We assess risk every day. But very few of us receive any formal training in the requisite mathematics and statistics, and, partly as a result, poor decisions are made, both by individuals and governmental bodies.
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins suggests we may be neurologically ill-equipped to make the sort of decisions called for by modern society; and Nobel prize-winning behavioural economist and psychologist Daniel Kahneman makes it clear in his book Thinking Fast and Slow that making careful (slow) judgements is a very complicated mental process.
Many have presumed that, in the wake of the threat of terrorism, not to mention recent questions about the safety of airliners, that air travel remains a rather dicey proposition.
At least one dear colleague of ours refuses to fly out of fear of accidents. When one of us suggested that he simply buy some noise-cancelling headphones, play some Bach and dream his way to his destination, he replied that headphones would impede his ability to hear malfunctions in the aircraft.
It’s surprising, given the prevalence of this particular fear, that so little attention has been given to the recent announcement that four full years have elapsed without a single airline fatality in the US, and 2012 was the safest year in global flight since 1945.
The worldwide 2012 fatality figure (475 deaths) was less than half the figure in 2000, and most accidents occur in Africa where it is reasonable to expect significant improvement as economies grow.
With regards to fear of terrorist attacks, German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer has estimated that, in the first year after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, 1,500 Americans died in car accidents because they elected to drive rather than fly (due to fear of dying in a sabotaged plane).
In other words, six times as many Americans needlessly died in cars in the year after September 11 than died in hijacked planes on September 11.
Similar behaviour can be seen in the fanatical and often counter-productive measures taken by parents to protect children. In 1970, 67% of American children walked or biked to school, but today only 10% do, in part out of fear of abductions.
But the number of cases of true child abduction by strangers (as opposed to, say, a divorced parent) has dwindled to only about 100 a year in the US today.
Even if one assumes that all of these children are harmed (which is not by any means true), this is still only about 1/20 the risk of drowning and 1/40 of the risk of a fatal car accident.
Such numerically absurd thinking can also be seen in the recent international hysteria over childhood vaccinations.
This mania stemmed from a 1998 study in the British medical journal Lancet, which claimed that vaccination shots with a certain mercury compound may be linked to autism.
But a few years later the finding was completely debunked, and in 2011 the original study was exposed as an elaborate fraud.
In the intervening years, many thousands of parents in both the US and the UK jumped on the anti-vaccination bandwagon and, tragically, several childhood diseases began to re-appear.
Last year, measles outbreaks rose to an 18-year high in England and Wales, while in 2011 California experienced its worst whooping cough epidemic in 60 years.
In spite of these grim statistics and pleas from health agencies, many parents still resist vaccinations for their children.
Just as absurd is the current anti-smart-meter movement.
Many in the US, Canada, Australia and elsewhere are convinced, without any solid scientific evidence, that smart meters pose a dire threat to health, because of their occasional transmissions of usage data via cell phone networks.
Yet even if one stands less than one metre from a smart meter when it broadcasts its data, microwave exposure is 550 times less than standing in front of an active microwave oven, and 1,100 times less than holding an active cell phone at your ear.
Cell phone usage itself is thought by many to be dangerous. But in 2010, a 13-nation study commissioned by the World Health Organization found at most a very sketchy and partially contradictory link between cancer risk and heavy cell-phone usage.
Along this line, concerns that mobile phone usage by pregnant mothers endangers their fetuses are wildly exaggerated.
A related example is the worldwide reaction to the 2011 Fukushima reactor accident. This was truly a horrible incident, and we do not wish to detract from the environmental devastation that occurred. Yet no fatalities resulted.
Subsequently, the German government decided to discontinue its nuclear program. Was this decision made after a sober calculation of relative risk and costs between different forms of energy? Or as a response to populist political pressure?
This decision inevitably will mean more consumption of fossil fuels, in an era when concern about global warming is, if anything, more acute than ever.
And most of the arguments against nuclear power are based on political philosophy rather than science.
Similar remarks can be made about hyped-up fear of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), global warming scepticism, disbelief in evolution, and many other current issues.
We are all susceptible to being swayed by the whims of social movements around us, but it is clear that higher-quality education in mathematics and statistics is essential in forging a public mind that is better at assessing relative risk and cost.
Indeed, a solid case can be made that a good course in reasoning and statistics should be a required part of a high-school education, at least in the developed world and probably in the developing world as well.
