I wrote the piece It’s official: men are too emotional for a career in science as satire, but the emotional (dare I say irrational) response of many men shows that there is a regrettable amount of truth to my claim.

As described in The Boston Globe:

A Nobel Prize-winning British scientist apologized Wednesday for saying the ‘trouble with girls’ working in laboratories is that it leads to romantic entanglements and harms science.

But Tim Hunt stood by his assertion that mixed-gender labs are ‘disruptive.’

Hunt, 72, made the comments at the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea, according to audience members.

Connie St Louis of London’s City University tweeted that Hunt said when women work alongside men in labs, “you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry.”

Hunt acknowledged the comments and resigned:

Hunt, a biochemist who was joint recipient of the 2001 Nobel for physiology or medicine, said he was just trying to be humorous. He told BBC radio on Wednesday that he was “really, really sorry I caused any offense.”

Then he added: “I did mean the part about having trouble with girls. … I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me and it’s very disruptive to the science.”

[pullquote align=”right” color=”#ffdead”]Sure, Dr. Dawkins, an apology will be coming right after Hell opens a skating rink.[/pullquote]

But as is inevitable when anyone is held to account for blatant sexism against women in science, a backlash has ensued. Connie St. Louis, the journalist who broke the story, is having her reputation torn to shreds, and Dr. Emily Grossman, another science journalist as well as a science PhD, has been subjected to a campaign of vilification by Hunt’s supporters. Even scientists have gotten into the act. Dr. Richard Dawkins, who has had his own problems with accusations of sexism, has leapt to Hunt’s defense:

Without wishing to join a reverse witch-hunt to root out the individuals responsible, I can’t help hoping Sir Tim will receive an apology.

Sure, Dr. Dawkins, an apology from those who reported on Hunt’s comments will be coming right after Hell opens a skating rink.

Most of those defending Hunt are insisting that his statements were a joke. I have news for them all, from Richard Dawkins to the losers sending anonymous vitriol to Dr. Grossman:

It doesn’t matter if Hunt was joking!

And perhaps if men weren’t so emotional about maintaining science as an all male preserve, or so emotional in whining whenever sexists are held to account, they might realize it, too.

To understand why it doesn’t matter if it was a joke consider the following:

What if Hunt had said I did mean the part about having trouble with blacks. … I have had trouble with them in the lab and they’ve had trouble with me and it’s very disruptive to the science.

Or how about if he had said I did mean the part about having trouble with gays in the lab. … I have had trouble with them in the lab and they’ve had trouble with me and it’s very disruptive to the science.

Would anyone think that statements like that could be excused as “jokes.” I doubt it. Racism and homophobia can’t be excused as jokes and hopefully very few people would accuse black individuals or gay individuals of being “unable to take a joke” if they found it distinctly unfunny.

Earth to Hunt defenders: claiming it was a joke simply proves the point, it was an example of the egregious gender bias that many women in STEM face every day.

Women do not exist for your amusement. Women in STEM are not there to be subjects for your fantasies and delusions about your attractiveness. We aren’t interested in your flirting, your fixation with our chests, and we don’t appreciate your very unfunny jokes.

This is clearly going to come as earth shattering news to some male scientists, but women choose to work in science and technology for the same reasons that men do: to engage intellectually, to pursue a passion, and to make a living.

Reputation smearing and vilification of those like Connie St. Louis and Dr. Emily Grossman who call you out for your behavior are just an extension of your inappropriate behavior. The vicious Twitter and YouTube comments are ugly and sad.

What makes you commentors think we care about your opinion? What makes you think you come across as anything other than pathetic losers? Probably the same mindset that makes you think Tim Hunt’s comments should be excused as clever male banter.

What Tim Hunt did was inexcusable and trying to pretend that it was a joke doesn’t excuse it. It merely marks you as apologists for inappropriate behavior.

She’s wearing glasses so she must be serious right?

Otherwise, if you simply listen to what Ricki Lake is saying about the birth control pill, you might be tempted to conclude that she’s joking.

