Cameron Newland | Antivax, Autism, and Causal Mis-attribution

Antivax, Autism, and Causal Mis-attribution

from: Cameron Newland
to: Sheryl
subject: Antivax

‘Lancet’ Retracts Autism Paper—Citing the study’s bad methodology, the British medical journal The Lancet retracted a 1998 paper that linked autism with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.

from: Sheryl
to: Cameron Newland
subject: Re: Antivax

the connection still exists. i know too many people who swear by it.
i wish they would look into it more. i don’t think they are doing enough research!

from: Cameron Newland
to: Sheryl
subject: Re: Antivax

No, there is no connection (well, at least, a connection that is fact-based and backed up by a statistically-significant correlation).

The error you’re making is that you know people (like me, my sister Shelby, and your friends’ children) who weren’t vaccinated, and who aren’t Autistic, so you irrationally assume (and extrapolate) that ALL unvaccinated people do not develop autism. Your sample size is too small and your methods too primitive to output a finding or conclusion of any reasonable scientific merit.

The converse of this error is also very easy to make: because the vast majority of American children ARE vaccinated, and SOME go on to develop autism (whether caused by the vaccine or not), parents mistakenly attribute a cause (the vaccine) to the development of autism, even when large bodies of data suggest there is no link/causal relationship between vaccines and autism.

The antivaxxers’ mistaken crusade reminds me very much of the way people used to attribute famines and plagues to witches, sorcerers, and evil gods many years ago. They had no reasonable evidence to suggest that witches, sorcerers, and evil gods had any involvement in their new-found misfortunes, but the simple fact that a plague or famine came upon them (or that children developed autism, in your case) was evidence enough that some evil spirit brought the pestilence upon them. Those primitive plague sufferers never gave a thought to the possibility of diseased rats and fleas as the culprit (which we now know was the cause), just as you don’t give any weight to the possibility that autism has been and will be ever-present, whether we commonly administer vaccines’ or not.

Anyways, more study of the relationship (or lack of such a relationship) between autism and vaccines wouldn’t be a bad thing. Hopefully, it’ll further cement the relegation of the antivax conspiracy to that of Old Wives Tale, where I believe it rightfully belongs.

Note: causal mis-attribution is more commonly known as Questionable Cause, and the antivax conspiracy theory is, I believe, a shining example of a Regression fallacy (“ascribing cause where none exists,” due to “failing to account for natural fluctuations [or normal incidence]).”