bothererblog

I feel a bit sad. This is it for botherer.cream.org. The last day, the last post. It’s over.

It’s been over six years at this address, but it’s time to move. I have a new site, with a new address, and a new, dark look.

www.botherer.org

If you RSS to me, then you’ll need to update to this feed. I won’t be updating here any longer, and eventually will have this address reroute to the new one.

I owe such enormous thanks to Nick Mailer and Positive Internet who have hosted this site for free for so very long, and I’m pleased to say the new site is still hosted by them. You should be hosted by them. They are better at it than the other companies, which is a practical reason to use them.

Onward.

One of the most frequent comments you’ll hear from the anti-MMR groups is the progress they are making in the States. They will link to the completely irrelevant case of Hannah Poling, and then reference the enormous case going through a special court in Washington, where 4800 families are attempting to sue for compensation after their children developed autism, which they believe was linked to the MMR vaccination.

That will come to an end, since the court has ruled against the first group of the families, making it clear that there’s no supporting evidence for the claims whatsoever.

The three groups are pretty confusing, and when further rulings will appear is not clear, but CNN says,

“Powers’ litigation steering committee is representing thousands of families that fall into three categories: those who claim MMR vaccines and thimerosal-containing vaccines can combine to cause autism; those who claim thimerosal-containing vaccines alone can cause autism; and those who claim MMR vaccines, without any link to thimerosal, can cause autism. Thursday’s rulings will only affect the families that fall under the first category, Powers said.”

Of course, while this is a victory for scientific rationale and common sense, it’s not a time to celebrate. It means that 4800 families seeking compensation to help them raise their autistic children have had their time wasted and their hopes dashed by these vile and malevolent campaigners, lawyers and quacks.

The people who have lost are innocent victims of the lies spread by Wakefield and his band of useful idiots.

It appears I’m considerably naive. One outcome I was expecting from the Goldacre vs. Barnett incident was, at some point, an act of contrition on the part of Barnett. Not because I think she is honourable - she has made it very clear through her actions that she is not - but because I really thought she would eventually snap under the weight of the attention the debacle has generated. By the time her name was being mentioned in parliament as a consequence of her dangerous actions, I thought she might buckle. Instead, she’s having her agent try and spin the events in her favour.

An Early Day Motion, currently gathering signatures, contained the line,

“expresses its disappointment that ill-informed comments by presenters such as Jeni Barnett on her LBC radio show will continue to cause unfounded anxieties for many parents and are likely to result in some parents choosing not to vaccinate their children”

By now Barnett must surely have noticed that her attempts to delete the posts from her blog were futile. They’re available elsewhere in full, with comments, for everyone to enjoy. But apparently this isn’t enough to have stopped her attempts to spin the situation.

Remarkably, her agent is telling some porkies to the press, claiming her reason for removing the reader contributions from her site was because there were, “hundreds of extremely personal and abusive comments”. In a story published on Journalism.co.uk, agent Robert Common declares that poor Jeni is an innocent victim, presumably hoping no one will visit the original posts and read the comments themselves, as this might slightly detract from his claims.

Of course, Barnett filters her comments, so there is the possibility that she was receiving others that were abusive, and not posting them, and the volume of these may have been more than she was prepared to put up with. That would make for a semi-reasonable reason to prevent further comments being posted to those two articles. However she chose not to do that, but instead to delete all the comments, and then prevent further posting. A very strange decision indeed. The next day she completely deleted both posts from her site. Since commenting on them was impossible (to the point where it would not let you even submit), it’s hard to see why she would need to remove the polite, intelligent debate from her site, let alone remove her own remarks. Unless, as I so naively thought, she had become embarrassed by the bilge she had written. Clearly not.

LBC are claiming that Barnett is also receiving personally abusive email at their station. Barnett does not make her personal email address available, so this can only be to her work address, which I’d bet a fair amount is read by her producer/assistants. Even so, it would be enormously disappointing if those asking her to stop spreading myths, that directly lead to the deaths of children, were personally attacking her. From my experience of the debate over the years, it has tended to be the hysterical anti-MMR brigade who have the greater trouble with manners. As has been the case here, of course, with Barnett publicly abusing polite and informed callers to her show, insulting them on air, and then further insulting them on her blog. (Perhaps this is another reason why she removed them? To hide her indefensible comments?)

