anti-science

Friday July 15, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 15, 2022

Exposure to humorous memes about anti-vaxxers boosts intention to get a COVID-19 vaccine, study finds

December 2, 2021

Pro-vaccination messaging may be surprisingly effective when delivered through humorous internet memes, according to new findings published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. A series of studies revealed that exposure to sarcastic memes about anti-vaxxers increased UK residents’ intention to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. The researchers suggest that the humorous memes were able to bypass the typical defense processes of people who are vaccine-hesitant.

As a vaccine emerged to combat the novel coronavirus, public health officials in Western countries grappled with convincing the population to get vaccinated. Vaccine misinformation was rampant, and officials turned to educational campaigns backed by expert sources to persuade the public that the vaccine was safe and effective.

September 15, 2021

Unfortunately, such educational campaigns can backfire, since people who are vaccine-hesitant are prone to conspiracy belief and tend to be distrustful of authoritative sources. Informational campaigns are also not designed to go viral on social media and can become easily outpaced by anti-vaccine messaging. A team of psychology researchers led by Shawn N. Geniole proposed a need for newer interventions that use messaging that is highly shareable, scalable, and unlikely to be perceived as corrupt — something like an internet meme.

“I find memes to be interesting because they can spread–and be processed by viewers–quite rapidly; therefore, any messages/text within memes may have the potential to persuade/inform others efficiently,” explained Geniole, an assistant professor at University of the Fraser Valley.

Thursday August 19, 2021

“Further, that they’re processed and spread rapidly also means that they may reach and influence individuals who would otherwise not encounter–or might even try to avoid–such information. For example, the type of humor within memes, which often belittles or makes fun of certain groups of individuals or their beliefs, may lead some to rethink their views or to distance themselves from others who hold these views. Can exposure to these types of memes changes one’s beliefs or the extent to which they identify with certain groups? These were the types of ideas/questions that interested me when we started this project.”

The researchers designed six studies involving a total of 1,584 residents of the United Kingdom. In each of these studies, participants were randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control condition. The experimental group viewed a series of eight vaccination-related internet memes that had been collected by researchers using Google Image Search, and the control group viewed control images. While the memes varied slightly depending on the study, the majority of them expressed sarcasm toward anti-vaxxers.

June 17, 2021

After viewing the images, participants were asked whether they intended to get vaccinated against COVID-19. A combined analysis of all six studies revealed that exposure to the vaccine memes increase participants’ intentions to get vaccinated, even after accounting for gender, age, and political orientation.

The study authors say that future research will be needed to explore the psychological processes through which internet memes may impact vaccine attitudes and behaviors. It will also be important to test how this effect may change depending on contextual factors, such as the stages of vaccine development.

The study, “Preliminary evidence that brief exposure to vaccination-related internet memes may influence intentions to vaccinate against COVID-19”, was authored by Shawn N. Geniole, Brian M. Bird, Alayna Witzel, Jordan T. McEvoy, and Valentina Proietti. (PsyPost) 

 

Letters to the Editor, the Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday July 15, 2022

The Hamilton Spectator

Booster cartoon 1:

Regarding MacKay’s pro-booster cartoon Friday: It is obvious, Mr. MacKay, how little you’ve grown in a year and a half!

Marilyn Haughton, Hamilton

Booster cartoon 2:

The Facebook comments on MacKay’s cartoon depicting anti-vaxxers was predictable, with those same anti-vaxxer idiots whining about being treated unfairly.

In my view, his depiction was too kind. These people are public-health hazard losers and deserve to be shunned by all decent people.

Anna Carter, Burlington

 

Saturday November 6, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday November 6, 2021

Many conservatives have a difficult relationship with science

Many scientific findings continue to be disputed by politicians and parts of the public long after a scholarly consensus has been established. For example, nearly a third of Americans still do not accept that fossil fuel emissions cause climate change, even though the scientific community settled on a consensus that they do decades ago.

June 17, 2021

Research into why people reject scientific facts has identified people’s political worldviews as the principal predictor variable. People with a libertarian or conservative worldview are more likely to reject climate change and evolution and are less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

What explains this propensity for rejection of science by some of the political right? Are there intrinsic attributes of the scientific enterprise that are uniquely challenging to people with conservative or libertarian worldviews? Or is the association merely the result of conflicting imperatives between scientific findings and their economic implications? In the case of climate change, for example, any mitigation necessarily entails interference with current economic practice.