Lake opposes the birth control pill and is raising money for a documentary to make other women fear the Pill, too. Her documentary, Sweetening the Pill, is based on the book of the same name.

[pullquote align=”right” color=”#870001″]Risk of death at homebirth is more than 500X higher than the risk of death from The Pill.[/pullquote]

As usual, Lake is profoundly wrong about the science.

In a piece published elsewhere [Time.com and here] I’ve addressed the deeply sexist impulse that leads Lake to oppose history’s greatest technological aid to women’s emancipation.

In this blog post, I’d like to deconstruct just one of the many disingenuous claims among the myriad.

This still from the fundraising video is typical of Lake’s bad faith approach:

It characterizes the birth control pill as the “first medical drug to treat people who aren’t sick.”

Umm, Ricki, we have a name for treatments that are designed for people who aren’t sick:

It’s called preventive care.

Let me explain in simple terms:

Preventive care, not surprisingly, is designed to PREVENT bad outcomes.

What bad outcomes does The Pill prevent?

In addition to preventing unwanted pregnancies, the Pill:

• Prevents death from childbirth
• Prevents death from abortion
• Prevents death from pregnancy related blood clots
• Prevents death from pre-eclampsia
• Prevents death from postpartum cardiomyopathy (one of the fastest growing causes of maternal deaths)

But preventing unwanted pregnancies is not the only health benefit of The Pill:

• Reduces menstrual blood loss, decreasing the risk of anemia.
• Reduces dysmenorrhea, painful periods.
• Prevents the severe pain and fertility destroying potential of endometriosis.
• Prevents endometrial cancer and precancerous lesions from unopposed estrogen production in women who have irregular cycles.
• Prevents death from ovarian cancer.

We offer women The Pill even thought they are not sick because we want to prevent them from getting sick.

And the Pill is hardly the only medication that is prescribed as preventive care. Doctors recommend aspirin to prevent heart attacks and to prevent further damage when a heart attack does occur. They recommend statins to reduce blood cholesterol levels and prevent heart attack and strokes. One of the most popular medications of all time, Viagra, is routinely prescribed for men who aren’t sick; they simply want to have sex.

Do you have a problem with Viagra, Ricki, despite the fact that it’s only purpose is to promote sexual pleasure for men through intercourse?

No? So why do you have a problem with The Pill, whose main purpose is to promote sexual pleasure for women through intercourse by removing the debilitating fear of unwanted pregnancy?

Sounds like a double standard to me.

Sure The Pill has risks, but it also has benefits and those benefits dramatically exceed the risks.

Let me put in in terms that you can understand, Ricki:

The risk of death from thrombo-embolism (blood clots) in women taking The Pill is in the range of 1/100,000.

The risk of death of a baby at homebirth is more than 500 times HIGHER (5.6/1000, 800% higher than comparable risk hospital birth).

And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that preventive benefits of The Pill mean overall mortality in women using The Pill is lower than overall mortality in women not using The Pill.

If homebirth is safe, how can The Pill be dangerous?

You can’t have it both ways, Ricki.

The truth is that The Pill saves lives and Ricki Lake’s efforts to demonize The Pill will almost certainly lead to preventable deaths.

Medication to treat people who aren’t sick? Yes, Ricki Lake, it’s called preventive care.

Yesterday I wrote about another in the endless parade of preventable homebirth deaths (Another unassisted birth, another brain damaged baby.).

Why are there so many deaths?

Besides the fact that homebirth advocates are ignorant and homebirth midwives are incompetent, that is.

Homebirth advocates never analyze bad outcomes. They never perform a root cause analysis as doctors are trained to do.

What is root cause analysis?

[pullquote align=”right” color=”#4157a6″]Homebirth advocates and midwives won’t analyze deaths because they are confident analysis will show they are the cause.[/pullquote]

This explanation from MindTools is spot on:

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a popular and often-used technique that helps people answer the question of why the problem occurred in the first place. It seeks to identify the origin of a problem using a specific set of steps, with associated tools, to find the primary cause of the problem, so that you can:

• Determine what happened.
• Determine why it happened.
• Figure out what to do to reduce the likelihood that it will happen again.

