moderate conspiratorial predispositions have something to hang their hat on. Because of their evolving scapegoats and above-average amount of evidence, JFK conspiracy theories have lodged themselves into the collective consciousness.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University This is unlikely to happen again in the short term. Our analyses suggest the overall level of conspiracy theorizing in the United States has been going down steadily since Kennedy’s assassination. The U.S. government looks  too ungainly to control and  too leaky to seal. Liberals and conservatives increasingly see the world differently and now debate conspiracy theories about different events rather than different interpretations of the same event. While often a scapegoat, the Internet does not appear to have changed conspiracy theorizing any more than television or radio did. Our research shows that the vast majority of Internet news discusses conspiracy theories mostly to mock or debunk them. Of the 100 or so most trafficked Web sites in the United States, none are primarily focused on conspiracy theories.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University While current conditions suggest that Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories will remain prominent for some time, they will not do so forever. With titanic theories about Freemasons, Abolitionists, robber barons, communists and more in our past, something new and big will eventually come along when the conditions are more amenable. Whether it will rank with the most momentous in American history is worth debating. Ever hear the one about King George III’s plans to enslave North America? Now _there_ was a conspiracy theory.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University

Trump energizes the anti-vaccine movement in Texas

AUSTIN — The group of 40 people gathered at a popular burger and fish taco restaurant in San Antonio listened eagerly to the latest news about the anti- vaccine fight taking place in the Texas legislature. Some mothers in the group had stopped immunizing their young children because of doubts about vaccine safety. Heads nodded as the woman giving the statehouse update warned that vaccine advocates wanted to “chip away” at parents’ right to choose. But she also had encouraging news. “We have 30 champions in that statehouse,” boasted Jackie Schlegel, executive director of Texans for Vaccine Choice. “Last session, we had two.” Now they also have one in the White House. President Trump’s embrace of discredited theories linking vaccines to autism has energized the anti-vaccine movement. Once fringe, the movement is becoming more popular, raising doubts about basic childhood health care among politically and geographically diverse groups. Public health experts warn that this growing movement is threatening one of the most successful **** medical innovations of modern times. Globally, vaccines prevent the deaths of about 2.5 million children every year, but deadly diseases such as measles and whooping cough still circulate in populations where enough people are unvaccinated. In San Antonio, 80 miles southwest of the state capital, Texans for Vaccine Choice convened a happy hour to encourage attendees to get more involved politically. The event was among dozens of outreach events the group has hosted across the state. The relatively new group has boosted its profile, aided by a savvy social-media strategy, and now leads a contentious fight over vaccines that is gearing up in the current legislative session. The battle comes at a time when increasing numbers of Texas parents are choosing not to immunize their children because of “personal beliefs.” Measles was eliminated in the United States more than 15 years ago, but the highly contagious disease has made a return in recent years, including in Texas, in part because of parents refusing to vaccinate their children. **** A 2013 outbreak in Texas infected 21 people, many of them unvaccinated children. The modern anti-vaccine movement is based on a fraud. A study published almost 20 years ago purported to show a link between childhood vaccines and autism. The data was later found to be falsified, and the study was retracted. Scores of large-scale, long-term studies from around the world since then have proved that there is no connection between vaccines and autism. But the suspicion lingers. Its strongest form is a stubborn conspiracy theory that doctors, scientists, federal health agencies, vaccine-makers and the worldwide public health community are hiding the truth and are knowingly harming children. A leading conspiracy theorist is Andrew Wakefield, author of the 1998 study that needlessly triggered the first fears. (The medical journal BMJ, in a 2011 review of the debacle, described the paper as “fatally flawed both scientifically and ethically.”) Wakefield’s Twitter handle identifies him as a doctor, but his medical license has been revoked. The British native now lives in Austin, where he is active in the state and national anti-vaccine movement. Trump has met with Wakefield, who attended an inaugural ball and told supporters afterward that he had received “tremendous support” for his efforts and hoped to have more meetings with the president. Peter Hotez, director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, predicts that 2017 could be the year the anti-vaccination movement gains ascendancy in the United States. Texas could lead the way, he said, because some public schools are dangerously close to the threshold at which measles outbreaks can be expected. A third of students at some private schools are unvaccinated. “We’re losing the battle,” Hotez said. Although the anti-vaccine movement has been strong in other states, including California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado, experts say the effort in Texas is among the most organized and politically active. “It’s a great example of an issue that has a targeted, small minority but an intense minority who are willing to mobilize and engage in direct action,” **** said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. The vast majority of parents in Texas and across the country vaccinate their children. Most people have never had to think much about this basic preventive-medicine practice. But now immunization advocates are realizing that they can’t let vaccine critics go unchallenged, saying they need voices other than scientists and experts to make the case. They are recruiting teachers and grass-roots groups to explain how immunization protects families and communities. Jinny Suh, 39, runs one such group, Immunize Texas , from her Austin home, where she lives with her husband and two young sons. Their house is about three miles from the Austin Waldorf School, a private school where 158 students — more than 40 percent of the school population — are unvaccinated, and tuition costs more than $14,000 a year. Suh worries about the risk that the school’s unvaccinated children pose to her 4-month-old, who is too young to be immunized. “I’m sure there are people I go to the grocery store with and go to the park with” who have unimmunized children, she said. “This is a public hazard. You can’t see germs.” Those who oppose vaccination are driven by fear, even though it is misguided, and that fear drives passion, she said. But parents who support vaccination “need to step up our passion and speak up for science — and for children,” she said. States set their own day-care and school vaccination requirements. Students in Texas are required to receive seven vaccinations before they attend school, unless their families file an exemption. In Texas, the number of school-age children who are not vaccinated has soared since 2003, when the state expanded its exemption criteria to include reasons of conscience. Personal-belief exemptions increased from 2,314 in the 2003-2004 school year to 44,716 in 2015-2016. Overall statewide vaccination rates remain high — over 98 percent. But in some parts of Texas, vaccine coverage is slipping below the 90 to 95 percent level that experts say is needed to prevent an outbreak. Many private schools, including in the Austin area, have the highest rates of unvaccinated children, exceeding 20 percent. Wakefield has stoked parents’ unfounded fears about vaccines, even though his study was withdrawn and Britain’s General Medical Council stripped him of his medical license in 2010. In a brief phone interview, Wakefield said he had not spoken to Trump since last summer. He declined to say how he was invited to an inaugural ball. “Better to say nothing at this stage,” he said. Wakefield said he was heading to Europe to promote “Vaxxed,” the movie he directed and co- wrote in which he defends the debunked link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism. Texans for Vaccine Choice has sponsored showings of the film and promotes it on its Facebook page. One part of the anti-vaccine movement’s message is that vaccine-preventable diseases aren’t dangerous if people get modern medical care. But that’s a myth, and the failure to vaccinate can be catastrophic. Texas health data shows a steady uptick in diseases such as pertussis and mumps in recent years. A recent mumps outbreak in Johnson County, southwest of Dallas, sickened at least 167 people, mostly students. In 2013, Texas experienced the largest outbreak of whooping cough, or pertussis, since 1959: nearly 4,000 cases. Five newborns who were too young to be vaccinated died. Although anti-vaccine groups are gaining momentum in Texas, other states have shown that they can be fought. In 2015, California passed one of the strictest vaccine requirement laws in the country, mandating that almost all schoolchildren be fully vaccinated to go to school. Exemptions are allowed only for documented medical conditions. The law was sparked by a 2014-2015 measles outbreak that started at Disneyland in California, where a single unvaccinated child with measles led to the infections of 131 people. A Texas lawmaker tried to pass a similar bill during the legislative session in 2015. (Texas’s legislature meets every other year.) “It was clear common sense,” recalled Republican Rep. Jason Villalba, a Dallas lawyer. Mumps was resurgent in the state, including in his district, and his youngest child wasn’t old enough to be immunized. The bill never made it out of committee. But it sparked a huge reaction and was the reason Schlegel and about 20 other mothers formed Texans for Vaccine Choice. The group claimed “that I was a mad scientist, stripping liberties from parents,” Villalba recalled. He said Texas lawmakers are not likely to pass any legislation that could be viewed as government intrusion into parents’ rights. He is not planning to take up the fight against nonmedical exemptions again — unless there is a measles outbreak. In the current legislative session, no bills have been filed to eliminate the personal-belief exemptions. In fact, vaccine opponents have introduced a bill to simplify the exemption process. But pro-vaccine advocates are expected to try to change the law and give parents the right to know the number of unimmunized children at individual schools, information that’s not readily available now. One bill already introduced would require parents to complete an online education course before seeking a vaccine exemption. Another would make it easier for teenagers to get vaccinated against cancer-causing human papillomavirus (HPV). The bills’ sponsor, Republican Rep. Sarah Davis, a Houston lawyer whose district is home to some of Texas’s most well-known hospitals, said the bills are common-sense legislation that would better protect children. “The more active the anti-vaxxers have become, the more that other members start to question whether vaccines are controversial, and most legislators are not wanting to make waves,” she said. People on both sides of the vaccine issue are lobbying lawmakers and their staffs, and activity is sure to intensify before the session, which began Jan. 10, ends in May. Vaccines aren’t a standard conservative or liberal issue. In many parts of the country, pockets of unimmunized children tend to be in white, upper-middle-class neighborhoods, including in Austin, said Anna Dragsbaek, who heads the Immunization Partnership, a Houston-based immunization advocacy group. One particularly strong strain of anti-vaccine rhetoric in Texas is libertarian and anti-government. **** Texans for Vaccine Choice receives help and expertise from “friendly” lawmakers and groups such as Empower Texans, said Jonathan Stickland, a tea party Republican representative from Tarrant County and a key supporter. Political experts consider Empower Texans the state’s most sophisticated and influential conservative organization. “Our message resonates with people,” said Schlegel, 37, in a brief interview after a day of meetings at the Capitol. “Texans value parental rights,” she said. “We have a message of liberty. We have a message of choice.” Schlegel has an assistant who helps coordinate her schedule. The group has a director of state policy. Its Facebook page posts regular updates on Schlegel’s meetings with lawmakers. The group hands out sophisticated, glossy materials — in red, white and blue — to lawmakers. The packets, with business cards tucked inside, lay out the group’s positions, the bills it supports and the ones it opposes. One leaflet describes “the lack of safety testing” and “questionable ingredients” in vaccines. (To be clear, vaccines and their ingredients are some of the most carefully tested medical interventions in history.) Another calls the current recommended schedule of vaccines “one of the most aggressive and bloated of ANY other nation on the planet.” When the group recently sought volunteers on Facebook for “engagement days” at the state Capitol this month and in March, one woman said she wanted to help but was concerned she didn’t know enough about vaccines. Don’t worry, she was told. “Very little talk about vaccines and a LOT of talk about parental rights and CHOICE.” The American Academy of Pediatrics and 350 other medical, professional and advocacy groups recently wrote a letter to Trump expressing “unequivocal support” for vaccines’ safety and endorsing the recommended schedule. The letter has links to more than 40 major studies on safety and effectiveness. But immunization advocates like Suh say it’s hard to counter the passion of her opponents. Most people consider vaccinations to be such a basic part of life, like clean drinking water, that it’s hard to motivate them to take time to show up at lawmakers’ offices. “We’re completely outgunned,” said Suh, adding there are only about a dozen members whom she can call on to show up for events. Immunize Texas is part of the Immunization Project. Suh often writes emails and posts to the group’s Facebook account from her cellphone while caring for her two sons. She juggles her immunization advocacy, a mostly volunteer gig, with other businesses she runs from home. To present herself and other mothers as the face of vaccine advocates, she and Jessica Cleary-Kemp, seven months pregnant and mother of a 13-year-old and a 2-year-old, met recently with several lawmakers. One was J.D. Sheffield, a Republican state representative who sought during the last session to require individual schools to provide immunization exemption data. Suh jiggled her son on her lap while Cleary’s son played a game on an iPad. It’s not yet clear whether Sheffield or another lawmaker will introduce the bill this session. But they all agreed it will be a controversial issue. To help get their social-media message out, Suh may need to redo the logo for the group’s website. Buttons and T-shirts are another idea. But first, she needs to be better prepared for the next face-to-face meetings. “People kept asking for business cards,” she said. “So we need to get some.” Alice Crites contributed to this report from Washington, and Eva Ruth Moravec contributed from San Antonio.

When it comes to vaccines, rich parents get away with child neglect

_Linda C. Fentiman is a professor at the Elisabeth Haub Law School at Pace University and author of the new book “Blaming Mothers: American Law and the Risks to Children’s Health.”_ Public health experts once again must defend the safety — and necessity — of vaccination, this time in response to misinformation spread among the Somali community in Minnesota by anti-vaccine activists. The rising skepticism about vaccines is dangerous on its own, of course. Last year, a study in the journal Pediatrics found that more parents than ever believe vaccines are simply unnecessary to prevent childhood diseases. But the anti-vaccine movement highlights another, troubling aspect in the world of child health: Wealthy people are more likely to be let off easy when they do things that can harm their children than low-income people are. Parents in affluent communities enjoy a privileged status under the law that manifests most clearly — and most dangerously — when they refuse to have their children vaccinated. These parents are vaccination “free-riders” who are not held legally accountable for putting their own children — as well as other people’s children — at risk of potentially fatal childhood diseases. Take a look at where the highest rates of vaccine exemptions cluster and you quickly begin to see a pattern: These are relatively affluent enclaves, including suburban Marin County, Calif., and wealthy areas of Chicago, Los Angeles and Manhattan. In fact, many state legislatures changed their laws to accommodate these parents, often on First Amendment or due-process grounds. Eighteen states permit parents to refuse vaccination on the basis of personal beliefs; 47 states permit parents to “opt out” based on their religious beliefs. Indeed, so many parents have succeeded in opting out of vaccination that in many communities across the country, the rates of immunization have fallen to record lows, threatening to undercut the dramatic advances in children’s health made possible by the vaccine revolution of the 20th century. This extraordinary deference is being paid even as prosecutors around the nation have ramped up the severity of charges they are using to prosecute pregnant women and mothers — particularly those on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale — for other behaviors seen as risking the health of their children. Women have often been prosecuted for behavior while pregnant including for using drugs, for refusing to have a cesarean section or even for having an accident. Some poor women have faced criminal charges for choosing to breastfeed their infants — for failing to deliver adequate nutrition, delivering drugs via their breast milk or just for having two beers at dinner while nursing. Other mothers have faced criminal charges for child abuse “by omission,” based on a failure to protect their children from an abusive partner. Take, for example, the prosecution of Regina McKnight in South Carolina. McKnight, a young, homeless and mentally impaired African American woman, delivered a stillborn baby in 1999 after using cocaine while pregnant. In many cases, the cause of a stillbirth is unknown and the science on the effect of illegal drugs on a developing fetus is far from conclusive. Nonetheless, prosecutors successfully convinced a jury that McKnight was guilty of murder based on her drug use. The trial judge sentenced her to 20 years in prison, and the conviction was affirmed by the South Carolina Supreme Court. The McKnight case seems to have inspired zealous prosecutors across the country. In 2004, for example, Utah prosecutors charged Melissa Rowland with first-degree murder after she declined a C-section and later delivered a stillborn son; only after public outcry did the prosecutor reduce the charges to child endangerment. And in 2013, Alicia Beltran — a 28-year-old pregnant woman from Wisconsin who had weaned herself off a prescription painkiller addiction — was arrested after acknowledging her drug use at a prenatal visit. She spent 78 days in involuntary confinement before being released. It would be comforting to believe that American law takes no notice of class, gender and race, but this prosecutorial disparity makes it all too clear that these factors still play an important role in how people are treated. Wealthy mothers who endanger their children and the larger community because of misguided beliefs about vaccination get a pass, while poorer women are expected to shield their children regardless of the structural obstacles arrayed against them. When these mothers fail to do so, the law does not give them the benefit of the doubt. This double standard in protecting children must end. All parents — regardless of socioeconomic status — must accept the responsibility for children’s health and safety as a collective obligation. That includes safeguarding children from abuse, but it also includes a duty to vaccinate for the public’s health. Citizens should demand that state governments tighten their requirements for vaccination and enact laws based on solid science and the need to protect the community at large. The government’s inaction on vaccination stands in stark contrast to the charges brought against poorer mothers in other circumstances. These women face overly punitive measures even when it is unclear that they are responsible for the harm suffered by their children. Yet affluent mothers often have no such worries, even when they expose their children and the community to indisputable danger. The science on the efficacy and safety of vaccines is clear. So is the message sent by the law’s prosecution of some mothers and not others. **Read more on this topic:** The Post’s View: If Trump keeps stoking vaccine fears, he will endanger lives Susan Okie: Scientist argues vaccines, GMOs and cell phones are not threats to our well being Michael Gerson: Vaccines and what we owe to our neighbors Gal Adam Spinrad: I used to be a vaccine skeptic. Now I’m a believer.

