From anti-vaxxers to climate deniers to a general simmering scepticism of science, denialism in all its forms is everywhere. Crikey is presenting a multi-part series on how the seeds of doubt are planted and how they blossom through media and politics. Read the second, third and fourth parts.
But first, let’s break down some of the main denialist theories and examine the people who believe them.
Wind farm opposition
What they believe: Opposition to wind farms is often couched in NIMBY-ish concerns about farmers, noise pollution and, most prominently, the health effects of the turbines. “Wind turbine syndrome” was first coined in 2009 by New York paediatrician Nina Pierpont, and has gained considerable traction among anti-wind groups.
What the science says: Pierpont’s initial study was methodologically questionable, leaning heavily on anecdotal evidence. Simon Chapman, professor of public health at the University of Sydney calls “wind turbine syndrome” a “communicated disease” which spreads by being talked about, even though there is no evidence indicating it is a legitimate condition.
Who believes it: Many conservative politicians irrationally hate wind farms. Joe Hockey called them “utterly offensive” and “a blight on the landscape”. Nick Xenophon has long peddled the health argument, while absentee Energy Minister Angus Taylor has regularly spoken at rallies held by Stop These Things, an anti-wind group.
Climate change denial
What they believe: Climate change denial comes in many shapes and sizes. Some denialists argue weather variation is natural, particularly in Australia with its droughts and heatwaves. Linked to this is the belief that the climate is actually cooling. Others, particularly in the Liberal Party, highlight the economic importance of fossil fuels, and the high costs of renewable energy.
What the science says: Numerous peer-reviewed studies indicate that 97% of publishing climate scientists agree that climate change is human-induced. Meanwhile, denialists are almost never published in peer-reviewed journals. The CSIRO warns droughts, bushfires and heatwaves will likely continue, and according to a recent IPCC report, we have just 12 years to avoid a catastrophic 1.5 degree rise in temperature.
Who believes it: While a majority of Australians are now worried about climate change (a number that keeps increasing), denialists have a huge amount of influence, both in the media and in politics. Influential sceptics include former prime minister Tony Abbott, conservative media figures such as Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt, and mining magnate Gina Rinehart.
Vaping
What they believe: The science around vaping is unsettled. Advocates cite studies showing vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking, and point to pronouncements by public health bodies in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, where vaping has been endorsed as a tool to quit smoking. But in Australia, vaping regulations are something of a minefield — in some states sale of devices is illegal, while in others the nicotine in the vape is banned.
What the science says: It depends on who does the science. Many of the claims commonly touted by vaping activists — that vaping is vastly less harmful than smoking, and that it has led over 6 million smokers to quit in the EU — have their roots in research by scientists with deep historic ties to the e-cigarette industry, which is increasingly controlled by big tobacco. Meanwhile, studies which are independent of vested interests have outlined far more health risks.
Who believes it: While there is a widespread push to legalise vaping, many of the big players have ties to the tobacco lobby. In Australia, a charity created by doctors to lobby for legalisation of vaping was discovered to have been initially bankrolled by e-cigarette manufacturers. A group of UK MPs who called for a softening of e-cigarette regulations were also found to have been repeatedly schmoozed by lobbyists.
Anti-vaccination
What they believe: Anti-vaccination activists believe that the risks of vaccines — particularly childhood vaccines — outweigh any benefits of herd immunity. This includes a belief by some anti-vaccination advocates that there is a link between childhood vaccines and autism.
What the science says: The accepted science is that immunisation for a variety of diseases vastly reduces the risk of children and adults getting serious or deadly diseases.
Who believes it: The World Health Organisation has declared the anti-vaccination movement one of the top health threats of 2019. Though Australian experts believe we are a particularly pro-vaccination country, there are still pockets of activists around the country who maintain that vaccinations are not safe.
A public and media backlash often follows any statements from high-profile anti-vaxxers in Australia. Even Pete Evans, known for non-mainstream views on health topics including his paleo diet and the dangers of sunscreen and fluoride, has generally stayed away from vaccination. He faced a strong backlash when he hosted American holistic doctor Kelly Brogan on his podcast last year, who has anti-vaccination views.
