I wrote yesterday that I am thrilled to be on the Anti-Vax Enemies List, but proud as I am, the truth is that I am far more thrilled that the list exists in the first place.

We can learn so much from it!

The most important thing about the list is not the identities of the people on it, but the mere fact that it exists. Its existence, its size, and its uses tell us a great deal about the vulnerabilities not merely of the anti-vax movement, but of all pseudoscience movements. By understanding those vulnerabilities we can be ever more effective in marginalizing, ridiculing and ultimately destroying those movements.

Simply put, the Anti-Vax Enemies List is a sign of weakness, not of strength.

How? Let me count the ways:

1. An enemies list is an implicit acknowledgement that the facts are not on their side.

When you know that you have scientific evidence in your corner, as everyone fighting pseudoscience does, from the luminaries down to individual bloggers, you need not worry about enemies since they are powerless to change the scientific evidence. They can lie about it, suppress it, and deny it but those are always failing strategies. The truth inevitably rises up to bite them.

When you are promoting lies, those who know the truth are naturally your enemies. Those who know the scientific evidence about vaccination don’t just demonstrate that anti-vaxxers are wrong, they humiliate them by pointing out their ignorance, illogical arguments, and, most devastatingly, their vastly overinflated egos. Those who know the scientific evidence about childbirth don’t just demonstrate that homebirth advocates (like Modern Alternative Mama Katie Tietje) are wrong, they humiliate them by pointing out their ignorance, illogical arguments, and, most devastatingly, their vastly overinflated egos. Those who know the scientific evidence about nutrtion and toxicology don’t just demonstrate that food-fools like Vani Hari (Food Babe) are wrong, they humiliate them by pointing out their ignorance, illogical arguments, and, most devastatingly, their vastly overinflated egos.

2. The size of the Anti-Vax Enemies List (30,000 names!) starkly reflects the weakness of the anti-vax movement.

For anti-vaxxers to assemble a list of 30,000 “enemies” means that the number of those arguing against pseudoscience dwarfs the number of those promoting pseudoscience. As others have noted, it would have taken far less time for the anti-vax crowd to assemble a list of their friends. There really aren’t that many “friends” of consequence.

The anti-vax crowd is in retreat. Reality has dealt them devastating blows, from the resurgence of diseases like pertussis and measles, to the willingness of legislatures like that in California to force them to pay a price for clinging to ignorance.

3. The purpose of the Anti-Vax Enemies List is perhaps the most revealing vulnerability of all.

The purpose of the list is to preemptively exclude list members from the echo chambers that are so vital to the propagation of pseudoscience. The information that the 30,000 list members post on Facebook, blogs and message boards is so incredibly compelling that banning it within moments does not fully obliterate its harm to anti-vax beliefs. Even the briefest exposure to scientific evidence fills anti-vaxxers with doubt. That ability to induce doubt of anti-vax propaganda is even more powerful among those who are in the process of being recruited by the anti-vax movement.

Anti-vaxxers, like most purveyors of pseudoscience, recognize that their most powerful weapon is the echo chambers that they create. Only by tricking each other into believing that they represent the majority can they sustain their nonsensical beliefs. Even the briefest intrusion of actual scientific evidence or logical argument can be fatal to maintaining the fiction that they are anything other than crackpots and conspiracists.

That’s why it is crucial for opponents of pseudoscience to breach those echo chambers and introduce truth and logic. Anti-vax, like all of pseudoscience, is rotten, weak and crumbling at its core. Its continued existence depends on hiding the rot within groups of ideologically committed believers. Even the brief entry of a single individual wielding the truth can be fatal to the group’s legitimacy. No one understands that better than the anti-vaxxers themselves. That’s why a list is needed; waiting to ban and delete the truth after it is written is too late. It must be banned preemptively.

It is equally critical for the opponents of pseudoscience to create alternative Facebook pages, blogs and message boards that don’t simply offer actual scientific evidence, but also host open debate of the issues. Open discussions, where anyone can post any information and argue about it with others, sends a powerful message to those flirting with pseudoscience, whether it is anti-vax pseudoscience, homebirth pseudoscience or any other variety: proponents of science and logic have nothing to fear because the truth is on their side. In contrast, proponents of pseudoscience are deeply afraid because they recognize, at a most fundamental level, that the truth undermines their cherished beliefs.

Those who wield the ban hammer (you know who you are!) may feel a temporary frisson of power by obliterating the truth from your Facebook pages, blogs and message boards, but you’ve actually advertised the weakness at the heart of your beliefs. You are acknowledging that those beliefs are so fragile that even the merest wisp of scientific evidence can overpower them.

I’m thrilled that the Anti-Vax movement has drawn up an Enemies List. I’m even more thrilled that it won’t help them in the least.

You hate me! You really hate me!

I stand before you honored and deeply humbled that you have chosen to recognize my contributions to the world of science advocacy. It’s difficult to imagine a more meaningful affirmation of my body of writing than to find myself named to the Anti-Vax Enemies List.

It is such an honor because it shows that you really fear me, and you should. But this is not my victory alone. There are so many I must thank for without them I would never have reached this glorious day.

I’d like to thank my parents for valuing learning and condemning superstition and conspiracy theories. My parents did not have the luxury of an advanced education (my father was the first in his family to attend college, and he did so at night while he worked full time during the day to provide for his family). My parents showed me that education is the key to successfully avoiding the profound ignorance that is the bedrock of anti-vax advocacy.

I’d like to thank my teachers, from kindergarten on up through college and medical school. They truly gave me the world when they gave me basic knowledge of science, math and logical thinking. So many anti-vaxxers never received that and it is frightfully obvious.

Thank you to my college thesis adviser who let me work in his lab at the Shriner’s Burn Institute in Boston and taught me both how to conduct research and how to read and analyze the scientific literature.

Thank you to my science heroes whose example motivated me and my anti-pseudoscience heroes who showed me how to use the internet and social media to combat the ignorance, conspiracy theories, and unmerited sense of superiority so beloved of anti-vaxxers

My deepest thanks, though, belong the the patients that I had the privilege to care for. Sadly, while saving many lives, I saw first hand how belief in pseudoscience can kill people; ironically it killed people who turned to it because they desperately wanted to live.

And finally, I must thank the anti-vaxxers who created the list of 30,000 individuals who threaten the echo chambers that are critical to the dissemination of the collective paranoia and idiocy of the anti-vax brigade. Anti-vaxxers have created an alternative world of internal legitimacy complete with “experts,” books and products. It is a dark and deadly world deeply threatened by the sunlight of science and rational argument; hence the need for an enemies list in the first place.

Real science values open discussion as a critical component of scientific literacy; quacks, cranks and charlatans are afraid of open discussion and well they should be. When subject to science based, logical open discussion, anti-vax claims wither and anti-vaxxers are exposed as the fools that they are.

I am pleased, proud, and honored by their fear. I am thrilled to be recognized as an Anti-Vax Enemy and I pledge that going forward I will do everything possible to merit that distinction.

I admit I was wrong. I thought Sarah Pope, whose nom de quack is The Healthy Home Economist, had reached the apogee of idiocy with her advice to lie to your child’s pediatrician about raw milk. But Pope has now outdone her previous efforts in her new piece Toxic Effects of Water Birth on Mom and Baby. Strap on your tin foil hat and prepare for a hilarious ride.

What’s the problem with waterbirth? According to Pope:

A concern rarely if ever mentioned about water birth is the significant chlorine exposure that both mother and baby experience during the labor and delivery process. Many mothers who are careful to filter their drinking water during pregnancy to remove chlorine and other toxins seem to give little to no thought about soaking for hours in the very same water or giving birth to their precious newborn in it.

Bathing or showering in treated water is known to expose a person to a significant amount of outgassed chlorine that is absorbed via inhalation and the skin.

Really? Says who? Says Joe Mercola, quack shill extraordinaire.

But wait! There’s more:

The most insidious result of exposure to treated water during the water birth process is the adverse effect on gut flora… The compromise to bodily flora comes at a time when baby’s gut needs to be seeded properly with the beneficial microbes that will guard health and bolster immunity for a lifetime. Any beneficial microbes present in Mom’s birth canal will be either weakened, destroyed, or severely damaged by exposure to the chlorinated water by the time baby passes through.

Pope references herself for this claim.

It’s a sobering thought:

Think about it … all that work you have done with your diet for 9 months limiting sugar, consuming fermented foods and taking probiotic supplements to optimally prepare the birth canal for baby’s entrance into the world potentially wiped out by the decision to have a water birth.

And that’s not all:

In addition, exposure of the baby’s skin to the treated water in the birth pool destroys the healthy biofilm on the baby’s skin called the vernix caseosa. The vernix is protective of baby’s delicate skin and has anti-infective and antioxidant properties. It should never be wiped or washed off until it comes off naturally some days after birth.

Moreover, the warm moist air in the delivery room from the birthing tub water is the first air that baby breathes, and it is contaminated with chloroform, disinfection byproducts, and VOCs like trihalomethanes. Not exactly the optimal air to be filling baby’s lungs with at birth, don’t you think?

The horror!

Vernix is not a biofilm, and much of the rest of this is utter nonsense, but who cares about accuracy when fabricating fear-mongering for the gullible? Not Sarah, that’s for sure.

At the risk of gilding the lily, Pope goes all out and adds the real dangers of waterbirth:

… A study in 2004 of the water in a birth pool that had been filtered and thoroughly cleaned found high concentrations of the pathogens E. coli, coliform, staph, and P. aeruginosa.

Just recently, a baby in Texas died from contracting Legionnaires’ Disease from a contaminated birthing pool. The infant was born in a tub full of well water that hadn’t been chemically disinfected and died after 19 days in the hospital…

In addition, a 2004 review of the medical literature found 74 articles and 16 citations of infants who experienced serious complications from water birthing. These included death, drowning, near-drowning, waterborne bacterial infections, cord rupture and fever (11).

What’s going on here? Why has Pope attacked a practice beloved of the alternative birth crowd?

Remember that alternative health is almost entirely reflexive defiance of standard practice and authority figures. It is a testament to the popularity of both waterbirth and midwives that Pope see waterbirth as “standard” practice and views midwives as authority figures.

Moreover, popularity in the alternative health blogosphere depends on finding and railing against ever more ridiculous “risks.” Food Babe complains that there is no pumpkin in pumpkin spice lattes (Duh! It contains pumpkin spice, a mixture of spices typically found in pumpkin pie). And she was horrified to discover that airlines pump less than 100% oxygen into airplane cabins. She was apparently unaware that the air we breathe contains only 21% oxygen. The Health Home Economist is similarly trying to garner attention by making ever more outrageous claims.

Even a clock that is stopped is right twice a day. Coincidentally, she’s correct that waterbirth is dangerous but it has nothing to do with outgassing of chlorine, the microbiome or vernix. The danger is that babies do breathe as their heads emerge and can aspirate fecally contaminated water into their lungs.

In general, when it comes to health advice, Sarah Pope is an ignorant amateur. But when it comes to creating comedy gold from blithering nonsense, Pope is a real pro.

Freda McFadden is the co-author of Baby City, a book detailing the life of a resident working on Labor and Delivery in a busy hospital. Dr. Amy provided her advice on a difficult homebirth scene in this novel, and in her honor, 25% of profits will go to the Fistula Foundation.

That’s right, I said it. Breastmilk isn’t always best.

I always considered myself to have a very healthy attitude about breastfeeding. I set a goal for myself to do it for a year, but was willing to occasionally supplement with formula. And when women tell me they want to breastfeed, I try to offer practical tips, including telling them not to stress if it doesn’t work out.

But when I was breast-feeding my younger daughter, I realized that my attitude about breastfeeding was far from healthy.

