Be a pro-MMR campaigner

Andrew Wakefield turned up to the General Medical Council surrounded by a sadly deluded group of parents still campaigning against the MMR.

But there was an irony in their campaign (beyond the irony that persuading people not to use the MMR endangers the children they are campaiging to protect).

Up before the GMC at the same time as Dr Wakefield was his research colleague Simon Murch. But Doctors Murch and Wakefield disagree about the MMR with Murch arguing that the initial research did not demonstrate a link.

The disagreement got personal, with Wakefield suggesting that Murch had only argued against the link because he came under pressure from his bosses.

Maybe I should get down there with a pro-Murch placard.

While I search for a felt tip pen and a piece of wood, I've been looking at Wikipedia's list of cognitive biases to see how many apply to the anti-MMR campaigners:

• Bandwagon effect — the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink, herd behaviour, and manias.
• Bias blind spot — the tendency not to compensate for one's own cognitive biases.
• Confirmation bias — the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.
• Focusing effect — prediction bias occurring when people place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome. 
• Illusion of control — the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly cannot.
• Information bias — the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.
• Neglect of probability — the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.
• Omission bias — The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).
• Post-purchase rationalization — the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.
• Reactance - the urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice.
• Von Restorff effect — the tendency for an item that "stands out like a sore thumb" to be more likely to be remembered than other items.
• Zero-risk bias — preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.
• Ambiguity effect — the avoidance of options for which missing information makes the probability seem "unknown".
• Anchoring — the tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor," on one trait or piece of information when making decisions.
• Anthropic bias — the tendency for one's evidence to be biased by observation selection effects.
• Attentional bias — neglect of relevant data when making judgments of a correlation or association.
• Availability heuristic — a biased prediction, due to the tendency to focus on the most salient and emotionally-charged outcome.
• Clustering illusion — the tendency to see patterns where actually none exist.
• Illusory correlation — beliefs that inaccurately suppose a relationship between a certain type of action and an effect.
• False consensus effect — the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them.

But I've probably missed out a few.

Comments

[David Moss]

It may not be all that simple. Let us remember that Dr Wakefield is not stupid and has years of experience as a professional researcher. The supporting parents may not but he may well have come across a few of these biases himself.

[Simon Stephenson]

Whatever the rights of wrongs of Dr Wakefield's actions, the fact remains that there is a widespread public belief that authority, in general, is not above:-

(1) Making misleading statements when it is perceived that these will be more persuasive than the truth.

(2) Deliberately falsifying reported outcomes, and not correcting obvious mistakes, in order to avoid having to accept responsibility for errors in the original decision process.

This is the impression many people have, and the reason they have it is that there is TOO MUCH truth in it. The way to restore some sort of faith in rational authority is for authority genuinely to become eye-wateringly honest. That way, not only should there be a restoration of respect for knowledgable opinion, but also, when there is the occasional real need to deceive, there might be some chance of this being treated as acceptable expediency.

[Apple_m]

Perhaps these parents all have a child with AUTISM and A BOWEL DISORDER.
All the ones I spoke to did. who did you speak to??

[Susan Hamlyn]

I am one of the sadly deluded parents. Not so deluded that I cannot detect an oh-so-clever-clever journalist coming in after my 13 years of dealing with a child whose adverse reaction to his MMR was actually diagnosed by the Consultant Paediatrician we saw at the time and who thinks it appropriate - with all the wisdom of half an hour's research on Wikipaedia - to pronounce on my deludedness. Have a little humility Finkelstein and grow up.

[LLOYD Jenkinson]

Substitute 'Human influence on Global warming' in placs of MMR in the above and read again the 'list of cognitive biases'. Do you get the similarities?

[michael]

I don't know how you define stupidity. Dr Wakefield ignores overwhelming evidence against his theory. Healthy scepticism is a good thing, but Dr Wakefield's seems to have an unhealthy anti-MMR obsession. He also seems
revel in his media-appointed status as martyr and anti-medical establishment maverick.

[Alex Maund]

Let us not forget how flawed the analysis of the research was in the first place. A small, self selecting group of pre-adolescent children in America, of which only 1 male went on to develop autism (at least, that's what memory tells me). The link can hardly be called statistically significant by any stretch of the imagination, and indeed, how can this insignificant research be generalised to the public at large? As a statistician, I certainly cannot. Regardless, given the risk to children for not taking the MMR jab and the probability for a child to supposedly develop autism, parents who choose to believe the scaremongering are exposing their children to a much greater risk of harm to their health.

[David Moss]

THE PROPHETIC FINKELSTEIN

Zero case for lying*, a comment of yours on Fiona Adshead, the deputy chief medical officer, who defended lying about medical statistics, elicited this from you:

"I am a strong supporter of the MMR vaccination. How, now, do I respond to readers who say that the medical profession is quite willing to lie to them when it wants to get its way?".

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* http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2007/05/the_lead_story_.html

[Samuel Coates]

This morning's article by Julia Manning about MMR and opposition to new vaccines should be of interest:
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2007/07/julia-manning-v.html

[Hotspur]

I'm old enough to have had measles, mumps and rubella (not to mention chicken pox, whooping cough and scarlet fever)- and to know some very nice deaf people in my age range who wouldn't be deaf if there had been a jab when we were young. My children have had the benefit of every preventive I could get access to, thank you. I don't need the medical profession to convince me of the value of better safe than sorry.

[Helen]

Many parents see their children get these vaccines, but pay to have them given separately since their objection to the MMR is the combination in one dose. If we force children not to play conkers due to health and safety concerns, why on earth aren't we offering single vaccines to parents when here there remains a possibility of a life time sentence of disability that will affect every member of the family? Possibly because there is not yet sufficient evidence to sue?

[carol]

Obviously parents who see their child regress post MMR are delusional - incidentally most of the pro studies use parental observation to gather their data. Can someone explain why parental credibility counts only when the result proves the safety of a vaccine?