The Australian Vaccination-Risks Association, headed by Meryl Dorey, is the most prominent group advocating the anti-vaccination line in Australia. Overseas, there are quite a few celebrity anti-vaxxers.
Flat Earth
What they believe: One of the more fringe denialist theories is that Earth is flat, and that evidence to the contrary is part of a conspiracy by NASA and government agencies. The leading flat Earth theory holds that Earth is a disc, with the Arctic Circle in the middle and Antarctica as the outer rim. They’ve also “discovered” that Australia doesn’t exist.
What the science says: Earth is round. This is a fact humans have known for more than 2000 years.
Who believes it: A growing number of people reportedly subscribe to the flat Earth theory, primarily driven by YouTube stars. The Flat Earth Society held its first convention in the United Kingdom in 2018, hosting speakers from around the world, and the society says its numbers have grown by 200 since 2009. Celebrity believers include cricketer Andrew Flintoff and American rapper BoB.
AIDS denial
What they believe: AIDS denialists believe that there is no proven connection between the HIV and AIDS viruses, or that HIV and AIDS don’t exist.
What the science says: HIV is real and, if left untreated will develop into AIDS.
Who believes it: In the ’80s and ’90s, when fear of HIV and AIDS was at its highest, there were far more sceptics than today about the relationship between HIV and AIDS and their causes. But the belief lingers on in some circles, with real-life effects. Former South African president Thabo Mbeki took on this theory while he was in office, and it’s believed that his reluctance to fund anti-retroviral medication could have cost 330,000 people’s lives.
70 thoughts on “A guide to Australian denialism”
Gavin Moodie
January 22, 2019 at 12:37 pmI would add denial of economic reality. There are many candidates, but since I live in Canada I nominate Trump’s denial of the law of comparative advantage and thus the benefits of free trade.
Saugoof
January 22, 2019 at 1:30 pmOne welcome addition to this list would be who benefits or pushes certain conspiracies rather than just who believes them. E.g. the groups or people who quietly behind the scenes promote certain conspiracies that they likely don’t even believe themselves but benefit from them being spread.
If I had to guess, I would think that the oil, coal and mining lobbies are behind a lot of the propaganda and funding of wind turbine syndrome and global warming denialism for example.
Wayne Robinson
January 22, 2019 at 1:41 pmI’m personally pro-vaping. As a non-smoker, I find vapers less offensive olfactorily than cigarette smokers, who smell as though they’re burning old rags.
klewso
January 23, 2019 at 12:40 amI’d probably try it if it wasn’t for the ‘turning Japanese’ side-effect?
electme
January 22, 2019 at 1:51 pmOne hopes you’ll cover endodontic denialism a little; ‘Root Cause’, a marvelous piece of propaganda is currently available on Netflix: just why, I cannot understand.
Is it because no-one at Netflix actually reviews this type of content? They bill it in all seriousness as ‘documentary’, and fair enough, the opening scenes show Schoolies in Queensland which undeniably occurs. But that’s where any contact with Real Life starts and finishes.
Wayne Robinson
January 22, 2019 at 2:33 pmI found and read a review by Spring Hatfield. It’s easy to find with a quick Google search of ‘Root Cause.’
I’ve had root canal treatment many years ago because of recurrent periodical abscesses causing considerable pain and suffering intermittently for years. I haven’t had any trouble since then (besides my dentist needing to fit crowns – I suspect because he wants to buy a new Mercedes – as the dental enamel wears away with increasing age).
electme
January 22, 2019 at 4:07 pmNo Wayne, or, perhaps maybe, you never know (about Mercs), but, try Googling ‘vertical root fracture’ (as a reason for extra-coronal restoration of endodontically treated teeth).
Wayne Robinson
January 22, 2019 at 7:17 pmMy dentist always tries to explain to me what he’s advising me to have done and how he’s going to do it. I always tell him not to bother, and accept his advice regardless. I have absolute faith in my dentist.