Ways you know you have an unhealthy breastmilk obsession:

–You have passed up a chance to do something actually enjoyable in order to pump

–Your baby is 6+ months and you are still pumping

–Even though it means you leave work later and see your baby less

–Your freezer contains more milk than food

–You have fed your baby breastmilk that might have been going stale so it wouldn’t get “wasted”

–You make breastmilk bottles for day care with less milk than you think your baby will drink so none of it will get “wasted”

–You feel sad/angry when the baby doesn’t drink all the milk in a bottle because it is “wasted”

–You have given up sleep to pump

–You have given up sleep to keep your baby from getting a single bottle of formula

–You think formula smells bad

–When your baby does get formula, you feel guilty

–Even though you pretend not to, you secretly judge other women who don’t breastfeed for at least a full year

–You find mold on your pumping equipment, but instead of throwing away your frozen stored breastmilk, you continue to feed your baby potentially moldy milk, even though your infant is 10 months old and you still have plenty of fresh breast milk for her. Just hypothetically speaking…

Women are taught to chant “breast is best” in our sleep. (What sleep, right?) But I’d like to think that we women have brains and are not automatons who must breastfeed no matter what, even if it’s not in our best interest.

That’s why my favorite mantra is not “Breast is best,” but rather, “Happy mama, happy baby.”

A version of this article was originally posted in Mothers in Medicine.

Katie Tietje, Modern Alternative Mama, is whining again in a post entitled Why The “Science” Critics are Dangerous.

You might be confused into thinking that Tietje is lamenting critics of science, but her helpful use of scare quotes around “Science” signals that she is whining about people who use science to criticize her.

She places herself in lofty company:

Just a few weeks ago, a group of doctors called for Dr. Oz to be fired from a staff position at a university because of his TV show — they didn’t like that he makes strong claims for supplements and alternative health products, and felt that this interfered with his ability to be employed as a serious doctor…

It may or may not surprise you that as a popular blogger in the alternative world, I’ve faced the same types of criticism — obviously on a smaller scale. There are entire groups dedicated to “stopping” me. These groups leave comments on my Facebook page almost daily, telling me how “dangerous” I am and linking to some article that’s pro-vaccine, pro-GMO, etc. They regularly — at least a couple times a month — write articles about me and all the “woo” I peddle.

I ignore them, generally, as do many of my colleagues. (Food Babe is another huge target for these people.) But it seems that despite ignoring them they’re only speaking out more and more. They’re doing so more publicly. They’re writing for major media and calling people out. (emphasis in the original)

Heaven forfend! How dare they speak out! How dare they do so publicly! How dare they write for major media and call people out! Only Katie is allowed to do stuff like that.

And you know what? It’s not okay. Which is why I’m taking a stand today. I think these so-called “science” critics are dangerous people. And it’s time everyone knew.

Why are bloggers like me dangerous?

The real point is, it’s my goal to provide people with another view point. Alternative information. The mainstream isn’t exactly kind to people who choose home birth (or to reject some/all vaccines, or eat only organic, or…). It’s not exactly accurate or remotely unbiased.

There are people looking for that information. People who want to know what “the other side” really thinks about these topics. And they deserve a safe place to go to access that information.(emphasis in the original)

Safe from what, precisely? Is anyone threatening them? No. When Tietje says “safe” she means “safe from demands for proof.”

For Tietje a safe place is one where she can be validated and she can’t be validated if she’s asked to provide proof for her claims because there is no proof. And that’s dangerous.

It is ironic that one of our greatest technological advances has provided an incomparable boon to scientific illiteracy. I’m referring, of course, to the internet. Prior to the advent of the internet, wacky pseudo-scientific “theories” were relegated to the fringes and had to be deliberately sought out. Now pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo can be widely disseminated.

But perhaps more important than the actual dissemination of misinformation is that feeling of validation that internet communities provide. Pseudoscience can thrive when believers congregate on message boards that validate bizarre beliefs and ban information that undermines those beliefs. They don’t call it validation, though; that’s too clinical. They call it “support.”

Hart et al. explore this phenomenon in their paper Feeling Validated Versus Being Correct: A Meta-Analysis of Selective Exposure to Information. The authors explain:

… Receiving information that supports one’s position on an issue allows people to conclude that their views are correct but may often obscure reality. In contrast, receiving information that contradicts one’s view on an issue can cause people to feel misled or ignorant but may allow access to a valid representation of reality. Therefore, understanding how people strive to feel validated versus to be correct is critical to explicating how they select information about an issue when several alternatives are present. (my emphasis)

Avoiding cognitive dissonance is central to the search for validation:

… According to dissonance theory, after people commit to an attitude, belief, or decision, they gather supportive information and neglect unsupportive information to avoid or eliminate the unpleasant state of postdecisional conflict known as cognitive dissonance.

Minimizing cognitive dissonance requires selective exposure, seeking out information sources that confirm existing beliefs and avoiding sources that undermine those beliefs.

Tietje is correct that her critics are dangerous; they are dangerous to her self-esteem. Asking Tietje for proof or offering scientific evidence that she is wrong creates cognitive dissonance and Tietje and other believers in quackery cannot abide cognitive dissonance. Tietje finds cognitive dissonance unbearable, not merely because it causes leads to questioning her core beliefs, but because her self esteem rests on those beliefs.

Tietje’s claims about the dangers of critics of quackery would be hilarious except for the fact that she actually believes them.

They think that the mainstream view is clearly “right” and they’ll do anything to prove it.

Earth to Katie! Earth to Katie! That’s what science, real science, is all about. It looks for the right answer and the answer can only be right if there is proof.

These are people who will go to any length to say that there is ONE correct view.

That’s because there often is only ONE correct view. You can pretend that there is no gravity, but that doesn’t eliminate gravity. You can believe that the earth is flat, but that doesn’t make it flat. You can insist that vaccines are dangerous, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually dangerous.

And yet, they take no responsibility for the results of these actions.

Because Katie always takes responsibility for her recommendations. Oh, wait! She never takes responsibility.

I provide information; it’s up to you to read more, ask questions, and make a decision to use or ignore it.

Just so long as you don’t ask Katie any questions or request proof.

It’s time to stand up and say NO to these people.

… They do NOT have the right to harass people with an alternative view point.

Harass? Asking questions is not harassment. Insisting on proof is not harassment. Criticizing someone who publicly posts her beliefs for the entire world to see is not harassment!

Her conclusion (Irony thy name is Katie!):

Stand up for what you believe in and choose. Share information even when people don’t like it. Don’t let them make you stop.

Let me assure you Katie, that I’m taking your advice. I’m standing up for science. I’m sharing information whether you like it or not. And there’s nothing you can do (even whining about me) to make me stop calling you out for your dangerous quackery and your equally dangerous belief that you should be “safe” from any need to provide proof.

More than two decades ago, when my children were small and I was a working mother, I read an article on how would we know that true gender equality had arrived.

You would know when you received a call at your workplace from your husband who said this:

“Honey, I just wanted to let you know that I’m taking next Tuesday afternoon off to take the baby for his MMR vaccine.

And I noticed that Jake, our three year old, is outgrowing his shoes so I’ll take him to Stride Rite on the way back.

Oh, you may not have seen it, but yesterday in the bottom of Sophia’s back pack there was a note from school; the first grade is making fruit salad tomorrow and Sophia’s been assigned to bring the papaya. I’ll pick it up on my way home from work.”

Nearly 25 years later, that day has not yet arrived.

I thought about that after reading two pieces by writers I admire published on Mother’s Day.

The first was Judith Shulevitz’ Mom: The Designated Worrier, which lays out the problem.

I wish I could say that fathers and mothers worry in equal measure. But they don’t. Disregard what your two-career couple friends say about going 50-50. Sociological studies of heterosexual couples from all strata of society confirm that, by and large, mothers draft the to-do lists while fathers pick and choose among the items. And whether a woman loves or hates worry work, it can scatter her focus on what she does for pay and knock her partway or clean off a career path. This distracting grind of apprehension and organization may be one of the least movable obstacles to women’s equality in the workplace.

The second, The Rise of ‘Mama,’ by Elissa Strauss offers an explanation for why nothing has changed.

This use of mama can be traced back to women like Ariel Gore, who began publishing her alternative parenting magazine “Hip Mama” in 1993. Inspired by her experience as an urban single mom, the magazine became the source of parenting advice for riot grrrl types, tattooed and pierced women who wanted to find a way to embrace parenthood while simultaneously rejecting much of the bourgeois accouterment that comes along with it.