There are three main types of causes:

• Physical causes – Tangible, material items failed in some way (for example, a car’s brakes stopped working).
• Human causes – People did something wrong, or did not do something that was needed. Human causes typically lead to physical causes (for example, no one filled the brake fluid, which led to the brakes failing).
• Organizational causes – A system, process, or policy that people use to make decisions or do their work is faulty (for example, no one person was responsible for vehicle maintenance, and everyone assumed someone else had filled the brake fluid).

Imagine, for example, that a new mother bleeds to death after giving birth.

Doctors don’t throw up their hands and say, “There’s nothing we could have done differently; it would have happened at any other hospital, too.”

In this setting, the physical cause may or may not be obvious. Yes, it is possible that the mother bled to death because her uterus simply wouldn’t contract after the placenta was expelled, but it is also possible that she had an underlying coagulation problem that may have contributed to the outcome. It is critical to determine what physical factors were involved, but that’s only the beginning of the analysis, not the end of it.

What about human causes?

Did the doctor fail to check the placenta after delivery to make sure that there were no pieces left behind in the uterus?
Did the nurse fail to monitor the patient adequately and therefore didn’t realize that the patient was bleeding to death?
Was the blood bank slow to preparing the units for blood transfusion leading to an unacceptable delay?

How about organizational causes?

Are nurses required to look after so many patients at once that they don’t have time to properly assess each patient?
Is the med room inappropriately stocked so that medications to stop the bleeding are unavailable when and where they are needed?
Is the hospital’s internal transportation system faulty leading to a delay in receiving blood transfusions from the blood bank?

In contrast, homebirth advocates and homebirth midwives from lay midwives on up to the Royal College of Midwives in the UK have no policy of root cause analysis. Indeed, root cause analysis is implicitly or explicitly discouraged or even forbidden.

Why?

Because homebirth advocates and homebirth midwives are well aware that the root causes of perinatal (and maternal) deaths are intrinsic to homebirth itself. Simply put, homebirth advocates and homebirth midwives don’t perform root cause analysis because they know that it is their own preferences and performances that are the root cause.

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) in the UK has not performed and appears to have no intention of performing a root cause analysis of the multiple neonatal and maternal deaths that occurred at their hands (in the hospital) as detailed in the Morecambe Bay Report. Instead they have restricted themselves to criticizing the analysis in the Morecambe Bay report and blaming “bad actors” who are supposedly unrepresentative of midwives as a whole.

They fear a root cause analysis because, as the Morecambe Bay Report detailed, a primary root cause of the deaths was a massive organizational failure known as the “Campaign for Normal Birth” (name recently changed to “Better Birth”). Midwives officially value the process of birth as much or more than the outcome. They are so committed to maintaining control of patients that they literally refuse to call for lifesaving help from doctors even when lives are obviously in danger… and the RCM intends to keep it that way.

American homebirth midwives (CPMs and LMs) are equally committed to avoiding root cause analysis because they are equally certain that they are part of the root cause. The human causes of homebirth deaths are grossly undereducated, grossly undertrained midwives. The organizational causes include an extraordinary lack of safety standards, a peer-review process that functions to support the midwife regardless of her errors and deficiencies, and a professional ethic which values maternal and midwife choice above safety.

Homebirth advocates are only too happy to collude in avoiding root cause analysis, because they are well aware that mothers are often a major root cause of deaths at homebirth. They are more concerned with avoiding responsibility than with preventing tragedies. Hence any analysis of deaths is explicitly discouraged as being “unsupportive,” is generally deleted from birth blogs and Facebook pages, anyone who attempts to analyze deaths is banned from the blogs and groups, and babies are routinely “buried twice,” first in tiny coffins in the ground and then expunged from any internet record.

Consider the brain injury that occurred at the unassisted birth I detailed yesterday.

A root cause analysis would show that the mother’s decisions to ignore her history of severe shoulder dystocia in a previous birth, to avoid obstetrician prenatal care and to give birth without medical assistance at the root cause of her baby’s brain injury. But she doesn’t want to acknowledge that, and other supporters of unassisted birth are equally committed to avoiding analysis of the injury because they are afraid that the analysis will show the obvious: unassisted childbirth is an ignorant, narcissistic and often deadly childbirth choice.

Simply put, homebirth advocates and homebirth midwives refuse to analyze homebirth deaths because they are utterly confident that analysis will show that they are the cause of the endless parade of preventable homebirth deaths.

When homebirth advocates and homebirth midwives say, “It would have happened at the hospital, too.” what they really mean is, “I can’t bear to acknowledge that it’s my fault.”

Tragically, you cannot make this stuff up.

From a Facebook UC (unassisted childbirth) group:

Baby girl got her MRI yesterday. There appears to be no damage to her cerebrum (higher learning) but there is damage to her Thalamus/Basal Ganglia area (deeper brain that handles body functions like blood pressure, temperature control, libido, etc… She is not swallowing spit or choking … Smetimes I feel remorseful when the what ifs come but it could have happened anywhere.

What happened?

I free birthed her but she got stuck in the birth canal. I birthed her head but could not get her shoulders out (she was 11lbs 9.5oz with linebacker shoulders). After 4-5 minutes I called paramedics who took about 2 minutes to get there. I got her out before they got there but she was unresponsive. They cut the cord immediately against my wishes. We should have killed that guy. Anyways, she was recovering under cooling therapy for 3 days to limit organ damage and has been recovering since.

So let’s see if I get this straight. She tried to deliver a massively macrosomic baby without any medical assistance of any kind. The baby’s shoulders got stuck (shoulder dystocia). The baby went without oxygen for more than 5 minutes. And this women thinks the problem was that the paramedics cut the umbilical cord?

[pullquote align=”right” color=”#c59db8″]Unassisted birth: worrying about getting lion fur on your sweater when cuddling the lion instead of worrying about getting mauled.[/pullquote]

How could anyone be so stupid?

It’s easy in the world of homebirth where every day is opposite day.

Since every day is Opposite Day, there are never any complications, only “variations of normal.”

Since every day is Opposite Day, labor isn’t agonizing, it’s orgasmic.

Since every day is Opposite Day, birth in water, although unheard of in any other primates, is “natural.”

And most importantly:

Since every day is Opposite Day, you should trust what is most dangerous and fear everything else.

If homebirth represents anything at all, it is childbirth WITH fear, just fear of the wrong things.

When homebirth advocates say “trust birth,” they don’t mean “trust pregnancy” and they certainly don’t mean “trust oxygen deprivation.” What they mean is trust anything that another homebirth advocate tells you and nothing that a medical professional tells you.

They fear not getting enough nutrients, but they don’t fear developing gestational diabetes.

They fear not getting enough exercise, but they don’t fear pre-eclampsia.

They fear for the baby’s microbiome in the advent of a C-section, but they don’t fear the baby dying in utero of fetal distress.

They fear cutting of the potential oxygen supply of the umbilical cord after birth when the baby can absorb oxygen through its lungs, but they don’t fear the cutting off the only oxygen supply of the umblical cord during birth while the baby suffocates.

And then they rationalize the tragedies by insisting it could have happened anywhere.

No! It wouldn’t have happened if she had a C-section for macrosomia.

No! It wouldn’t have been as bad if she hadn’t been outside the hospital with ZERO medical assistance.

No! It wouldn’t have been as bad if a doctor or nurse trained in neonatal resuscitation had been present.

She feared giving birth in the hospital, but apparently she didn’t fear her daughter’s NICU stay, the IVs and the prodding and the pain of that NICU stay, the cooling therapy necessitated by the profound oxygen deprivation of the birth, or the brain damage that resulted.

Now this mother thinks they should have killed the paramedic.

