A week ago I caught part of Sean Hannity's show and was pleasantly surprised that he was discussing the topic of the H1N1 vaccine and the two doctors he had on were actually doctors and they made science based, level-headed remarks and Hannity even stated that he had his own children vaccinated. I almost contacted some skeptic podcasters to let them know.
Well, yesterday, October 28th, I had the misfortune of hearing Hannity again (i typically plug my MP3 player full of podcasts in as soon as i start the car so I don't have to endure any bad talk radio, but I was slow to the draw this time), and Sean had a "follow-up" on H1N1 and vaccines because, of course, he said he got flooded with emails and calls from people berating him for not having "both sides."
i wish i had the energy to look up the doctor he had on, but a quick google search turned up so much depressing fearmongering that i couldn't trudge thru to see if there was any info on yesterday's show. suffice to sy he had one doctor on who was level headed and was (of course) from a large public hospital while the "other side" was the head of a "medical group." this anti-vaxxer brought up autism within the first 30 seconds of his discussion even tho the topic was the H1N1 vaccine.
Aside from the standard bullshit weasel-words relating to "not knowing" enough, the most egregious fallacy he committed was done so very carefully. he attacked the duration and number of participants in studies for the efficacy and safety of the flu and H1N1 vaccines (and vaccines in general by proxy) and then brought up a "new study" of the hep-b (i think) vaccine that showed a "three fold increase" in autism. now, he didn't cite the study, but i can only assume (which is fair since he did not cite the source) that the study he was referring to was the one published in the NeuroToxicology journal which, from my readings, involved something like 13 monkeys. that's right, monkeys. this "doctor" made no mention of this and, since it followed his criticisms of the existing studies on vaccines in general, I would have thought this study was at least somewhat wide and thorough. Oh well. What a POS.
Additionally, this doctor claimed he has seen countless cases of people having long term, debilitating effects from vaccines (chronic soreness and fatigue) and said that these problems are grossly under-reported due to doctors telling the people they were fine or blaming the problems on pre-existing conditions. makes me wonder if people like this are exaggerating, lying or actually on to something. I really doubt the latter, but I am open to evidence.
In Hannity's defense, which is a rare position for me, he did sound a bit skeptical and critical, stating he had and he concluded the piece by saying he had his children vaccinated. It was still annoying to hear this person get such a platform, but at least he had a decent opponent and a host who wasn't altogether suckered.
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