Many of my readers have probably noticed that a recurring target of my criticism is the mass-media, for being an inadvertent but crucial culprit in western governments' perpetual lack of accountability to people and voluntary embrace of policies that ignore proven scientific facts about society and economics. I find that people will swallow conspiracy theories regarding the mass-media with the same ease with which they swallow the mind-numbing hysteria peddled by the media itself, but my simpler theory that media conglomerates behave like any other large corporation - distributing whatever information will get them ratings and hence profits with no heed to its credibility or the aftermath of spreading falsehoods - does not go down remotely as easily. Well, perhaps this story, largely unrelated to politics, will help illustrate my point.
I recently contracted a virus that I thought was the Mumps. This turned out later not to be the case, but I began doing research on Mumps symptoms and the various recent developments surrounding the MMR vaccine that I had only heard about by word of mouth up to this point. What I discovered was the true potential of how dangerous irresponsible journalism can be, and I figured I would share it with my readers.
In 1998, a physician (and I use that term loosely) named Dr. Andrew Wakefield in the UK conducted a study to determine a correlation between the MMR (MeaslesMumpsRubella) vaccine and Autism. Many of you have probably heard of the various accusations of scientific misconduct, data manipulation, and abuse that were later brought against Dr. Wakefield concerning this study, and in fact the British General Medical Council struck him from the UK Medical Register in February 2010 as a result of these findings. But the wave of retractions and investigations did not begin until 2004, giving the study 6 years of credibility and legitimacy among the public of the western world, so the real question is what happened around the time of the study's initial publication that created the need for the controversy and subsequent discreditation?
In the published study, Wakefield and colleagues clearly admitted that they had failed to determine any causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and Autism, and even their claim of a correlation was admittedly based on anecdotal evidence collected from parents regarding the temporal onset of behavioral symptoms associated with Autism. Wakefield and his colleagues then held a press conference surrounding the paper's publication, in which Wakefield proudly declared to the world his completely medically inaccurate conjecture about the mechanism by which MMR could lead to Autism, and his suggestion that parents opt out of the MMR vaccine in favor of 3 separate vaccines a year apart. A number of researchers in the UK attempted to replicate the study and found no evidence of anything Wakefield said, and the conclusion reached by the UK's Department of Health was to continue issuing MMR vaccines, the director of immunization publically stating that the costs associated with producing separate vaccines and the risks of leaving children exposed to these viruses for up to 2 years longer far outweighed any potential risk the MMR had been proven to carry.
But, the damage had been done. I find that the majority of people in the west don't understand how vaccinations really work, so let me explain why Wakefield's inception of mass-ignorance was so dangerous. I am not a physician by any stretch of the imagination, but vaccinations fall under healthcare policy and they are something political scientists are required to understand as a social phenomenon. It is common knowledge that vaccines are not 100% guarantees against infection, and that every society will have a small percentage of members who are never vaccinated for one reason or another (medical contra-indications in specific people, opting out for religious reasons, undocumented migrants, neglected children whose parents ignore this, and so forth). Hence, between these two phenomena, every society where vaccinations are standard will still have a few cases of the disease. However, most vaccines have a coefficient referred to as "herd immunity," which is a percentage of the members of society required vaccinated to keep the virus under control. For the purposes of evolution, viruses are living things. Every infected person constitutes several million virus lives, and during the course of the disease the infected person's immune system eradicates millions of said specimens. During an epidemic with 1000s of infected people, this allows the virus to undergo natural selection in a matter of days that requires 100,000s, sometimes millions of years in humans. Vaccinations don't completely eliminate cases of infection, but they do deny the virus any real potential for mutation and evolution, eventually forcing it into extinction. THIS is what eradicated smallpox and polio, no country ever achieved 100% vaccination. However, the "herd immunity" coefficient is required for this effect (the numbers vary by virus); if the percentage of vaccinated persons drops significantly below it, the virus can become epdiemic and mutate or evolve into a form that the vaccine is no longer effective against, rendering even vaccinated people susceptible to it and the vaccine virtually useless. This is the reason western countries are so apeshit about immunization records when it comes to incoming foreigners of any kind - it would seem admitting unvaccinated people does not put the vaccinated natural born citizens at risk, but the herd immunity concept illustrates why this is not the case. This is also why flu vaccines have such a poor rate of success - not remotely enough people get them for herd immunity and the virus infects enough people in one season to mutate past the effectiveness of the vaccine even in those who got it.
With this information, the disservice ex-Dr. Wakefield did humanity becomes evident. A medical researcher had claimed on national TV that the MMR vaccine may cause Austism! Sure, he may as well have claimed that the earth was flat in terms of scientific backing, but words like "correlation" and "causation" sound like gibberish to most average people, Wakefield's authority lay in his title and license. MMR vaccinations dropped far below herd immunity levels in the UK as a result of his bantering, and an explosion of measles and mumps infections in children has resulted since in both the UK and several other countries with high travel rates to it, enough cases in the UK by the calculations of many real scientists to put the vaccinated majority at risk from new virus forms. If Measles and Mumps had a Nobel Committee that issued prizes and recognition for furthering the cause of their species, "Dr." Wakefield would no doubt be their most honored recipient, followed closely by his dimwitted celebrity groupie Jenny McCarthy. When it comes to humanity, however, they are now responsible for 1000s of children sick with diseases we have known how to prevent for half a century, and the possible costs of having to develop new vaccinations when the viruses were nearly extinct in Europe and North America. They have earned their permanent spot on this species' historical shitlist as far as I'm concerned.