This fringe quality of “mama” stuck, leading to websites like the “Wellness Mama,” the home of a popular alternative lifestyle guru named Katie who is into stuff like, “cloth diapering, natural birthing, GAPS dieting, homeschooling, not eating grains, making my own toothpaste, drinking the fat and more.” For her, being a mama isn’t just about parenting one’s kids, but seeing parenting as a medium through which one can change the world.

But “cloth diapering, natural birthing, … homeschooling, … [etc.]” is not about changing the world. It’s about keeping women in the home, too busy with mothering to do anything else. It embodies the fact that, as I wrote last week, both natural parenting and religious fundamentalism reflect fear of women’s emancipation:

…[A]ll three major components of natural parenting (natural childbirth, lactivism and attachment parenting) were created in direct response to women’s emancipation and their refusal to remain at home content with the traditional role of a mother.

It is not a coincidence, therefore, that natural parenting requires tremendous sacrifice on the part of the mother and only the mother. Indeed every element of natural parenting, extending to vaccine rejection and organic food, makes more work for mothers. Moreover, it is hardly a coincidence that the home is the heart of natural parenting. From homebirth to homeschooling, the natural mother never has to leave the house and certainly should never be employed outside the house when her children are small.

Sadly, the rise of the word ‘Mama’ reflects this generation’s eager, unwitting surrender to sexism.

Don’t get me wrong, I adored being called Mama by my children. I remember musing when my youngest was small that I had three different appellations from four children: Mama, Mommy, and Mom, reflecting their ages.

But Mama is reserved for children. Anyone else who uses the term to describe another woman is reducing that women to domestic work and relegating her to the home. Using it to describe oneself is capitulating to the backlash against women’s emancipation. Instead of rejecting relegation to the home, “Mama” celebrates it.

As a woman who struggled mightily to be accepted into a traditionally male career, I am dumbfounded by women’s willingess to call themselves by an infantilising, pejorative term. ‘Mama’ should have gone out with ‘girl,’ ‘honey’ and ‘Mrs.’ all traditionally used to keep women in their place.

Labeling yourself ‘Mama’ is glorifying gender inequality. Worse, it is a sign of utterly giving up on the possibility of gender equality. It is not merely “mothers draft the to-do lists while fathers pick and choose among the items” as described by Shulevitz, it is making mother’s to-do lists endless, grafting everything from growing your own food, washing diapers and homeschooling onto the already very long list.

This past weekend I was at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History that includes several exhibits on the rise of technology including domestic technology. You don’t need to be a cultural anthropologist to recognize that women’s liberation from domestic slavery was achieved because of domestic technology including ovens, washing machines, and dishwashers, and medical technology including the birth control pill and infant formula. By deliberately rejecting that technology, ‘Mamas’ are unwittingly re-enslaving themselves, kowtowing to the pressure to retreat from the wider world back into domestic confinement.

According to Strauss:

The cool factor of mama is why women are also using it to address one another as well.

“When I hang out with others moms we usually refer to one another as ‘mama.’” said Raquel Miller, a writer and graphic designer and mom of one in Los Angeles. She said it’s the go-to term among her hipper friends, the “Hollywood moms.”

This edgy sweetness has made “mama” a hit in the mothering blogosphere as well. Mama’s become the go-to term for talking about the sentimentality of the experience without sounding too old-fashioned, and one that mothers can be expected to rally around.

But there is nothing cool or edgy or sweet about viewing yourself as a domestic slave no matter how much you love mothering.

With apologies to Laura Joffe Numeroff.

If you give an anti-vaxxer an admonition (to vaccinate)
She’s going to ask for a reason.

When you tell her it will prevent disease
She’ll insist that disease was disappearing before the advent of the vaccine.

When you show her how many deaths have been prevented
She’ll declare it’s a result of good of nutrition.

Then she’ll point out that her children haven’t been vaccinated and they haven’t gotten sick.

If you tell her that her children haven’t gotten sick because other children are vaccinated
She’ll tell you she couldn’t care less about other people’s children.

When you explain that she should care because herd immunity protects babies and children with cancer
She’ll proclaim that herd immunity doesn’t exist.

