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Last week, I packed my bags and went to Las Vegas for five days. I don't gamble. I don't drink. I don't smoke. And I had no intention of partaking of the other thing that's legal in Nevada that some people look forward to when they go to Las Vegas.
So why the hell did I go to Las Vegas? To attend The Amazing Meeting 9, also known as TAM 9 From Outer Space.
The Amazing Meeting or TAM is the annual conference of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), a group of educators, magicians/entertainers, scientists, etc. whose mission is to promote rational thought in our irrational world. This was my first one.
The first TAM was in 2003 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where the JREF was based at that time. It quickly outgrew the modest space and has since been held in Las Vegas, most recently at the Southpoint Hotel Casino and Spa a few miles south of The Strip in Las Vegas, NV. There have also been TAMs held in London and Australia. There have been cruises to the Bermuda Triangle, Alaska, Mexico, and the Galapagos Islands. All of them have been very successful.
Basically, it's a place where a lot of skeptics and freethinkers from all over the world and from all walks of life can come together for four days and make friends, learn, and just hang out. <irony alert>In one of the world capitals of irrational thought. :)</irony alert>
This year, there were 1652 of us in attendance.
One of the many things that skeptics take seriously is public outreach. We do it in many different ways. Some use blogs, others use podcasts, some create websites . . . it just depends on your personality. Still others are very public about their skeptical, rational outlook. These include people like James Randi, Banachek, Jamy Ian Swiss, Penn Jillette (all magicians); Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Dr. Phil Plait, Dr. Lawrence Krauss, Dr. Pamela Gay (all astronomers and/or (astro)physicists); Adam Savage, Bill Nye (The Science Guy), Julia Sweeney, George Hrab (entertainers/muscians); Derek & Swoopy, DJ Grothe, Richard Saunders, Chris Mooney, Dr. Steve Novella, Bob Novella, Jay Novella, Evan Bernstein, Rebecca Watson, Blake Smith, Ben Radford, Dr. Karen Stollznow, Brian Dunning, Robert Price, Joe Nickell (all podcasters); Sean Faircloth, Daniel Loxton, Dr. Richard Dawkins, Jennifer Michael Hecht, PZ Myers, Dr. Richard Wiseman, Dr. Ginger Campbell, Dr. Rachael Dunlop, Ben Radford, Greta Christina, Michael Shermer, Dr. Eugenie Scott, Jennifer Ouellette . . . I could go on and on and on for a good, long time naming people whose names are household words to me, but most of whom the average person has never heard of. Which is tragic.
One of the big issues right now with the skeptical movement is vaccination. When children are vaccinated, it helps protect them (vaccinations are not 100% effective, and there is a small chance of adverse reactions: absolutely no one in the skeptical community has ever claimed that this is not true, regardless of what you might have heard) from a host of terrible diseases that used to kill thousands of vulnerable people annually.
About a dozen years ago, a doctor in the UK named Andrew Wakefield published an academic paper in a respected journal in which he claimed that he had studied the MMR (Measels, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine, and that he had found that it caused abdominal issues in children. Not too long after that, American Playboy Bunny Jenny McCarthy began claiming that her son's autism was directly caused by the mercury preservatives that were then in multi-dose vaccinations. In Australia, the misleadingly named Australian Vaccination Network, an organization run by an American transplant named Meryl Dorey, began a public campaign to discourage parents from vaccinating their children. Both McCarthy and Dorey are followers of Wakefield and used his research in their own campaigns of propaganda and misinformation.
The problem with all of this is: Dr. Wakefield lied. His methods were unethical. He faked his results. The people he included on the paper as co-authors one by one had their name removed until it was only him left. Last year (I believe it was), the British equivalent of the AMA "struck him off" their list of practicing physicians, in effect barring him from ever practicing medicine in the UK again. The paper was struck, as well. Not that this stopped him. He has many followers around the world who believe he's the victim of a conspiracy of Big Pharma™ attempting to silence him.
Unfortunately, the damage was done. A lot of people believed him, and vaccination rates around the world began to drop. Never above "herd immunity" levels, the percentage of children being inoculated against what were once common childhood diseases fell drastically, and most adults either don't know they need occasional boosters or they just don't get them.