But better news reporting is also needed from the scientific news establishment.
Many of the recent manias would not have gotten off the ground had a more sober-minded press seen through the quasi-scientific smokescreens.
A version of this article first appeared on Math Drudge.
John Newlands
tree changer
I suggest creating needless anxiety is something that should be condemned by society. If I recall the approximate numbers some 19,000 people were killed in the March 2011 tsunami in Japan, about 600 people succumbed to stress related illness from the evacuation of the Fukushima region and 0 people died from radiation. In other words fear itself caused more harm than the thing that was feared.
On a related note with energy it seems clear that people will live with a familiar risk even if the harm is known, perhaps deluding themselves that adequate steps are being taken. Thus we like to think wind and solar will displace the coal burning largely responsible for climate change. However the coal fired power stations are still there perhaps operating at a tad less volume. We know the harm but because it's both familiar and expensive to reduce we accept it.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
"On a related note with energy it seems clear that people will live with a familiar risk even if the harm is known, perhaps deluding themselves that adequate steps are being taken."
That's a very nice way of putting it. Related to climate change, since we are so inured to the reality, as we experience it so gradually, in fact every day since we were born. OTOH, any mitigation solution proposed, appears as a relatively new and unknown risk, and therefore scarier than the risk we already know and live with. In that sense, on the climate change issue, we are acting like frogs in a pot of heating water..
Ulf Steinvorth
Doctor
Calling a highest level nuclear catastrophe 'needless anxiety' because nobody has died (yet?) seems to convey a rather cavalier view of risk and damage - and statistics.
Leaving aside questions about radioactive waste, risk of nuclear weapons proliferation and terrorist attacks a New England Journal of Medicine article on the risks of 'low-level' radiation as experienced in 400.000 radiation workers quotes 'significantly increased rates of cancer and death from cancer'.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra072149
Mike Pottenger
Lecturer, Statistics & Political Economy at University of Melbourne
Thinking about car vs plane crashes - do we have figures for number of fatal car accidents relative to the total number of car trips over a given period (for a given country/region), versus the number of fatal plane crashes relative to the total number of plane crashes over a similar period (for the same country/region)? With four years of fatality-free flying, this would still support your argument, I'm guessing.
Ben Beccari
Disaster Manager
The statistics are normally calculated as fatalities per passenger mile. Here's a quote from the US National Safety Council:
"Injury Facts® compares four modes of transportation: scheduled airlines, railroad passenger trains (including Amtrak and commutation), buses, and light duty vehicles (includes passenger cars, light trucks, vans and sports utility vehicles regardless of wheelbase). In general, buses, trains and airlines have much lower death rates than light duty vehicles when the risk is…
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Kevin Phelan
Workplace Trainer
People necessarily make risk assessments every day to stay alive. In making these assessments, they exercise judgement based on life experience and accumulated knowledge. While correct assessments need to be based on good information, I would be concerned to see this basic human survival skill become "professionalised" or "specialised" to the extent that one would need a qualification to be allowed to perform a risk assessment. It is already a problem in a lot of workplaces that safe work documentation…
Read moreDelete this account as requested!
logged in via email @iinet.net.au
The issue is though, that our inbuilt risk assessment tools are a result of natural selection and totally inappropriate and inaccurate at dealing with the risk assessment scenarios we face today.
'Common sense' and 'gut feelings' which people often make potentially life altering or threatening decisions based upon can be shown to worse than a coin flip.
That's why article such as this showing the short-comings of our instinctive systems are so valuable and always bear repeating and re-reading.
Also training in statistics and a real and deep comprehension of them should be mandatory for public servants, politicians and journalists. They're the only tool that can provide fact based results.
Dave Kinkead
PhD candidate in Political Philosophy
Perhaps the reason why people get risks so wrong is that we only ever seem to hear about half the risk equation. Headline numbers of x people killed are meaningless without information about their exposure. The number of people who died whilst intentionally skying without a parachute is rather low but I'd suggest that the risk of doing so is awfully high.
Risk is like a fraction. Without exposure information, I can never know that 1/2 is bigger than 2/8. And if this is too complex to communicate, perhaps we could start comparing risk to well known everyday accepted risks like driving to make risk claims more meaningful.
Oh, and for the claim "six times as many Americans needlessly died in cars in the year after September 11 than died in hijacked planes on September 11" to be true, you'd need 15,000 people to have died, not 1,500.
