Locked in Ignorance

The other day, I got into a discussion with someone calling for Congressional hearings on the DeStefano 2004 study that is the latest to-do in anti-vaccine circles. I won't go into the background; you can read about it here. Instead, I'll just present the Storify curation of tweets. My interlocutor just didn't understand what she had read. There is nothing wrong with that. We all have areas in which we lack the requisite knowledge to fully grasp the subject. The real trick is figuring out where we are ignorant and put in the effort to learn and grow. I'm presenting the whole conversation here in the hopes that others might learn from it. It's a bit long, but it gives a good pictures of how our preconceptions can lock us into a state of ignorance.

Here are a few resources for your reference as you read through this.

• MMR, the CDC and Brian Hooker: A Guide for Parents and the Media 
• Age at first measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in children with autism and school-matched control subjects: a population-based study in metropolitan atlanta (Original study from DeStefano et al.) 
• A look at the analysis plan for DeStefano’s MMR study: no evidence of fraud (includes a link to the 2001 Draft Analysis Plan) 
• Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young african american boys: a reanalysis of CDC data (Brian Hooker's retracted study)

Ignorance is not bad, unless we make no effort to overcome it. Being wrong is not bad, unless we do not accept that we are wrong.