Roger Clifton
January 22, 2019 at 2:46 pmA conceptual problem for the decarbonising movement is the eradication of gas. We find it easy to talk to each other in terms of getting rid of coal or gasoline, but we seem to gag on the idea that we must get rid of gas. Trouble is, if we cannot envisage a realistic replacement for gas-fired power stations, we might as well be sacrificing goats to appease the climate gods, as Tony Abbott would put it.
mark e smith
January 22, 2019 at 3:15 pmNever seen any evidence of this and I read up on this stuff a lot. Gas is both a lesser and greater problem. Natural gas is mostly methane CH4 meaning it has the highest ratio of hydrogen to carbon and produces much less CO2 per unit of energy than coal and still less than petrol which is mostly octane isomers. However much of the new non traditional gas production leaks lots of methane straight into the air. It’s a much worse global warming agent than Co2 but persists for a much shorter time.
There are plenty of ready replacements for gas, nuclear and all fossil fuels for most applications the current exceptions being sea and air transport. There are already commercially available small electric aircraft with 1000km range.
Zeke
January 22, 2019 at 8:26 pmSea transport can go back to wind and sail for all I care. At least the cost of imports will push us back into local manufacturing and jobs for us locals.
Air transport? What about airships? We can produce the hydrogen (no, it’s not as deadly as portrayed re “Hindenburg”) and electric motors will easily drive maybe thousands of passengers across our oceans. Isn’t helium a byproduct of the nuclear fusion process? If we ever get a fusion reactor running cheaply and reliably then helium supply won’t be a problem for airships.
AR
January 23, 2019 at 1:09 amI am an airship enthusiast for hydrogen – the most abundant of elements compared to scarce and rapidly depleting helium which has less than 90% the lift of hydrogen.
The Hindenburg disaster was due to the doping used to coat the outer skin – it burned like rocket fuel bright orange whereas hydrogen burns blue green and didn’t even catch until the end of the catastrophe.
The problem of descent with airships – physically pulling them down – is easily solved by running the engines on hydrogen for the final part of the journey or even recompressing it.
Inversius
January 24, 2019 at 6:30 pmGreat to see a fellow hydrogen based airship fan. It is hard to believe, with modern materials, that “compression on demand”couldn’t be made to work, perhaps even by physically reducing the size of the hydrogen envelope (a bit like a fish’s swim bladder)? In any event, would be nice to see dirigibles getting a modern reboot.
Desmond Graham
January 22, 2019 at 3:04 pmArticle shows journos don’t understand the basics of science. Each segment has
What the Science Says –
Science doesn’t say anything – it is the the scientists who say something ,
Wayne Robinson
January 22, 2019 at 7:26 pmIt’s a syndoche. Or perhaps a metonymy. It’s similar to ‘the White House says…’ even when everyone knows that buildings don’t say anything.
Chilly Winds
January 23, 2019 at 12:00 amThey’re good fancy words there, Wayne; I like them. Actually, though, we can just call it a figure of speech.
Ruv Draba
January 23, 2019 at 6:36 pmIt could be short for ‘A mature scientific consensus based on multiple, independent peer-reviewed studies says’ — which is pretty much the scientific orthodoxy of the day.
Wayne Robinson
January 23, 2019 at 7:39 pmMultiple, independent, peer-reviewed studies are much more likely to be correct than a few, dependent on maverick scientists, non-peer-reviewed studies.
Ruv Draba
January 23, 2019 at 7:54 pmI agree, Wayne. When we get a decent level of independent, reproduced, peer-reviewed findings it means we know all we can until we get more data.
This confuses some and disturbs others because in what other sphere does it work that way? Aren’t minority views equally as valid as majority views? Sometimes more valid just because they’ve been ignored?
With science, it’s not the scientist nearly so much as the data. Independent reproducibility is vastly more reliable than appeals to a champion authority.
Yet…
Can anyone name one mainstream news journal that has ever explicitly made this point and explained why it’s important?
‘The science says…’ is really code for ‘rigorous trials over available data say…’
Leto Otel
January 22, 2019 at 3:30 pmHow many billions of dollars has the US government paid out for vaccine damage? About $30 billion last I saw.
Odd really.
Wayne Robinson
January 22, 2019 at 7:29 pmThe American government has the policy of accepting the most trivial evidence of vaccine damage in order to indemnify vaccine manufacturers and encourage the development and production of vaccines. They’ve decided that even with the indemnity, vaccines pay.
Roger Clifton
January 22, 2019 at 3:41 pmMark e smith, surely you are not making excuses for natural gas? Despite all our denials, we have gone past the time where we can pretend to be making token “reductions” by using gas. We must eliminate it.
If as you say, “There are plenty of ready replacements for gas”, then we can tomorrow shut down all the gas turbines and boilers, and rip up the pipelines. So tell us, what are you going to use to generate baseload then?
mark e smith
January 22, 2019 at 8:10 pmYour disingenuity over my words does you no favours Roger. I simply explained that gas is less of a problem than coal when burned but this is confounded by the common problem of unburned leakage.
You know as well as I do that available new options for anything never mean prematurely discarding current arrangements. It does however not excuse deliberate misrepresentation to stymie necessary change. Your use of the common baseload furphy is a common example. Very little gas generation in Australia is baseload. Basload is just one of the types of generation. Each type is arguably as important as the others. Excessive baseload also causes problems which is why so many countries do or did pretty much give away power at night.
My own opinion is that baseload is a concept that reflects the historical nature of our system. It’s not inherently necessary. Conservatives and climate deniers cling to baseload partly because that’s what their beloved coal plants are and partly because they don’t understand the complexities of power systems. It’s all changed a bit and will change a lot more and for the better. We’ll have a cleaner cheaper more reliable and flexible system whether the old guard like it or not.
Flagon
January 22, 2019 at 8:30 pmAccording to NHMRC the childhood vaccine schedule requires a Hep B vaccine in the day of birth and 20 odd vaccine doses by 6 months of age. Is there a long term study that compares health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated groups?
Wayne Robinson
January 23, 2019 at 10:36 amNo. It would be unethical to do such a study.
Flagon
January 23, 2019 at 12:56 pmSo no evidence, just belief.
Wayne Robinson
January 23, 2019 at 1:31 pmNo, there’s no study which has been done to compare the long term outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated groups in the same populations with identical characteristics. Such a study would be impossible to perform. No researcher would be able to get it through ethics committees.
That’s not a belief on my part. It’s fact.
Flagon
January 23, 2019 at 2:05 pmRCT is the standard for all other drugs. The unethical line is a convenient cop out.
Wayne Robinson
January 23, 2019 at 2:26 pmI’m just pointing out that there are no studies comparing vaccinated and non-vaccinated groups. Researchers only do studies when they don’t know what the results would be.
It would be unethical to do random controlled studies if they believed that vaccination is of benefit.
Researchers aren’t going to do studies just to satisfy you.
Ruv Draba
January 24, 2019 at 12:01 pmFlagon, epidemiologists track reported rates of most serious diseases, and the roll-out schedules for vaccinations vary by jurisdiction and region. So it’s possible to construct a ‘natural’ experiment: i.e. sample data from groups with similar demographics but different vaccination schedules to baseline efficacy against control groups. I haven’t researched that for your vaccination of choice, but have tracked data on other health policies and believe that if you look, you’ll find something exactly like this: it’s a routine tool in an epidemiologist’s box of tricks, and for health policy in general.
I hope that may help.
Wayne Robinson
January 24, 2019 at 12:16 pmFlagon wants comparisons between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, not just less vaccinated or more vaccinated. Something that’s impossible to do ethically. We know children die or are damaged as a result of measles, whooping cough, and other infections. It’s almost impossible to find a group of significant size that has had no immunisation of any kind due to the voluntary choice of the parents. And doing a controlled trial with one group having no immunisation and the other group having the recommended immunisation (which Flagon wants) ethically is indefensible.
Flagon
January 27, 2019 at 1:05 pmPart of a letter to the NY Times by a medical practitioner in response to “anti vexer” article. Refs provided by him. 2 medical practitioners that I know of who dared to question vaccine “science” were struck off last year in Aus.
1) even the CDC now admits that supposedly vaccine-preventable diseases are being spread primarily by vaccinated individuals;2
2) the small outbreaks now occurring are predominantly in vaccinated individuals;3
3) many vaccines have led to the emergence of new, resistant strains of the same organisms that we vaccinate against, as well as altogether new species in some cases;4
4) children coming down with and recovering from acute febrile illnesses like flu, measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox are much less likely to develop chronic autoimmune diseases and cancers later in life than those who are vaccinated against them;5
5) vaccine safety studies are conducted primarily by the drug industry itself, or by government agencies that are run mainly by past, present, or future executives of the industry, in lieu of the independent regulation and oversight they are supposed to provide;6
6) these studies rarely include unvaccinated subjects as “controls,” and typically give other vaccines or toxic chemical adjuvants instead of genuine placebos for comparison;7
7) adverse reactions are accepted as vaccine-related only if they occur within a few hours or days of the vaccination, thus arbitrarily excluding the chronic dimension entirely from consideration;8
8) the lead investigator has absolute authority to decide whether unsolicited reports of other adverse reactions by the subjects themselves are or are not vaccine-related, based on criteria that are never specified and allowed to remain a trade secret, if indeed they exist at all;9
9) the risks of adverse reactions to vaccines are directly proportional to the total number of vaccine components both administered simultaneously at a single visit, and accumulated over the patients’ lifetime, which means that they are inherentin the vaccination process per se, as well as in this or that particular vaccine;10
10) many vaccines contain chemical adjuvants and other ingredients known to be neurotoxic, such as aluminum, mercury, and detergents like Polysorbate 80, which when injected are known to cross the blood-brain barrier, accumulate in brain tissue, and have been causally linked to various forms of brain damage;11
11) the CDC admits that over 25% of American children born today suffer from some form of brain damage, yet has never investigated, or even shown much interest in investigating, what percentage of these cases are vaccine-related;12
12) other vaccine ingredients include human and animal cells, DNA, RNA, and proteins, which almost certainly provoke immunological reactions but have not been studied, or at any rate such studies have never been made public.13
Wayne Robinson
January 27, 2019 at 1:23 pmCare to provide references?
Flagon
January 27, 2019 at 3:18 pm1. “Flu vaccine increases risk of infecting others by 6 fold”
Proceedings from the National Academy of Science 2018
“The emerging risks of live virus strain virus infection shedding and transmission” National Vaccine Information Centre
National Business Times 2016
“Vaccine Derived Polio Spreading in Polio Free India”
Canada Public Health 1991
“Major measles outbreak in the region of Quebec despite a 99% vaccine coverage”
Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology 2017
Aluminium in brain tissue in familial Alzheimers disease
Human Experiential Toxicology 2011
“Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity?”
The lancet 2012
“Efficacy and effectiveness of influenza vaccines: a systematic review and meta-analysis”
“evidence for protection in adults aged 65 or older is lacking.”…………………
Look it up yourself
Flagon
January 27, 2019 at 3:26 pmDeath rates from childhood infections were near zero when the vaccines were introduced and made no difference to the trend. Scarlet Fever disappeared too and there was no vaccine for that.
Try clean water, good sanitation, good nutrition, refrigeration
appropriate housing.
Wayne Robinson
January 27, 2019 at 3:40 pmYou need to learn something about providing references.
Anyway. Scarlet fever hasn’t disappeared. There are still outbreaks occurring, including recent ones in England and South Korea. Here’s one from Perth.
https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/cda-cdi2904-pdf-cnt.htm/$FILE/cdi2904h.pdf
Scarlet fever has the advantage that it’s caused by Streptoccus pyogenes, which fortunately is still sensitive to penicillin.
Pathogens almost always evolve, becoming resistant to antibiotics and vaccines. Immunisation against influenza is at best 50% effective, due to antigenic drift/shift and the continual appearance of new strains.
But I always have ‘flu immunisation each year despite this.
Flagon
January 27, 2019 at 3:33 pmSo it is about belief. The science delusion.
Wayne Robinson
January 27, 2019 at 3:49 pmNo, it’s not about belief, if you’re referring to my always having the recommended ‘flu immunisation each year, despite its low effectiveness. I might be lucky one year and avoid the influenza I otherwise might have had. I have the ‘flu shot before travelling overseas. Having the ‘flu in a strange place would really ruin a holiday.
Flagon
January 30, 2019 at 6:57 amInteresting article in the BMJ
OFFICIAL DOUBLETALK HIDES SERIOUS PROBLEMS WITH FLU SHOT SAFETY AND EFFECTIVENESS
After weeks of brooding about the Donahue article linking flu shots to miscarriages (Vaccine 2017;35:5314) it was with a sense of relief that I read Rob Wipond’s narrative of media attempts to sweep a serious vaccine safety issue under the rug….He points out the hypocrisy (his words were “double standard”) of authorities who dismissed the Donahue paper because it was an “observational study.” Year after year they have quoted observational studies to announce, “…80% vaccine effectiveness…60% effectiveness…40% effectiveness…” They do not mention that these studies make no effort to look for adverse vaccine effects (e.g. narcolepsy, seizures, high fever, oculorespiratory syndrome). They do not mention “negative vaccine effectiveness”, the increase in risk of illness from influenza and non-influenza viruses associated with (or caused by) the vaccines. (Cowling, Clin Inf Dis 2012;54:1778) They do not mention that a vaccine “effective” in one season may increase influenza risk in a subsequent season. (Read about “antibody-dependent enhancement” to understand one explanatory mechanism). They do not mention that the observational studies they refer to are likely to exaggerate vaccine effectiveness in the first place because of the “healthy user effect” well known to epidemiologists.
Flagon
January 27, 2019 at 3:50 pmGood luck with that
Wayne Robinson
January 27, 2019 at 7:49 pmWell, you’re a typical denialist. You’ve given up trying to make arguments.
Actually, it’s typical of denialists that they troll sites on which there’s little or no chance of convincing others.
Wayne Robinson
January 30, 2019 at 7:31 amI agree that there are problems with the influenza immunisation. Effectiveness is no better than 50% because of the difficulty of predicting which strains are going to be circulating in the coming ‘flu season. In some seasons, effectiveness is less than 25%.
But childhood immunisation is a lifesaver. Children do die of or are damaged by infections such as whooping cough and measles. And polio used to be a killer and life destroyer until it was almost eradicated by a global mass immunisation campaign.
Regarding the Donahue study – there was no statistically significant increase in early abortions in women having influenza immunisation, the stated aim of the study. But when they went back, and reanalysed the data, they found a statistically significant increased increase in early abortions in women who’d had influenza in the two consecutive years.
This is known as p-hacking – looking for evidence of one hypothesis in a study, and when that doesn’t work, reanalyse the data to see if other hypotheses might be suggested. If the authors had looked at other hypotheses (eg women with red hair and ‘flu shots have an increased association with increased abortions) then they may well have found an association.
As the author’s note, it means further studies need to be done, with new data, looking at whether having ‘flu shots in consecutive years is associated with increased early abortions.
You propose your hypothesis, and then design your study to acquire the data you need to test your hypothesis.
And correlation does not prove causation.
But anyway. I’m still going to have my ‘flu shot this year before flying to Germany for a month. Just in case.
AR
January 23, 2019 at 12:56 amTalcum surely deserves a dishonourable mention for his “the law of mathematics does not override the law of Australia”.
On vaping – there can be no question that inhaling the products of burning cellulose is injurious to lung tissue so it might have been helpful to mention the problem is how the vape solutions are made.