The Time Has Come To Think

The weight of words blows me away. There is both a sense of power and a sense of weakness behind them - something truly challenging for me as an aspiring physician and science writer. This power and weakness can readily be exemplified by the vaccine and autism controversy.  No scientific study, done ethically, shows a correlation between vaccines and autism.  Furthermore, the risks associated with being unvaccinated is far grearter than the potential risks of vaccination.  Just take a look at this to put things in perspective:

However, the 1998 Wakefield et al study incorrectly claimed there was a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism.  It was later retracted/discredited for unethical research.  But, the misinformation was already out, the damage already done.  The rate of vaccinations in children fell fairly significantly after the Wakefield paper.  This leads me to so many questions!
Do people who chose not to vaccinate their children after hearing the findings of the "study" know that it was a fraudulent claim? Unlikely. I read several scientific papers and not once did I think to check if the study was still credited or not. I just assume it's data and findings were and are still valid. Furthermore, even if parents have become aware that the claims in the Wakefield study are incorrect, I think it's unlikely to change their mindset on vaccines. Once someone believes in something very strongly, it's hard to change that. 
Are new parents who attempt to increase their scientific literacy by researching vaccine information on the internet and later becoming vaccine-autism advocates necessarily scientifically ignorant? It is profoundly hard to say. People go online and read a study or a news article or a blog about how vaccines are linked to autism but they had the right intention of learning. As a scientist, I'm so pleased that people aren't just blindly doing whatever the scientists or doctors tell them to without at least trying understand it. It is important for people to find out what vaccines are, why children need them, if there are risks, what the associated risks are, etc, in order to make an informed decision regarding their child's health. On the flip side, still as a scientist, it's troubling to me that people don't know what scientifically sound evidence is and how to go about finding it to make the right decisions.  People usually fail to question what they are reading and rarely find all sides of the story. Once people believe in something, they tend to ignore evidence against their belief. This closed-mindedness, in my opinion, is a form of ignorance in itself and can lead to misinformation. 
As a science writer in support of vaccines, I want to help the average Joe get correct information in an understandable way - but with opposing and influential views (like star Jenny McCarthy's), how can this be done?   How do science writers overcome misinformation? How did a former playboy playmate with no background in science become more reliable than a scientist?! It disheartens me to say that the source through which people get information has a huge impact. Who am I? Just good ol' Ursinus pre-med student, Zeba Hussaini. That name doesn't ring a bell [- yet :)] Who are all those scientists "et al"? Dunno. Who is Jenny McCarthy? ding ding ding! That Playmate of the Year turned mother of an autistic child turned activist and author on parenting! 
Parents have autistic children and it breaks their hearts. They need to know why and they need to know the cure and they need to know it now.  Unfortunately, the science world doesn't know yet but a quick search on Google leads the parents to Jenny McCarthy claiming her son's autism had been "cured". The emotional parents cling on to the heart-wrenching words by Jenny McCarthy and other vaccine-autism advocates.  Suddenly, they have found others who are in the same position. There is power in numbers. The parents find support, something to blame, and reinforcement. There's no longer a need for sound scientific back-up because there's emotional bias, source-confirmation bias, herd-mentality bias and that, however unfortunate, is enough for people to put their children and others at risk by refusing vaccinations. This concept is so deeply ingrained in some vaccine-autism advocates that there mind is never going to change (the "gone cases"). But there are those who are a little bit more open minded and who scientists and science writers, can lead in the right direction, if done correctly. Informative and pleasant dialogue can be just what a person needs to be persuaded. Nobody wants to hear "You're wrong, this is the complicated scientific evidence why: blah blah blah blah blah." If scientists and science writers can find the source of misinformation, find evidence to back up the right information, and present it in an appealing, respectful, and most importantly, understandable dialogue, I think it would do wonders. At the very least, cause people to rethink, re-research, and reevaluate their position. And isn't thinking one of the things scientists and science writers want the general public to do?

Knowledge Hungry and Articulate

In The New Organon by Francis Bacon, he describes 3 types of ambition.  First is personal ambition, which is common and greedy. Then there is the ambition to extend the power of one's country and has dignity.  Lastly, there is ambition of man to extend the power of the human race over the universe, the most majestic. He goes on to say, "For the benefits of discoveries may extend to the whole human race...the benefits of discovery [benefits] for virtually all time...discoveries make men happy, and bring benefit without hurt or sorrow to anyone." (99)

