37% of Americans Are Insane

~ Laura

Results from a great new study by researchers at the University of Chicago:

Fully 37% of those surveyed endorsed the belief that the Food and Drug Administration, under pressure from pharmaceutical companies, is suppressing natural cures for cancer and other diseases, and 31% said they “neither agree nor disagree” with that idea, the researchers found.

One in five of those surveyed said they agreed that physicians and the government “still want to vaccinate children even though they know these vaccines cause autism and other psychological disorders.” And 36% were on the fence, saying they neither agreed nor disagreed that there may be truth in the much-studied and widely discredited contention that vaccines cause autism.

Similarly, 20% said they believed that cellphones had been found to cause cancer but that the government had bowed to large corporations and would do nothing to address the health hazard. Though 40% disagreed, the remaining 40% withheld judgment on the idea that the government has been silenced about a known link between cellphones and cancer.

I try not to hate my fellow human beings, but they are making it very difficult.

Published by Laura

27 thoughts on “37% of Americans Are Insane”

  1. What percentage believe that were it not for pressure by the oil companies (pressure by the insurance companies) we would be doing something about global warming (have single payer health care)? This isn’t that much crazier. Plus, you have to consider the Tulip factor. I am the asshole that makes shit up in response to surveys/picks the craziest possible answer. I do it because Every.Single.Surveyor. I have ever encountered is rude. Be rude to me, get crap data.

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    1. No. It’s really much, much crazier than that. Vaccination is easily the greatest contribution of medical science to human health. There is literally no reliable evidence of a link between vaccination and autism and the claim was first stated in what is now a proven fraud.

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      1. You’re right about the vaccine-autism link. I was thinking of the cell phones and cancer link. I would also point out how much recent press attention has been spent on vitamin D (low levels linked to weight gain, fatigue, and some cancers) which could lead to people responding as they did to the first item Laura listed.

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  2. I am not a fan of these survey based evaluations of American “intelligence”, especially with no controls (as is being reported in the pop media articles about the survey). They’re interesting when they show us differences between populations (say, between people who get their medical info from Weil, listen to NPR, or watch Fox news). Then, they might tell us something about how inaccurate information is promulgated.

    (the article actually has some of that information: https://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1835348)

    But, the general statement, that about 20% of people will believe practically anything, that 40% will agree and 40% will disagree? I bet one could do a bunch of different surveys where one would get answers along those lines, and that the survey results would reflect something deeper about how people answer questions (whether they are prone to agreeing or disagreeing, or not knowing) than their actual content knowledge.

    Take the 20% think that vaccines cause autism and that doctors are lying — vaccination rates are in the 90% (for polio, measles, hepatitis, chickenpox, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/immunize.htm). That’s an obvious mismatch — how many people who actually believe that vaccines cause autism are going to vaccinate anyway? Probably not many, at least 1/2 the 20% don’t really believe that, or, alternatively, they are people who don’t have to know the answer in order to make real life decisions (i.e. old people).

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    1. I think you’re leaving aside the effect of the law. The west coast is famously new-agey about this stuff, but here you can’t send your kid to school or daycare without having vaccinated them. Exceptions are available only for religious reasons or health. Health exemptions require a signed form from a doctor giving a condition the child has which would be a contraindication to the vaccine. I’m sure some people have played the religion angle without going full-on Christian Science, but it wouldn’t be easy for someone who couldn’t afford a lawyer.

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    2. bj said:

      “They’re interesting when they show us differences between populations (say, between people who get their medical info from Weil, listen to NPR, or watch Fox news). Then, they might tell us something about how inaccurate information is promulgated.”

      I think you’re going to have a lot of correlation vs. causation with NPR vs. Fox. In fact, I’m guessing that NPR listenership correlates much more closely with anti-vaxxing than Fox News listenership, even if their media content on the issue is probably roughly the same regarding point of view. (Huffington Post content is different–HP really is a public health menace.)

      One thing to bear in mind is that Fox’s audience is pretty old (have a good look at who those advertisements are aimed at–it’s nearly all middle-aged people products). Fox can’t be a major force in causing parents not to vaccinate, simply because that’s not where parents are getting their parenting information. My feeling is that the flow of opinion is much more complicated now than in the past. It’s not just a question of ABC, CBS and NBC piping news and opinion into our homes anymore. New parents are hanging out at places like mothering.com and babycenter.com and sharing news stories on Facebook and participating in forums all over the internet and swapping half understood bits of stuff they heard from their doctor or midwife.

      I’ve been sensitized to how this works after spending a lot of time hanging out on the Skeptical OB’s threads. There’s this unfortunate phenomenon of women on the internet persuading each other to do dangerous stuff–homebirth, unassisted childbirth, water birth, not vaccinating, not doing antibiotics for Group B Strep in laboring mothers that can cause babies to get pneumonia and die, not doing the Vitamin K shot at birth that protects from fatal brain hemorrhages, not doing the eye goop that protects newborns from blindness caused by gonorrhea, etc.

      I was just doing a search for “unassisted childbirth” over at mothering.com (that’s homebirth without a midwife). The first thing I came across was a thread on “Unassisted Childbirth labor kit.”

      http://www.mothering.com/community/t/192867/unassisted-childbirth-labor-kit

      I would quote from that thread, but it would make all of us stupider if I did.