What one of the anti-vaccination movement’s least favorite doctors discovered about Jesus

Dr. Paul Offit was pretty sure that religion was harmful to children. But while writing his newest book on medicine, the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine was surprised by Jesus. Offit says he always had moderate respect for religion but started to doubt when, as a young attending physician, he saw five children die within 10 days during an outbreak of measles in Philadelphia in 1991. At the center of the epidemic were children who were unvaccinated in accordance with their parents’ radical brand of Christian belief. A professor of pediatrics and vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania, Offit has been branded as “Dr. Proffit” by anti-vaccination activists. In previous books, he has defended vaccinations, challenged the now widely discredited autism-vaccine link and sharply criticized the alternative medicine industry. When he published “Autism’s False Prophets” in 2008, he didn’t go on book tour because had received death threats. _ **[Anti-vax mom changes her tune when all 7 of her children come down with whooping cough]**_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Having seen children die because of their parents’ religiously-motivated neglect — including the use of religious exemptions to vaccination, Offit began to read and to appreciate new atheist writings, including books by Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. As he began writing his new book, “Bad Faith: How Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine,” he assumed that he would arrive at similar conclusions: that religion was too often the culprit in preventable deaths, and that it was best left behind.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “Bad Faith” is full of stories of needless deaths: the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses dying for lack of a blood transfusion, the children of Christian Science believers dying for lack of antibiotic treatment and the infants of ultra-Orthodox Jews dying or suffering brain damage after being infected with herpes from unsanitary ritual circumcision. Most states allow religious exemptions to vaccines and permit parents to claim a religious defense if their child dies from a treatable disease. “I took it at face value when people said, ‘Jesus was our doctor,'” Offit said of vaccination and treatment. “The choice to put your child in harm’s way is not a religious act.” When Offit began to read the Hebrew Bible/the Old Testament and the New Testament and look into the history of Christians’ work in the areas of child welfare and health care, he said he found himself largely embracing religious teachings. Offit told me he was surprised by his reaction to faith. Asked what particularly changed his mind about religion, he said, “I read the New Testament!” “Reading slowly and carefully, in context, I came to feel that independent of Jesus’ divinity, independent of questions about the Gospels’ accuracy, you have to be impressed by Jesus,” he said. [ _ **How the U.S. went from eliminating measles to a measles outbreak at Disneyland**_ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico  Offit said that Jesus’ advocacy on behalf of children, who were treated as property in the ancient Greco-Roman context, moved him “to the point of tears.” He referred to Christianity as “the single greatest breakthrough against child abuse” in history. Offit highlights and praises the Christian tradition of caring for the sick and vulnerable. He notes, for example, that the first Christian emperor of Rome, Constantine, outlawed infanticide in 315 and provided a nascent form of welfare in 321 so families in poverty would not have to sell their children. Historical expressions of care for the sick, Offit said, are aligned with “the religion of Jesus.” He has little patience for Christian practices (“religion about Jesus”) that place children in harm’s way by pitting modern medicine against faith. Those who insist that medical treatment is unnecessary “because Jesus is my doctor” are promoting ideas antithetical to Jesus’s values, he said. Offit has not converted to Christianity, but he has newfound respect for the religion that motivated people to abolish slavery and establish the Red Cross. “Stating a religious belief is seen as a kind of immunity from responsibility,” Offit said. Offit believes that religious exemptions to vaccinations — and the freedom for parents to refuse medical treatment on behalf of their children — should not be allowed. “It’s not much different from child sacrifice,” he said. To others, removing the religious shield currently protecting parents in most states is an example of government overreach and a violation of the free exercise of religion. [ _ **Reminder: Most people think vaccinations should be mandatory for children**_ ]    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Using the state to defend parents who refuse modern medicine, Offit suggests, is not the kind of religion Jesus established. “That’s making religious freedom an idol,” Offit said. “How on earth in the name of Jesus can people watch children die?” _Rachel Marie Stone is a writer living near Philadelphia. She is author of “_ _Eat With Joy: Redeeming God’s Gift of Food_ _” and “_ _The Unexpected Way_ _,” a book about Jesus for children._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Trump’s election-rigging claim will backfire. Here’s the evidence.

In recent days, Donald Trump has ratcheted up claims of voter fraud, claiming that the Nov. 8 election may be “rigged” against him. In Wednesday’s debate, he refused to pledge that he would accept the result if he loses, saying that he would keep the nation “in suspense.”   These types of claims may serve several strategic functions. They provide sore losers with a way to save face, excusing a poor performance. They also may erode the electoral legitimacy of the winner, sowing doubts about their governing authority, as well as causing chaos by making it harder to bring Congress and the country together after a bitterly fought campaign.     Evidence shows that those who question the integrity of the voting process are far less likely to participate. That’s clear in the graph below. Among Americans in the 2012 ANES survey who believe that votes are “very often” counted fairly, over three-quarters (77 percent) reported that they voted. By contrast, among those with strong doubts about this process, just two-thirds (64 percent) bothered to vote, generating a net 13-point gap. When asked whether they thought that electoral officials were fair, similar patterns can be observed, where greater trust is significantly associated with higher voter turnout. None of the other claims about electoral malpractice was observed to have a similar effect on turnout, including problems of media bias, lack of genuine choice and campaign finance. Of course, it’s difficult to figure out which way the causal arrow goes — do people stay home because they don’t trust the election, or are people who don’t vote simply more likely to hold anti-establishment views? Regardless, cynicism about the electoral process and turnout are negatively related.   First, the polls clearly show that it is Republicans, not Democrats, who are more likely to believe the Trump claims of alleged malpractices. It may be his own supporters who are most likely to be discouraged from voting.  Trump’s talk may also make it more difficult for him to mobilize independents, whom he needs to expand his base, who typically have low turnout, and who are often deterred from voting by claims of unfairness. Overall, therefore, Trump’s charges of rigged elections in this campaign are factually inaccurate, highly damaging for trust and confidence in U.S. elections and democracy, and potentially corrosive for voting by his own supporters. Even worse, his claim that he may or may not accept the legitimacy of the outcome if he loses is simply un-American and doubtless welcome by dictators around the world who express similar sentiments when they lose.

How the vaccine controversy shows the limits of GOP libertarianism

As a demonstration that anything can become political and you never know what issue is going to take over a campaign, every potential presidential candidate is now thinking very carefully about what they should say on the topic of childhood immunizations. Chris Christie kicked things off when he answered a question about a spreading measles outbreak with some comments about parental choice that he sort-of walked back, but the real news came when Rand Paul — a graduate of Duke University medical school, which I’m fairly certain is a real thing — gave an interview to CNBC in which he said, “I’ve heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Needless to say, this is utterly bogus. What Paul should have noted was that this question has been studied exhaustively, and there is no evidence whatsoever that vaccines cause autism or any other “mental disorder.” But if you thought that every GOP candidate would be rushing to pander to people’s fears about big government forcing them to stick needles in their kids, you’d be wrong. In fact, the ones we’ve heard from so far have been clearly pro-vaccine. And this shows just where the limits of libertarianism within the Republican Party are. As the New York Times noted this morning, Mike Huckabee has in the past advocated that vaccines be widely used, and specifically dismissed the debunked connection to autism, while Rick Perry has also touted his administration’s efforts to increase vaccination. You’ll recall that Perry was criticized by his Republican opponents in 2012 for mandating that girls in Texas public schools receive the HPV vaccine (though he eventually reversed himself when he was convinced by other Texas conservatives that giving a 10-year-old girl a shot to prevent her from getting cervical cancer after she becomes an adult would obviously turn her into a sex maniac). Ben Carson also made clear that mandatory vaccination is critical to preventing disease, no matter what religious or philosophical objections people might have. John Boehner too said that every child should be vaccinated.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico While there are a few candidates we haven’t yet heard from, it may be surprising that Paul isn’t getting more company; indeed, he’s probably surprised, given how much Republicans have talked about individual liberty in the last few years. Paul doesn’t deny that there are risks to not vaccinating children, but he says that it’s a matter of personal freedom: parents, not the government, should make the choice. However, it turns out that other Republicans don’t agree. In this case they believe that the welfare of the community trumps the individual’s right to decide. What that tells us is that the broader Republican commitment to libertarian principles is highly situational. Libertarians laud themselves for their philosophical consistency (though Rand Paul is a quasi-libertarian at most), but ordinary conservatives are picking and choosing based on who’s getting what and who’s paying what. In the case of something like guns, where there’s an analogous situation (individuals want to make a choice that potentially endangers others), conservatives see the gun owner getting a benefit, and one many of them enjoy. When they say that companies should be released from environmental regulations, they’re thinking about people and organizations they admire getting the benefit of unconstrained market freedom, and the cost (environmental degradation) is something they’re only marginally concerned about. But in the case of vaccines, the beneficiaries are a bunch of wackos and conspiracy theorists who are gaining nothing more than the ability to endanger their own children, at the cost of endangering everybody else’s children. And I’m guessing it also matters that a lot of the vaccine truthers who get attention are liberals, the Marin County types who think that because they feed their children organic food that the kids will have super-charged immune systems and therefore can’t become sick. (It should be noted that vaccine trutherism is a non-partisan affliction: liberals are no more likely than conservatives to think vaccines cause autism.)    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico What’s more, while it’s also true that advocating for vaccines requires conservatives to agree with Science, this issue isn’t like climate change, where many on the right think the entire scientific community is engaged in a vast conspiracy of deception. On climate, people fear that they’ll lose something (like their SUVs) and have to change their lifestyle in order to address the problem; the issue also threatens their traditional allies in the energy industry. There are few such considerations in the vaccine issue. So the vaccine issue demonstrates that while nearly every Republican agrees with libertarian ideas on some issues, this doesn’t necessarily reflect just an inviolable philosophical commitment to individual liberty. When being a libertarian means getting something they want without having to give up anything they like, they’re happy to wave the anti-government flag. But if it means their kids might get sick because some people are dumb enough to take their medical advice from Jenny McCarthy, the needs of the many begin to look much more pressing than the delusions of the few.

Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just made pediatricians’ jobs a lot harder

Donald Trump just made my job harder. The work of every medical provider for children is likely to become more difficult, and our nation may well become sicker.  Hardly a day I spend in the office goes by when I don’t give vaccines. I do so because I know there is no actual debate. I do so as a pediatrician because the welfare of my patients, welfare I took an oath to safeguard, depends on protecting them against diseases that could seriously sicken or kill them.     By saying that immunizations cause autism, Trump is training his sights on me and every other provider who delivers the same care I do.  When I worked previously at a practice that had a more lenient policy regarding vaccines, the experience was even more stark. Several parents rejected them outright, and nothing I could say would change their minds. Every study I could reference was cooked, and there was some malign influence behind it all.   Of course not. But vaccine-preventable illnesses will only stay at bay if parents are appropriately reassured that the means of preventing them are safe and effective. Will that be the conclusion of a Trump-created, Kennedy-led commission? I have absolutely no confidence that it will be. The mere creation of the commission, meant to investigate a question that has already been asked and answered many times over, is ominous, even aside from the anti-vaccine agenda both men unmistakably share. Given Trump’s disdain for facts that inconveniently conflict with his opinions, to believe the commission will land on the side of vaccination requires an optimism bordering on the deranged.

Why conservatives might be more likely to fall for fake news

Jost reviewed 40 studies on differences in this need for cognition between liberals and conservatives. Of those, 25 showed a "significant, negative" association between need for cognition and right-wing orientation. In all but three of the others, there was a similar negative association but it wasn't statistically significant. In other words, liberals were slightly more predisposed to think critically than conservatives. As Stefan Pfattheicher of Ulm University put it in an email to me, conservatives "are less reflective in information processing, especially when information is consistent with [their] own worldviews."  In a small study earlier this year, Pfattheicher posed nonsensical statements like "hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty" and "attention and intention are the mechanics of manifestation" -- to 196 supporters of various U.S. presidential candidates. He then asked them to rate how "profound" the statements were on a scale of 1 to 5, from "not at all" to "very profound."  Pfattheicher also found that individuals who identified as more conservative were more likely to be duped by nonsense than liberals.  In other words, in Pfattheicher's reading, conservatives may be perfectly able to do the kind of critical thinking and cognitive exploration that would lead them to be more skeptical of nonsense and fake news -- they just choose not to, preferring instead to seek out information that allows them to make quick decisions that reinforce their existing views.   For instance, one of the questions asks: "If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?" Your impulse might be to say "100 minutes." But in fact, the correct answer is 5 minutes -- each machine produces a widget every five minutes.  "Bottom line," Kahan said in an email, "there's ample evidence of politically biased information processing across the entire ideological spectrum."  "There are now 11 other studies that have obtained significant differences in the predicted direction: overall, liberals do tend to perform better than conservatives on measures of cognitive reflection," Jost said in an email.    "Of course, there is issue by issue variability when it comes to motivated reasoning," Jost said. But, he added, this wouldn't contradict his findings on different conservative and liberal cognitive habits. "There can be ideological differences in general, as well as reversals on specific issues," he said. The research into personality traits, combined with the reports on the rise of fake news within the conservative internet, suggests that there are measurable, objective differences in how liberals and conservatives view the world -- and that savvy snake oil salesmen can exploit those differences for money and recognition. "If anything," Jost said, "these new reports [of fake partisan news] suggest that the asymmetry may be even greater in the 'real world' than what we have been seeing in the lab."