Paul Miller
logged in via LinkedIn
>>Oh, and for the claim "six times as many Americans needlessly died in cars in the year after September 11 than died in hijacked planes on September 11" to be true, you'd need 15,000 people to have died, not 1,500.<<
246 died aboard the 4 hijacked planes (including the hijackers themselves). Surely, 1,500 is sufficient to exceed this figure by 6 times? Or am I missing your point?
Dave Kinkead
PhD candidate in Political Philosophy
Good point - depends on which deaths are included and highlights the importance of equivalent baselines to make comparisons.
I was referring to the 2,606 killing in the plane crashes. If limited to actual passengers & crew then 1,500 is sufficient.
Given that pedestrians are included in traffic fatality statistics, (http://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/2012/RDA_Summary_2011.aspx) then I'd argue the same must be done for air travel to make comparisons fair.
Robin Bell
Research Academic Public Health, at University of Newcastle
I guess that's the difference between a human individual and a probability driven algorithm. If we all acted within mathamatical expressions of risk and success, we would be machines (by the way, if everyone acted in accordance with predictable probabilities, those measures would become hopelessly skewed and useless).
As people we exist in a world much larger than that described by science. (that's one of the reasons scientists make terrible leaders and politicians). As long as people remain organic spiritual beings, science will remain just one of many influence on behaviour.
Is that wright or wrong? Who knows. But the proposition that people are "neurologically ill-equipped to make the sort of decisions called for by modern society" strongly suggests that the writer has a limited understand of "society". Society is a construct of people. The limitation only arises when people are placed in the context of the authors vision of what society should be.
Anthony Kaye
Retired Vet. Surgeon
In the same week as Germany's ill-informed knee-jerk reaction to Fukushima,
35 Germans died from food poisoning after eating E. coli contaminated cress.
Imagine how many nuclear power stations would be left operating if that death toll had directly resulted from Fukushima!
Luke Weston
Physicist / electronic engineer
In 2011 Germany's organic sprouts killed more people than Chernobyl.
Mike Hansen
Mr
"In 2011 Germany's organic sprouts killed more people than Chernobyl"
Actually Luke - you do not know that. The epidemiological studies looking at cancer deaths that result from Chernobyl are in dispute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Deaths_due_to_radiation_exposure
But in any event in terms of risk analysis your claims tell us next to nothing.
Mike Hansen
Mr
The authors need to do some reading on the economics of "long tail" events.
That is - events that have a low probability of happening but have a huge consequence if they do.
William Nordhaus Professor of Economics at Yale University has discussed "long tail" events in relation to climate change. I cannot find the article but I recall him describing the Japanese tsunami as like seeing a 30 foot woman walking down the street - a highly unlikely event - but it happened and the consequences for Japan have been extreme despite lack of deaths (you are being a bit disingenuous ignoring the broader consequences).
In light of that, here is some perspective on Germany's decision to phase out nuclear power.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/the-mind-boggling-cost-of-a-theoretical-french-nuclear-accident-83800
Mike Hansen
Mr
Here is the Nordhaus article that I referred to
http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/documents/Nordhaus_TailEvents_JPET_2012.pdf
"So if we see an unusually tall woman, perhaps 61/2 feet tall, we would be surprised, but this would not change our view of homo sapiens. By contrast, the March 2011 Japanese tsunami was like a 30-foot person striding down the street."
He goes on to explain
"So the earthquake/tsunami example shows the logic of the Dismal Theorem. In certain conditions, the combination of risk aversion and fat tails leads to a never-ending chain of changing optimal decisions. As we increase the point in the tail where we cut off our calculations, the best policy continues to change. There is no optimal policy"
Fred Pribac
logged in via email @internode.on.net
Thanks Mike - interesting points and well made.
I too had qualms about lumping the Fukushima disaster in with all the other low probability events for precisely the reasons alluded to in the articles you have presented.
Chris Aitchison
logged in via Twitter
The Black Swan Theory, developed by Nassim Taleb, is another great perspective on how risk assessments can be completely useless in the face of huge impact events with such low probability they have never happened before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
If you find that sort of stuff interesting, his book on the topic ('The Black Swan') is riveting.
Marie Bosworth
Administration
In short: "Fear is a self fulfilling prophecy."