      Oh, I have to quote at least one. From a senior member from Oregon with the handle Pamamidwife:

      “I like using Cinnamon tincture for excessive bleeding, and arnica is always nice for bruising – of mom or baby, but it’s not something I use often.

      “I also really love Motherwort for postpartum emotional highs and lows – plus it’s nice for early labor, too. Beautifully calming and soothing, it also has some uterine contractant properties. I love Motherwort as a whole. It’s amazing.

      “I use homeopathic Pulsatilla for positional issues in early labor – like posteriors.

      “Homeopathic Antimonium Tart is nice for babies that are grunty or breathing really funky.”

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      1. I forgot a couple more popular stupid ideas popularized on the internet: not doing any prenatal ultrasounds and not testing for gestational diabetes.

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      2. http://www.npr.org/2013/09/01/217746942/texas-megachurch-at-center-of-measles-outbreak

        from NPR.

        A google search for Fox & anti-vaccine turns up Kristin Cavillari, who I do not know, but appears to be an anti-vaxer.

        I think it would be an interesting experiment to compare Fox & NPR viewers on vaccinations, but I don’t know what the result would be. I think there anti-science, anti-medicine, conspiracy-motivated antagonism to vaccines on both the right and the left (I don’t know where McCarthy falls on that spectrum, but Jennifer Margulis is spouting anti-vaccine nonsense in the New York Times today). And, yes, it would probably reflect the characteristics of listeners at least as much as the content of the media.

        I agree that the law might play a role in the dissonance between 10% non-vax rates and 20% beliefs that it causes autism, and if so, I think the laws should be stronger, with access to public spaces being restricted without medical reasons for vaccines. Not sure what to do with the religious exemptions, but I probably wouldn’t allow them (or make them comparable to conscientious objector status, difficult to obtain).

        It is true that in the west, you can basically just say don’t want to vaccinate in order to avoid vaccination rules. We vaccinate, but i have at times been tempted to sign that line to avoid having to look up and submit vaccination reports from my doctor (I might even have done it once).

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      3. bj said:

        “I agree that the law might play a role in the dissonance between 10% non-vax rates and 20% beliefs that it causes autism”

        I don’t know that it is dissonance. You might at the same time believe 1) that vaccination spares children from life-threatening diseases and 2) that vaccination causes autism. You might believe both of those at the same time and regard it as a trade-off. In fact, it is not at all unreasonable to expect that there might be a trade-off.

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      4. “Homeopathic Antimonium Tart is nice for babies that are grunty or breathing really funky.”

        Well, at least it can’t hurt them. I don’t suppose it helps much, unless delivered with a high amount of love and attention that does the real work, but it is the one and only virtue of homeopathic remedies- since they can’t do anything for you, they can’t do anything bad for you.

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      5. There is a trade off. That’s why we have the vaccine court and compensation for the rare reactions. But, there is no trade off between vaccines and autism.

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      6. Matt said:

        “Well, at least it can’t hurt them. I don’t suppose it helps much, unless delivered with a high amount of love and attention that does the real work, but it is the one and only virtue of homeopathic remedies- since they can’t do anything for you, they can’t do anything bad for you.”

        Speaking of homeopathy and babies, I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this here before, but homeopathic teething remedies seem to be pretty popular in some circles.

        http://www.truestarhealth.com/Notes/2260005.html

        Such a bad idea! Poor babies!

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    3. I was just remembering today another example of the diversity of information channels today. Ricki Lake made a documentary (and a bunch of follow-ups) called “The Business of Being Born” and it’s been hugely influential in the current homebirth movement. I see it cited all over the internet with regard to the evils and dangers of hospital birth.

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0995061/

      There are all sorts of indirect channels these days for information and misinformation to flow.

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  3. I think even just asking the question probably prods surveyees in the direction of “yes.” Example: Is Vladimir Putin an American citizen? I bet if you asked that, you’d get at least 20% yes, no matter how wild the question.

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  5. 27%. Let’s roll the tape from back in October 2005:

    John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is —

    Tyrone: 27%.

    John: … you said that immmediately, and with some authority.

    Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That’s crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.

    John: Objectively crazy or crazy vis-a-vis my own inertial reference frame for rational behaviour? I mean, are you creating the Theory of Special Crazification or General Crazification?

    Tyrone: Hadn’t thought about it. Let’s split the difference. Half just have worldviews which lead them to disagree with what you consider rationality even though they arrive at their positions through rational means, and the other half are the core of the Crazification — either genuinely crazy; or so woefully misinformed about how the world works, the bases for their decision making is so flawed they may as well be crazy.

    John: You realize this leads to there being over 30 million crazy people in the US?

    Tyrone: Does that seem wrong?

    John: … a bit low, actually.

    http://kfmonkey.blogspot.de/2005/10/lunch-discussions-145-crazification.html

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    1. It depends on the distribution of the crazy. Randomly distributed crazy does have large impacts in some spheres, but truly random crazy doesn’t affect election results because it cancels itself out.

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      1. Conspiracy theories seem to appeal to collectors. You rarely meet someone who only believes in one–normally they’ve got a substantial collection.

        An extreme example would be Mel Gibson’s character from Conspiracy Theory.

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  6. It’s such a commonplace to gripe and moan about “Big Pharma”. Is it any wonder that some people take that a little too far?

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    1. If two people that removed from reality can’t make a marriage work, what hope is there for the rest of us?

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