Why younger Americans are much more likely to say vaccination should be a choice

Since the measles outbreak in the United States is only getting worse, and since most of the people who get measles have not been vaccinated, much of the discussion surrounding this outbreak has focused on parents who do not vaccinate their children. The argument has been framed as one of parental choice, as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) put it in comments he quickly walked back on Monday.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico All of which raises the question: How do Americans actually feel about vaccinations and whether parents should have a choice in the matter? The answer, it turns out, is that most Americans believe vaccinations should be mandatory, but you are significantly more likely to feel that way if you actually lived through a time when measles were a widespread danger, rather than a resurgent threat.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico A report from the Pew Research Center last week showed that about seven in 10 Americans feel that parents should have to vaccinate their children. On Monday, Pew released additional figures, showing the breakdown by age group.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico It turns out that people between the ages of 18 and 29 are more likely than the American public to think parents should get to decide what to do with vaccinations. Four out of 10 Americans in this age group feel that way (41 percent), compared to three out of 10 Americans nationally (30 percent). This gulf is even more pronounced if you compare it with older generations. Americans older than age 50 are about half as likely as millennials to say that parents should get to decide whether to vaccinate their kids, with just a fifth of those Americans expressing that view (23 percent of those age 50 to 64 and 20 percent of anyone older than that). The likeliest explanation here is simply that people are speaking to their experiences. A 29-year-old would have been entering high school when measles were eliminated in the United States and may have never met anyone who has contracted the disease; a 65-year-old was about to enter high school when the measles vaccination became widespread in 1963. It is also important to remember that until this vaccination became routine that year, between 3 million and 4 million people were infected every year, and between 400 and 500 of those people died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disease was deemed eliminated in 2000, and since that time most years have seen measles cases that numbered in the dozens (until outbreaks last year and this year).    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Meanwhile, the Pew numbers also helpfully fact-check what seems to have become a misconception surrounding the ongoing anti-vaccination movement — that its proponents are all upper-class, well-off people. Pew reported almost no difference in opinion between people with college degrees and those without, as well as similar viewpoints from those making under $30,000 a year and those making more than $75,000 annually.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The breakdown is below:

Medical Mysteries: It wasn’t the vaccine — so why did baby have seizures?

“Men in Black” was flickering on the screen, and Laura Cossolotto and her husband were enjoying a rare night at the movies in their home town of Centerville, Iowa, when her brother-in-law rushed into the darkened theater. The couple’s third child, 6-month-old Michaela, had just suffered a serious seizure and was at a nearby hospital. As Cossolotto raced to be with the baby, she immediately remembered that Michaela had been running a fever after receiving a vaccine against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT) three days earlier. “I thought the shot must have something to do with it,” Cossolotto recalled. “I had three kids, and nothing like this had ever happened, so what else could it have been?” At the hospital, doctors reassured her that Michaela had suffered a febrile seizure, a frightening and usually harmless event they said was unlikely to recur. As a precaution, the baby was admitted for observation. Hours later, after doctors had trouble controlling a second, more severe seizure, the infant was whisked by helicopter to a larger hospital in Des Moines, 100 miles north. That night in July 1997 marked the beginning of a 10 1 / 2-year ordeal, as more than a dozen specialists in four states tried without success to find an underlying cause for Michaela’s frequent, intractable seizures — and a treatment that would control them before they caused irreparable brain damage or death. For years Cossolotto held the DPT shot responsible for Michaela’s problems, joining legions of parents who have blamed various ingredients in pediatric vaccines for triggering serious medical and developmental ills, most notably autism. Since the early 1980s these allegations, based on discredited theoriesand more recently on an influential British study that last year was deemed an “elaborate fraud,” have flourished, largely because of their enduring popularity on the Internet. As a consequence, fearful parents have refused to immunize their children, resulting in outbreaks of vaccine- preventable diseases, including measles and whooping cough. Cossolotto, who spent hours online desperately seeking answers, found the vaccine hypothesis persuasive, particularly after doctors failed to offer another explanation. The belated discovery of what was wrong with her daughter would upend Cossolotto’s long-held views and lead to major improvements in Michaela’s life. ****It was quickly evident that Michaela’s seizures were not just febrile: They occurred when she had no fever, and doctors suspected she had epilepsy. “She would be in her bouncy seat and both arms would just shoot straight up in the air,” Cossolotto recalled. “I knew nothing about epilepsy.” She soon learned. At times Michaela’s seizures were so severe that doctors had to place her in a drug-induced coma to save her life. Eight times before she was 3, she was helicoptered to Des Moines or Iowa City for emergency treatment. “I remember sitting by her bed in the ICU wondering: Would she wake up? And if she did, would she be a vegetable?” Cossolotto recalled. Despite test after test, no doctor could say what kind of epilepsy she had, and no cocktail of medications proved effective in controlling the seizures. Nor did doctors know the reasons for problems that emerged as she aged: delayed speech, mild mental retardation and serious growth deficiency. Specialists ruled out fragile X syndrome, a chromosomal disorder that causes mental retardation, gastrointestinal malabsorption, cystic fibrosis and numerous rare metabolic problems as well as heart defects and brain malformations. Between the ages of 3 and 5, Michaela did not gain an ounce; she entered kindergarten at age 5 weighing 33 pounds, roughly the average weight of a 2 1 / 2-year-old girl. At a growth clinic where she was evaluated for failure to thrive, doctors told Cossolotto “the problem was that I allowed her to graze during the day and that I was a bad parent,” she recalled. Around the age of 4, Michaela began regressing, displaying what seemed to be classic signs of autism: She would rock for hours, avoid eye contact and seem to retreat into her own world. By this time Cossolotto was spending hours a day scouring the Internet. She quickly turned up what seemed to be a promising explanation: pediatric vaccines. Michaela's doctors were skeptical, but Cossolotto became increasingly convinced she had found a possible answer. She began taking her daughter to see a specialist in environmental medicine in St. Louis, five hours away. He embraced the vaccine theory and ran his own series of tests, diagnosing a mold allergy. At Cossolotto’s request, he signed a waiver allowing Michaela to attend kindergarten without receiving the required immunizations. “I wasn’t taking any chances,” her mother recalled. But after several months autism faded from the picture: Remedial help Michaela received in school caused the autistic behaviors to recede. Cossolotto’s belief in the vaccine theory waned, she said, but remained in the back of her mind. When Michaela was 5, Cossolotto’s youngest daughter was born with Down syndrome. At times the pressure seemed unbearable as she struggled to care for two special-needs children. The seizures unabated, Cossolotto called the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. A pediatric neurologist there began treating Michaela with various antiseizure medications while continuing the search for an underlying cause. At one point the little girl was seizure-free for nearly a year, but the convulsions returned, worse than ever. In September 2007, Cossolotto took Michaela, then 10, to see a pediatric geneticist who had been featured on a TV show about baffling medical cases. “At this time, I do not have a unifying diagnosis to explain her problems,” the specialist, who practices in Iowa, wrote. Neither did Michaela’s doctor at Mayo, who suggested a referral to Elaine Wirrell, the hospital’s new pediatric epileptologist, a neurologist who specializes in treating children with epilepsy. “I had never heard of an epileptologist,” Cossolotto said. In November 2007, Michaela saw Wirrell, the latest in a seemingly endless parade of doctors. The appointment seemed like so many others. After listening to Michaela’s history and reviewing her records, Wirrell told Cossolotto that she suspected a rare disorder and wanted to order a test. “I thought, ‘Oh, more bloodwork; we’re going to rule out another diagnosis,’ ” Cossolotto recalled. Three weeks later, Wirrell called Cossolotto with the definitive answer that had eluded her for so long. The blood test for the SCN1A gene revealed that Michaela had Dravet syndrome, also known as severe myoclonic epilepsy of infancy, a rare and serious form of the seizure disorder named after the French doctor who described it in 1978. Dravet is usually caused by a spontaneous — not inherited — genetic mutation present at birth that affects the functioning of brain cells, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Its hallmark is severe seizures during the first year of life that are difficult to control. Many children with Dravet, which occurs in one in every 20,000 to 40,000 births, also exhibit poor language skills, behavioral problems and cognitive deficits. There is no cure for Dravet, but some medications are effective in controlling seizures. Among them are clobazam combined with stiripentol, a French drug that has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration but can be legally imported because it treats a rare illness. In many cases Dravet emerges when a baby runs a fever, which can occur after receiving an immunization. But, notes Wirrell, chief of pediatric epilepsy at Mayo, “it’s absolutely _not_ the immunization causing Dravet” but rather the fever that causes the existing disorder to surface. Wirrell, who has seen 20 children with Dravet, said that those who have never been immunized show symptoms after spiking a fever. Several recent studies have explored the relationship between the DPT vaccine and Dravet, which was first suggested as a cause of neurological problems in a 2006 study by a team of Australian epilepsy specialists. A 2010 study in Lancet Neurology found that the vaccine did not affect the outcome of Dravet: Babies whose seizures began after the shot fared no worse than those whose illness surfaced at another time. A 2011 report in the journal Pediatrics found that five children presumed to have neurological damage caused by the DPT shot were later discovered to have Dravet. In Michaela’s case, the combination of seizures that began at six months, soon after the DPT shot, and the lack of any other cause made Wirrell suspect Dravet; the gene test confirmed it, although about 30 percent of children with Dravet do not test positive. For Cossolotto, the diagnosis meant coming to terms with the reality of her daughter’s serious, incurable illness. “I always thought that if I knew what it was, we could fix it,” she said. “But it was Dravet, and there was no fixing it. I had to keep telling myself, ‘You have an answer.’ ” “Five or 10 years ago, many people were not thinking that this is a seizure syndrome,” Wirrell said. She credits parents, especially Cossolotto, who since 2008 has been president of the support and advocacy group called Dravet.org, with raising awareness of the disorder and promoting effective treatment. Epileptologists, she added, are attuned to Dravet, while general neurologists may be unfamiliar with it. “Recurrent prolonged seizures fairly early in life should trigger a referral to a pediatric epileptic specialist,” she advised. As a result of the diagnosis and proper medication, Michaela’s life has dramatically improved. Although she still grapples with cognitive and behavioral problems, her seizures have dwindled to only a handful annually. Now 15, she is a freshman in high school with friends, a Facebook page and other trappings of adolescence. Without a diagnosis, Cossolotto said, she would probably still believe — erroneously — that the DPT shot caused Michaela’s illness. “I understand this is a genetic condition,” she said. “Having an answer does make a difference.”

Why smart people believe all the crazy things Trump says

Believing that a secretive cabal is conspiring to control the government and delude the public might not hurt you, if you're an ordinary citizen. For politicians seeking election to high office, though, espousing conspiracy theories can be risky if voters don't see things the same way. That apparently didn't concern Donald Trump, who alluded to one of his favorite conspiracy theories when he addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition Thursday. "There's something going on with him that we don't know about," Trump said, referring to President Obama. We don't know exactly what he means by that, but Trump used to focus on his allegation that the president was not born in the United States. Trump has other theories, too -- for example, that Arab immigrants in New Jersey cheered in the streets when terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. If these theories were true, they would imply a widespread deceit. The believer has to imagine a conspiracy among a potentially vast number of people in state, federal and local government, law enforcement and the press, all acting in concert to manipulate the public and conceal the truth. By espousing these modern-day myths, politicians might expose themselves to criticism, but psychologists suggest there is also a large group of voters to whom these theories appeal, especially on the conservative side of the aisle. A new study suggests that these voters are not ill-informed. On the contrary, conspiracy theories are most persuasive to more knowledgeable and politically engaged voters -- just the group that politicians might want to reach. By endorsing these theories, or at least not rebutting them, politicians can address some of those voters' fundamental psychological needs. Social scientists and psychologists believe that people subscribe to conspiracy theories for the simple reason that these theories often tend to validate their views of the world. Republicans believe all kinds of things about President Obama, and many liberals believe similar theories about President George W. Bush. "For both liberals and conservatives, for everybody, there's just this tendency to want to believe things that fit our worldview as we believe it," said Joanne Miller, a political scientist the University of Minnesota and one of the authors of the new study. "Both liberals and conservatives are subject to that. It's a human tendency to want to believe what we believe." In particular, conspiracy theories offer a simple explanation, with an identifiable villain, for the complicated reality of modern politics. That simplicity is appealing. Miller and her collaborators -- Christina Farhart and Colorado State University's Kyle Saunders -- used data from surveys of Americans who were asked whether they thought statements about politicians and public figures were true. A few conspiracy theories were on the list. Four were designed to suss out conservative respondents: There were four more theories for the other side: In many cases, large percentages of Americans overall believe the conspiracy theories were true.  The respondents also had to take a short quiz to test their general knowledge about politics. Conservatives who were well-informed about politics in general were more, not less, likely to hold conspiracy theories. While it might be surprising to most people, that pattern wasn't surprising for the scholars of conspiracy theories who wrote the paper. People who know more about politics and their parties often have more strongly held opinions. They're also better able to see how a conspiracy theory would support their worldview, which gives them more of a reason to believe the theory. The real surprise for Miller, Saunders and Farhart was that liberal respondents who were better informed were less likely to endorse the conspiracy theories. The authors offered a couple of reasons for why the data about liberal conspiracy theories contradicted their assumption that there would be more believers among more knowledgeable voters. One possibility is simply that when your own party is in the White House, you don't have as much of a reason to support conspiracy theories. These theories seem to be particularly attractive to those who feel as though their party is losing power. For instance, another recent study examined letters to the editor of The New York Times since 1890. The authors found that during Republican administrations, the villains in the most frequently cited conspiracy theories were Republican politicians or corporations, and during Democratic administrations, they were Democrats or Communists. Perhaps it's that these theories explain why tens of millions of Americans could vote for the other side, without forcing believers to think carefully about whether those voters have legitimate reasons for supporting the party that they do.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Another possibility is that conspiracy theories are simply more persuasive to conservatives because of their psychological make-up. The fact that the world is an uncertain, complex place makes some people profoundly uncomfortable. As Wonkblog has reported previously, psychologists have found that one characteristic of conservatives around the world is that they are particularly averse to this uncertainty. _[Read more: I asked psychologists to analyze Trump supporters. This is what I learned.]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico And the appeal of conspiracy theories is that they eliminate the complexity of the political system, giving believers a simple and elegant way to make sense of it all: There are a group of villains who control everything. Any contradictory facts are simply misinformation, the machinations of the cabal. It's possible that conspiracy theories "resonate in general better for Republicans than they do for Democrats or liberals," Miller said. "What people are attracted to are the simple explanations."  The study also suggests an explanation for why Trump is breaking all the rules, refusing to back down when he's caught in a lie. Trump's appeals reflect a deep-seated desire among conservatives voters -- as demonstrated by research -- for relatively simple explanations for what's going on. With Trump's statements, Miller conjectures, he's revealing that he has a type of personality with which they can identify. "By conveying either conspiracy theories or these types of misinformation, what you're doing is that you're conveying to the public that you're that type of person," she said. "There's no nuance. There's no 'Yes, but...' " It's not just Trump, of course. Earlier this year, rumors circulated that the U.S. military was secretly planning to invade Texas. In fact, the military was simply planning a training exercise, and since Texas is already within the jurisdiction of the federal government, the theory made little sense. All the same, Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas and a rival of Trump's for the GOP presidential nod, did not unequivocally rebut the rumors. "My office has reached out to the Pentagon," Cruz said. "We are assured it is a military training exercise. I have no reason to doubt those assurances, but I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty."    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Things are getting weird in American politics.