Chris Borthwick
Writer
Oddly, no mention of one of the most common statistical panic mechanisms: saying "Doing [whatever] increases your risk of {whatever} fifty times", without mentioning that your prior risk of getting {whatever} was one in ten million. That's relative risk as opposed to actual risk.
Stephen Larsson
Consultant
NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge and others hysterical at the thought of being accidentally shot in a national park would do well to read this article, and then calm down!
Philip Dowling
IT teacher
Of course, on current statistics it is safer in a national park than in many Sydney suburbs.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-shootings
http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/latest_releases?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmViaXoucG9saWNlLm5zdy5nb3YuYXUlMkZtZWRpYSUyRjI4NTg1Lmh0bWwmYWxsPTE%3D
Laura Coulter
Practitioner
Ooh. I just loved this article. Not because I have any expertise whatsoever about risk - but this is one of those articles that gives me a visceral reaction. I have no real coherrent argument or comment here, just a collection of responses:
I was fearless in my younger days, but in the last 10 years have become so terrified of flying that I once travelled three nights by train to get to a work meeting on the other side of the country (and three nights to get home again) just to avoid a six-hour…
Read moreKevin Phelan
Workplace Trainer
In discussing my daughter's fear of flying with her I pointed out that being wary of being strapped into a crowded tin can filled with highly combustible substances and being catapaulted through the atmosphere at high speed is perfectly rational.
It requires an appreciation of probability and consequences to fully assess the risk; and an acceptance that the benefits justify the risk; before a person can reasonably be expected to feel comfortable taking their seat in a modern airliner. Even so, the knowledge that even though the probability of a crash might be minute; the consequences of hurtling to earth amidst a flaming chunk of metal is certain death; can reasonably give rise to hesitation or anxiety. Ultimately, the leap into the air requires also a leap of faith.
Adrian Dudek
PhD Candidate at Australian National University
Admittedly, I don't swim in the ocean much for fear of sharks. Though apparently people in New York are bitten 10 times more each year by other people than worldwide by sharks. The ocean is starting to look like a happy alternative.
Mia Masters
pensioner
searching for the 2 comments posted by Elizabeth Hart. What happened to those (with links included) and why was it deemed not pertinent to the 'conversation'?
Elizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Mia, in their article Jon Borwein and David Bailey allude to “the anti-vaccination bandwagon” and refer to California’s “worst whooping cough epidemic in 60 years”, saying: “In spite of these grim statistics and pleas from health agencies, many parents still resist vaccinations for their children.”
Read moreThe inference appears to be that parents resisting vaccination for their children are responsible for the whooping cough epidemic, i.e. the usual simplistic polarising blame game I’ve come to expect from…
Dave Hawkes
Research Officer (Viral tools and Neuropeptides) at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Elizabeth, Could you please link directly to published peer reviewed articles that directly support your hypothesis that there is over vaccination. I looked at your links and you seem worried about conflicts of interest so I will be clear. I have never recieved any gain (financial or otherwise) for my support of vaccination as a public health initiative. Your letters to various people and selective citation of articles does not really present a robust form of evidence. I look forward to being able to assess the published peer reviewed articles supporting your views
Dave Hawkes
Research Officer (Viral tools and Neuropeptides) at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
To save others wading through Ms Hart's other comments by presenting and addressing her major points.
Point 1: High numbers of Whooping Cough cases are now due to strains of the B. pertussis bacteria that is not protect against by the current vaccine
If the vaccine is preventing the targetted B Pertussis strains causing Whooping Cough then it is safe to say the vaccine is working (and hence why there is still widespread support for vaccination against Whooping Cough). As a result the most common…
Read moreElizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Dave, I see from your profile that “promoting science based medicine, in particular combating misinformation about vaccination” is one of your passions: http://theconversation.edu.au/profiles/dave-hawkes-17781/profile_bio
Read moreMe too…
As for your request for “published peer-reviewed articles”, I will provide my usual retort, and refer you to this piece by Frank Furedi: “Turning peer review into modern-day holy scripture – The treatment of peer-reviewed science as an unquestionable form of authority…
Mike Hansen
Mr
Elizabeth Hart's expert is Frank Furedi one time guru behind the UK Revolutionary Communist Party who has travelled across the political spectrum to the far right. Australian readers will be more familiar with his acolyte Brendan O'Neill editor of Spiked magazine (formerly Living Marxism) who writes far right opinion pieces for The Australian on request.