How dare she? She is the one responsible for the baby’s oxygen deprivation and brain damage and he was the one trying to save the baby’s life.

That’s right. It’s HER fault and only her fault.

I want to send a message to the members of the Unassisted/Freebirth All Are Welcome,Facebook group who encouraged this mother.

This is YOUR fault, too.

It’s your fault because you lack the critical thinking skills to make the most elemental decision that human beings need to make: telling the difference between what is dangerous and what is not.

Listen carefully to me and hopefully we can avoid more cases of death and brain damage to your own babies:

CHILDBIRTH IS DANGEROUS. IT KILLS AND INJURES BABIES.

You worry about the wrong things.

Unassisted homebirth is the equivalent of worrying about getting lion fur on your sweater when cuddling the lion instead of worrying about getting mauled.

The things you obsess over: nutrition, exercise, herbal supplements, delayed cord clamping and the microbiome among others are lion fur. Childbirth is putting your baby’s head in the mouth of the lion. It is entirely normal for the lion to bite it off.

And pretending that it could have happened anywhere is the equivalent of pretending that the folks at the hospital would have let you put the baby’s head in the lion’s mouth … and whining if they did not.

I admit it; I find myself mystified by much of the public debate about feminism.

I suppose that’s because I have learned to judge people by what they do, not what they say. So you (female or male) can claim that you are not feminist, whine, stamp your feet, roll your eyes, vote in a poll to ban the word “feminism” or wail that Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt was “persecuted” for advocating gender segregation in science labs, but none of the that changes the fact that you, just like me, are a feminist.

How do I know that you are a feminist? It’s pretty easy.

For women:

• Do you vote? If so, you are exercising one of the first rights brought to you by feminists.
• Do you have your own bank account, credit card or mortgage? Those economic rights are brought to you by feminism.
• Did you marry the man (or woman) or your choice or did your father trade you in a monetary deal for greater family prestige or advantage? If you chose, you are a feminist.
• Do you use birth control? Choosing to control your own fertility makes you a feminist.
• Do you have a professional job? You can thank feminism.
• If you’re divorced, did you get custody of the kids? That wouldn’t have happened without feminism.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. Unless you are prepared to give up all those rights, you are a feminist, whether you admit it to yourself or not.

[pullquote align=”right” color=”#f551c5″]Men’s rights activists: your whining has nothing to do with men’s rights & everything to do with inability to get a date.[/pullquote]

For men:

• Do you own your wife? No, you’re a feminist.
• Do you spend the money that your wife earns? You’re benefiting from feminism.
• Did you marry the woman (or man) of your choice, or did you pay a bride price or receive a dowry for her? If you chose, you’re a feminist.
• Have you committed any honor killings lately? No, that’s because feminists have successfully broken the link between women’s sexual purity and men’s honor.

Whether you like it or not, abiding by these societal rules makes you a feminist.

If you are a woman, you can protest all you want that you are a “lady against feminism,” but unless you are immured in your home, unable to go out without the escort of a male relative, and swathed in a burqa when you do leave your home, you are a feminist.

And men’s rights activists: We all know that your whining has nothing to do with men’s rights and everything to do with your inability to get a date. I imagine that you are correct in assuming that you would have a much better chance of getting laid if you or your father could buy someone to marry you, but that has more to do with you than with feminism.

Banning the word feminism will have as much impact on women’s rights as banning the word “war” will have on the prospects for world peace. In other words, no effect at all.

Simply put, anyone who behaves according to the principle that women are morally vested with the same legal, political and economic rights as men is a feminist. I don’t care what call yourself; I’ve seen what you do … and what you do makes you a feminist just like me.

Nearly all studies on the purported benefits of breastfeeding are meaningless.

Why?

Because the choice of the comparison groups is beset by a crippling flaw.

Nearly all breastfeeding studies compare two groups of infants, those that have been exclusively breastfed and those that have not. The researchers inevitably fail to include an important group: those infants whose did not get adequate nutrition when breastfeeding exclusively.

