Rich Speaks…

In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately…
…and gets you laughed out of the room.

A fuller explanation can be found at the excellent Neurodiversity 'blog, and at Orac's equally excellent "Respectful Insolence" 'blog.

If you'd like to see the kind of rubbish that gets peddled as "research" and "fact" on http://whale.to (I'm not going to link to it), see the index I created. It's the stupidest spreadsheet you'll ever read.

Also on the "anti-vaccination moron" subject, I've adapted the twat-o-tron to apply specifically to the loon fringe at JABS.

So, if you ever feel the need to post at JABS, but can't think of enough anti-vax vitriol, have a look here.

One bloke's already been banned from JABS for doing just that. :-)

(Edit - the Jabs-o-Tron has now moved - the links above and below have been updated)

Dr Briffa. Apparently he's some kind of newspaper doctor. Which makes him about as useful as Vernon Coleman and Melanie Phillips - he makes his money by being "outspoken", "thought provoking", and apparently, "a moron".

He's weighed in on the MMR / autism "debate", but isn't prepared to actually state that he thinks there's a causal link (because he knows there isn't). He's posted on his 'blog that because there's not enough evidence to show that there isn't a link, more research needs to be done. He's trying to scare you.

There's less evidence that watching "Superstars" - particularly the edition where Kevin Keegan falls off the bike - when pregnant doesn't cause autism. I don't see him suggesting that more research needs to be done.

There is actually a metric shedload of evidence that says there is no link between MMR and autism. Those who insist that the MMR jab caused autism in their child hang on to one discredited (by most of it's own authors) study - the infamous Wakefield study. That's it. Nothing else.

However, because "Dr" Briffa needs to be some sort of reactionary bigot, he feels the need to raise the possibility that there is a link - again.

Whenever yet more evidence is posted in the comments on his blog that he's mistaken, he comes back a few hours later, moving the goalposts (oh, now it could be the single measles jab, then it could be the other single jabs), in the manner of Douglas Adams' man who knows he's lost the argument, but is still jabbing (sorry) the table and yelling "and another thing!"

Fear sells newspapers, especially if that "newspaper" is the Daily Hate Mail. Dr John Briffa is a cock.

This isn't a new site or anything, I've just only now got round to writing a brief 'blog entry about it.

For all those morons you meet who support alternative medicine / bonkers therapies, who, when you question them closely about it simply say "Well, it's doing me good, and why should you care - it never did anyone any harm!" in a sort of whining voice, you can point them at whatstheharm.net/. A website that catalogues hundreds of deaths which could've been prevented if the deceased hadn't been talked into homeopathy, chelation therapy, Scientology or any one of a shedload of quack nostrums.

Two not unrelated news items.

1. The BNP has won a seat on the London Assembly due to it getting more than 5% of the vote. That means that at least one in twenty Londoners is an ignorant racist. It doesn't mean anything else. It doesn't mean that one in twenty Londoners was registering a protest against Gordon Brown, national government fiscal policy, or anything else. It means that one in twenty Londoners is an outright racist.


2. Somehow, that grinning moron Boris Johnson has been elected Mayor of London. Remember that the position of Mayor of London is a position with real political power. It's not a sinecure. It requires a real politician with independent thought, vision, determination and an even hand. It's not a job for a man whose only credentials are, um, hold on, let me go and check… racism, insulting people and philandering.

If you live in London, I'd think about moving. Now.