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Well put. I'm married to an professor, who's the daughter of two educators.  My parents were also educators, as were 3 of their 4 parents, collectively.  I have a postgraduate degree.  In short, I believe in education and respect the profession.

At the same time, I think the teacher's unions are an embarrassment.  Good teachers deserve good pay, but they should be easy to fire if they don't perform.  If they're going to administer and grade tests, they should be able to pass tests.  Schools should be easy to close if it means we can offer more challenging curricula to kids.  Who cares if that means Junior doesn't go to Dad's old school?  How is that even part of the discussion?  Someone needs to light a fire under the whole system.  Education is too important to be lazy or hidebound about.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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This whole discussion was too complacent and missed the bigger picture of why we need education in the first place.  Where is the urgency?? I appreciate that the school administrators need to be inclusive and democratic, but I'd think the parents at least should be knocking down doors to get the best possible education for their kids--which includes challenges, not necessarily comfort. You learn more from difficulty than you do from luxury.

I didn't hear a burning urge to make the entire system twice as good as it is now.  We need that urgency.  We need a post-Sputnik attitude; the global economy is rising to challenge America--as it should--and we're not going to fix a 13% unemployment rate by fostering "community identity" or neighborhoods.  First, we must work as hard as the billions of less fortunate people who'd love to have our lives.  Our Portland neighborhoods are not going to be too neighborly if we all have to move to Asia to find work.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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I'm usually on the fence about the quality of the show. I moved here from Boston and listened to WBUR's incomparable "The Connection" all through the Chris Lydon glory years and spectacular flameout.  It still pains me to think that NPR is still having trouble topping Ray Suarez on "Talk of the Nation".  This is by way of explaining where I set the bar for good call-in shows, with hosts, callers, and guests that are worth putting on the air instead of simply ceding more time to Opb Music.

I am writing to thank Mayor Strombert for his comments.  His calm, careful, patient, and wise differentiation between protecting children and protecting parents' rights to choose what (or should I say whom)  their children are exposed to, was striking. This show may be called "Think Out Loud," but it is astonishingly poor at taking one strand of thought and following it for more than 90 seconds, or having two interlocutors volley a single point back and forth for more than a couple moments of talking past one another. 

I happen not to agree with Mayor Strombert; I think that anyone who raises their children to feel "damaged" by something they see at a distance, in public, instead of simply laughing or looking away--these people are doing their children a disservice.  They are raising their children to be wimps or prudes.  Be that as it may, he made his point wonderfully carefully and persistently. The citizens of Ashland are lucky.

An honorable mention goes to Mr. Navickas as well. Also, commendably patient and well spoken.

Really, the whole topic of the show was ridiculous.  I initially thought I'd be writing in to fulminate about what sorts of nitwits thought that this topic should be aired ahead of any a long list of topics that actually might matter, ever, to anyone, in any substantial way. For example, forget their clothedness: what have the protesters been protesting?

But, credit where credit is due.  Mssrs. Strombert and Navickas offered intricate, thoughtful opinions that unfolded over time, and they listened carefully and responded diligently to the questions addressed to them, no matter how fatuous.

So. It's a left handed compliment to the show, to be sure, but to Ashland's public servants: you were the most substantive, articulate speakers in recent memory.  You did more with less, in my opinion, than any guests I've ever heard on the show. Well done.

posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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Here is the line of questioning I would like to hear on air:

It's too reductive to zoom in on whether a lie was told, if we don't also ask what questions the lie was responding to.

In particular, this analysis explodes one of the reporter's arguments. The mayor can still fire employees for lying *if* they are lying about on-the-job performance matters. He should not fire them for lying about their personal lives. There is no moral problem here. (There *is* some muckraking.)

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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Well said. The germs brought to the "New World" killed far more people than any colonialist's sword, and often with malice aforethought. Entire cultures are gone. GONE. The people who doubt vaccine's value to humanity are jawdroppingly ignorant. I don't accuse them of this lightly, but it's hard to overstate the carnage that has been done by now-vaccinatable disease.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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rpn1thx --

This note is a courtesy to say that I am clearly talking past you, so will not be responding in the future. Your responses are so erratic that I never know where to begin. Until you say something cogent and backed up with evidence, expect no reply from me. It's time to move on.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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You make many excellent points.

As one of (if not the) most inflamed commenters, let me draw a distinction between the way I might attack an idea that has been set forth as a policy recommendation for society, versus the way I would treat an individual who is confused about the healthcare they are receiving. The latter deserves compassion. If the show were about patient's experience of healthcare, my tone would be entirely different.

In the policy arena, though, arguments have consequences. The consequences of not vaccinating are horrific: death, pain, disability, terror, for tens of thousands if not millions of people. They entirely annihilate (in relative terms) the very real (but very rare) problems of side effects.