George Monbiot has some background here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/dec/09/highereducation.uk2
"the organisation, led by the…
Read moreDave Hawkes
Research Officer (Viral tools and Neuropeptides) at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Hi,
Ok firstly I mentioned your hypothesis that there is over vaccination" not that you were antivax.
"Minimal, evidence based vaccination" - why not just evidence based vaccination?
I see you have an issue with peer reviewed studies. Feel free to link with any other well designed (including significant numbers of participants and blinding, randomization and placebo where appropriate and ethically approved) clinical trials that support your hypothesis of over vaccination
Your views on the pharma industry, Ben Goldacre, Frank Furedi's view on peer review, your own website do not appear relevant to the current conversation.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
"Frank Furedi one time guru behind the UK Revolutionary Communist Party who has travelled across the political spectrum to the far right."
Mike, you do your argument no favour by citing George Monbiot as an authority. In the 21st century, we need to be far more concerned about a grown man who remains a Leninist (even a High Tory Leninist). OTOH, adults who have have abandoned, and publicly renounced their former "revolutionary Communist" affiliations are to be welcomed.
Elizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Dave, I restate my position is for “minimal, evidence-based vaccination”. Vaccination is a medical intervention and should be considered with care. I’m particularly concerned that the potential long-term consequences of cumulative multiple vaccinations and revaccinations with a variety of vaccine products has not been adequately researched. I’m also interested to explore further the possible ‘unintended consequences’ of vaccination.
Read moreI also suspect there is inadequate ‘informed consent’ being…
Elizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Dave, further to my previous comment, I suggest there are interesting comparisons to be made between companion animal vaccination and human vaccination. For instance, while international dog and cat vaccination guidelines warn that “we should aim to reduce the ‘vaccine load’ on individual animals in order to minimize the potential for adverse reactions to vaccine products” http://www.wsava.org/sites/default/files/VaccinationGuidelines2010.pdf vaccination of humans is increasing at an alarming rate…
Read moreDave Hawkes
Research Officer (Viral tools and Neuropeptides) at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Hi Elizabeth,
In my last message I asked asked you two questions. In your 850 word responses you did not adress either of these simple questions.
"Minimal, evidence based vaccination" - why not just evidence based vaccination?
If there is scientific evidence that vaccines should be given a certain number of times why would you use "minimal" evidence based vaccination? Either you follow the scientific findings or you go with your belief system.
I see you have an issue with peer reviewed…
Read moreElizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Dave, I have gone to some trouble to explain my position on vaccination, including providing you with links to my website “Over-vaccination – Challenging Big Pharma’s lucrative over-vaccination of people and animals”: http://over-vaccination.net/
Now I have some questions for you.
Can you please clarify your position, i.e. do you believe that people, whether sick or healthy, must justify their decision to decline any medical intervention dictated by an ‘expert’?
Do you believe that vaccination should be compulsory, and that people be forbidden to challenge the use of any vaccine on the National Immunisation Program Schedule? http://www.immunise.health.gov.au/internet/immunise/publishing.nsf/Content/nips2
Dave Hawkes
Research Officer (Viral tools and Neuropeptides) at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Hi Elizabeth,
Yes you have gone on at length about your position (there is currently over vaccination) but have supplied no evidence to support it in terms of published clinical trials. I'm afraid your own website does not constitute high quality evidence.
In answer to your questions;
Firstly vaccination is not compulsory anywhere in Australia. There are certain jobs (Australian Armed Forces, many healthcare professions) where vaccination is a requirement of the job. If you don't want vaccination…
Read moreElizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Dave, thanks for sharing the link to the Immunisation Exemption Conscientious Objection Form.
Can you provide me with a link to the form that parents sign before their children are vaccinated, i.e. the Informed Consent form?
Dave Hawkes
Research Officer (Viral tools and Neuropeptides) at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
And yet again you refuse to answer my original question. Every time you post you move the goalposts and still avoid the question I have asked four times (see below). You original contention is that there is over vaccination. Please present evidence of this proposal. I think I have been more than patient with you constantly changing arguments and long series of questions. Time to put up or shut up Ms Hart
"Could you please link directly to published peer reviewed articles that directly support…
Read moreJohn Cunningham
logged in via Facebook
David,
I believe that Elizabeth's proof relies solely on providing links to websites. It's not worth the electrons they're displayed with.