Mr. Paul’s and Mr. Christie’s irresponsible comments about measles vaccinations

TWO POTENTIAL Republican presidential candidates, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have made irresponsible comments about vaccines at a time when measles has reappeared in the United States. Their remarks call into question their judgment and their fitness for higher office. Mr. Paul, an ophthalmologist, said in a television interview, “I’ve heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.” He added that he vaccinated his own children: “I’m not arguing vaccines are a bad idea. I think they’re a good thing. But I think parents should have some input.” Mr. Christie, visiting a medical research laboratory in Cambridge, England, said that he, too, had vaccinated his children, but “I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well. So that’s the balance that the government has to decide.” Both comments reflect a streak of libertarianism, a political philosophy that champions the individual and freedom to choose. In principle, this isn’t irrational. The United States has often stood as a beacon of individual liberty over tyranny. But it becomes destructive when people resist government because of irrational fears and suspicions. To protect people from threats, government has a legitimate role. In the case of measles, the threat is a highly contagious virus that can bring serious consequences. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, 90% of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected.” This is why states have passed laws mandating vaccination for children attending public schools (although 17 states, including California, scene of the outbreak at Disneyland, have waivers for personal beliefs, and 48 have waivers for religious beliefs). Both the governor and senator seem to be suggesting that it is fine for parents to avoid vaccinations for their children. But is this really a matter of individual rights? Liberty does not confer the right to endanger others — whether at a school or Disneyland or anywhere else. More broadly, a president must make decisions every day about science, and it is not always easy; consider the struggle over climate change, the hard-fought debate over the impact of the Keystone XL pipeline, the promise of genetically modified foods, the intensifying threat of cyberattacks and the growing danger of antimicrobial resistance. Every one of these requires decision-makers to be rational and clear-eyed, the president most of all. In the case of measles, proven science is well in hand. The vaccine has a half-century record of safety and effectiveness. The study linking it to autism has been discredited and retracted. Mr. Paul’s reporting of anecdotes that he has “heard” is particularly insidious. Measles was eliminated in the United States by 2000 with widespread use of the vaccine. No presidential candidate should endorse parental “choice” that could reopen the door to an ugly and preventable disease. **Read more about this topic:** The Post’s View: The measles vaccine is a shot of common sense The Post’s View: As measles cases increase, a sharp call for vaccinations The Post’s View: The United States should generously support Gavi’s immunization efforts Michael Gerson: The enduring benefits of vaccination Michael Gerson: Vaccines and what we owe to our neighbors

How Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about vaccines could harm public health

The modern era of immunization programs began in the early 1960s, when President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Jr.’s uncle, signed the Vaccination Assistance Act. This law allowed the CDC to support local health departments in immunization-related activities. In the late 1960s, after several measles outbreaks, there was a push for state laws requiring children to be vaccinated before starting school. By the early 1980s, all states had mandatory immunization laws in place (although all but three states allow exemptions for religious or “philosophical” reasons). Over the decades, with bipartisan support, federal funding for vaccines grew. These efforts led to a gradual increase in vaccination rates among U.S. children. But outbreaks of measles between 1989 and 1991 demonstrated that those rates weren’t consistent everywhere or in every demographic group. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush’s administration announced a goal of achieving immunization levels of 90 percent or more for children under 2 years old. That effort received a major boost from the Clinton administration’s Childhood Immunization Initiative and Vaccines for Children Program. By 2001, the 90 percent target had been achieved for most of the recommended vaccines.   But no president in recent history has called the science supporting vaccination into question. Despite Kennedy’s family and political lineage, if Trump takes up the issue, the public discussion around vaccines could quickly become politicized.           Still, perhaps there is one area where scientists and the next administration can find common ground: investment in vaccine safety research. Most vaccine proponents are also big supporters of such research. While the CDC, the FDA and — to some extent — the National Institutes of Health have been conducting rigorous vaccine safety research, the introduction of new vaccines requires further expansion of monitoring by physicians and scientists. More money would help that effort.  Elections have consequences, the saying goes. It would be awful if one consequence of the last one was potentially thousands of preventable childhood deaths.

The outlandish conspiracy theories many of Donald Trump’s supporters believe

Vague insinuations and sometimes puzzling claims from Donald Trump have become commonplace on television and in speeches. On Tuesday, for instance, he suggested to Fox News that his rival Ted Cruz's father might have helped President John F. Kennedy's assassin, just the latest of several conspiracy theories he has put forward on the way to becoming the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee.  As is often his style, Trump did not make an explicit accusation or a precise charge, instead suggesting obliquely that someone in power is connected to a public tragedy and that law enforcement and the press are deceiving the public about what really happened.  Although he had flirted with politics before, Trump's political career began in earnest in 2011, when he became the unofficial spokesman for the movement to discredit President Obama's U.S. birth. He still occasionally implies that Obama is not putting American interests first and that he might be an agent of some foreign, hostile power.  A large majority of Trump's coalition is suspicious of Obama's origins. Among respondents who chose Trump over Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, 40 percent said it was "definitely true" that "President Obama is hiding important information about his background and early life," according to Wednesday's poll, conducted at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. Another 37 percent said the claim was possibly true. When pollsters asked about Clinton and Cruz, 32 percent of respondents who chose Cruz said this claim about Obama was definitely true. Among Ohio Gov. John Kasich's supporters in a hypothetical contest with Clinton, that figure was just 28 percent. Trump's supporters are also more likely to say that vaccines cause autism, a claim he has made a few times during the campaign. Fifty-two percent of his supporters said this claim was possibly or definitely true, compared to 49 percent of those who supported Cruz and 45 percent of those who supported Kasich in hypothetical contests between each Republican and Clinton.   Although Trump hasn't given credence to this view, 21 percent of his supporters told Fairleigh Dickinson said that it was possibly or definitely true. The figure was 20 percent among Cruz's supporters and 17 percent among Kasich's supporters. That finding suggests Trump's endorsement, implicit or explicit, of other outlandish theories makes him a popular candidate among those who tend to be extremely mistrustful in general, said political science experts. Belief in conspiracy theories is not a partisan trait. A majority of Democrats, for example, told Fairleigh Dickinson that it was at least possible that President George W. Bush knew about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 before they occurred. But previous polls by The Washington Post and ABC News confirm that distrust of government, broadly speaking, is one of the traits that most clearly separates Trump's supporters from other Republicans. Moreover, Fairleigh Dickinson's polls have consistently found that trust in the government is closely associated with the propensity to believe in many conspiracy theories, said Dan Cassino, a political scientist there. "If you don’t trust the government, you’re more likely to believe they’re up to something nefarious," he added. Conspiracy theories are part of a broader worldview for those who suspect that everyone who is not an outright liar could be deluded or intimidated into shutting their eyes to the truth. "Trump’s issue positions that have shifted incredibly over time, but the one thing that’s remained absolutely consistent is his penchant for conspiracy theorizing. Instead of using policy issues to try and garner supporters, he has used people’s fears and cynicism," said Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami who was not involved in the poll. "He’s appealing to people who have very dark opinions." The poll also found that Trump's supporters were more likely to believe that global warming is a hoax fabricated by the scientific community and that Clinton knew that the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi was going to be attacked and did nothing to prevent the killings there in 2012. Among Trump's supporters in a hypothetical contest against Clinton, 29 percent said global warming was definitely a fabrication. This figure was 25 percent among Cruz's supporters and 22 percent among Kasich's supporters. Likewise, 50 percent of Trump's supporters said Clinton definitely knew about the attack in Benghazi beforehand. Just 43 percent of Cruz's supporters and 40 percent of Kasich's supporters agreed. Trump is by no means the only Republican to have suggested that there might be some kind of conspiracy in connection with Benghazi or with global warming, but he does the best among Republicans who share those views.  On Wednesday, Trump denied that he ever thought that Cruz's father might have helped kill an American president. He also said, though, that others should decide for themselves.

Here’s how many Americans are actually anti-vaxxers

Polling has suggested as many as three in 10 Americans think that vaccines should not generally be mandatory. And while that's a key political question, it doesn't really get at the heart of the matter: just how many Americans are so-called "anti-vaxxers," i.e. think vaccines are actually harmful.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The answer, at least when it comes to the measles vaccine, is 9 percent, according to a new poll. The survey from the Pew Research Center shows 83 percent of Americans think the measles vaccine is safe, while 9 percent think it's not. Another 7 percent are not sure.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico As with the vaccine choice question, these anti-vaxxers skew toward younger and less-educated Americans, along with racial minorities. Contrary to some conventional wisdom, though, they disproportionately come from places other than the West, where 90 percent see the vaccine as safe. The poll also shows more Democrats (9 percent) and independents (10 percent) say the measles vaccine isn't safe than Republicans who say the same (5 percent). These differences are well within the margin of error, but the aforementioned Pew poll showed Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say vaccines should be a matter of choice. Of course, practically speaking, vaccine skeptics carry more weight than the 9 percent suggests. That's because, among people who are actually parents of minors, the number is slightly higher: 13 percent. In fact, only 80 percent of such parents are sure that the measles vaccine is safe. Which could say a lot about why we find ourselves in the situation we do.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Of course, with all of this, you need to keep in mind that skepticism about other vaccines could be different. The measles vaccine, though, is the one erroneously linked to autism in a now-discredited 1990s study.

Measles cases put Texas megachurch under scrutiny

NEWARK, Tex. — The teachings of televangelist Kenneth Copeland and his family focusing on the virtues of trusting God to keep healthy are under scrutiny after a cluster of measles cases linked to his family’s North Texas megachurch revealed that many congregants hadn’t been vaccinated against the highly contagious disease. Although Kenneth Copeland Ministries officials were quick to act after the outbreak — including hosting clinics in August where 220 people received immunization shots — and have denied that they are against medical care or vaccinations, people familiar with the ministry say there is a pervasive culture that believers should rely on God, not modern medicine, to keep them well. “To get a vaccine would have been viewed by me and my friends and my peers as an act of fear — that you doubted God would keep you safe. . . . We simply didn’t do it,” former church member Amy Arden told the Associated Press. Health officials say 21 people were sickened with the measles after a person who contracted the virus overseas visited the 1,500-member Eagle Mountain International Church on the vast grounds of Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Newark, about 20 miles north of Fort Worth. Of the 21 people who contracted measles linked to the church, 16 were unvaccinated. The others may have had at least one vaccination but had no documentation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that children get two doses of the combined vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella, called the MMR. The first dose should be given when the child is 12 to 15 months old and the second at 4 to 6 years old. During an August 2010 broadcast, Copeland expressed shock at the number of vaccinations recommended for his great-grandchild. And his wife, Gloria, bragged during a conference that she and her husband don’t need prescription drugs, adding that the Lord heals all diseases. Robert Hayes, risk manager for the ministries, denied that the church’s teachings ever have advised against immunizations. Ole Anthony, president of the Dallas-based religious watchdog group Trinity Foundation, said that while there might not be specific guidance on topics such as vaccinations, the views of the leadership are clear. “The whole atmosphere is to encourage them to have faith, and it’s not faith if they go to the doctor, that’s the bottom line,” Anthony said. In a sermon posted online after the outbreak, Copeland’s daughter, Terri Pearsons, who is a senior pastor at Eagle Mountain along with her husband, encouraged those who hadn’t been vaccinated to have it done, but added that if “you’ve got this covered in your household by faith and it crosses your heart of faith, then don’t go do it.” ** — Associated Press  ** ****

One study explains why it’s tough to pass liberal laws

Last year, a group of political scientists took a random sample of state legislators and asked them a slew of questions, most of which boiled down to: "What do your constituents think about policy?" Do they support gay marriage? Do they support Obamacare? Do they support action to combat global warming?    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Friend-of-the-blog David Broockman and Christopher Skovron, graduate students at Berkeley and Michigan, respectively, have released a working paper based on that research and the findings are rather astonishing.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Broockman and Skovron find that legislators consistently believe their constituents are more conservative than they actually are. This includes Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. But conservative legislators generally overestimate the conservatism of their constituents by 20 points. "This difference is so large that nearly half of conservative politicians appear to believe that they represent a district that is more conservative on these issues than is the most conservative district in the entire country," Broockman and Skovron write. This finding held up across a range of issues. Here, for example, are their findings for health care and same-sex marriage: The X axis is the district's actual views, and the Y axis their legislators' estimates of their views. The thin black line is perfect accuracy, the response you'd get from a legislator totally in tune with his constituents. Lines above it would signify the politicians think the district more liberal than it actually is; if they're below it, that means the legislators are overestimating their constituents' conservatism. Liberal legislators consistently overestimate opposition to same-sex marriage and universal health care, but only mildly. Conservative politicians are not even in the right ballpark. Is it just that legislators don't talk to their constituents? Nope. Broockman and Skovron tried and failed to find any relationship between the amount of time legislators spend in their districts, going to community events, and so forth, and the accuracy of their reads on their districts. And this bias afflicts not just their view of their constituents, but their positions generally. Consider these charts: The X axis is the percent of the district supporting universal health care or same-sex marriage; the Y axis is the share of representatives in districts with that level of constituent support who support the policy as well. The graphs show that the threshold of support a liberal policy must cross for politicians to back it is well above 50 percent, and above 60 percent for universal health care. If only 55 percent of a district supported universal health care, then more likely than not, their representative will oppose it. The research here is young and, as a general rule, reading too much into a single working paper is foolhardy. It'd be good, for one thing, to perform district-level surveys to confirm these findings. But the data holds against a battery of robustness checks the authors threw at it. The finding on conservative legislators in particular is so large that it's hard to imagine any subsequent research would completely overturn it. But if the findings hold, they suggest both that epistemic closure on the right is real and affects state-level policymaking, and that there is a systematic bias against liberal policies at the state level.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University

