Heads up to Dr. Bob again…

Still think delaying the MMR is a great idea?

11 Measles Cases Reported In Brooklyn:

The Baloney Detection Kit

I’m not a huge fan of Dawkins, but I found this video from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, presented by Dr. Michael Shermer , an excellent primer to thinking critically about claims made by scientists – or pseudoscientists, as it were:

It’s a little long (almost 15 minutes), but worth it, I think.

AMA: Stop throwing good research money after bad

AMA Rejects Call for More Research on Vaccine Link to Autism, Reaffirms Immunization Policies:

How to win friends and influence people

Not:

The Onion aims…and scores again!

Tee hee.

Playgrounds for grownups

A few years ago, I read about how Germany was planning adult playgrounds, in order to inspire the elderly to stay active. It sounded like a really cool idea. In fact, so cool an idea, that it probably would take several decades to catch on over here in Israel.

Is overparenting becoming passé?

The NYT’s Lisa Belkin thinks it might be:

The E word

The word “Empowerment” is such an overused word these days. As the Onion notes sardonically, women now feel empowered by just about everything they do. Yeah, I know the Onion is satire. But it really does seem that anything that makes a woman feel better about herself or boosts her confidence is now “empowering”. Even more often, at least in the context of parenting – making a specific, fashionable choice (like “natural” birth, crafting a special vaccine schedule for your special snowflake child, etc.) is considered the empowering one, whereas those who make another choice are sheeple who mindlessly follow whatever those ‘in charge’ tell them to do.

Time to replenish that tissue and rotten tomato supply…

Remember this video?. Here’s Part II:

How can you mend a broken trust?

A new article in PLoS Biology discusses the vaccines/autism contriversy from a anthropological/psychological perspective: A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine–Autism Wars. The history is well-known to most regular readers of this blog, but this particular article is interesting because it identifies the way the idea that vaccines cause autism took hold among the lay public. The main reasons for this, according to the article, are: