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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe - Podcast 175 - 11/20/2008
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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is a weekly Podcast talkshow discussing the latest news and topics from the world of the paranormal, fringe science, and controversial claims from a scientific point of view. -The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: Your escape to reality -Produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation(JREF) : http://www.theness.com
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Podcast
175
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November 20, 2008
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Interview with Steven Schafersman
News Items: Kevin Trudeau Smackdown, Placebo Acupuncture, NASA Recycles Urine, Reflexology in UK Schools
Your Questions and E-mail: Flu Vaccine, NESS in Video Game
Science or Fiction
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Segment: News Items
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Segment: Questions and E-mails
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Question #1 Flu Vaccine
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Dr. Novella,
I thoroughly enjoy your blog entries and /love /the SGU podcast. You have saved me from more than one pseudoscience and have sharped my mind. I was wondering if you could take a look at an article that gave me pause.
Yesterday I was listening to the SGU episode where you interviewed Mark Crislip, who advocated /everyone /getting the flu vaccine. Then today I ran into this article: "Avoid Flu Shots, Take Vitamin D Instead"
http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller27.html
Sandwiched between government conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine propaganda he writes:
"In one widely quoted study, 1838 volunteers age 60 and over were randomized to receive a flu shot or placebo (a shot of saline). The flu shot reduced the /relative /risk of contracting (serologically confirmed, clinical) influenza by a seemingly impressive 50%. The incidence of influenza in the unvaccinated people in this study was 3%. In the vaccinated group it was 2% (/JAMA /1994;272:16615). Flu shots reduced the /absolute /risk of contracting influenza by a meager 1% (not 50%, as the "relative risk" portrays it)."
My BS detector was already going off by this time in the article, but this seems to be a reasonable point. If vaccines only reduce the absolute cases of the flu by 1% then why get should we get them? But I wanted more information, so I went to the CDC's website.
According to the CDC:
"Overall, in years when the vaccine and circulating viruses are well-matched, influenza vaccines can be expected to reduce laboratory-confirmed influenza by approximately 70% to 90% in healthy adults <65 years of age."
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/vaccination/effectivenessqa.htm#iiv
Is the CDC claiming that flu vaccines reduce flu cases 70% to 90% absolutely or relatively? Or am I just getting hung up on a minor point?
Basically I have two questions. (1.) Is this guy completely full of crap? Or only mostly? (2.) Is the effectiveness quoted in the CDC website a reduction in relative risk or absolute risk?(Or maybe I shouldn't even try to understand statistics)
Blake Harber
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Question #2 New England Skeptics
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Not sure if you guys have seen this one, but I couldn't help spotting a certain book in the newly release adventure game A Vampyre Story. It's one of the parodies in a library near the start of the game, but it... jumped out of the screen.
http://www.richardcobbett.com/graphics/assets/ness.png
Of course, it could just be a coincidence. I'd hate to rule anything out, unless it's too ridiculous to be true. Then, yes.
Richard Cobbett
England
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Segment: Interview
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Segment: Science or Fiction [ Click Here to Show the Answers ]
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Item #1  Science
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Scientists report that they have completed sequencing most of the Mammoth genome.
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Item #2 Science
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A young girl survived without a heart for four months, while awaiting a transplant.
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Item #3  Fiction
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Scientists discover a live specimen of a rare New Zealand penguin thought to have gone extinct 500 years ago.
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Segment: Quote of the Week
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Quote of the Week
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“Whatever people in general do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious.” - Letitia E. Landon
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