Some of these diseases began to make a comeback. Pertussis (whooping cough) in particular has been a problem (as has measles). Doctors who had never seen the disease because it had been virtually unknown in first-world countries began to have cases show up in their emergency rooms.
And children—innocent children who were too young to get the pertussis vaccination—were dying. Through no fault of their own. Through no fault of their parents.
One of the most "publicized" deaths was of Dana McCaffery in New South Wales, Australia in 2009. Apparently, in NSW, rates of inoculation had fallen drastically, but the parents didn't know. Their tiny infant caught it from some visitor and she died in agony over several weeks, unable to get a breath because her airways were too narrow to allow her to get enough oxygen into her lungs because she was coughing so long and so hard. Her parents could do nothing but sit, helpless, and watch it happen.
And the poisonous Meryl Dorey . . . actually called up the hospital and tried to get a copy of the death certificate, because she accused the parents of lying about what their daughter died of. She went on national TV in Australia and accused them of lying. As bad as you might think Jenny McCarthy is with her nonsensical claims, Meryl Dorey makes her look like Glinda, Good Witch of the North.
These grieving parents had to appear on shows to defend themselves against Meryl Dorey's outrageous claims.
Skeptics the world around mobilized. After an outbreak of pertussis in California last year in which a dozen or so infants died just as Dana McCaffery had, a group of skeptics known as the Skepchicks (female skeptics, headed by Rebecca Watson) mobilized a free vaccination clinic at Dragon*Con.
Dragon*Con is one of the largest science fiction conventions . . . in the world, I guess. I don't know it measures up. I know it's smaller than ComicCon in San Diego. Approximately 35,000 people from around the world come to Atlanta over Labor Day weekend and spend 4 days mashed against each other, sharing our germs.
The local medical authorities thought it was a great idea, but didn't expect to inoculate many people. They brought 100 doses.
They had to go back and get more. In all, a bit over 200 people got a TDAP booster (Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis).
I managed to miss it, although I had every intention of getting mine. I knew it had been decades since I'd had anything resembling a booster shot.
Fun fact: Did you know that adults need to get boosters for some of these childhood diseases? For TDAP, it's about 10 years. Why? Because it's not about you. It's about other people, especially children too young to get the vaccination.
So when I went to TAM 9 and they announced that for one day, they had free TDAP vaccines, I jumped out of my chair and went to stand in line, missing the rest of the panel that was very interesting.
The line was out the door and about 30 feet down the hall. I waited.
Eventually, I got the shot in the arm, got a sticker (A STICKER! YAAAAAY!), my picture made with a toy bear, and a certificate saying I got the vaccination. I believe the final count was 305 people who got the TDAP vaccine.
I mentioned this on Facebook.
And got, "Why?" a lot. "Why did you get TDAP?"
Brennan. Seth. Jonah. Nathan. Suzi. Penelope. Nicholas. Caleb. Elias. Kathryn. Julian. Luna. Liliana. Annabelle. Fisher. David. The as-yet-unborn children of two of my coworkers. Those are who I got the booster shot for. I may never lay eyes on many of these children of my far-flung friends (and I know I left out a lot of my friends' young children, and I apologize profusely, but a lot of you don't post their names and . . . I just didn't have the time to research), but on the chance that I do, how terrible would it be to pass on a terrible disease because I didn't do something that took literally 20 minutes and a few days of pain in my arm?
So does that answer the question in a way that everyone can understand? If you don't like "because I wanted to," or "to counteract the stupidity of the anti-vaxers," or any of a number of other very good reasons, does this make it abundantly clear?
So why the hell did I go to Las Vegas? To attend The Amazing Meeting 9, also known as TAM 9 From Outer Space.
The Amazing Meeting or TAM is the annual conference of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), a group of educators, magicians/entertainers, scientists, etc. whose mission is to promote rational thought in our irrational world. This was my first one.
The first TAM was in 2003 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where the JREF was based at that time. It quickly outgrew the modest space and has since been held in Las Vegas, most recently at the Southpoint Hotel Casino and Spa a few miles south of The Strip in Las Vegas, NV. There have also been TAMs held in London and Australia. There have been cruises to the Bermuda Triangle, Alaska, Mexico, and the Galapagos Islands. All of them have been very successful.