The spin from her agent was given space after Goldacre had, reasonably, posted to his own site to discourage people from being unpleasant to Barnett. Despite Goldacre making it clear that both Barnett, and the LBC programme director, Jonathan Richards, had behaved very poorly throughout, Barnett’s agent chose to quote Goldacre’s apologising for any unpleasantness that’s appeared. He didn’t find room to quote when Goldacre added that Richards’ communications were “rather intemperate and unkindly written,” or that Barnett had been, “deeply unpleasant to and about individual people with less money and voice than herself.”

At the same time, LBC are being quite confusingly stupid about it all. Rather than putting their hands up and offering to present the other side of the debate fairly, or apologising for the misinformation, they appear to be digging their heels in. Throwing lawyers around, shouting down the phone at Goldacre, and apparently showing no regard for balanced journalism, what was once a wonderful radio station is now a corporate machine. It’s another sad fact to emerge from the debacle.

So Jeni Barnett is attempting to play the wounded deer, with the mean nasty scientist types reversing up for another strike. I don’t support or endorse anyone sending her abusive emails. I also doubt very much she’s had many, especially when her agent deliberately attempted to suggest that the comments on her blog were equally offensive, when the reality is there for everyone to see and read.

It’s very important that the vast majority of intelligent people who are rationally and critically aware that the MMR causes no demonstrable harm do not get portrayed as the cruel bullies. Especially when the person at the centre of it all was both cruel and bullying to callers to her show who dared to disagree with her motherly instincts. Especially when the likes of the prize fruitcake Melanie Phillips are writing dangerous nonsense like this. MMR is serious business, and the Barnetts and the Phillipses are doing measurable harm. The fight against that can’t be overturned by spinning the perpetrators as victims. These are people directly responsible for the endangering of children, with recorded cases of brain damage and death due to their actions. It’s deadly serious. It’s not about a rich lady on the radio getting called an idiot in an email.

P.S. For another example of Jonathan Richard’s astonishing manners, have a look at this. (The station has since replaced the stolen images on their site.)

On 3rd Feb, Ben Goldacre posted to his Bad Science blog to report the most extraordinary radio broadcast from former TVAM star, Jeni Barnett. During her LBC show, she had spent 45 minutes campaigning against the MMR vaccine, shouting down any who disagreed with her, and perpetuating the lie that there were any connections between the MMR and any long-term disorders such as autism.

The piece of radio was remarkable not simply because it was yet another idiot spreading this dangerous lie, but because Barnett managed to involve every piece of pseudo-science, every misconception, every fallacy, every woo-woo belief, and all the while rejecting any other information presented to her. It was, as Goldacre observed, a textbook piece of bad thinking, and exemplary for those wishing to understand what rational science is competing with.

Barnett responded on her blog to the attention she garnered. (No link, as explained later). She posted remarkable doublethink statements, such as:

“I am not a scientist, I would not claim to be a scientist. When tested on the contents of the MMR vaccine I told the truth. I did not have the facts to hand. Was I ill informed? Yes.As a responsible broadcaster I should have been better prepared as a parent, however, I can fight my corner. I don’t know everything that goes into cigarettes but I do know they are harmful.”

The nonsense deepened as she continued, with peculiar cries of,

“Injecting tiny babies with substances that may compromise their immune system needs to be looked at not shouted down.”

Something with which I’m sure no one disagrees. Of course, MMR doesn’t fit into this category, since it enhances their immune systems, but I think we can all get on board with Jeni’s campaign to stop people injecting these especially small babies with botulism or lead paint. She then declared that her critics wouldn’t be able to present a three hour radio programme, and finished with what proves to have been quite a prescient claim:

“Should anybody from BAD SCIENCE read this I urge you to continue the debate, and if it gets too heated there is always the option of turning me off.”

Meanwhile, LBC’s lawyers contacted Goldacre, telling him to remove the segment of the radio programme from his blog, or they would take legal action. This is, of course, standard procedure for copyright enforcement. You simply cannot post long sections of radio programming without the broadcaster’s permission, even though it was beamed through the airwaves into people’s radios for free, and would be very unlikely to be something LBC could use to make more money. (I’ve a sneaking suspicion it won’t be appearing on many ‘Best Of’ segments.) Goldacre posted about that here, along with many more updates regarding the story.