John
Elizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Dave, informed consent is important…
Read moreThe Australian Immunisation Handbook (9th Edition) states:
“For consent to be legally valid, the following elements must be present:
- It must be given by a person with legal capacity, and of sufficient intellectual capacity to understand the implications of being vaccinated.
- It must be given voluntarily.
- It can only be given after the relevant vaccines(s) and their potential risks and benefits have been explained to the individual.
- The individual…
Dave Hawkes
Research Officer (Viral tools and Neuropeptides) at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
And now yet another 500+ word diatribe ranging from informed consent to plugging you website again. It is also not generally a sign of comprehensive research when you have to resort to using the word "suspect", especially when you need to use it three times.
While the links in your letter suggest that you have done some reading taking snippets without context makes it hard to rule out cherry picking of data points to suit your argument. For example I read the very first reference (http://www…
Read moreElizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Here’s some clinical trial data from the GlaxoSmithKline PRIORIX live Measles, Mumps Rubella (MMR) Product Information sheet: https://www.ebs.tga.gov.au/ebs/picmi/picmirepository.nsf/pdf?OpenAgent&id=CP-2010-PI-05279-3
Read moreThis is the MMR vaccine product currently used in Australia, and approved by the TGA. It seems to indicate that ONE vaccination of seronegative vaccinees will be highly effective. (It’s notable that there appears to be no reference to published papers in this Product Information…
Dave Hawkes
Research Officer (Viral tools and Neuropeptides) at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Ok, So from this slab of copy pasted text amongst other things you demonstyrate that the use of a single MMR vaccination did not lead to vaccine coverage but with the use of a second vaccination coverage went up to between 85 and 100%. You also cite the fact that while antibody production for mumps dropped from ~96% to 88% after 12 months. this appears to provide the suggestion that a second vaccination is required for robust antiobdy production
Elizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Further to my comment above, I have now forwarded an email regarding the second dose of the live Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR) vaccine to Professor Terry Nolan, Chair of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI). Professor Nolan is also a member of the Australian Academy of Science’s Working Group for the publication “The Science of Immunisation: Questions and Answers”: http://www.science.org.au/policy/documents/AAS_Immunisation_FINAL_LR_v3.pdf
Read moreIn my email to Professor Nolan…
Elizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Also, re the Australian Academy of Science’s publication “The Science of Immunisation: Questions and Answers”: http://www.science.org.au/policy/immunisation.html
There needs to be more transparency in relation to this publication.
For information, here’s a link to emails I have forwarded to Professor Suzanne Cory, President of the Australian Academy of Science, asking if disclosure statements for members of the Working Group and Oversight Committee for "The Science of Immunisation: Questions and Answers" are publicly available: http://users.on.net/~peter.hart/Academy_of_Science_Disclosure_Statements.pdf
Elizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Dave, as a matter of interest, is The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health supporting your aggressive campaign to stifle any questioning of vaccination policy?
Dave Hawkes
Research Officer (Viral tools and Neuropeptides) at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Hi Elizabeth,
I don't believe writing comments on theconversation.edu.au could be classed as a campaign.
Read moreI have also made it clear that there is no compulsory vaccination and have even posted a link to the conscientious objectors form.
You are angry and trying to make thinly veiled threats because I have simply asked you to support you accustaions with evidence, nothing more or less.
Continuous citing of your own website and letters to various people are not evidence.
When you have cited…
Sue Ieraci
Public hospital clinician
Great article - thank you.
In an increasingly risk-averse society, we have the paradox of greater-than-ever road safety, health outcomes and longevity, together with record levels of fear and dissatisfaction.
I wonder about the influence of "spectrum bias" - ie the less bad outcomes you see, the more you worry about smaller and smaller things. Previous generations lived with high levels of infant mortality, road trauma, famines - now we appear to suffer anxiety and dissatisfaction from marginal misfortunes in comparison.
Kim Darcy
Analyst
Sue, a lot of it has to do with the financial interests at stake among the "public health" industry, and associated fear merchants in the "racism panic" and "epidemic of domestic violence" industries. All of these industries only survive by being able to attract hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayer's money. In order to justify their ongoing cons, they need to get daily media attention spreading misinformation, unethical 'research' findings, and often outright lies. As long as they can keep an uncritical and uneducated media onside, and thus significant sections of the public terrified, their money-trees are evergreen.