But the social effect of this lunatic (and possible fraud as at least one investigation alleged conflict of interest as he engaged in this endeavor while filing a patent for his own individual measles vaccine that would replace the most crucial portion of MMR) is one that is common and must be accounted for. When tea was first discovered by European explorers in India, for example, the companies distributing it funded a large campaign of supposedly scientific manifestos to be publically read to the largely illiterate populations of Europe that declared tea to be nothing short of a magical potion that would do away with a persons' health problems and earthly needs if he drank 30-40 cups of it a DAY! We think we have come so far since then, but Dr. Wakefield's stunt has clearly illustrated this isn't the case. Sure, we have licensing institutions to make such behavior contrary to one's self-interest, but despite these there will always be some sociopath like Dr. Wakefield that is smart enough to evade law enforcement but too arrogant to realize his scheme has no chance of succeeding.
This is where the mainstream media becomes a necessary element of corruption and deception. I have no reason to suspect that any of the media networks involved in Wakefield's press conference were intentionally on board with what he was doing. But simultaneously, they flocked like vultures to his call for a press conference clearly familiar with the gist of what he would present, although perhaps not the lengths to which he'd go. If they had as much as consulted an independent researcher on the validity of his study before placing him on national TV, the entire 12 years of controversy and epidemics could have been avoided. They heeded his call, not maliciously but equally without a trace of responsibility, because they knew that a scientist claiming what he claimed would induce hysteria, and hysteria equals ratings. Perhaps they didn't realize the seriousness of the ramifications in this case, but this is precisely what makes the story so disturbing. People will believe anything they hear on the news as long as it is scary and disturbing and whoever is saying it is built up by the media to be credible, and this gives the media all the incentive it needs to build up every sociopath and unstable psychiatric patient with an agenda or without that somehow managed to acquire a degree or other status that makes him credible to people who are lazy about checking their sources.
In medicine, the scientific community has very clear standards of statistical validity trusted by the majority of the population which allowed Wakefield's lunacy to be debunked in a mere decade, but it still may have managed to essentially bring two viruses back from the dead. Think of this media effect when it comes to politics, however. Social sciences have their own sets of standards for statistical validity, but many people are unaware of this altogether - thinking that politics is all conjecture with no quantification or predictability. More importantly, because social sciences are younger sciences with so many special interests vested in the delay of their acceptance, a popular view is still that these standards are somehow unreliable and biased - in which direction usually correlates with the political positions of whoever holds that view. In light of this, anyone with an agenda or simply with a hard-on for being on TV can make completely ludicrous claims and the media will gladly disseminate them as long as they bring in ratings, convincing voters of mind-numbing falsehoods about economics and the political system that scientists cannot later unconvince them of, resulting in long and detrimental trends of electing and supporting incompetent and corrupt politicians. In fact, the very belief that licensing institutions and regulations are comparable in their effectiveness to competition in terms of deterring the behavior of people like Dr. Wakefield is a mind-numbing falsehood that the media has effectively shoved down the public's throats. If people didn't think he must be trustworthy simply because he is a doctor by government standards, his credibility would have rested on his individual track record which was questionable at best. This same faith in regulations causes the false dichotomy debate over regulating megabanks, while everyone takes for granted that they are insulated from competition by guaranteed bailouts when the recessions their own irresponsible behavior causes should have eliminated them decades ago. This isn't a conspiracy, it is not remotely coherent or well-enough put together to be the work of some unseen hand. It is simply the compound effect of widespread ignorance and proneness to ideology-induced hysteria that in the end reaches even those who don't subscribe to it by means of the electoral system, much the way vaccines become ineffective if the virus can infect a large enough minority of the population.
I would never suggest regulating or seizing media corporations to resolve this dilemma. This has been tried on every continent and the result is that the media becomes a propaganda mill for a single government agenda, eliminating the one redeeming factor of the system described above - the competition between inconsistent hysteria that causes people to at least somewhat question it and prevents any one special interest from becoming hegemonic. However, in light of the fact that these are private corporations seeking profit, the way to punish them for their incompetence and irresponsibility that actually works is simply to boycott what they produce. If enough people do this, they will naturally become more responsible and competent because this will benefit the one thing they care about - the bottom line. Until that day, no amount of regulations or censorship or lawsuits will change their behavior. But opting out of consumption and getting your information from more reliable sources will give you a competitive advantage over people who believed Dr. Wakefield and opted out of MMR for their children - a competitive advantage doesn't guarantee survival, but regulations don't fair any better at this and being informed is the best you can hope for. TURN OFF YOUR TV.