When you tell her relying on others to vaccinate makes her unethical
She’ll ask you why you think vaccinated children are vulnerable if the vaccine really works.

Then she’ll post to her friends on her anti-vax message board that she really showed you.

If you make vaccination mandatory for public school education
She’s going to insist her rights are being violated.

When you explain that there is no right to hurt other children
She’ll declare that you are in the pocket of Big Pharma.

When you point out that Big Pharma does not pay you anything
She’ll insist that you’re just a sheeple who believes whatever you are told.

Then she’ll loudly declare that the Nuremberg Code prohibits human experimentation.

Once she’s compared you to the Nazis, she’s lost control completely
And she’ll bombard you with links to Whale.to, LewRockwell.com and Joe Mercola.

You’ll have to point out repeatedly that these are not scientific citations.

Then she’ll declare that she’s spent too much time trying to educate a dolt like you and she’ll flounce from your website.

But she won’t stick the flounce.

When she inevitably returns
It will be to rail against antibiotic resistant microbes.

When you point out that resistance can be overcome with new, more powerful antibiotics
She’ll insist that pathogens will become resistant to the new agents, too.

Then you’ll proudly tout the fact that we can avoid antibiotic resistance altogether
A prospect she will welcome, until …

You tell her we have developed a vaccine against the antibiotic resistant organisms.

Anti-vaxxers, help me out here. There’s something I don’t understand.

You have been aggressively campaigning against California Senate Bill 277 introduced in the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak. SB277 would do away with personal vaccine exemptions, meaning that all children would be required to be fully vaccinated in order to go to public or private schools. The only exemptions allowed would be medical exemptions for allergy to vaccine ingredients or history of a serious adverse reaction to vaccines.

According to the website No on SB277:

Those children who are not completely up-to-date on every state mandated vaccine will be denied a public education ” SB 277 impacts children in private or public elementary or secondary school, child care center, day nursery, nursery school, family day care home, or development center.” SB 277, would eliminate a parent’s right to exempt their children from one, some, or all vaccines, a risk-laden medical procedure…

There’s even a handy little image to put the point across:

Or as the website insists:

Where there is a risk of injury or death, no matter how small the perceived risk may be, there must be a choice.

That’s pretty straightforward and easy to understand, but here’s the part I don’t understand (stick with me here, because this is intellectually tricky):

If you believe that you should be able to avoid vaccinating your children because you consider vaccines dangerous, shouldn’t everyone else in California be able avoid your unvaccinated children because they consider them dangerous?

Children who haven’t been vaccinated pose a risk because they can carry and spread vaccine preventable diseases. How big a risk? That doesn’t matter, right? It doesn’t matter how small the perceived risk may be, there must be a choice.

Shouldn’t you be voting FOR SB277?

When it passes, you will be able to exercise your right to protect your children from vaccines no matter how small the perceived risk may be and everyone else will be able to exercise their right to ban your children from schools no matter how small the perceived risk may be. Everyone will be happy!

Wait, what? You disagree??

Since education is compulsory, opting for no schooling will not be an option.

Duh! That’s the whole point of SB277. Since education is compulsory, despite the fact that your children pose a health threat to the majority of children, their parents are forced to expose them to the threat.

According to you and your anti-vax compatriots:

If there’s a risk, there must be a choice!

Your children pose a risk, and the rest of us have made our choice: you can’t send them to school unless they are fully vaccinated!

That’s why we (and you!) should be encouraging a YES vote on SB277.

Anything else would be astounding hypocrisy on your part, right?

Right??!!

On this Mother’s Day, I have a wish for mothers:

I wish for a society that is more MOM-passionate and less MOM-petitive.

Mothering is a difficult job involving just about every physical and emotional resource a woman can call upon. From the physical pain of childbirth to the emotional pain of leaving a child at college, from the physical exhaustion from staying up all night with a sick child to the emotional exhaustion of staying up all night waiting for a teen who has broken curfew, from the exasperation of negotiating with a toddler to the even greater exasperation of negotiating with a teenager.