Sue Ieraci
Public hospital clinician
Strong accusations, Kim. What do you mean by the "public health" industry? In using quotation marks, are you choosing not to recognise injury prevention, infection control, vaccination or smoking cessation as contributing to public health.
I might understand better if you gave some evidence to back up those assertions.
John Cunningham
logged in via Facebook
Kim, your claim that "a lot of it has to do with the financial interests at stake among the ... fear merchants in the ... "epidemic of domestic violence" industries." is both repulsive and disgusting. Have I got this right? You believe that domestic violence does not occur, and that people are making an industry based upon it? Truly? Is that what you believe?
Debbie Kearns
logged in via Facebook
Its absolutely true that people can't do risk/return calculations very well - but not sure it has anything to do with fear , so the heading was misleading. I assume attempting to be interesting to get people to read it.
What I'd like to challenge is the conclusion that "We are all susceptible to being swayed by the whims of social movements around us, but it is clear that higher-quality education in mathematics and statistics is essential in forging a public mind that is better at assessing…
Read moreBernie Mithen
Director
The app 'Know Risk' is a recent foray into supporting a resilient society. It's quite promising, albeit not explicitly addressing existing anxieties that the article treats very well.
Apps or no, education is the key to a sound community grasp of the risk/exposure calculus and pathways to adjust the risk in everyday life.
A very worthwhile article.
Ben Beccari
Disaster Manager
The lack of fatal airliner accidents in the US over the last 4 years did make the front page of the International Herald Tribune.
Kevin Phelan
Workplace Trainer
Anxiety is a very personal thing.
I could feel anxious about things that are immediately life threatening to me but are statistically unlikely.
This is what real risk assessments are about. They are not about statistical analysis or mathematical models.
If I am a worker on a construction site and I see something that "makes me feel uneasy" or (in the (prarphrased) words of Yossie Berger) "makes my sphincter twitch";
I am stopping that job. Becaus if I don't; and my gut feeling is correct;…
Read morePhilip Dowling
IT teacher
I enjoyed this article as it reminded me of one of my favourite books, Panicology by Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams.
Read moreHowever I thought that the role of the media was not adequately emphasized. Unusual events tend to garner publicity, such as aircraft crashes and shark attacks, whereas the mundane though more common receive much less.
The media also often self-censor. Thus people who are dual nationals are regularly described as Australian even though the other nationality is a relevant…
Yoron Hamber
Thinking
Don't have anything against statistics, nor probability theory, but to draw the conclusions this article does is a little far fetched to me. We still don't know what the results will be from cell phones, and there is research proving that it can reach pass the blood barrier of the skull. Think we had this discussion somewhere else too?
Any research that's current means just that, current research. It's not the 'final proof' of anything, and when it comes to statistics it always builds on histories…
Read moreElizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
There appears to be another technical hitch in The Conversation’s commenting feature…
Comments history for some people is being curtailed.
I was interested to check Dave Hawkes’ comment history, but only one page of his comments is accessible. It’s a similar story for my comments, only one page of comments, and the next page shows “You don’t have any activity.” So our previous exchanges about the HPV vaccine on the “Catch Cancer? No thanks, I’d rather have a shot” thread https://theconversation.edu.au/catch-cancer-no-thanks-id-rather-have-a-shot-7568 are not listed.
That’s odd…
Elizabeth Hart
Independent Vaccine Investigator
Jon Borwein and David Bailey – can you please explain why three of my comments were deleted on this conversation thread?
Ruth Gordon
logged in via Facebook
re parents no longer letting their kids go to school on their own, and now reduced abduction rates by strangers, is there a connection there that gives weight to the paranoid parents' concerns? As in, is it possible that the reason child abduction rates have fallen is because fewer kids are going to school unsupervised?
Michael Hunt
logged in via Twitter
Let's say I am a kidnapper. Whether I am inclined to be a kidnapper or not is highly unlikely to be correlated to how many kids go to school unsupervised.
But my task of kidnapping is very likely made easier when _fewer_ kids go to school unsupervised, because the unsupervised kids are more likely to be walking by themselves and not in a group.
The figures here make me doubt that the situation for abduction is getting better: http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/0/B/6/%7B0B619F44-B18B-47B4-9B59-F87BA643CBAA%7Dfacts11.pdf