Liberals deny science, too

Conservatives often face a lot of questions -- and controversies -- for their views on science. Most notably, only 22 percent of conservative Republicans accept the scientific consensus that global warming is mostly caused by humans. Meanwhile, conservative officials in some states have pushed to undermine the teaching of evolution in public school classrooms.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Liberals get a lot less flack, in general, for ignoring scientific findings. Yet there is also reason to think they, too, are susceptible to allowing their political biases influence their reading of certain scientific questions. And now, a new study just out in the journal _Sociological Spectrum_ accuses them of just that.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The study is far from the authoritative word on the subject of left wing science denial. Rather, it is a provocative, narrow look at the question. In particular, the study examined a group of left wing people -- academic sociologists -- and evaluated their views on a fairly esoteric scientific topic. The specific issue was whether the evolutionary history of human beings has an important influence on our present day behavior. In other words, whether or not we are "blank slates," wholly shaped by the culture around us. While there's virtually no argument in the scientific community that personality traits like being extroverted run in families and have at least some genetic component, there's been much greater debate among academics about whether other phenomena, such as an inclination toward committing violence and demonstrating an unusual level of jealousy **,** are rooted in nature rather than life experience.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The new study, by University of Texas-Brownville sociologist Mark Horowitz and two colleagues, surveyed 155 academic sociologists. 56.7 percent of the sample was liberal, another 28.6 percent was identified as radical, and only 4.8 percent were conservative.  Horowitz, who describes himself as a politically radical, social-justice oriented researcher, said he wanted to probe their views of the possible evolutionary underpinnings of various human behaviors. "I wanted to get at the really ideological blank slate view, it’s sort of a preemptive assumption that everything is taught, everything is learned," he explained. Sure enough, the study found that these liberal academics showed a pretty high level of resistance to evolutionary explanations for phenomena ranging from sexual jealousy to male promiscuity. In fairness, the sociologists were willing to credit some evolutionary-style explanations. Eight-one percent found it either plausible or highly plausible that "some people are born genetically with more intellectual potential than others," and 70 percent ascribed sexual orientation to "biological roots." Meanwhile, nearly 60 percent of sociologists in the sample considered it "plausible" that human beings have a "hardwired" taste preference for foods that are full of fat and sugar, and just under 50 percent thought it plausible that we have an innate fear of snakes and spiders (for very sound, survival-focused reasons). Yet the study also found that these scholars were less willing to consider evolutionary explanations for other aspects of human behavior, especially those relating to male-female differences. Less than 50 percent considered it plausible that that "feelings of sexual jealousy have a significant evolutionary biological component," for instance, and just 36.4 percent considered it plausible that men "have a greater tendency towards promiscuity than women due to an evolved reproductive strategy.” While it is hard to be absolutely definitive on either of these issues (we weren't there to observe evolution happen), evolutionary psychologists have certainly argued in published studies that people exhibit jealousy in sexual relationships in order to ensure reproductive fidelity and preserve the resources that come from a partner, and that men are more promiscuous because they are not constrained in how often they can attempt to reproduce.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico So is this proof positive that academic sociologists are science deniers? Not at all. Still, it's certainly noteworthy that a substantial minority of these scholars are resistant even to the _least_ controversial evolutionary explanations, such as those involving hardwired tastes for certain foods or innate fears of poisonous critters.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But there's also a notable limitation to the study. When it comes to some of the more controversial statements about the evolutionary basis of various human behaviors that were used (for instance, the assertion that "The widely observed tendency for men to try and control women's bodies as property...has a significant evolutionary biological component"), the research doesn't really take a strong stand on whether they're actually true -- which makes it rather hard to call the sociologists woefully biased. Instead, study subjects were merely asked to state whether they considered such statements "highly plausible," "plausible," "implausible," or "highly implausible." "I think the 'science denial' here among sociologists is their mechanical dismissal of evolutionary reasoning applied to human behaviors -- a dismissal that's much sharper when considering potential sex differences in behavior," says Horowitz, explaining why the study took this approach. Take one case where sociologists were pretty dismissive -- the assertion that "Feelings of sexual jealousy have a significant evolutionary biological component," which only 44 percent of them considered plausible. Certainly evolutionary psychologists have argued that sexual jealousy is a deeply rooted part of human "nature." One such scholar is David Buss at the University of Texas-Austin, who argues in his book _The Dangerous Passion_ that jealousy is an "adaptation...an evolved solution to a recurrent problem of survival or reproduction," namely, keeping your mate faithful to you.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico "Though we can't strictly speaking 'prove' that jealousy was adaptive, we find the mechanical dismissal of the adaptiveness hypothesis dogmatic," comments Horowitz. There's no doubt that many left leaning academics have historically been quite skeptical about evolutionary psychology, presumably out of the fear that ascribing certain traits to biology suggests that they cannot be changed -- and thus, can perpetuate inequality. The famed Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker extensively challenged their "blank slate" view in a bestselling 2002 book. Going back further, in the storied "sociobiology" wars of the 1970s, evolutionary thinkers like Harvard's E.O. Wilson sought to apply their understanding of humankind's origins to modern human behavior -- and fell into a ferocious row with broadly left-leaning scholars who attacked biological or genetic "determinism," and defended the idea that social factors explain most of what we need to know about why people do what they do.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Asked to comment on Horowitz's study, Pinker had this to say: **** The prominent New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of the bestselling book _The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided Over Politics and Religion_ and known for criticizing his fellow scholars for their liberal biases, had a similar take:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico None of this is to say that a few sociologists' views about evolution can be considered proportionate with global warming denial, in either the volume of those holding the belief or the belief's consequences. But it does suggest that 100 percent objectivity doesn't exist on any side of the aisle.

Refuse to vaccinate? You may be told to seek care elsewhere.

“Parents, pediatricians and policymakers all have a role in protecting children from diseases like measles and whooping cough,” said Benard Dreyer, president of the AAP, which is taking a stronger position on this issue than ever before. “No child should have to suffer through a disease that could have been prevented by a vaccine.” In an effort to address the anti-vaccine trend, the AAP issued a new policy statement today opposing all nonmedical exemptions for vaccines. If, after counseling, skeptical parents still choose to opt out, doctors may request “that they seek care elsewhere.” Bayla Sandman, a mother of two sets of twins, ages 5 and 2, applauds the new recommendations. “I think it’s great,” said the paralegal, who lives in New Haven, Conn. “People read all this stuff on the Internet and it’s not based on any science. It’s based on nothing.” Anxiety about immunizations has increased in recent years, according to survey findings, also included in the latest report. Of about 630 pediatricians polled in a 2013 survey, 87 percent had encountered vaccine refusal, up from 75 percent in 2006. Top concerns include: the child’s pain, too many injections at a single visit — causing some parents to delay rather than refuse vaccines — and a fear of autism. Many have a mistrust of health-care professionals. Likewise, the number of providers who dismiss families for noncompliance nearly doubled between the two time periods, reported the AAP. Despite the new position, Todd Ochs won’t change the way he has interacted with skeptics for the past 30 years. “Why should I punish a child for a parent’s bad decision?” the Chicago pediatrician said. “If I kick out these families, there will always be some homeopath or alternative medicine practitioner who will give parents exactly what they want. I’d much rather have an ongoing conversation with them than isolate them.” To counter vaccine-hesitant parents, more providers are implementing an office policy requiring that all patients comply with the AAP vaccine schedule, which recommends two MMR vaccines at 12 to 15 months and a second dose at 4 to 6 years. This way, pediatricians are not really severing ties with families, but declining to treat them at all. After a national measles outbreak last year, Anita Chandra-Puri, a pediatrician who also practices in Chicago, has tried to walk a more nuanced path. If after six months of counseling a family is still undecided on whether to immunize, she will recommend they seek care elsewhere. “You just can’t take part of my advice. If you trust me when your child has a fever or a rash, you should trust me on this, too,” she said. “If after six months, you still aren’t convinced, then we don’t really have a working relationship.” As for delaying vaccines, “There is no alternative schedule,” said Chandra-Puri. “There is only one schedule. … The rest is parental choice.” High community immunization rates protect vulnerable individuals — those who are too young to get vaccinated or can’t be vaccinated because of medical problems, such as undergoing chemotherapy. Those people are protected by the majority who are inoculated, called herd immunity. For example, when the vaccination rate for measles drops below 95 percent, a community loses its herd immunity to highly infectious diseases, explained Kathryn Edwards, one of the co-authors of the report and a professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University. Measles was all but eradicated in 2000, but last year, the disease came roaring back, with many cases linked to the Disneyland outbreak in California, where an estimated 3 percent of kindergartners had a nonmedical or philosophical exemption from the MMR. Later, California responded by passing legislation that ended exemptions for nonmedical reasons. West Virginia and Mississippi are the only other states that have similar requirements, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The AAP has called for all nonmedical exemptions to be eliminated and recommends that public health officials release immunization rate data for individual schools and communities, so parents can make informed decisions about their children’s safety in those settings. Sandman, the New Haven mother, said that the vaccine debate is most heated among those who spend a lot of time on social media, debating the merits of everything from sleep training to home schooling. “There’s so much pressure to be perfect. I was nervous because there was so much from the anti-vaccine people on the Internet, like doctors were being paid by the pharmaceutical companies,” she said. “I eventually stopped reading and searching … because what you really need to find is a doctor you can trust.”

How Trump is unintentionally making the case for big government

One way or another, Donald Trump will end up being a transformative president. But Republicans who voted for him probably didn’t predict that he’d encourage a renewed desire for big government among Americans.  Looked at in the right way, this makes perfect sense. To begin, we should understand that Americans have contradictory beliefs about the proper role of government. This is a finding in political science that goes back half a century; in their 1967 book “The Political Beliefs of Americans: A Study of Public Opinion,” Lloyd Free and Hadley Cantril argued that the public is “ideologically conservative” but “operationally liberal.” They like the idea of small government in the abstract, but they also like almost all the particular things that government does. If you ask them whether they want to spend less or more on a list of programs, they’ll say we should spend more on just about everything (the exceptions are usually welfare and foreign aid, in part because people wildly overestimate how much we actually spend on them). Both parties understand this, and it’s reflected in their rhetoric and the political challenges they face. Republicans tend to talk about broad principles, while Democrats tend to talk about specific programs. Republicans struggle to justify their actual plans (if they have them) for things such as Medicare or environmental protection, while Democrats struggle to craft appealing overarching messages. If you’re a Republican president, the most advantageous place to be is one in which you preach the small-government gospel and praise Americans for their can-do spirit and rugged individualism, while not actually threatening the government programs they rely on. Yet Trump is doing just the opposite.  So what you had in 2016 was two candidates advocating for a strong government actively working to improve Americans’ lives. But now, Trump is in many ways governing like an ordinary Republican: gutting the EPA, hoping to remove regulations on Wall Street, and targeting the social safety net. The controversies around these moves have the effect of drawing public attention toward the popular things government does.   So Trump has encouraged voters to believe that government’s job is to solve their problems, but when it doesn’t, he won’t have arguments about liberty and the free market to fall back on. If you change people’s expectations, you’d better be able to deliver on them.

Trump’s vaccine views are at odds with those of most Americans, study says

Overall, 82 percent of Americans support requiring students in public schools to be vaccinated for those three diseases. In addition, the survey found, their perceptions of the benefits of that combination vaccine are strongly positive, with about 88 percent saying the benefits outweigh any risks. About 73 percent of Americans see high preventive health benefits, and 66 percent say there is a low risk of side effects.  Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has requested a meeting with first lady Melania Trump to talk about the safety of vaccines. Carter is co-founder and president of Every Child By Two, a vaccine-advocacy group. “We offered to bring experts to the table to explain all the science that has already been conducted on the safety of vaccines and the safety systems that are already in place that would make the commission redundant and unnecessary,” Amy Pisani, the group’s executive director, said in an interview this week. Despite a robust body of medical literature disproving claims that childhood vaccines are linked to autism or are unsafe when administered according to the recommended schedule, public concerns persist, fueled by celebrities and conspiracy theorists.   A White House spokeswoman said Wednesday that she had no update on Trump’s commission. The Pew survey found that Americans 65 and older have especially strong support for a school-based requirement for the MMR vaccine. Ninety percent favor such a requirement; 8 percent say parents should be able to decide. Among Americans younger than 50, support for required vaccination drops to just under 80 percent. Parents of younger children are among the most concerned about vaccine safety. Just over half of those with children ages 4 and younger say the risk of side effects is low, according to Pew, while 43 percent say the risk is medium or high. As for preventive health benefits, 60 percent of parents with younger children say the benefits are high, compared with 75 percent of parents with school-age children (ages 5 to 17). Racial and ethnic groups have different perceptions, too. Blacks consider the risk of vaccine side effects to be higher and the benefits lower than whites and Hispanics. People with “low science knowledge” are also more likely to fear greater risk of side effects, Pew found. “Public health benefits from vaccines hinge on very high levels of immunization in the population, so it’s important to understand which groups hold reservations about the MMR vaccine,” said Cary Funk, the report’s lead author.  The survey found that public views of medical scientists and their research related to childhood vaccines are broadly positive. The data shows that 73 percent of adults say medical scientists should have a major role in policy decisions related to childhood vaccines. Only 25 percent say elected officials should have a say.  The survey was conducted from May 10 to June 6 among a nationally representative sample of 1,549 adults in 50 states and the District. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

The biggest myth about vaccine deniers: That they’re all a bunch of hippie liberals

The dangerous problem of vaccine denial is getting more and more attention — thanks, sadly, to an outbreak of measles (an extremely contagious, vaccine- preventable disease) that began at Disneyland in southern California late last year.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico At the same time, research is focusing on how clusters of people who don’t vaccinate their kids pose perhaps the greatest risk — a new study in _Pediatrics_ finds that many of these clusters are in very politically liberal areas of California like “northern San Francisco and southern Marin County.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Here’s the thing, though: We shouldn’t leap from this evidence to the assumption that refusing vaccinations is a special phenomenon driven by the ideology of the political left. There are also religious groups with low vaccination rates that have seen measles outbreaks, for instance, such as the Amish in Ohio and Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn — not groups that you could reasonably call “left wing.” And then, there’s rejection of the HPV vaccine in particular, which tends to be associated with the religious right.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Moreover, every time researchers examine the political outlooks of vaccine deniers through representative surveys, it seems that they fail to find a significant leftwing bent. Consider two major studies on this from the last two years: * In a 2013 paper in _PLOS One_, Stephan Lewandowsky and two colleagues studied what makes people reject vaccines, and got a complicated result. Namely, they found that while political conservatism made people somewhat more pro-vaccine, having a free market ideology led in the opposite direction — towards having more vaccine skepticism.   *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “Opposition to vaccinations involved a balance between two opposing forces, namely a negative association with free-market endorsement and a compensatory positive association with conservatism,” wrote the authors. “The different polarity of those associations is consonant with the notion that libertarians object to the government intrusion arising from mandatory vaccination programs, whereas people low on conservatism — who, by implication, are liberal or progressive — may oppose immunization because they distrust pharmaceutical companies.” But really, political ideology didn’t have a large overall impact on vaccine denial in the study. The study found that the _really_ big contributor to distrusting or disliking vaccines was not political ideology ideology at all, but rather, having a conspiratorial mindset, which can occur on both the left and the right.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico * In 2014, meanwhile, Yale’s Dan Kahan published results from a nationally representative survey which led him to conclude that the idea of vaccine fears being driven by leftwing ideology “lacks any factual basis.” In fact, Kahan found, “respondents formed more negative assessments of the risk and benefits of childhood vaccines as they became more conservative and identified more strongly with the Republican Party.” However, as in the prior study, this was a very slight effect.   *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Here’s a figure from Kahan’s paper, helpfully comparing how views of guns, climate change, marijuana legalization, and vaccines all shift as you move across the political spectrum. Views on vaccines show by far the least variability, compared with these other much more politicized topics: Overall, then, this evidence suggests that while there may be some broadly leftwing motivations behind vaccine resistance — distrust of corporations that make vaccines, for instance, and fear that their products aren’t safe and that they can’t be trusted — there are also rightwing ones (e.g., distrust of the CDC and government that claims vaccines are safe). And on the national level, these influences may basically be a wash. That doesn’t solve the puzzle of why so many clusters of the unvaccinated seem to pop up in leftwing places, like Marin County. While the relationship between national level polls (which seem to show anti-vax views appearing across the spectrum) and localized clusters isn’t fully clear, Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan, who has published a number of papers on the problem of vaccine rejection, points out one possible way out of the conundrum.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “We tend to think of areas with high exemption rates like Boulder or Marin as being liberal, but political liberalism is part of a correlated cluster of beliefs and lifestyles in those places and isn’t seemingly the most important explanatory factor in determining who’s a vaccine skeptic,” he notes. In other words, we may be associating vaccine denial with liberalism when we see it in liberal places, but not recognizing that _within_ those places, what makes a vaccine skeptic isn’t necessarily his or her liberal or leftwing politics.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The matter deserves more research, then. But one thing is clear — you can’t assert that distrust of vaccines is a problem exclusively or uniquely found on the left. The data just don’t support that. _This post is part of ournew Energy and Environment coverage. If you like it, please bookmark our page, follow us on Twitter, sign up for our online newsletter — and come back often!_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/national/health-science/measles-outbreak-worries-calif-parents/2015/01/23/25254d04-fada-4521-bb08-c71d90835f70_video.html

Young adults are driving vaccine skepticism in the U.S.

