Via Twitter and
Skeptical Canary comes a link to an
online survey set up by antivaxers into the health of unvaccinated children.
There are many things about this which are colossally stupid. One is the self-selection bias which is inevitable in antivaxers carrying this out. If the link is spread among ideologically-motivated antivaxers, then only ideologically-motivated antivaxers will answer, making it
"a survey of the purported health of the children of people known to lie a lot"
The other majorly stupid thing is that it's on the internet.
Guess what else is on the internet?
Yep, you guessed right. People like me.
So I filled out a survey.
My child is called "Roger DeBeer", because I was drinking a Rogers' Beer by Little Creatures Brewing at the time. You wouldn't believe what a hard time this unvaccinated 11-year old has had. Really, it's amazing the lad is still alive.
The worst thing that's happened wasn't listed as a category on the form, so I had to add it under "other".
"My child was kidnapped by witches shortly after his third birthday. Other parents tell me this is common among unvaccinated children, and may be the reason so many insane shut-in women are anti-vaccination.
Luckily, we got him back by luring the witch out with a granola bar and cramming her into an oven."
As for the reason we didn't vaccinate:
Both Roger's mother and I contracted severe temporary neurological symptoms after eating organic food that had been contaminated with E coli from its fertiliser. We attribute the decision to not vaccinate to this condition. Had we been right in the head, we'd have made a different decision
Basically, we were mad as shit.
I also added some additional information which I'd like to pass on to antivaxers
I've heard it said that surveys on the internet are unscientific because there's no way to really know if the answers given are completely made up. Is this true?
Of course, I fully expect Roger's results to be purged from the final dataset that the antivax loons of vaccineinjury.info finally release, but then, they have many of these surveys I've submitted this evening, from what IP addresses, under what names, and with what fake symptoms. Even if they do a follow-up, well, who's to say they'll be emailing a real address?
And I'm not the only one that's been attempting to drum a lesson into these nuts.
Basically, what we're looking at here is the Hulk Report at VAERS all over again, but on a much grander scale. And it's hilarious. Feel free to add your own story, I'm sure the antivaxers will be most keen to hear about your child's symptoms if they're unvaccinated, or their lack thereof if they are...
posted @ Friday, February 11, 2011 9:37 PM