Bacon asserts the work of a scientist is divinely honorable because if one has a goal to extend ambition to encompass the universe to help humanity, that is the best thing one can do.  We live in a knowledge hungry world. The Merriam-Webster dictionary literally defines science as "the state of knowing; knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding."  We always want to know more.  We are constantly making improvements and advancements in our lives.  It is up to the scientist to figure out how to discover, improve, or advance something. However, what good is new knowledge with no way to share it? What good does a new discovery do if only a select pool of individuals understand what has been accomplished?  Writers form letters and words to form ideas and thoughts and express knowledge to the public. The more people a writer can connect to, educate, inspire, and even stir conflict with, the better it is.  The work of a science writer, then, is to express scientific knowledge to as many people as possible. Science writers have the capability to make science honorable by bridging that connection between the knowledge and the public sphere and reaching out to as many people as possible. If being a scientist and attaining the science is honorable, then the challenge of giving science away, to me, is profoundly honorable.  And it's also a daunting task - science writers have to be able to understand the science and scientists and also be able to understand the audience and their critics when they give science away.  Science writers are knowledge hungry and articulate enough to teach others who are not specialized in that field.  Let's take Dr. Jonas Salk as an example. Dr. Salk devoted his time to developed the polio vaccine.  He took his knowledge, advanced it, and made a discovery, resulting in more advancement of knowledge and good for humanity.  As a scientist, that is absolutely incredible to me.  As a layperson, I don't understand what polio is and I don't understand what a vaccine does so it's not a big deal at all. The fact is, science writers can create this written art to move people and cause a concept that is confusing, not well understood, scary, and perhaps boring become clear, well understood, valient, and just amazing.  Newspapers gave away the science by publishing the findings of Dr. Salk's discovery and now Polio, a viral disease that can lead to paralysis, has been eradicated in all but 3 countries.  Now that's what I call giving away science and benefiting the common good. Take your talents, run with them, and use them honorably!

School IS Cool

Can I give you a shot? Can I take your temperature? Can I listen to your heartbeat? The toy medical kit my parents got me when I was just a few years old was my favorite. Forget the barbies and the stuffed animals, I wanted nothing more than to wrap a blood pressure monitor around someone's arm and pump it up.  I was fascinated with the thought that by using some of the tools in my Fisher Price Doctor's Kit, I could make someone sick or hurt feel better.  My friends had their own interests - some loved the solar system and wanted to be astronauts or rocket scientists and others were curious about what the world was like when dinosaurs roamed the earth. As children, we had this natural curiosity of everything in the world and since science is in everything, we indirectly love science.  ]For some reason, that is lost as we "grow up".  We stop seeing science everywhere because we're no longer talking about scorching hot lava coming out of volcanoes but talking about the boring minerals that make them and the shifting of Earth plates.  In middle school, I moved on to the small honors science classes while many of my peers grimaced and laughed when I told them why I wasn't in their class. The loss of interest in science in children can be attributed to many things - the most common reason of which is how science is presented to young students.  Animals and spaceships are so cool. Atoms and chemicals elements? Not so much. When we get into middle school sciences, it's difficult to see the real world applications of what we are learning.  Furthermore, science is no longer going outside and playing with the world.  It is no longer about experiencing and discovering...somewhere over the years it became difficult and boring (gasp).  Science becomes reading a textbook with the pressure of getting good grades.  However, I don't think the way that science is taught is entirely to blame.  While educators have huge hand in a student's perception of a subject, there is an overarching issue of just being a student that age that is not held accountable.  Growing older means things get more complex, whether it's school or relationships. Prior to and during middle school, we start gaining the awareness of our own interests, perceptions, and the complexities in the world.  Our focus becomes so split among awkward hormones, raging peer pressure, our parents expectations, our interests, and our options.  It's only natural that something considered to be difficult, like science, will be the least of our focus.  We are left to start making our own decisions at the most horrible transition time because most kids that age will put things that are difficult, time consuming, not cool, etc at the bottom of the list.  And unfortunately, a lot times, the bottom of the list stays at the bottom.  I think guiding students on how to focus, how to learn, be engaged, have an open mind and take responsibility is extremely important.  Students need to have a sense of accountability and it needs to start as early as middle school.  I also think it's important to show students that it won't always be fun, interesting, and entertaining.  At least the real world isn't - isn't that what education is supposed to prepare us for? The future "real" world?  I loved science my whole life. AP bio was my favorite class in high school and was looking forward to majoring in biology and taking biology courses in college.  I did not love my first college biology class. It was challenging and ecology was not my favorite concept in the realm of biology.  But I knew it was still important and that I had to persevere in order to take those more advanced courses which I loved and learned so much from.  The combination of making science classes interesting/emphasizing its real life impact even during the less-interesting parts in addition to nurturing a sense of accountability and responsibility in students will certainly make an impact.