Who are the vaccine skeptics? On the heels of the Disneyland vaccine outbreak, that's what everyone wants to know. As with just about every other major issue facing the country, the temptation is to divide it along familiar left/right political divides. It may seem natural that Republicans, who tend to be skeptical of mandates and government intrusions, would be most opposed to vaccination policies. Or that Democrats, distrustful of big businesses like pharmaceutical companies, would harbor the most skepticism. But as it turns out, we're asking the wrong question. Public opinion polling shows that vaccination attitudes don't differ much by party affiliation. Or by income, or even education. But there is one important demographic factor: age. Millennials -- 18 to 29-year-olds -- are about twice as likely as senior citizens (65+) to say that parents should decide whether their kids get vaccinated, rather than having it mandated by law. Republicans and independents are more likely to say this than Democrats, but here the split is not as stark.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico More strikingly, 21 percent of millennials say it's likely that early childhood vaccinations are linked to autism, compared to only 3 percent of those aged 65+. There's little variation by political party on this question.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The Pew Research Center, which polled the first question, posits that "One possible reason that older groups might be more supportive of mandatory vaccinations is that many among them remember when diseases like measles were common." Having come of age in an era when measles was declared eradicated, millennials have no generational memory of time when hundreds of thousands of Americans were stricken with the disease each year. Not to mention polio, or smallpox.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Vaccines are partially a victim of their own success. They've done such a great job of wiping out deadly diseases that it's easy to become complacent. Largely liberated from having to worry about measles outbreaks, or tetanus, or polio, we're able to fret over whether vaccinations comport with an "all-natural" lifestyle. But we've forgotten that the incredible success of vaccination programs is what afforded us that luxury to begin with. It may take more California-style outbreaks to jolt our memory.

7 things about vaccines and autism that the movie ‘Vaxxed’ won’t tell you

On its surface, the movie “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe” appears to be a slickly produced scientific documentary with lots of charts and data about one of the most important issues of our time. The central premise of the film is that the country’s mandatory measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine — when given to children under age 2 — may be leading to an epidemic of autism diagnoses. It contains heartbreaking footage of happy, laughing toddlers who, their parents say, became profoundly disabled almost overnight after receiving the shot. It explains the findings of a study that confirms the link and unearths recordings from a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientist who purportedly claimed the government quashed findings of the connection. But what the movie doesn’t get into is as compelling as what it does present. There are numerous facts, backstories and events that the filmmakers pretend didn’t happen that challenge many of the main points of the film. Here’s what you need to know to put “Vaxxed” into context: 1) The most important thing to know is that the link between vaccines and autism has been debunked — widely and repeatedly. The original study that raised the issue was published in 1998 in the journal the Lancet and involved 12 patients who, after receiving the MMR vaccine, suffered ill effects that appeared to be autism. While many researchers were skeptical of the finding, panicked parents in both Great Britain and the United States pushed vaccination rates down sharply. Outbreaks of the measles, mumps and rubella on both sides of the Atlantic soon followed. In 2004, Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer reported serious ethical violations by the 1998 paper’s lead author, gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield. Deer accused Wakefield of having been paid by a law firm that had been planning to sue vaccine manufacturers and of subjecting some of the children to unnecessary, invasive procedures for the study. After the revelations, most of the researchers named as co-authors in the study disavowed the findings and withdrew their names from the paper. In 2010, the Lancet’s editors retracted the paper. Three months later, Britain’s General Medical Council revoked Wakefield’s medical license. In 2011, the British medical journal the BMJ published a detailed investigation into the research, calling it an “elaborate fraud” by Wakefield and lamenting the harm it had caused and would continue to cause to the public health.  2) The director of “Vaxxed” — and the main expert who appears on camera — is that same Andrew Wakefield. 3) Actor Robert De Niro, who has an autistic son, originally lobbied to put the film on the schedule for the Tribeca Film Festival in March. But several days later, he said he had a change of heart. “My intent in screening this film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family,” he said in a statement. “But after reviewing it over the past few days with the Tribeca Film Festival team and others from the scientific community, we do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for.” 4) One of the main figures in the film, CDC scientist William Thompson, is heard only in voice recordings. Those recordings, the movie discloses, were of phone conversations Thompson had with another researcher who secretly recorded the calls. “Oh, my God. I cannot believe we did what we did. But we did,” Thompson says at one point, purportedly about omitting findings confirming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism from an official 2004 report.  Hooker said he is “suspect of any analysis coming from the CDC due to the historic nature of the agency’s scientific misconduct and conflicts of interest specifically around any link between vaccines and autism.” He also detailed his conversations with Thompson: 5) While the issue of vaccines and autism still comes up regularly — as it did when presidential contender Donald Trump mentioned his belief in the theory in a debate last year — most scientists consider the connection between vaccines and autism to be discredited. Dozens of top journals — including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders — have published papers that looked into a possible link and found none.  6) While experts still don't know what causes autism, it is thought to be a combination of genetic and environmental factors such as infections or exposure to certain chemicals that may lead to differences in the shape and structure of a child’s brain. According to an estimate by the CDC published last year, 1 in 45 (or 2.24 percent) of children age 3 to 17 may have autism — a steep rise over the past few decades. Researchers have theorized that part of the rise could be attributable to a greater awareness of the condition. The CDC said the most recent jump from 2011 to 2014 may have a very mundane reason behind it: a change in the questionnaire the agency uses to track cases.

People on the autism spectrum live an average of 18 years less than everyone else, study finds

Researchers looking into mortality trends and autism have made a troubling discovery: People on the autism spectrum are dying young — some 12 to 30 years earlier than might otherwise be expected.  The data, which includes information on 27,000 people with the social-communication disorder and about 2.5 million who do not have the diagnosis from Sweden's national registries, found that, on average, autistic adults die 18 years younger than their non-autistic counterparts. An autistic person's age at death also appeared to be impacted by cognitive ability. Those with autism and a learning disability died 30 years earlier on average while those without intellectual impairment died 12 years earlier. Individuals considered to be on the "high-functioning" end of the spectrum with strong language skills — those who might have been diagnosed with Asperger's before the diagnostic criteria changed — still had double the risk of dying young as those without the condition. The overall trends were similar for both genders, but autistic women with learning disabilities had the highest risk of premature death of any of the subgroups. "This new research confirms the true scale of the hidden mortality crisis in autism," said Jon Spiers, chief executive of Autistica, an autism charity in Britain. "The inequality in outcomes for autistic people shown in this data is shameful. We cannot accept a situation where many autistic people will never see their 40th birthday." Experts theorized that both biological and social factors may be contributing to the higher risk of premature death. Some studies have suggested a link between the genes leading to autism and those related to epilepsy, mood disorder and anxiety disorder. Indeed, the Swedish analysis found that up to 40 percent of people with autism also suffer from epilepsy. People with autism may also differ from those in the general population by having a more restricted diet, limited access to exercise and increased use of medication.  The data shows that adults with autism and no additional learning disability are over nine times more likely to commit suicide. The rate is shockingly high, but not inconsistent with previous research that estimates that 30 to 50 percent of autistic people have considered committing suicide. There's evidence that diminished sense of self-worth begins in childhood. One study found that while only 0.5 percent of typically developing children experienced suicidal thoughts, 14 percent of those with autism had. Calling the problem a "hidden crisis," Spiers announced at a briefing in London this week that the organization is seeking to raise funds to launch a five-year, $14.5-million research program to investigate why autistic adults are dying so young. In the United States, the prevalence of autism has been growing in recent decades. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in 2014 that 1 in 68 children have the condition.

Tea Party supporters distrust scientists not only on climate, but on vaccines — study

For a long time, it has been apparent that skepticism about the science of climate change is not evenly distributed across the political spectrum. Rather, multiple studies have shown that it is more common on the political right.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico But on other specific issues such as nuclear power or genetically modified food, distrust of science might be more of a liberal phenomenon and spring from a very different worldview. In particular, the issue of vaccine skepticism — where people decline recommended vaccinations because they doubt the medical community’s claims of safety and effectiveness — has often been associated with the political left. But is that really right? Lawrence Hamilton, a sociologist at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, found one way to examine this question in a study that has just appeared in SAGE Open, an open access social science journal.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “There’s been some discussion where commentators say ‘Well, okay, conservatives oppose science on the topic of climate change or evolution, but there are other topics where the bias goes in the opposite direction,’” says Hamilton, who undertook the study with a university colleague and another researcher from the University of Colorado at Boulder. “So what we did was we set out to test that.” And Hamilton and colleagues found that at least in two U.S. regions, Republicans — and especially Tea Party supporters — were more distrusting of scientists not only on the subject of climate change, but also on vaccines. The study is limited: The researchers only surveyed Americans in New Hampshire and northeastern Oregon. Residents of New Hampshire, a traditional swing state, tend to look a lot like the United States in general in their environmental views, the study notes. But northeast Oregon voters tilt conservative. More than 1,000 people were surveyed in each state. ****    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The study asked **** people about their political party affiliations, and then later, about their views on “the political movement known as the Tea Party.” Then they sorted them into four groups: **** Democrats, Independents, Republicans, and Tea Party supporters. The last **** were members of any of the three parties who said that they “support” the Tea Party, although of course, “the great majority” of the Tea Party supporters came from Republican ranks, Hamilton explains.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “So statistically, what you’re doing is distinguishing two types of Republicans,” he adds. Then respondents were asked, Here were the results.(Note that the study also asked the northeast Oregon residents about their trust in scientists on “forest management issues”; those data aren’t shown here.) As you can see, while traditional Republicans and Tea Party supporters in these locations trust scientists considerably more on vaccines than they do on climate change, they also trust them on both issues considerably less than Democrats do. “The vaccine results were something new, and what was unexpected there was that they followed a very similar pattern to climate change,” says Hamilton. He acknowledges that conducting the survey in two U.S. states is not the same as conducting a nationally representative survey. But he adds that finding a similar result in two quite different parts of the U.S. represents “a fairly broad replication.” The results parallel prior research that has suggested that vaccine skepticism is not an exclusively liberal phenomenon and may even be slightly more prevalent on the political right. However, the new study appears to find a considerably bigger rightward political tilt to vaccine skepticism than this past research does.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico For Hamilton, the reason for this is that he’s asking not just about vaccines, but about _trust in scientists_ about vaccines. Thus, the results likely reflect skepticism not only of vaccines but of the scientific community, which has often been criticized by conservatives for its well-documented political liberalism.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The study also found something else — what researchers term an “interaction effect,” involving how political party affiliation interacts with levels of education to shape views about scientific issues. In general, as Democrats and Independents increased in their level of education, their trust in scientists on climate change and on vaccines tended to increase. But this was not always the case for those of different political persuasions. In particular, the study found that “trust in scientists on each topic rises steeply with education among Democrats and Independents, and rises less steeply or not at all with education among Tea Party supporters.” Why would that be? The researchers speculate that those with higher levels of education — in any political camp — may be more prone to “more effective and motivated acquisition of information. With respect to vaccines, this might, depending on one’s prejudices, go in one direction toward greater awareness of medical studies and advice or in the opposite direction toward anti-vaccination sources.” Such an interaction effect — in which liberals or Democrats become more trusting or accepting of science with more education, while conservatives either do not, or even do the opposite — has also been observed on the climate issue. Indeed, it showed up in Hamilton’s climate polling results for New Hampshire (but not as much for northeast Oregon). Why would conservatives or Tea Party members be distrustful of vaccines? One possible reason is distrust of the government — the Centers for Disease Control champions vaccines — or of state-mandated vaccinations. But as Hamilton notes, you could also postulate, in the abstract, that anti-vaccine views would more appeal to the political left because of “concern about chemicals and big corporations,” as the study puts it. “Before looking at the data, you could make the argument either way,” says Hamilton. The data, however, further support the idea that when it comes to vaccines, doubt or rejection is hardly the exclusive province of the political left.