I am so inflamed on this topic because, quite literally, the number of people who would suffer or die (or both) in the absence of vaccines is larger than any war the world has seen. Before the advent of sanitation, medicine, and public health, epidemics would frequently sweep through populations and kill ONE IN THREE. The reason that there are so few "Native Americans" in the Americas is that OVER NINETY-FIVE PERCENT OF THEIR ANCESTORS DIED FROM EUROPEAN DISEASES. The deaths due to vaccinatable disease dwarf Sudan, Rwanda, the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the Khmer Rouge, Stalin, and every murder ever committed, combined. How angry is too angry?

It should be an outrage to every thinking person that underinformed people would get on the radio and NOT know this and NOT put these facts first. I could be a gentler advocate, but that would not be fair to the enormity of the subject matter. There are not many things that present more danger than war, genocide, and murder combined.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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"It's a distinction without a difference if the only vaccines available to you have mercury in them."

Lots of things change if you attach ridiculous hypotheticals to them. The distinction between "moon" and "moron" disappears if there's no such thing as the letter R. In the real world, there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, and most if not all vaccines available in the US are available in forms with no mercury.

Was this a show about reducing children's exposure to mercury, or was it about vaccination? Hint: the title was "Taking Shots". It is irresponsible to conflate the issues.


"Or are you saying that some unvaccinated child became the breeding ground for a mutant form of measles? Kind of a stretch! "

Every unvaccinated child is a breeding ground for measles. That is not only NOT a stretch, it is axiomatic to the theory of epidemiology.

"Wasn't that fourth grader vaccinated? If they were, why did they get measles?"

Vaccination is not a silver bullet or a guarantee. It's a probabilistic improvement. Its value is measured in populations, not individuals. It is, however, the best we can do. Again, this is Epidemiology 101.

And yes, vaccines are known to have side effects in a very small fraction of the population. Literally, it is close to one in a million. This risk is known and, thanks to science, predictable, so Vaccine Court exists to assist those who experience the worst side effects. There is nothing in any of these facts that alters the basic net value of vaccination to society. You might as well argue that because, say, 40 people per year get trapped in burning cars by their seatbelts that we should remove safety devices from vehicles.

"If not, what was your point?"

Strange that I would have to explain so many things to someone with a master's in "research", whatever that means.

The point was that if you want to make up your mind based on horror stories instead of science, the trend STILL favors vaccination. The horror stories of infection dwarf those of vaccination side effects, both in number and severity.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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"This serious topic is about the ability to live a normal life, not about forcing every one to accept the conclusions of charts and graphs done with slanted studies and flawed logic."

My objection to the tenor of the debate (as aired) is that it's not enough to whine that the studies are "slanted" and the logic "flawed". If the best available studies say XYZ, then the burden of proof is on their critics to demonstrate the slants, highlight the logical flaws, and participate in improving the collective understanding of the problem. That's how responsible science and responsible policy-making are done. The crackpots don't want to play that game because either they know science is not on their side or, more commonly, they don't understand enough science to speak competently about the matter, which is how they got snared into their benighted theories in the first place.

"complain about speaking of immoral profits and financially based science"

I have no issues with attacks on immoral profits or financially based science--when they are substantiated. I haven't heard that from you.

I do have issues with people who disagree with science because they are worried by it, confused by it, or would be happier in a world where strong emotional feelings are given credibility equivalent to empirical fact. Western civilization tried being ruled by those sorts of people, in an experiment now known as The Dark Ages. Then they pulled their heads out of their collective rump and produced math, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, economics, public education, secular universities, research as a profession, the fourth estate, democracy, freedom, and, yes, sanitation, public health, and medicine. On balance, I'd say the Enlightenment wins. (People who got enslaved or colonized during that period might well disagree with the overall benevolence of that transition, but that speaks to a moral failing of Westerners, not the problem of fact vs suspicion.)

Even if some of the science on vaccinations is bad or incomplete, the answer to bad science is good science--not mumbo jumbo or, for that matter, travel writing. We don't let musicians design airplane engines or let children install electrical wiring or let dogs vote because EXPERTISE MATTERS. Normally TOL seems to recognize that. Apparently whoever ran their phone bank for this episode also compiled their guest list.

BTW, it's spelled Cheney, not Chaney. And yes, he and Rumsfeld ARE faith-based if one considers that phrase to be the antithesis of "fact-based". It does not necessarily connote religion.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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Thanks for the illustration of the importance of asking questions about your treatment. That's a helpful point.

But I don't quite understand the distrust you are hinting at (as opposed to healthy skepticism). Yes, there have been many well-known mistakes in medicine over the years. But that is just as much a reason to have confidence in the system as to doubt it. When you take the mistakes in the fuller context of mistakes being made, analyzed, publicized, and corrected going forward, you realize how modern medicine got from near-useless in 1908 to not half bad in 2008. If there's another profession that gets as much scrutiny of its mistakes, I can't think of it. Airlines, maybe?

