In response to my blog on Roundup, I received this email (and no, it wasn’t addressed “dear Wonk”)…
“This is an excellent article and presentation of how the desired outcome affects the stated conclusion of a study. Based on news headlines, I have vilified Roundup. This is a convincing reminder to dig deeper before taking a position.
What I see as a similar debate is the one about the risks and efficacy of vaccines. It is a particularly hot topic here in Oregon as the state legislature is working on a bill that removes the option for a non-medical exemption from vaccination for school children. If the child is not vaccinated and does not have a medical exemption, that child will not be allowed to attend public school.
I find this similar to the Roundup issue because I have been told that there are studies that support both conclusions: vaccines do cause autism and other auto-immune disease and vaccines do not cause these conditions. I have not done any research myself. I understand that the linchpin study supporting the harmfulness of vaccines has been retracted. What is the truth?
I have friends looking to move out of the state if this bill becomes law.
I would like to understand the science before addressing the personal liberty issue of such a law.
Thanks for waking up my critical thinking skills.”
The study referenced was indeed retracted, but only after 12 long years. Even after it became known that the lead author failed to inform anyone that the study “was commissioned and funded for planned litigation” and that he had falsified data, his report continued to cause a decline in the vaccination rates. While there is always a slight risk of some severe allergic reaction, there is no evidence for a link between vaccines and disease, and the dangers they prevent are far greater than any that cause. By creating a belief in a false link between vaccines and autism that have directly led to lost lives, the retracted study may go down as one of the most damaging cases of fraud in history.
By the way, if you’re ever in need of evidence for the efficacy of vaccines, look no further than these visualizations…
From a scientific standpoint, this issue looks like a slam dunk, so why are there still so many people trying to get out of vaccinations? For one, many are well aware of the evils of Big Pharma and profit-driven healthcare: the $30 billion budget for medical marketing in the US has brought us the opioid crisis, unaffordable drugs, and medication overload (40% of the elderly are taking five or more medications). It’s hard to imagine that public health is valued nearly as much as profit in this country. However, given the phony autism study above, created in the hope of winning lawsuits, maybe people who are watching out for Big Pharma simply need to learn to also watch out for Big Lawya.
I’m sure that awareness wouldn’t hurt, but it isn’t enough. Debunking studies misrepresenting the dangers of vaccines and ushering in piles of evidence about their benefits will probably have little effect on someone who wants to opt out. So what is it that’s actually causing these people to leave their kids and others vulnerable to potentially deadly diseases?
I’m thinking it’s the misguided fear of regret. In Michael Lewis’s book The Undoing Project, he mentions a paper about decision analysis called “The Decision to Seed Hurricanes.” There was a new technique available to the government (dumping silver iodide into storms) which could reduce the amount of damage done by hurricanes or alter their paths. However, while the government would not be given credit for what had been avoided (since nobody would know for sure), it would certainly be blamed for the damage the storm inflicted on its new path. This asymmetry between credit and blame causes a bias towards non-intervention, which struck me as similar to a parent’s decision for or against a vaccination. Their child may or may not have been on a path towards an infectious disease and if the vaccine turned out to be a life-saving factor later on, nobody would know.
Behavioral economists often model people as rational decision-makers who don’t seek risk or avoid risk, they weigh risk. They are expected to maximize their utility, which is a clever metric used to standardize the value of various outcomes so that math can be used to find the choices with the best expected value. However, psychologists Kahneman and Tversky found that rather than maximizing utility, people seek to minimize regret. In a memo to Tversky, Kahneman wrote “The pain that is experienced when the loss is caused by an act that modified the status quo is significantly greater than the pain that is experienced when the decision led to the retention of the status quo. When one fails to take action that could have avoided a disaster, one does not accept responsibility for the occurrence of the disaster.”
If you point out that people are irrational, they take it personally in a way that they don’t if you pointed out that they’ve been fooled by an optical illusion. What psychologists have discovered is that it’s normal to be irrational when faced with particular types of problems, so we shouldn’t take it personally. We should just learn when those times are, and resist the pull towards bad decision-making. We shouldn’t be angry when governments require us to become vaccinated, we should be thankful. They are saving us from our tendency to make bad decisions.
You may have read about the recent public health concern for moviegoers at a theater showing the Avengers a few weeks ago who may have been exposed to someone with measles. Here’s my takeaway idea to help people overcome their cognitive blind-spots on this: those who were at that theater and remained healthy should publicly thank their parents for vaccinating them. “I didn’t get measles the other day, thanks mom!” When we can, let’s make a point to acknowledge the moments when disaster didn’t strike and give credit where it’s due.
