Orac's Tic
Nobody in the blogosphere takes on the anti-vaccine movement with more passion than Orac, who is a surgeon and biomedical researcher. Stylistically, Orac is a bit long-winded for my taste, but his thoroughness is admirable and appreciated. While some may disapprove of his acidic tone, his persistent deconstruction of the arguments and propaganda advanced by the well-organized anti-vaccine movement is both on the mark and necessary.
But like many in the climate change concerned community who see “false balance” lurking everywhere in the news media, Orac has the same tic with respect to vaccine-related reportage. In his latest so-called example, he really reaches to make the charge, and even then, he’s doing it not with any sense of conviction or evidence, just seemingly out of habit. It’s that obvious.
The fact that he can’t help himself suggests to me that he’s hostage to this tic, and perhaps as willfully ignorant of journalistic principles and ethics as anti-vaxxers are of science.
UPDATE: I just noticed that the author of the article Orac criticizes responded in his comments section.
“While some may disapprove of his acidic tone, his persistent deconstruction of the arguments and propaganda advanced by the well-organized anti-vaccine science movement is both on the mark and necessary.”
Keith can you think of others for whom this description (and justification) might be apt 😉 ?
“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,”¦ “the law is a ass””a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience””by experience.” – Charles Dickens
hmmm….fyi strikethrough isn’t working…. ‘vaccine’ should be struckout….
Marlowe, that winky smiley face always brightens my day, but I’m also at a loss. Who are some of the people you might be referring to?
Oh (#3), okay, now I get it. You probably are referring to Romm. Unfortunately, that’s a disservice to Orac, but in point of fact, they both do share the same antipathy towards the media, and thus the same blind spot.
I am about to have my first child, so the vaxx-anti vaxx thing has of course recently come up. My partner did 3 years of Naturopathy ,she naturally felt stridently anti-vaxx. I mentioned the thing about Wakefield and the Lancet scandal, but she didn’t believe me. She said- ‘where did you get that from’? I said, ‘Keith Kloor’s blog, he’s an environmental journalist’. She said you weren’t reputable. I had to shrug and agree.
The other day she came home from talking to a friend who gave her the same story. So it looks like we’ll be vaccinating our child afterall.
Friends are reputable.
Stu, thanks for sharing that story and congrats and best of luck with your new addition to the world. Nothing brings me more joy than my two boys.
Thankyou Keith. Looks like I’m in for quite a ride. Of course we are apprehensive but everyone keeps telling us we’ll be fine as parents. All tests coming back from the doc are good too.
Best of luck to your boys as well.
Oh, and Marlowe, presuming you meant to draw an equivalence between Romm and Orac–and my rejection of this–let’s go back to some near history.
I also won’t even get started on all the anti-nuclear posts at CP.