To understand why that is a problem so large as to render breastfeeding studies meaningless, it helps to consider another example.

Suppose we are trying to determine the benefits of ICUs (intensive care units). What happens if we compare hospital survival rates of patients who spend time in the ICU and those who don’t? I bet it won’t surprise you to find that the survival rate of patients who spend time in the ICU is lower than that of patients who are never treated in the ICU.

[pullquote align=”right” color=”#922a3e”]Many babies DON’T thrive on exclusive breastfeeding and mothers switch to formula in order to save their lives, promote their growth and preserve their brain function.[/pullquote]

Does this mean that ICUs are harmful and we should abolish them? Of course not. We recognize that those patients who are treated in the ICU differ in fundamental ways from those who are not. Specifically, those who are treated in ICUs are far more ill than those who never spend time in the ICU, so it’s hardly surprising that they are less likely to survive. The difference in level of illness between the two groups is known as a confounding variable. Any study that does not address confounding variables produces results that are invalid.

But there’s an additional factor beyond confounding variables that renders the comparison meaningless; a key group is missing. If we want to know if ICUs are beneficial, we must compare very sick patients cared for in the ICU to very sick patients who are not cared for in the ICU. That produces a radically different conclusion; very sick patients treated in the ICU have better survival rates than very sick patients who are not treated in the ICU. In order to reach a valid conclusion, we must make a valid comparison.

How does that apply to breastfeeding studies?

Most breastfeeding studies compare babies who are exclusively breastfed with babies who are not exclusively breastfed. Even when you correct for confounding variables (mother’s socio-economic status and education level), you are still left with the wrong comparison. If we want to know the benefits of breastfeeding we need to add a third group: babies who are exclusively breastfed but are not thriving.

In order for an infant to thrive, the food it receives must meet three criteria:

1. It should contains all the nutrients and other factors that an infant needs.

2. It must be available in sufficient quantity to promote vigorous growth of the infant.

3. The infant must be able to access it easily.

Breastmilk contains the nutrients and other factors that an infant needs. But many women (up to 5%) do not produce enough breastmilk to fully support infant growth and development, and some babies are not capable of efficiently extracting milk from the breast. Some babies just can’t do it for anatomical reasons, because of weak muscle tone, or because they simply never get the hang of it.

If we want to know the difference between babies who are exclusively breastfed and those who are formula fed, we MUST include the babies who are being exclusively breastfed and failing to thrive.

Technically speaking, babies who are exclusively breastfeeding at 3 months or 6 months or any other arbitrary length of time represent only a subset of breastfed babies. That subset is babies who are thriving on exclusive breastfeeding. Comparing babies who are thriving on exclusive breastfeeding with those who are formula fed won’t tell us anything about the benefits of breastfeeding as compared to formula; we must include babies who are failing on exclusive breastfeeding. Of course, that would be a very difficult study to do because we live in a society with easy access to infant formula. We’d have to do that study in a society that lacks access to infant formula.

We’d need to create 3 groups:

1. infants who are exclusively breastfed and are thriving
2. infants who are exclusively breastfed, are failing and lack access to formula
3. infants who are exclusively breastfed, are failing and are given formula supplements

To my knowledge, that study hasn’t been done for ethical reasons. But if we could conduct such a study, I suspect that we would find that infant formula has dramatic benefits as compared to exclusive breastfeeding. I’d be willing to bet that the death rate for exclusively breastfed infants would exceed by a wide margin the death rate of formula fed babies.

This point is critically important and the reason that it is routinely ignored reflects the lactivist bias that is pervasive in breastfeeding science. The bias is the lactivist lies that all women make enough breastmilk and all babies can easily access that breastmilk. The assumption, completely unjustified and not supported by scientific evidence, is that the only difference between formula fed infants and breastfed infants is that the mothers of formula fed infants couldn’t be bothered to breastfeed. The truth, which would smack any breastfeeding researcher in the face if he or she bothered to look, is that many babies DON’T thrive on exclusive breastfeeding and mothers switch to formula in order to save their lives, promote their growth and preserve their brain function.

