Being against vaccines is like being against seatbelts

I sometimes try to come up with analogies that can help people understand the benefit of vaccination. One that I believe ought to used more often is the seat belt analogy. Although most parents in Sweden do vaccinate their children according to the national program there are some who believe that the potential risks of vaccination outweigh the benefits.

Admittedly, un-vaccinated children usually do fine in Sweden, thanks to good compliance with the vaccination programs in the past. There are in essence not so many viruses left in Sweden and therefore it is unlikely that you get vaccine preventable disease even if you decide not to vaccinate. It does happen however, that children get for instance measles. (It is extra common in Järna where I grew up due to the widespread false and silly belief that it aids the childs mental development .) However, because our health care system is relatively good it is also very uncommon that children die or get permanent disabilities as a result of measles. Rather, most parents come away with a feeling that measles is really not that bad... Ok, so un-vaccinated children are unlikely to get sick and even if they do get sick it is unlikely that the disease will have any severe consequences. So why vaccinate at all?

The simple answer is that not vaccinating is a huge risk compared to vaccinating which is associated with almost zero risk, and this is where the analogy comes in. Would you accept the argument that we should stop wearing seatbelts. After all, most people have tried this and nothing happened to them. It might even be that on rare occasions the seatbelt prevented a person from exiting a burning car or the metal thing at the end of the seat belt caused a burn on a child... I'm sure

Shouldn't we stop using seat belts? This argument is I believe almost perfectly analogous to the vaccination argument. Of course, as most people realize in the seat belt situation (but not in the vaccination situation), an anti-seat-belt policy would cause many thousands of deaths because even though most people manage fine without seatbelts. This is because the small proportion of people who actually would have been saved by vaccination, I mean seatbelts, adds up to hundreds of thousands of people.

Just to really drive home this message, think of the many people oppose the relatively new HPV vaccine. The HPV virus, which the vaccine protects against, is responsible for approximately 200.000 mortal cases (from twice as many cases), of cervical cancer per year. The vaccine meanwhile have been tested repeatedly with no adverse effects discovered to date. How many years should we keep on testing before we decide that the evidence is sufficient to go ahead and save 200.000 lives per year?

The vaccination debate

Sometimes I wonder how the anti-vaccination movement have managed to move the debate to the extent they have. Today the debate in the media tends to be about whether a certain vaccine have barely measurable side effects or not. 

What tends to be forgotten or not mentioned is that vaccinations saves millions of lives and could save millions more if everyone had access to and used vaccines. The World Health Association estimates that vaccinations saves 3 million people every year and that if vaccination was available (and used) world wide, another 3 million people could be saved. In the US there has been a 99% decrease in deaths from vaccine preventable diseases, such as diphtheria, mumps, pertussis and tetanus since the vaccines have been introduced. Smallpox used to kill 400.000 people annually, until a vaccination was discovered. Now this disease is extinct. Before there used to be around 400.000 cases of polio each year. Following the introduction of the vaccine, there are around a 1000 cases per year. 

The bottom line is that vaccinations save lives, many many lives. Still people in Sweden are now raging over the suggested link between the swine-flu vaccine and narcolepsy, in which less than a hundred extra cases may have occurred due to vaccination. Of course I sincerely sympathise but no sane human being should question the value of vaccination in general because of this potential misfortune. 

Microwave Ovens

Having grown up in Järna, which may be the most pseudoscience-dense place in Sweden I have learned that microwave ovens are dangerous and that it kills your food (yes that is the term you normally hear).

Their arguments, of course, rely heavily on the naturalistic fallacy i.e. they claim that heating using microwaves is somehow "unnatural", that is unlike conventional oven which they seem to consider "natural". It is as if electromagnetic radiation in the infrared spectrum is somehow more natural than electromagnetic radiation with microwave frequencies.

There are however also some more empirical claims used by people who are against microwaves. For example many people quote a "study" where they compared growth of plants which had received either microwaved water or water which had not been heated. It is claimed that the plants which got the microwaved water waned down and died. The plants which had just gotten normal water on the other hand flourished. According to microwave critics this shows that microwaving water takes out some sort of "life energy" out of the H2O molecules and therefore the plants die.

Snopes have tried to replicate this "study", but found out that it was impossible – they could not kill their plants with microwaved water…

Another empirical claim that microwave antagonists sometimes use is that microwaves are forbidden in Russia because they are so dangerous – this is just a simple lie.

One claim with some actual research behind it is that microwave ovens destroy certain vitamins in your food (see here for example). This claim is probably true but only if you compare microwaved food with raw food. The study quoted on health bulletin shows that meat heated in microwave ovens has 30-40% less vitamin B12 than raw meat. So if you start eating your steaks raw you can skip a glass of milk a day (which would otherwise compensate the loss).

In the same study you can find the following paragraph:

"Microwave ovens are widely used for cooking and food processing. Extensive studies (Cross and Fung, 1982; Hoffman and Zabik, 1985) have shown equal or better retention of some vitamins (B1, B2, B6, C, and folic acid) after microwave heating compared with conventional heating."

In other words, if you lack vitamins, cooking in your microwave can help you.

It is also interesting that otherwise environmentally conscious people are so against microwave ovens even though they save a lot of energy compared to conventional ovens.

So where does all this leave us? My conclusion is that microwave heating is a fast and convenient way of cooking. Don't put eggs or metal in there and don't overheat things so that you burn yourself. If you follow these guidelines a microwave oven will be a terrific assistant in your kitchen. Of course some things just taste better when you cook them in a conventional oven and in that case I am all for that…

If you want more on this topic I can recommend this episode on Brian Dunning's skeptoid.

What should you believe in? Shermers Baloney detection kit

When someone makes a claim, how do you decide whether to believe in that or not? If you believe everything anyone has told you, then you will soon have many many contradictory beliefs. Even if you only listen to people around you, you will still get contradictory information - all claims cannot be true. So how do you decide who to believe in?

Micheal Shermer, a famous sceptic suggests that we ask ourselves the following questions when we decide whether to believe in something. Why should you trust Shermer? Don't! You should question him just like everyone else, he is certainly a man with an agenda, so listen to someone who does not agree with Shermer and decide for yourself. Anyway here is what Shermer suggests you ask yourself when you hear a claim.

1. How reliable is the source?
2. Does the source often make similar claims?
3. Has the claim been confirmed elsewhere?
4. Does the claim fit with the way the world works?
5. Has anyone tried to falsify the claim?
6. What does the majority of the evidence point to?
7. Is the source basing their claim on science?
8. Is there positive evidence in favour of the theory (or is it only negative evidence)?
9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomenon as the old theory?
10. Are personal beliefs or ideologies drive the claim?