The comments thread on Barnett’s site filled quickly. It was a mixture of three groups. There were the rational scientists, explaining why she was incorrect, and why her claims were so dangerous. Then there were the angries, who posted to say she was a moron. And there were the anti-MMR brigade, mobilised from their mysterious headquarters, to post links to the websites of the usual suspects. These included the tragic stories of poor parents whose children have autism, and for whom the MMR lie has taken over their lives, leaving their grief and rage misdirected, mostly on themselves. To Barnett’s temporary credit, she allowed all manner of comments through her moderation process, with the weight heavily against her.

This led her to post again, and very sadly, rejecting all the polite and carefully expressed information she had been offered. She wrote in a post titled “Bad Scientists”,

“I thank those of you who have sent me information about sites that may be of use to me.

I thank the Bad Scientist for being just that. Sarcasm doesn’t shift peoples opinions. Making another person feel small because they don’t have a Bad Science degree and then nit-picking over semantics is not the answer either. I care about humanity my way, and you Bad Scientist yours.

To all of you Bad scientists, who are SO angry with me, good luck with your research. Should you fall ill I will attend you as best I can with my motherly love. Should I fall ill, as a non paid up member of your club, will you administer to me? And should I refuse your drugs then what?”

The final paragraph is the most remarkable. That she would reject everything in favour of the bullshit links she received to John Stone and Andrew Wakefield’s misinformation is not too surprising, especially after she had previously stated that she didn’t care if she was wrong, she was going to believe it anyway. But to imply that those with qualifications (something that, pleasingly enough, disqualifies them from having a perspective in Jeni’s world) would leave her to die because they disagreed was incredible. And then the last sentence… huh? Then you’d die by your own choice, you peculiar person.

Meanwhile, the internet began doing what it does best. Not letting things go away. The phenomenon known as The Streisand Effect kicked in, where an attempt to silence something makes it an awful lot louder. When Goldacre could no longer host the LBC segment, he suggested that maybe it could be divided into “fair dealing” chunks on a series of blogs, which he could coordinate on his site. He believed the clip was too valuable to lose. Of course, the internet is more efficient than this, and within minutes the full 45 minutes was hosted in a number of places. You can hear it at Wikileaks when their servers can carry the load (you can also make a donation to them to help keep their servers going). And don’t tell anyone, but it’s also here. And the transcripts are coordinated here.

Not letting awkward things go away is one way in which the internet leaps into action. Another, of course, is spreading the information. Goldacre has a popular following, writing a regular column for the Guardian, and articles exposing a-medical nonsense in various newspapers. But his blog-based following is generally restricted to those already on his side. The story was picked up by bloggers and written about all over the world. And thanks to the recent explosion in the popularity of Twitter, the tweeting was cacophonous. Then the great grandfather of Twittering mentioned it, Stephen Fry. It’s been re-tweeted a kerbillion times, and Goldacre’s site is creaking under the pressure (fortunately it’s hosted by Positive Internet, and they will be working hard behind the scenes to keep it going).

The noise was loud enough for even The Times to pick up the story, David Aaronovitch writing a good summary of the events. I would imagine that today, post Fry-tweet, it will be further reported.

Jeni Barnett, meanwhile, has made the most astonishing choice. Yesterday the 200+ comments across both posts mysteriously vanished. Then this morning, both the posts went too. Her site has removed the incident entirely. Quite what she hopes to achieve by this is unclear, but presumably she’s under a great deal of attention, and she’s not having much fun. From reading previous entries on her blog, Barnett is obviously a very emotional and insecure person (I say this as no slight - this seems to be the most recurring theme in what she writes about) and she must be having an extraordinarily hard time. However, if she thinks deleting her own references to her vociferous attempt to prevent children receiving vital vaccinations will help, she doesn’t know the internet at all well. Both posts, and all the comments, are here. For those of us taking part in the discussion in her comments starting a few days ago, her deleting them is remarkably unpleasant. While the first post received a great deal of offensive nonsense, the second, “Bad Scientists”, contained a wealth of intelligent, polite individuals writing sensibly and helpfully. Her deletion of it was fairly grotesque. Unfortunately for Barnett, nothing gets deleted on the internet.

At the same time as all this unfolded, with remarkable timing, a series of stories regarding the MMR scandal appeared. The first was the news that thanks to the drop in MMR vaccinations, the herd immunity in this country had been lost, and measles cases are rising at a terrifying rate. 2008 saw a 36% increase on 2007, as was revealed on Friday. A disease that was almost eradicated in the late 90s is now killing children again, because of people refusing to take the perfectly safe vaccination, all thanks to one despicable man, Andrew Wakefield.