Basically, it's a place where a lot of skeptics and freethinkers from all over the world and from all walks of life can come together for four days and make friends, learn, and just hang out. <irony alert>In one of the world capitals of irrational thought. :)</irony alert>
This year, there were 1652 of us in attendance.
One of the many things that skeptics take seriously is public outreach. We do it in many different ways. Some use blogs, others use podcasts, some create websites . . . it just depends on your personality. Still others are very public about their skeptical, rational outlook. These include people like James Randi, Banachek, Jamy Ian Swiss, Penn Jillette (all magicians); Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Dr. Phil Plait, Dr. Lawrence Krauss, Dr. Pamela Gay (all astronomers and/or (astro)physicists); Adam Savage, Bill Nye (The Science Guy), Julia Sweeney, George Hrab (entertainers/muscians); Derek & Swoopy, DJ Grothe, Richard Saunders, Chris Mooney, Dr. Steve Novella, Bob Novella, Jay Novella, Evan Bernstein, Rebecca Watson, Blake Smith, Ben Radford, Dr. Karen Stollznow, Brian Dunning, Robert Price, Joe Nickell (all podcasters); Sean Faircloth, Daniel Loxton, Dr. Richard Dawkins, Jennifer Michael Hecht, PZ Myers, Dr. Richard Wiseman, Dr. Ginger Campbell, Dr. Rachael Dunlop, Ben Radford, Greta Christina, Michael Shermer, Dr. Eugenie Scott, Jennifer Ouellette . . . I could go on and on and on for a good, long time naming people whose names are household words to me, but most of whom the average person has never heard of. Which is tragic.
One of the big issues right now with the skeptical movement is vaccination. When children are vaccinated, it helps protect them (vaccinations are not 100% effective, and there is a small chance of adverse reactions: absolutely no one in the skeptical community has ever claimed that this is not true, regardless of what you might have heard) from a host of terrible diseases that used to kill thousands of vulnerable people annually.
About a dozen years ago, a doctor in the UK named Andrew Wakefield published an academic paper in a respected journal in which he claimed that he had studied the MMR (Measels, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine, and that he had found that it caused abdominal issues in children. Not too long after that, American Playboy Bunny Jenny McCarthy began claiming that her son's autism was directly caused by the mercury preservatives that were then in multi-dose vaccinations. In Australia, the misleadingly named Australian Vaccination Network, an organization run by an American transplant named Meryl Dorey, began a public campaign to discourage parents from vaccinating their children. Both McCarthy and Dorey are followers of Wakefield and used his research in their own campaigns of propaganda and misinformation.
The problem with all of this is: Dr. Wakefield lied. His methods were unethical. He faked his results. The people he included on the paper as co-authors one by one had their name removed until it was only him left. Last year (I believe it was), the British equivalent of the AMA "struck him off" their list of practicing physicians, in effect barring him from ever practicing medicine in the UK again. The paper was struck, as well. Not that this stopped him. He has many followers around the world who believe he's the victim of a conspiracy of Big Pharma™ attempting to silence him.
Unfortunately, the damage was done. A lot of people believed him, and vaccination rates around the world began to drop. Never above "herd immunity" levels, the percentage of children being inoculated against what were once common childhood diseases fell drastically, and most adults either don't know they need occasional boosters or they just don't get them.
Some of these diseases began to make a comeback. Pertussis (whooping cough) in particular has been a problem (as has measles). Doctors who had never seen the disease because it had been virtually unknown in first-world countries began to have cases show up in their emergency rooms.
And children—innocent children who were too young to get the pertussis vaccination—were dying. Through no fault of their own. Through no fault of their parents.
One of the most "publicized" deaths was of Dana McCaffery in New South Wales, Australia in 2009. Apparently, in NSW, rates of inoculation had fallen drastically, but the parents didn't know. Their tiny infant caught it from some visitor and she died in agony over several weeks, unable to get a breath because her airways were too narrow to allow her to get enough oxygen into her lungs because she was coughing so long and so hard. Her parents could do nothing but sit, helpless, and watch it happen.
And the poisonous Meryl Dorey . . . actually called up the hospital and tried to get a copy of the death certificate, because she accused the parents of lying about what their daughter died of. She went on national TV in Australia and accused them of lying. As bad as you might think Jenny McCarthy is with her nonsensical claims, Meryl Dorey makes her look like Glinda, Good Witch of the North.