We know what it is like; we all go through it. That makes it all the more surprising that we live in a society where the dominant mothering ideology, natural parenting (natural childbirth, lactivism and attachment parenting), is so utterly lacking in support for each other. Natural parenting —high intensity/high stakes parenting — sacrifices MOM-passion on the altar of MOM-petition.

There appears to be no recognition that different children have different needs and that different mothers also have different needs. There is a tremendous emphasis on a woman’s reproductive organs and very little emphasis on her emotional identity. There seems to be precious little acknowledgement that children are people, not products to be primped and primed for adult economic competition.

Our society has missed the most critical insight: there are many different, equally excellent ways to raise a child. Instead, we have reduced mothering from a complex alchemy to a simple recipe … the better to keep score with other mothers.

But we have the power to change things, from this Mother’s Day forward we can replace the senseless MOM-petition with compassion for our fellow mothers, struggling, just as we are, to do the right things for our children.

I am not a particularly religious person, but when my four children were small, and I went from room to room each night gazing upon them before I went to bed (so angelic compared to their devilish selves during the day!), I often said a little prayer:

“Please grant me the wisdom and the patience to be the mother they need me to be.”

My wish on this Mother’s Day is that we can be the mothers our children need us to be in order to thrive, not the mothers our friends need us to be in order to approve.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

People (myself included) have devoted tens of thousands of words to debunking the American love affair with the naturalistic fallacy, but none of us has come close to the unwitting brilliance Briana Santoro* of The Naked Label. Using a quote from Diane Sanfilippo, Santoro created an image that encapsulates what’s wrong with everything from “natural” food to natural childbirth.

What is the naturalistic fallacy, sometimes known as the is-ought problem? It is the fallacy that if something is a certain way in nature, that’s the way it ought to be. It is widely beloved of anti-vaxxers, organic food advocates, and natural childbirth advocates among others.

Why does Santoro’s image perfectly capture what’s wrong with our obsession with “natural”?

Because it is a picture of amanita muscaria, a poisonous mushroom!

How does this illustrate the many deficiencies of the naturalistic fallacy? Let me count the ways:

1. First and most obvious, just because it is natural, doesn’t mean that something is good or even safe. Rattlesnakes are natural, earthquakes are natural and untimely death from eating poison mushrooms is entirely natural.

2. Being pretty is entirely compatible with being deadly. Santoro had thousands of pictures of mushrooms available to her to illustrate her meme, but she chose amanita because it is attractive and conveys the impression of purity. Advocates of the natural are often fooled by appearances. Natural childbirth advocates are dazzled by images of natural birth but it never crosses their mind that something that looks so beautiful can easily and routinely be deadly. Antivaxxers are distressed by images of injections and it never crosses their mind that something that looks so unpleasant could easily and routinely be lifesaving.

3. Advocates of the “natural” routinely privilege intuitive thinking over analytical thinking without realizing that intuitive thinking is very often wrong. Intuitively, amanita muscaria looks like it’s good for you. Analytically, it’s deadly.

4. Advocates of the “natural,” particularly those who shill for it like celebrity food activists, celebrity antivaxxers and celebrity natural childbirth advocates are startlingly stupid. The depth and breadth of their ignorance is exceeded only by their unmerited self-regard. They are walking, talking, illustrations of the Dunning Kruger effect whereby the least competent are entirely unable to recognize their own incompetence.

Santoro’s meme mishap has important implications for those enchanted by the natural. I’ve created an acronym to remind you if you are tempted to fall for the naturalistic fallacy: S.P.I.N.

S = Safety. Just because it is natural does not mean it is safe.

P = Pretty. Just because it is pretty does not mean it is safe.

I = Intuition. Intuition cannot distinguish between safe and deadly.

N = Nitwits. Purveyors of the natural are often nitwits, utterly ignorant and dangerous.

The next time someone tries to convince you that something is good for you because it is natural, think about S.P.I.N. If you don’t, you might just end up eating a poison mushroom because a clown like Briana Santoro told you it was not merely safe, but better for you because it’s natural.

*N. B.: Attribution corrected. Although the quote comes from Diane Sanfilippo, the meme was created by Briana Santoro of The Naked Label.