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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"trying to balance... profit for shareholders and caring for people"

Most doctors I know are also parents. If they have a bias, unconscious or otherwise, it's going to be in favor of defending children's health, not padding the bottom line. Maybe hospital administrators have an institutional bias, or pharmaceutical companies, or doctors who own their own large practices, but most family doctors these days are working for big corporations and are rather ambivalent about it. They are not "company men" (or women). I don't know whether you are correct when you suggest this is affecting the quality of information we can gather in the field--perhaps you are--but I simply don't find your account of pressures and loyalties consistent with my own experience or with the facts I know about the profession. I think there are many ways in which our health care system is unfortunately altered by money, but the truthfulness of studies about vaccines is not one of them, as far as I can tell.

"getting good answers is tough"

Yes, getting good answers is hard. That's why it takes bright people with sophisticated training to be competent at assessing whether an answer is statistically "good". That's why very few job listings at the CDC include "travel writer" as a desirable qualification. To the degree that we CAN get good answers, the way to do it is via population studies and numerical analysis, not by building a movement fueled by tearjerking stories. The stories are emotionally powerful, and every family that's had adverse effects of vaccination has my sympathy, but emotionally powerful can be misleading. In this case, DANGEROUSLY misleading.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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Read some of my other posts on this topic. I'm by no means a blanket defender of "experts" who don't publish their results or disclose their statistical models or commit any of the various secrecy/faith-based shenanigans that Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al have committed. But the remarkable thing about science is it can be objectively reviewed, evaluated, reproduced, and improved. This is in strong contrast to many of the claims made here by anti-vaccine true believers. I think the left is equally capable of producing faith-based loonies as the right--and on the topic of vaccines, they have, in spades.

Rumsfeld and Cheney should be held accountable for the lives lost due to their malfeasance. I put the anti-vaccine crackpots in the same category.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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"It?s more a matter of which ones do we, as a society, still need, and which ones would be better suited for those who are living in or travel in high risk areas."

A very reasonable position. Certainly, benefits must be weighed against costs. But that's a question that can be asked, and answered, empirically. As citizens, we should set the policy goals and agenda, then hire people who have subject matter expertise to crunch the numbers. This is a difficult notion for many vaccine-wary people to accept.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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"ridiculous telephone-glitch banter-fest"

No doubt that couldn't have helped the situation. I know you guys try hard every day, and for the most part I've admired your judgment. (The fact that you articulate it as well as you do in real time is especially remarkable--it's not a skill I have.)

This was not your finest hour, though. Controversies over empirical topics (especially ones with powerful stakes) are much different than controversies over, say, literature. Some ideas are demonstrably bad.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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This is a very reasonable position. It can't be easy to be the parent of a vaccine injured child. I applaud that you are seeking rigorous large-population studies. Many people in your situation have taken the view that studies are not to be trusted no matter what, and that anecdotes should be the driver of policy.

Best of luck with your case.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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I am sorry for your son's condition.

There is a useful distinction between avoiding mercury and avoiding vaccines altogether, however.

And, if you don't have a sophisticated enough understanding of epidemiology to see several flaws in your reasoning on your point #3, maybe you should drop out of the public debate. One such example: if your kids aren't vaccinated and get the disease, they become breeding ground (literally) for the pathogens to reproduce and attempt to evolve resistance to antibiotics, or to evolve a strain that the vaccinations don't immunize against. Every new infection is an opportunity for evolution. Or don't you believe in evolution, either?

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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Before you make that decision, go talk to the parents of a fourth-grader who couldn't relearn the alphabet after getting measles and a 107-degree fever. Or visit the graves of kids who weren't that lucky. Take your kids and stand next to the graves. Say it to your kids' faces, while standing there, that you could have done something to protect them but have decided not to. Then give them some whole-grain rice and a bottle of kefir as a treat. That should work.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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Tell me what a "p value" is and I'll take you seriously.

There's a difference between research and googling.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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I wholeheartedly agree. TOL usually does a better job of parsing controversial topics. I've been listening since the show's inception and have never been more disappointed. This is a topic where information has real consequences. I am sad to say that the word "irresponsible" is a shoe that fits.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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Your reasoning is backward. The whole point of vaccines--and I don't mean most of the point, I mean the WHOLE point--is that they strengthen immune systems. There may be individual cases where they don't make sense, but a doctor should identify them. An expert.

By your logic, if you were not particularly athletic, then you would tell your child not to exercise. It's exactly the wrong decision. (In general; there may be particular reasons why it could make sense in isolated cases.)

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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