There’s no point in reproducing the Wakefield story here, but this is absolutely essential reading to not only catch up on exactly how Wakefield single-handedly caused the deadly scare, but also the extraordinary depths to which it is alleged he falsified the data. Of the twelve children followed in his study, The Times demonstrated that some were diagnosed with autism before receiving the MMR, and others have never been diagnosed with autism, nor indeed did they ever manifest the bowel disorders Wakefield claimed was the cause. What this story doesn’t repeat, however, are the revelations from two years ago that Wakefield was paid over £400,000, that he failed to declare in his study, by the lawyers trying to build a case linking MMR to autism. It is mind-boggling.

This is why Barnett’s mistake was so huge. Finally, after a decade of this hideous man’s work having somehow dominated, despite dozens and dozens of further studies failing to reproduce the results, and the MMR being repeatedly proven safe, the tide in the media is beginning to turn. Newspapers that perpetuated the myth are beginning to report the truth. This hopefully means, along with the recent revelations as to the depths of Wakefield’s malpractice, the tide might begin to turn.

(PS. Nothing to do with the above, but another example of when the internet won’t let someone undo history is here, and it’s a fun one.)

I have always wanted to build out of snow, but have never had the opportunity in my adult life. When there have been scraps of snow and I’ve tried to use it, it’s never packed well, and so on. However, the beautiful wad that fell last night is like cold clay. So, well, it had to be a tribute to Calvin & Hobbes.

Few other angles here.

Dear The Sky,

I’m very sorry for all my moaning.

Thank you for the first snowfall I’ve seen in my adult life.

Love,
John

Another huge chunk of comments and thoughts on TV, as it pours out of the sky. Click more for… more!

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Okay, so a centimetre of snow fell, and yes, I’m totally grateful for that. London may be getting another foot before bedtime, but a cm is more snow than I’ve seen in this country in my adult life. Also grateful was Dexter, who’d never seen snow settled on the ground before. He seemed quite taken.

This isn’t spectacular action, but it’s Dex playing in snow, and it’s cute.

There’s a high quality version in the options on the farthest right button.

Being a snow lover, being someone who finds their mood immediately uplifted at the sight of a thick layer of white fluff on every branch, and the landscape transformed, there is nothing more mindless and cruel than telling me that amazing amounts of snow are forecast. “It’s going to snow tonight, a few inches!” “No, it won’t,” I said angrily to all these evil liars. And no, it bloody well didn’t.

Switching on the news this morning is like receiving a phone call from a friend who’s at the party with simply everyone, while you’re at home on your own with nothing to do, and no invite. Schools closed, trains in disarray, killer snowmen destroying cities - I’m SO happy for you all. Bursting with it.

And as I write this, the sky mocks me with a parody of snow. The tiniest specks of white are falling - well, mostly going upward, really - as if to say, “Yes, I am totally capable of snowing on Bath as much as anywhere, but I’m not going to.”

Screw you, sky. You know what? I’m glad about your stupid ozone hole. I hate you.

David Letterman did something decent last night. Just a bit late. He finally apologised for having cut Bill Hicks from his show in 1993, on Hicks’ twelfth appearance. Hicks was furious, and died a year later having never forgiven Letterman. Letterman expressed regret at the time, but never acknowledged that cutting the segment was an act of revolting cowardice, and demonstrative that he had lost any purpose he might have once had.

Fifteen years late, last night Letterman had Mary Hicks, Bill’s mother, on the show, and apologised to her personally. There’s then an over-rehearsed interview with her, but importantly this is an eight minute segment with a complete unknown, and the mother of a man most of the key demographics might never have heard of. And once the rehearsed anecdotes are over, Mary gives him some shit for what he did. Which is fairly fantastic. And then Letterman shows the original tape uncut.

I like that Letterman acted on this. He’s been haunted by it for a long time, and has said as much in the past. He’s done the right thing, and seemingly done it in a way that’s not scoring points, or linked in to something with which he might want to associate himself. It seems to be a genuine act of contrition.

The videos of the segments are below, but CBS in their infinite stupidity will have these removed from YouTube very soon. I’ll try and update them with working versions, and hopefully Worldwide Pants will have the sense to put the clips online in full very soon. Stick with it through the fuckwittery of the audience as they nervously laugh at the beginning - it’s revolting, but it’s not Letterman’s doing.