We recently conducted two large-scale surveys that explored the first possibility – that some intrinsic attributes of science are in tension with aspects of conservative thinking. We focused on two aspects of science: the often tacit norms and principles that guide the scientific enterprise, and the history of how scientific progress has led us to understand that human beings are not the centre of the universe. (Continued: The Conversation) 

 

Friday November 5, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 5, 2021

Ontario and Quebec bow to anti-vax hospital workers

Chalk up two big points for the nation’s anti-vax brigade. And two ridiculous own-goals by the governments of Ontario and Quebec.

August 31, 2021

In a dispiriting display of spinelessness, both provinces decided Wednesday against requiring their health care workers to do the morally right and medically necessary thing — and be vaccinated against COVID-19. While Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced he would not proceed with a vaccination mandate, Quebec Health Minister Christian Dube actually scrapped a vaccination edict already in place.

Both decisions will worry and, yes, endanger patients. They won’t know whether the person treating them has had the jab and whether, if unvaccinated, that individual might put them at heightened risk of catching COVID-19. Both decisions also do a profound disservice to the overwhelming majority of health care workers who’ve acted responsibly by taking their jab. They should have the right to work in the safest environment possible, something only possible after mass vaccinations.

April 1, 2021

So why did it come to this? In both provinces, the decisions were motivated by the unsubstantiated fear that vast numbers of hospital workers would quit rather than be vaccinated. Ford cited “the potential departure of tens of thousands of health-care workers” if his government mandated vaccinations instead of leaving the decision to individual hospitals and health organizations, many of which have imposed their own vaccine requirements.

But the Ontario Hospital Association and the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario both pleaded with the premier to set down a consistent approach across the entire provincial health care system. Instead, Ford has, by default, saddled Ontarians with a confusing, far less effective, patchwork of rules. As for the premier’s numbers, they’re outdated. His own health minister, Christine Elliott, said so. And while she agreed the number of potential staff losses would have been “significant” she failed to provide precise numbers to back up her assertion.

September 15, 2021

To be fair, it’s true that at least some health care providers would be stubborn enough lose their jobs rather than be vaccinated. But rather than cave in to their threats and irrational, irresponsible behaviour, the governments of Ontario and Quebec should have stood firm and called their bluff. No health care worker would ever be forced to have a vaccine injected into their arm. But those who refused would deal with the consequences.

In marked contrast, Air Canada has stuck to its vaccine-mandate guns and suspended 8,000 of its 27,000 employees for refusing to get the jab. Its planes are still flying. The Toronto District School Board has put nearly 800 workers on unpaid leave because they failed to disclose their vaccination status. The schools remain open. If an airline trying to protect its customers and staff and a board trying to guard its students and employees are willing to go to these lengths, so should the Ontario and Quebec governments when the integrity of their hospitals is at stake. Their health care systems would have gone on, too, likely with more fully vaccinated workers.

January 27, 2021

Ford’s decision is especially puzzling considering that another branch of the provincial government, the Ministry of Long-Term Care, has mandated COVID-19 vaccines for anyone working in care homes. Workers in these facilities face termination unless they show proof of vaccination by Nov. 15. Go figure. Why do some of our key leaders seem incapable of running a mass vaccination initiative?

It now seems only a matter of time before Canadian children aged five- to 11-years-old will be eligible for a COVID vaccine. But parents aware of Ford’s laissez-faire approach to vaccinations might erroneously conclude it’s no big deal to spare their children from the jab. If that happens, the hope of reaching the 90-per-cent vaccination level that would make this province truly safe will have faded. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Saturday July 3, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday July 3, 2021

‘The virus will infect them’: Vaccine hesitant Americans think variant risk exaggerated, poll shows

There are few things more normal than the sight of a crowded beach on the 4th of July weekend. However, even as Americans celebrate Independence Day with renewed verve this year, freedom from the virus may still be far off with a highly transmissible delta variant infecting unvaccinated communities.

April 27, 2021

“They are going to be fodder for the virus,” said Dr. Richard Novak, head of infectious diseases at UI Health. “The virus will infect them, it will mutate in them and the new variants will come from them and we’ll all be at risk.”

According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post Poll, three in 10 adults said they have not gotten a coronavirus vaccine, and definitely or probably will not get one.