These grieving parents had to appear on shows to defend themselves against Meryl Dorey's outrageous claims.
Skeptics the world around mobilized. After an outbreak of pertussis in California last year in which a dozen or so infants died just as Dana McCaffery had, a group of skeptics known as the Skepchicks (female skeptics, headed by Rebecca Watson) mobilized a free vaccination clinic at Dragon*Con.
Dragon*Con is one of the largest science fiction conventions . . . in the world, I guess. I don't know it measures up. I know it's smaller than ComicCon in San Diego. Approximately 35,000 people from around the world come to Atlanta over Labor Day weekend and spend 4 days mashed against each other, sharing our germs.
The local medical authorities thought it was a great idea, but didn't expect to inoculate many people. They brought 100 doses.
They had to go back and get more. In all, a bit over 200 people got a TDAP booster (Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis).
I managed to miss it, although I had every intention of getting mine. I knew it had been decades since I'd had anything resembling a booster shot.
Fun fact: Did you know that adults need to get boosters for some of these childhood diseases? For TDAP, it's about 10 years. Why? Because it's not about you. It's about other people, especially children too young to get the vaccination.
So when I went to TAM 9 and they announced that for one day, they had free TDAP vaccines, I jumped out of my chair and went to stand in line, missing the rest of the panel that was very interesting.
The line was out the door and about 30 feet down the hall. I waited.
Eventually, I got the shot in the arm, got a sticker (A STICKER! YAAAAAY!), my picture made with a toy bear, and a certificate saying I got the vaccination. I believe the final count was 305 people who got the TDAP vaccine.
I mentioned this on Facebook.
And got, "Why?" a lot. "Why did you get TDAP?"
Brennan. Seth. Jonah. Nathan. Suzi. Penelope. Nicholas. Caleb. Elias. Kathryn. Julian. Luna. Liliana. Annabelle. Fisher. David. The as-yet-unborn children of two of my coworkers. Those are who I got the booster shot for. I may never lay eyes on many of these children of my far-flung friends (and I know I left out a lot of my friends' young children, and I apologize profusely, but a lot of you don't post their names and . . . I just didn't have the time to research), but on the chance that I do, how terrible would it be to pass on a terrible disease because I didn't do something that took literally 20 minutes and a few days of pain in my arm?
So does that answer the question in a way that everyone can understand? If you don't like "because I wanted to," or "to counteract the stupidity of the anti-vaxers," or any of a number of other very good reasons, does this make it abundantly clear?
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People who keep their boosters up help me.
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Parents, I know you don't like to take your kids for vaccinations when it hurts them, and they're uncomfortable and you can't explain to them that it's for their own good. And they're crying and want Mommy/Daddy to make it stop hurting.
My arm hurts like eight kinds of hell right now, even 6 days after getting the shot. It might hurt for quite a while, according to the information I looked up about the TDAP. I can barely lift my arm without pain. It kind of feels like...oh, I don't know...like someone jammed a steel pointy-thing into my flesh and left behind a foreign substance in my body. :)
Maybe parents should get a booster when their kids get their more discomfort-causing vaccinations. Show 'em it's nothing to be worried about. Yeah, it hurts, but, hey, look, Mommy or Daddy's doing it, too! Well, unless you're like
(Plus, it gives you a little insight into how much it actually hurts. :)
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The soreness could be because of the diphtheria component - if you'd had a regular Td booster within the previous 5 years, that's known to cause increased soreness with repeat boosters in under 10 years.
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Plus, I have had a lock-jaw type effect from a medication and it was vastly UN-FUN.
Being immunosupressed, I also get the 'flu shot every year and keep up on the pneumonia shot when I'm up for that.
I already sound like a ward of kids with whooping cough when I start coughing, or a 12 pack a day smoker - and no, i don't smoke. Too many bouts with upper respiratory crap and pneumonia. Or I get a blast of car exhaust on the road, inhale someone else's cigarette smoke, too cold air outside, fail to swallow correctly... too many things set me off.
One of my docs keeps bringing up a sleep study because my O2 count is low. I think I don't need a CPAP, I need help breathing when I am awake! :P
Anyway, Good for you, Gary! Consider yourself snuggled!
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They seemed pretty surprised that we agreed to the need for it quite readily.