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Twitter annoyed me. I’m not sure why. I think it’s something about the unimportance of the minutiae of people’s lives, and the over-abundance of communication.

And then I realised I like Facebook Status Updates, and then that was that.

My Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/botherer

Right, I realise I’ve barely any readers these days, and I realise last thing on Friday is a stupid time to do this, but I need to know.

Most Brits will remember Farley’s Rusks. The biscuits designed for teething babies, aged 4-6 months and older. I’m sure there are equivalents in other parts of the world. Full of calcium and iron, they’re brilliant for babies with their crunchy start, and quick dissolve into mush in the mouth. They’re clearly designed with babies and toddlers in mind. However, I note on the box that there’s no upper age limit.

I’m really quite shocked by the remarkably negative reaction to my buying some the other day from my housemates. All three of them became demented when I offered them one to eat. “BUT THEY’RE FOR BABIES!”

So is milk. And no, not breast milk. Cow milk. At around six months, when you can start giving a baby Rusks, you can give them regular milk. It contains many nutrients babies need! Does that mean it’s exclusively for babies? NO! You’d have to be a colossal idiot to make such an argument.

Therefore, please, can Rusk accepting people out there please let others know they’re delicious and nutritious. There’s a reason it says “for all ages” on the box, people. I hereby begin the campaign for Rusk-eating adults to loudly and proudly declare these enormously flavourful treats as their own!

New year, new shows. Commentary. Click on for more.

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While in the States, Kim and I went to the Adventure Aquarium in New Jersey. I love aquariums, because things are either colourful, or sharks. These are both good.

But the very best thing in the whole building, even better than the beautiful giant turtle, or the gorgeous colours of the jellyfish, was the sign on the desk at the entrance.

I bent in half laughing, with the staff staring at me in confusion, and Kim staring at me with resigned familiarity. I can’t wait for them to get it working! All those physicists will look pretty silly when they have to go to the New Jersey aquarium.

Rest of the pics here.

Edit: Ooh, 1000th blog post.

As people I know start to have babies, I’ve realised that in amongst the tens of thousands of books that tell you their right way to raise a child, there’s room for one more. It’s called, “Tips For Raising Your Child (That Might Kill Them)”. It’s admittedly a controversial approach, but it’s bold and original.

Parents have the crap scared out of them every other fifteen seconds. One book will proclaim if you give your five month old a piece of banana before their fifth month and second week they will definitely die by catching on fire. Then the next says that failure to provide banana by this point ensures they’ll die of meningitis. Your baby doesn’t sleep through the night by 13 months? You’re the worst parent ever and you’re going to prison for ever. Your baby does sleep through the night by 13 months? Your baby has Sleep Cancer and will be dead by the morning, you murderer.

Never mind the “advice” visited upon you by everyone who’s had a kid, been a kid, or seen a picture of a kid in a book, all sucking through their teeth at your every action. “Tssss. You let your baby cry for ten minutes?” “Tssssssss. You bath your baby three times a week?” “Tssssssssssssss. You carry your baby on your left hip?”

With so much certain doom prophesied upon you by these morbid soothsayers every day, I think there’s certainly room for the baby raising book where there is a risk for the child.

For instance: Your baby cries too much at night, and you’re not sleeping, and nothing will soothe it? Increase the levels of carbon monoxide in the room. It will help the baby sleep, but it might kill it a bit too.

Worried about diseases? Babies need to build up an immune system to prevent them from getting sick when they’re older. So instead of food, feed your child a variety of poisons, allergens and dirt. If they survive, they’ll be near immortal.

Concerned your child may have latent super-powers that aren’t being realised by traditional baby-raising advice? We all know babies can instinctively swim, but later lose the ability if not taught. The same is true for all manner of paranormal powers. To check for most of these before those instincts are lost, throw it out an upstairs window.

Despite this, during the last week I’ve been left alone for the odd hour with an eighteen-month-old girl, which is far less terrifying than I’d thought. I’d assumed it would be the cute little girl screaming in misery at being left with the hairy big man, him sitting there helplessly, surrounded by bleeping toys and puddles of tears. Turns out such brief babysitting is mostly about going through wooden books with colourful pictures of cows and apples, stacking boxes into short-lived towers, and watching Yo Gabba Gabba on Tivo. Oh, Yo Gabba Gabba - it is by far the best thing in pre-school TV since Sesame Street. I will be writing more about Yo Gabba Gabba for sure.