Of this group, 73% believe U.S. officials are exaggerating the risk of the delta variant and 79% think they have little or no risk of getting sick.

“It’s almost heartbreaking that now the two populations that need this, the most are urban minority patients and rural white patients, are the ones that are saying no in the loudest numbers,” said Dr. Mark Loafman, with the Cook County Health Department. “That group of patients that were able to hear facts and be reassured, we got to them. It’s this group that the facts aren’t going to fix it for them.”

March 17, 2021

“It’s been long enough,” said Christina Brown, who got her first shot Monday. :I started seeing results. Everybody was doing it. I wasn’t hearing nobody having that bad of side effects. I said alright I’ll go get it, and see what happens.”

However, there are still others who feel their freedom to choose was taken away.

“I felt like I was forced into it. I had to have surgery and my doctor basically told me that in order for me to get the surgery I literally had to get the shot. So this is my only reason to get the shot,” said 23-year-old Tamarianna Tate. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. I’m was a strong believer in not getting the shot. ”

The Delta variant now accounts for 25% of all cases in the United States. It’s estimated by the end of August that number will surpass 90%. (ABC) 

 

Tuesday April 27, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 27, 2021

Politicians behaving badly in the pandemic

What should be done when politicians act against public interest? There are plenty of recent examples, including those who get a kick out of downplaying and minimizing COVID-19 and the health measures employed to fight it.

July 11, 2019

On Saturday, in Peterborough, People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier was ticketed after his speech to an illegal anti-lockdown rally. Also in attendance was independent MPP Randy Hillier, who got into a heated face-to-face debate with local police Chief Scott Gilbert. Hillier and Bernier were charged with breaching the stay-at-home order.

Conservative MP David Sweet went one better — or worse. He had to apologize after issuing a tweet on Friday falsely claiming there is “no evidence” that lockdowns work, and calling them “the single greatest breach” of civil liberties “since the Internment Camps during WW2.”

April 28, 2020

At first he wouldn’t back down. In a second tweet he said: “To be clear I am referring to Canadian internment camps of innocent immigrants during WW2,” he wrote. “Unjustly, because of their ethnic association had their civil liberties suspended even though they were landed immigrants or Canadians.”

McMaster University assistant dean in the department of biochemistry and biomedical sciences Dr. Matthew Miller nicely expressed the outrage felt by many, saying: “(Second World War) internment camps disproportionately affected a minority racialized community in Canada. And this pandemic, we know, is disproportionately affecting minority racialized communities, equity-seeking groups. And these lockdowns, frankly, protect those groups.”

After a Twitter outrage, Sweet sent a third tweet, claiming he didn’t intend to compare the two issues. Interesting, since his own wording in his own tweets shows that is exactly what he was doing. In any case he eventually apologized “to anyone offended.”

June 23, 2020

In case you don’t know, about 24,000 people, including 12,000 Japanese Canadians, were forced into internment camps during the Second World War. Men in the camps were often separated from their families and forced to do physical labour, according to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Many lost all their property and thousands were later exiled to Japan. 

One expert called Sweet’s claims “disgusting,” and that’s an appropriate description.

Let’s not forget now-ousted Conservative MP Derek Sloan and similarly booted former Ontario Conservative MPP Roman Baber, who also engaged in COVID-19 and lockdown denial, and paid a political price. 

And let’s not forget West Lincoln Mayor David Bylsma, who attended anti-lockdown rallies and has mocked public health advice and direction intended to keep his citizens safe. He has faced a storm of criticism from his regional council colleagues and also an integrity commission complaint. 

January 16, 2021

So here is the question: Where do elected officials elected in large part to act in the interest of public welfare and safety get off doing just the opposite? And who is holding them to account? Sweet has already said he is retiring and will not run again. But why isn’t he now out of Erin O’Toole’s caucus like Derek Sloan is? Baber and Hillier were ousted from Doug Ford’s Conservative caucus, but they continue to sit and spew their pandemic denial rhetoric. And Bylsma is still mayor in West Lincoln in spite of all the best attempts by his colleagues to shut him up.

Some will say yes, because they were all elected and serve at the will of citizens. There’s something to that. But there is also something to this: All have blatantly abandoned their duty to promote public safety. That is a cardinal sin and they should pay for it. (Hamilton Spectator)