Not a strong argument for vaccination

I count myself among those who are confused about the reasons some parents choose not to vaccinate their children against childhood diseases such as measles. But the Wonkblog excerpt [news, Jan. 23], “Clusters of vaccine foes foster spread of illness,” did nothing to persuade me to rally with those who believe in the necessity of vaccination. For one thing, of the 34 people who contracted measles and whose vaccination status was known, five were fully vaccinated. What was the status of the others (partially vaccinated, vaccinated in the distant past or totally unvaccinated) and what were their ages? Furthermore, unlike the climate change and evolution deniers who either have limited information or have arguments based on religious beliefs, the anti-vaxxers, as the article called them, are people who generally are pro-science and highly educated, who have high incomes and who have studied this issue carefully before coming to the conclusion that the risk to their children is greater than the slim possibility of contracting a childhood disease that many in my generation had with little or no residual consequences. ****Ray Evert** , McLean**

Dana Milbank: The GOP’s Darwinism

Has the Republican big tent evolved into a house of worship? For several years, the two major parties have been moving gradually toward opposite poles: Democrats growing more liberal and secular, Republicans becoming more conservative and religious. But a survey out this week shows just how far and how fast the GOP has gone toward becoming a collection of older, white, evangelical Christians defined as much by religion as by politics. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center recently released the results of an extensive poll done in 2013 on Americans’ views of evolution. Like other polls, it shows that overall views are stable: Sixty percent believe that humans have evolved over time, the same as said so in 2009. But within those results, there was a huge shift in the beliefs of Republicans: 48 percent say that humans have existed in our present form from the beginning, compared with 43 percent who say we have evolved, either with or without help from a supreme being. That’s an 11-percentage-point swing from just four years ago, when 54 percent believed in evolution. Forget climate-change skepticism: Republicans have turned, suddenly and sharply, against Darwin. How to explain this most unexpected mutation? Given the stability of views on evolution (Gallup polling has found responses essentially the same over the past quarter-century), it’s unlikely that large numbers of Republicans actually changed their beliefs. More likely is that the type of people willing to identify themselves as Republicans increasingly tend to be a narrow group of conservatives who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible — or partisans who regard evolution as a political question rather than one of science. The Pew poll also found that the share of Republicans who attend worship services weekly or more is 52 percent, up five points from 2009, and that the proportion who self-identify as conservative is 71 percent, up six percentage points from 2009. The party remains overwhelmingly white, at 86 percent, and the number of those ages 50 to 64 and 65 and older climbed seven points and two points, respectively. Not all of these changes are statistically significant, but they are consistent with other findings. For example, an analysis of exit polls from the early Republican primaries in 2012 by Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition found that more than 50 percent of participants were evangelical Christians, a record high, up from 44 percent in 2008. This continues a long-term trend in which both parties are shrinking into smaller entities at opposite extremes. The gap on social issues between Democrats and Republicans (and independents who lean toward one party or the other) has nearly doubled over the past quarter-century. Republicans are by far the more ideologically homogenous of the two (seven in 10 are conservative vs. fewer than four in 10 Democrats who are liberal). Because Republicans were already about as religious as they could get, most of the growing gap in recent years has come from Democrats becoming more secular: The share of Democrats who say they never doubt the existence of God has dropped 11 percentage points over the past quarter-century, to 77 percent, while the proportion of Republicans who have no doubt is 92 percent vs. 91 percent 25 years earlier. That’s what makes the evolution survey extraordinary: The Republican Party is achieving the seemingly impossible feat of becoming even more theological. Democrats and independents haven’t moved much in their views, while Republicans took a sharp turn toward fundamentalism. “The increasing gap isn’t surprising,” says Alan Cooperman, my former Post colleague who is now director of religion research at Pew. “What’s surprising is it’s the Republicans shifting, not the Democrats.” As a matter of political Darwinism, the Republicans’ mutation is not likely to help the GOP’s survival. As the country overall becomes more racially diverse and more secular, Republicans are resolutely white and increasingly devout. If current trends persist, it will be only a couple of decades before they join the dodo and the saber-toothed tiger. But give Republicans credit for this: They don’t just doubt the theory of evolution; they’re out to prove it wrong. If they believed in the survival of the fittest, they’d be expanding their racial and ideological diversity. Instead, they’re trying to demonstrate that devotion to God can trump the Darwinian rules of politics. Keep them in your prayers. **_Twitter: @Milbank_ ** _Read more fromDana Milbank’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook._ **Read more on this topic:** Dana Milbank: Finding something to complain about in the budget deal E.J. Dionne Jr.: The GOP’s fight has just begun Michael Gerson: The exhausted political class Eugene Robinson: The GOP mainstream strikes back

Republicans cannot govern if they reject data

During the disastrous health-care debate, Republicans in the House and Senate as well as in the conservative media cosmos took to discrediting the Congressional Budget Office, which has a nasty habit of revealing just how many people would lose coverage under the various GOP plans. The Republicans’ attacks were a lazy substitute for their own rigorous analysis, and worse, part of the Trump administration’s habit of delegitimizing sources of information that undercut the White House spin. Denigrating the CBO is of a piece with insisting that President Trump’s crowd size was larger than his predecessors’ — an invitation to abandon reason and facts to support the Great Leader’s a-factual view of reality.  As Strain does, one can question the assumptions the CBO makes (e.g., on the impact of the individual mandate) without denying reality. “CBO’s basic assessment of the GOP replacement plans is correct: They would result in a large increase in the number of Americans who do not have health insurance,” Strain says. “The problem with the GOP’s Obamacare replacement plans has not been the CBO. It has been the plans. Rather than trying to tear down CBO’s legitimacy, the GOP should focus on crafting better legislation.” And that is the heart of the matter. The attacks on the CBO are not just wrong as part of a campaign to discredit reality that conflicts with Trump’s desires; they also prevent Republicans from recognizing the drawbacks of policies that are ill-fitted to the times and will be politically untenable (because, for example, they adversely affect the poor). “A discredited CBO would lead Congress to rely on the executive branch for information and analysis of legislation,” says Strain — which is precisely why Republicans are trying to discredit it.  Without a credible set of facts and without a willingness to take responsibility for the consequences of their legislation, Republicans will have no more success on taxes, jobs, education or other issues. They might learn that accepting reality narrows the gap between right and left, makes them more inclined to find broadly popular policies and saves them the embarrassment of defending a White House for which lying is the default mode.

Autism Speaks, leading autism advocate, urges vaccination

A leading autism advocacy organization, Autism Speaks, is urging parents to vaccinate their children amid a measles outbreak that has swept 14 states. As some continue to cite unfounded fears that vaccinations can lead to autism, Autism Speaks chief science officer Rob Ring has released a statement saying vaccinations cannot cause the disorder — and telling parents to vaccinate their children. “Over the last two decades, extensive research has asked whether there is any link between childhood vaccinations and autism,” he said late last week in a brief statement. “The results of this research are clear: Vaccines do not cause autism. We urge that all children be fully vaccinated.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Autism Speaks, a nonprofit organization that promotes autism awareness and sponsors research in the field, has stated its policy on vaccinations before, but perhaps never so plainly as now. In the past, the organization, which funded research into possible connections between immunizations and autism, has said it is possible that, in rare cases, “immunization may trigger the onset of autism symptoms in a child with an underlying medical or genetic condition” — while pointing out that “studies have not found a link between vaccines and autism.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Fears about vaccination were bolstered by a bogus study that claimed to show a link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. The now- discredited study was published in 1998 by British doctor Andrew Wakefield in an esteemed medical journal, the Lancet. The journal later retracted the study, and Wakefield lost his medical license. But his research is still touted as true by some who refuse to vaccinate.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico In 2011, Autism Speaks was one of the sponsors of a National Autism Association event at which Wakefield was a speaker. Nevertheless, over the years, the organization has made its policy on the immunization issue clear: Vaccinate your kids. For example, in May 2014, Autism Speaks linked to a report on its Web site that showed vaccinations do not cause autism.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico “This analysis provides further confirmation for a lack of association between vaccines and autism that the broader health-care community has understood and embraced for some time,” Ring said last year about the findings. “Autism Speaks’ own policy on vaccines echoes those of other credible health-care organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization. We strongly encourage parents to work with their physician to ensure their children receive the full benefits immunization offers in protecting their loved ones against a variety of preventable childhood diseases.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico The organization was not immediately available for comment. All states permit parents to choose not to vaccinate children for legitimate medical reasons such as anaphylactic allergic response, a life-threatening reaction. And many allow them to opt-out for religious or personal beliefs. But non-medical exemptions have come under scrutiny since a measles outbreak in California’s Disneyland swept the country. Last month, 102 people from 14 states were reported to be infected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Since then, doctors have spoken out about the anti-vaccine movement. Some have refused to see patients who refuse their immunizations. Los Angeles pediatrician Charles Goodman posted a notice in his waiting room last month: He would no longer treat children whose parents won’t get them vaccinated. “Parents who choose not to give measles shots, they’re not just putting their kids at risk, but they’re also putting other kids at risk — especially kids in my waiting room,” he said, according to the Associated Press.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Medical experts have said those who are not vaccinated pose a risk to those who cannot be vaccinated because they have legitimate medical reasons or because they are too young. Children cannot get their MMR vaccine until they are 12 months old. Harry Gewanter, a doctor in Richmond, said it’s parents’ responsibility to vaccinate. “I’ve seen the horror stories of what happens from these diseases and now this generation of doctors have never seen them because of immunization practices,” he said, according to WWBT-TV. “One out of a thousand people infected with measles dies. And just because we haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it’s not coming.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **RELATED:Why this baby’s mom is so angry at the anti-vaxxers**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **RELATED:Amid measles outbreak, anti-vaccine doctor revels in his notoriety**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **RELATED:The Disneyland measles outbreak and the disgraced doctor who whipped up vaccination fear**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico **RELATED:Parents with doubts about vaccinations face backlash from pediatricians, peers**    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are putting others at risk

The parents who are against vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella and other childhood diseases have proved a point — and it’s a scary one. They are no longer just putting their own kids at risk. By taking their unvaccinated children to the happiest place on Earth and touching off a measles outbreak at Disneyland, the anti-vaxxers put hundreds of other children in jeopardy, too. Measles on this level hasn’t been seen in the States since the 1970s. So far, the disease has spread to 11 states and Mexico, infecting about 70 people in less than a month. Also making a comeback: whooping cough and diphtheria. Bravo, anti-vaxxers. You’ve gone beyond sowing post-Super Bowl fear in 2012, when 14 people were infected with the measles after unvaccinated kids visited Super Bowl Village in Indianapolis. Now you’ve tainted Disneyland, too. Maybe this is all a stealthy attack on the mainstream stuff that some of the organic, cage-free, Buddha-mama, mindful-parenting philosophies shun? Is a mac-and-cheese factory next? An orchestrated sneezing attack on every McDonald’s? Diphtheria for every child in the Chuck E. Cheese’s ball pit? This didn’t have to happen. In 2004, there were just 37 measles cases in the United States. Ten years later? We saw 644, according to Pediatrics, the medical journal. It’s all about fashionable philosophy, not changes in medicine. The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine wigs out some parents because about a decade ago, people started to assert a link between immunization and autism, fueled by the studies of a now-disgraced British doctor, Andrew Wakefield. Problem was, study after study refuted Wakefield’s autism research. And in 2011, the British medical establishment withdrew its endorsement of Wakefield’s study and labeled his data bogus. Still, the movement persisted, fueled by folks like actress Jenny McCarthy. When I interviewed health officials in 2011, when the anti-vaxxer movement began to take hold, they said people like McCarthy were the bane of their education programs. One health-policy professor joked that they would have to compete with something like “CDC Barbie.” There are few cases in which doctors have decided that a child would not do well medically by being immunized. Some religions are against vaccinations, too. For those people, schools allow exemptions so that children can attend school at their own risk. But in thousands of schools nationwide, a third category has been added — a “philosophical” exemption from the vaccination requirement. The parents of about 3 percent of children in the United States have claimed that exemption, declaring themselves opposed to vaccinations. An additional 7 or 8 percent are disorganized, do-nothing parents who would rather take the easy out than go through the pain and effort of appointments, needle-sticks and paperwork. So about 10 percent of U.S. schoolchildren aren’t vaccinated against the diseases that once killed millions. The result? Infants who accompany families and older siblings, people too sick to be immunized or those who come from countries where they weren’t vaccinated got the measles simply by being in a spot where a measles-infected person sneezed two hours earlier. Now the problem gets to the part where you bring up that quote about your rights ending where mine begin. Whatever wackadoodle philosophy you might be embracing today — frutarianism or Bokononism — is cool as long as it doesn’t hurt those around you, right? Refusing to immunize puts the rest of us at risk. And unless there is sound science and the guidance of a good doctor, it’s a pretty bogus way to hedge a bet in that game of parenting roulette. Raising a child is a huge exercise in trust. Parents learn to trust a babysitter, a day care, a school, a coach. You’ve got to learn to trust the kids and their own, cockamamie judgment. The anti-vaxxer movement is being fueled by parents who refuse to trust government, big pharma, family physicians and decades of sound science. Those parents who won’t vaccinate their kids all took huge risks when they visited Disneyland — buckling their children into cars for the drive there, even though car accidents injure 300 children and kill three kids in America every day. They trusted that the drivers next to them would check before changing lanes, that the drivers behind them weren’t texting, that the ones merging from an on-ramp weren’t drunk. That’s a lot of trust they put in the way others kept their kids safe. Too bad the rest of the parents in Disneyland on the day they visited trusted them. **Twitter: @petulad**

The Trump train is fueled by conspiracy

Watching the excellent documentary “Ebola in America: Epidemic of Fear” is to relive the confusion and controversies of the summer of 2014: the initial public health mistakes, the divided and unclear responsibilities, the hysterical coverage on cable TV. But it is the political role played by Republicans and conservatives that stands out, and not in a good way. At every stage, elements of the right made a reasonable, science-based response to Ebola more difficult. Against the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie quarantined a nurse returning from West Africa who had tested negative for the disease. Some conservative media outlets spread false information about the disease to exaggerate an impression of public health incompetence. But it was Donald Trump who led the opposition. He tweeted: “The U.S. must immediately stop all flights from EBOLA infected countries or the plague will start and spread inside our ‘borders.’ Act fast!” And: “Ebola is much easier to transmit than the CDC and government representatives are admitting.” Health officials were not lying. Travel to and from West Africa was essential for medical personnel and aid workers to defeat the disease at its point of origin. Trump’s ban would have made Ebola materially more likely to spread beyond control. What kind of politics is ascendant in the United States? A distrust of institutions that borders on conspiratorial. Here is Trump again: “Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes — AUTISM.” And: “I am being proven right about massive vaccinations — the doctors lied.” And: “So many people who have children with autism have thanked me — amazing response. They know far better than fudged up reports!” Lying doctors. Fudged reports. It would all be disturbing — if it were not conspiratorial nonsense. No connection has ever been demonstrated between vaccinations and autism. And this particular nonsense is potentially deadly. Trump is undermining a consensus for vaccination that builds up “herd immunity” and saves the lives of children. Who else is plotting against us — I mean, other than public health officials and your local pediatrician? Well, the Mexican government, because “they send the bad ones over because they don’t want to pay for them.” And how does Trump know the “cunning” Mexicans are purposely exporting criminals? Because some unspecified “Border Patrol people” told him. Even more disturbingly, there are the “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey who Trump claims celebrated the Twin Towers collapsing. For proof of this, he linked to an article at the Infowars website, run by Alex Jones, who has famously argued that the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 attacks. Trump has pledged that, if he is elected, “you will find out who really knocked down the World Trade Center.” And then there are the black criminals who are responsible, according to a Trump retweet, for 81 percent of homicides against whites. Except that this turned out to be a racist myth from a white supremacist source. And then there is the death of justice Antonin Scalia. “They say they found a pillow on his face,” responded Trump, “which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow.” Does Trump really believe that liberals may have ordered a hit on a Supreme Court justice? Who knows? We do know he finds such ideas useful. Trump emerged in conservative circles by questioning Barack Obama’s citizenship, and thus the legality of his presidency. This required the existence of a conspiracy to hide the circumstances of Obama’s birth. “They cannot believe what they’re finding,” he said of “people that have been studying it.” Having actually discovered nothing, Trump doubled down on a deception. As a leader, Trump has succeeded by appealing to stereotypes and ugly hatreds that most American leaders have struggled to repress and contain. His political universe consists of deceptive experts, of scheming, of criminal Mexicans, of lying politicians and bureaucrats and of disloyal Muslims. Asked to repudiate David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, Trump hesitated, later claiming a “bad earpiece.” Asked to repudiate the vicious anti-Semitism of some of his followers, Trump responded, “I don’t have a message to the fans.” Wouldn’t want to offend “the fans.” This is not flirting with the fringes; it is French-kissing them. Every Republican official endorsing Trump should know: This is the company he keeps. This is the company you now keep. _Read more fromMichael Gerson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook _. **Read more here:** Michael Gerson: Conservatives make a deal with the devil Anne Applebaum: Donald Trump’s campaign of conspiracy theories Jonathan Capehart: Unfit for the Oval Office Paul Waldman: Minority voters will know the GOP by the company it keeps

Republicans should marginalize the fringe

Do Republicans really want to improve their image and convince voters that they aren’t a bunch of kooks? Yes, there are plenty of long-term projects that might help with that. But the easiest first step would be to marginalize the fringe. There’s nothing particular inherent in either conservative thought or the Republican Party that attracts crazies, but the flat-out truth over the last twenty or thirty years is that Democrats have been much more aggressive in policing their own. Which brings us to Michele Bachmann, who, after speaking at CPAC on Friday, has not only earned four Pinnocchios two days running from Glenn Kessler, but who drove Kessler to say today that “there really aren’t enough Pinocchios for such misleading use of statistics in a major speech.”    *[WSU]: Wayne State University Do we expect any major Republican to push back? To mention that maybe it doesn’t help the party to make up stuff and pass it off as “facts”? To suggest that Bachmann doesn’t represent the party, or that real conservatives care about facts, and the nonsense she peddles is false? To push for her to lose TV slots, speaking opportunities at conservative conferences, and other high-visibility appearances? Of course not. Republican politicians are terrified of being called RINOs; Fox News and others in the conservative partisan press welcome this stuff. The only time Republicans have condemned their own has been when a huge media flap makes someone an immediate embarrassment — Todd Akin, for example — and even then plenty of Republicans can be counted on to defend against supposed liberal media smears, or to support the person but not the statement, or to lie low and wait until it goes away. All of which creates the impression that Republicans would much rather enjoy the (dubious) benefits of misinformation about Obamaphones and death panels and on and on and on, even if it means endorsing liars. If you act that way, you get the reputation that goes with it. Change your act, and your reputation can change. If the GOP really cares about their image, they’ll start taking aim at their fringes, and not let up until it’s clear they’ve decided to be a responsible political party again.

All our politicians should join together to end the dangerous anti-vaccination madness

Intentional non-vaccination is causing avoidable public health disasters in the United States. The problem is particularly acute for measles — though similar things might be said for flu and other diseases -- because measles is so efficiently transmitted from one susceptible person to another. Measles herd immunity requires more than 90 percent of Americans to be immunized. This daunting number may understate the challenge, since small communities that are ambivalent about immunization provide local pockets of vulnerability within which local outbreaks can take hold and spread. It’s all-too-easy to see how these issues could become enmeshed in the culture wars, partisan politics or even the 2016 presidential campaign. This would be a public health disaster. We will never sustain herd immunity if Americans’ beliefs and behaviors in the realm of vaccination harden along cultural or religious or ideological lines. Ambivalence about vaccines crosses conventional political boundaries. People of varying backgrounds and views find powerful reasons to doubt medical and public health authority, to distrust Big Pharma. These doubts and distrust don’t come from nowhere, and are deeply-held—which is why so many pro- vaccination messages often fall short. Many others simply wish to free-ride on the herd immunity provided by others.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico We must continue to debunk false rumors about vaccines—most prominently the debunked theories that that the MMR vaccine causes autism. We must recognize, however, that providing and repeating credible medical information only accomplishes so much. The required information has been out there for many years, available in two minutes to anyone with access to Google.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico It's not just the message that matters. To reach the people we most need to persuade, the messenger matters, too. There is and long has been ample evidence for the safety of common vaccines. Repeating this message only accomplishes so much with intentional non-vaccinators. So here’s what President Obama, Presidents Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Majority Leader McConnell, Governor Mitt Romney, Senator Bernie Sanders, House Speaker Boehner, Senator Rand Paul, Dr. Ben Carson, Governor Bobby Jindal,  Senator John McCain, and others should do. They should get together on the White House lawn. Maybe better yet, we need one of those YouTube viral videos:    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico In whatever form, our political leaders must dramatically convey a simple, utterly nonpartisan message that cuts through the clutter to makes five points: Such display of social and political consensus won’t reach everyone. States should revisit some relatively lax exemption policies in light of disease outbreaks. I’m sure other policy changes would be useful, too.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Still, a bi-partisan campaign of goodwill can help, too. It’s not just the message. The messengers matter, too.  Some issues are larger than partisan politics. This is one. _Harold Pollack is the Helen Ross professor at the School of Social Service Administration and co-director of the Crime Lab at the University of Chicago._    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico

Michael Gerson: Americans’ aversion to science carries a high price

Americans have something of a science problem. They swallow, for example, about $28 billion worth of vitamins each year, even though the Annals of Internal Medicine recently concluded that “[m]ost supplements do not prevent chronic disease or death, their use is not justified, and they should be avoided.” Americans often fear swallowing genetically modified plants (and Vermont recently required labeling of food containing genetically modified organisms, known as GMOs), though GMOs have “been consumed by hundreds of millions of people across the world for more than 15 years, with no reported ill effects,” according to the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Other opinions are closer to astrology than science. Some deny a link between HIV and AIDS or confidently assert a connection between cellphone usage and cancer. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), during the last presidential campaign, contended that the HPV vaccine causes “mental retardation.” (And, yes, about a quarter of Americans believe in astrology.) Science has its own explanation for why people are resistant to scientific beliefs. In evolutionary theory (assuming you believe such a thing), our intuitions about the physical world are generally accurate on a human scale — calculating the proper force and trajectory to hit a mammoth with a spear. But on matters that are not immediately related to our survival — say, on quantum motion, or the nature of black holes, or the effect of radio-frequency energy on the DNA in cells — our intuitions are pretty much useless. Science has often advanced in an uphill fight against common intuitions. These intuitions can be shaped by a variety of factors: ideology, religion, philosophy or culture. Resistance to vaccination or GMOs is sometimes rooted in a nearly religious belief that natural things are better — including, apparently, disease outbreaks and plants that die easily in droughts. A decade ago, I met a South African health official who argued that AIDS could be treated with garlic because she believed that pharmaceutical treatment was a neocolonial plot. Resistance in the United States to evolution is often associated with conservative religion. And skepticism about climate change is correlated with libertarian and free-market beliefs. Merely raising climate disruption in this context will cause many to bristle. Skeptics employ this issue as a prime example of motivated reasoning — politicians motivated by the prospect of confiscation, scientists motivated by securing acclaim and government contracts. In its simplest, cable-television version, this charge, at least against scientists, is outrageous. The assumption that the vast majority in a scientific field is engaged in fraud or corruption is frankly conspiratorial. In this case, the conspiracy would need to encompass the national academies of more than two dozen countries, including the United States. Other, more measured criticisms ring truer. Some scientists have displayed an artificial certainty on some matters that seems to cross into advocacy. Others assume that the only way to deal with greenhouse gas emissions is a strict, global regulatory regime — an economic and political judgment that has nothing to do with their actual expertise. But none of these objections relates to the scientific question: Is a 40 percent increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution driving disruptive warming? And further: Can this process be slowed, allowing societies and ecosystems more time to adapt? Our intuitions are useless here. The only possible answers come from science. And for non-scientists, this requires a modicum of trust in the scientific enterprise. Even adjusting for the possibility of untoward advocacy, it seems clear that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have produced a modest amount of warming and are likely to produce more. This, in turn, is likely to produce higher sea levels, coastal flooding, shifting fisheries, ocean acidification, water shortages, lower crop yields and vanishing ecosystems. The consequences will vary by region but are likely to be more severe in poorer nations. New York City can adapt to a rising ocean better than Bangladesh. This scientific consensus raises difficult political questions. Is some grand global bargain on carbon-dioxide emissions, including China and India, even a possibility? Might it be more practical to make polluters pay — perhaps with a revenue-neutral carbon tax, fully rebated to taxpayers — thereby encouraging the development of new technologies that limit future carbon emissions? And I’d add: How can you oppose GMOs that resist pests and drought while pretending to help poor nations cope with climate disruption? But perhaps the most difficult question is this: How can you make serious political decisions based on scientific likelihoods when politics thrives on the feeding of ideological certainties? _Read more fromMichael Gerson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook _. **Read more about this issue:** Eugene Robinson: No more excuses on climate change Charles Krauthammer: The myth of ‘settled science’ The Post’s View: A backup plan for climate change Robert J. Samuelson: We have no solution for climate change yet The Post’s View: States and cities should act now on climate change Kofi Annan: A united call for action on climate change

‘Fiscal cliff’: Around the world, liberals are okay with spending

As the United States continues to hurtle toward the "fiscal cliff" deadline, Majority Leader Harry Reid called on House Republicans to back a Senate bill to extend tax cuts for all except those households earning more than $250,000 a year. Meanwhile, Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said “Senator Reid should talk less and legislate more." The bitter debate over the fiscal cliff is centered around an age-old American political truth: Most liberals are fine with raising taxes on the wealthy — in this case, Americans making more than $250,000 a year —  to pay for social programs, and most conservatives would prefer to cut spending instead. But while the fiscal cliff can sometimes seem like a uniquely American crisis, a new multinational study from a Swedish economic institute shows the same partisan spending preferences exist in other countries as well. In a paper called, "Generosity and Political Preferences," Sweden's Research Institute of Industrial Economics found that left-wing voters in several countries are far more likely to support redistributing money, regardless of whether it benefits them personally. Here's how it worked: First, researchers asked participants to self-identify as left- or right-wing and rate their ideas about income inequality on a scale from one to 10. Researchers then gave them an imaginary sum of money in that country's currency and asked them to either keep it all to themselves or share it with other, imaginary citizens, some of whom were labeled as being from their same political party. The researchers surveyed 5,000 respondents in the United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden and the United States using this so-called "dictator game" and found that individuals across the nations who identify as left-wing gave away more of the money, particularly to people who agree with them politically. The authors conclude that this most likely means that liberals favor that sort of spending because they think it benefits society, but not necessarily themselves. The only outlying country was the U.K., where Tory, or conservative, participants were more generous than Labour ones, which the authors hypothesize might be related to the fact that Tories might not embody traditional right-wing values as much as conservative parties in the other countries do. So as Americans wring their hands over Congress' inaction, they can take heart in knowing that deep-rooted disagreement over how best to distribute society's resources isn't a uniquely American phenomenon.

All the ways the GOP candidates were wrong about vaccines

It was possibly the easiest question of the night when Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon, was lofted a no-brainer about whether Donald Trump should stop repeating one of the most debunked, fear-mongering ideas in medicine: that vaccines cause autism. But instead of introducing a rare moment of fact-based clarity, with a simple and declarative answer, the question opened a huge can of worms and a meandering, speculative, and vague discussion of vaccines that left physicians and public health officials around the country cringing last night. Carson did undermine Trump's claim about the connection between vaccinations and autism. But he then veered into a very murky area, raising questions about whether children should be getting vaccines that aren't for deadly diseases. "Vaccines are very important. Certain ones. The ones that would prevent death or crippling," Carson said. "There are others, there are a multitude of vaccines which probably don't fit in that category, and there should be some discretion in those cases." Across the country, doctors shouted at their TV's, "which ones is he talking about?" "He entered this netherworld: 'it seems like they’re getting too much and obviously there were the diseases that can really kill you and the ones that don't,'" said Paul Offit, a professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. His opponents, Offit said, should have asked for a list of the supposedly not deadly diseases that could safely be taken off the list. _[The fraudulent origins of the idea vaccines cause autism.]_    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Here's the truth: there are vaccines for 14 different diseases given in the first few years of a child's life, according to a carefully vetted schedule. These may be for diseases, like measles and diphtheria, that we generally don't think of as killers today -- but that's largely because vaccines have been so successful in preventing people from getting sick in the first place. Those vaccines are scheduled so that they can be given to children before they come into contact with the pathogens that cause disease. When they are given in combinations, or "bunched" at the same time, it's only after they are carefully tested in "concomitant use" studies to make sure the vaccines don't interfere with each other or cause harm. The most true thing anyone said about vaccines all night might have been when the candidates aired their own discomfort, as adults, at seeing a small child getting a shot. Trump described the distress of seeing a baby of getting a shot that looks like it's for a horse. Rand Paul said that his kids got their vaccines, but said  he was concerned about how they were bunched up. "Even if the science doesn't say bunching them up is a problem, I ought to have the right to spread my vaccines out a little bit at the very least," Paul said. But parents have to get their kids to do lots of things that aren't pleasant and yet are good for them. Indeed, experts say, when doctors stray from the bunching of vaccines, they fall into unknown territory where the harms and benefits are less clearly understood. "It’s not like the CDC makes it up. They give these vaccines in combination only when proven to be safe and effective," Offit said. "When you choose what Ben Carson or Trump or Rand Paul is arguing for, you’re making up a schedule. You don’t know whether that’s safe or effective." Offit has studied whether children's immune systems might become overwhelmed or weakened by vaccines, and has found that it isn't the number of vaccines that matters, but the number of triggering immunological components -- called antigens -- that those vaccines contain that determine the immune burden. The vaccine for smallpox, the largest mammalian virus, actually has more antigens than all the vaccines given today, due to improvements in medicine and technology. Which means that, paradoxically, despite giving children far more vaccines, we're actually overwhelming children's immune system far less. Perhaps the ultimate irony came when Mike Huckabee tried to deflect the autism and vaccine argument to a real health care issue - the cost of care. But then he suggested that the government declare war on major diseases like cancer to find cures. Richard Nixon already did that in 1971, and we're still looking for cures today. Meanwhile, a growing number of scientists have come around to the idea that we're going to have to find ways to detect cancers early and even prevent them entirely if we really hope to make a major dent in disease. And that's not just true for cancer.    *[WSU]: Wayne State University   *[Tue]: Tuesday   *[Wed]: Wednesday   *[UNM]: University of New Mexico Alzheimer's disease, another affliction Huckabee wants to declare war on, has increasingly been shifting to earlier interventions. Drug trials are increasingly being tested on people with mild cognitive impairment, after efforts to use drugs to reverse the full-blown illness have failed. Perhaps by the end we'll be treating people before they show signs of illness at all. Kind of like a vaccine.