Sure, successful exclusive breastfeeding might be beneficial compared to formula feeding, but that’s something entirely different than claiming that breastfeeding is better than formula feeding. The truth may be the opposite: that when compared to exclusive breastfeeding (successful AND unsuccessful) formula feeding is not merely beneficial, it is life saving. And, therefore, many mothers who are formula feeding are doing so because of the extraordinary benefits of infant formula.

Those formula feeding mothers deserve our support and our praise, not the sneering derision of lactivists.

Oh, the irony!

Lactivists are outraged that an Australian judge has banned a mother from breastfeeding because of the theoretical risk to the baby of a mother’s recent tattoo.

According to ABC Australia:

A judge has banned a mother from breastfeeding because she got a tattoo, ruling the woman’s decision to get it four weeks earlier exposed her 11-month-old baby to an unacceptable risk of harm.

Federal Circuit Court Judge Matthew Myers’ decision to grant an injunction to stop the woman from breastfeeding her son comes despite the mother recording negative results on hepatitis and HIV tests.

Judge Myers said there was still an unacceptable risk to the baby because the tests were not conclusive.

Before we go any farther, let me declare in the strongest possible terms that I too am outraged, but hardly surprised. This is the inevitable result of a lactivist culture that claims that babies’ needs trump mothers’ needs.

[pullquote align=”right” color=””]This is the inevitable result of a lactivist culture that claims that babies’ needs trump mothers’ needs.[/pullquote]

Consider this quote from Dr. Ruth Lawrence, leading lactivist and professor of pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine:

When choosing a feeding method, a woman should first decide what is best for her infant and then secondarily what method is best for her.

And that’s just what the Australian judge did, relying on on material published by the Australian Breastfeeding Association about the theoretical risks of maternal tattoos to a breastfeeding baby.

He decided that while the mother might think that a tattoo is best for her, it poses a theoretical risk to the baby. Since, as lactivists like Dr. Lawrence believe that any risk to a baby trumps a mother’s autonomy, he moved to prevent any risk, even a theoretical risk to the baby.

That reminds me of something. What might it be? Oh, I remember! It reminds me of the reasoning behind the obnoxiously named Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative.

As I wrote earlier this week (Women can’t reclaim their agency from doctors by giving it to midwives and lactation consultants):

The name “Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative” is a deliberate slap in the face to women.

It reflects the professional lactivists’ beliefs that they know better than women what is best for them and their babies, and, it is the apogee of mother shaming.

… These zealots explicitly deprive women of agency. The assumptions behind the BFHI are that women cannot be trusted to make decisions for their infants, they must be hectored into breastfeeding, any alternative must be made as inconvenient as possible, and that bottlefeeding or combo feeding mothers can and should be deprived of valuable infant formula gifts.

In the wake of the judge’s decision, lactivists have rediscovered women’s autonomy. ABC Australia interviewed Rebecca Naylor, chief executive of the Australian Breastfeeding Association:

Ms Naylor also flagged broader concerns about the wider implications of the ruling, saying it raised questions about a judge’s right to control the risk taking behaviours of women.

“Does that mean that women who expose themselves to any sort of risks around the contraction of a blood-borne virus… shouldn’t be allowed to breast feed?” she said.

“Of course we have to consider the risk to babies, and I’m not in any way dismissing that.

“Women do need to be careful. “They’re feeding a child, it’s going to be their main source of nutrition up until they’re 12 months of age, so you do have to be careful.

“But it doesn’t mean that you have to wrap yourself in glad wrap.”

But Ms. Naylor, according to Dr. Lawrence and other lactivists, doesn’t what’s best for babies trumps what’s best for mothers?

But my favorite quote comes from lactivist Karleen Gribble of the University of Western Sydney:

I think when it comes to mothers and breastfeeding, we need to consider that mothers are people, they do things.

Sometimes there’s a risk associated with what they do, but we generally think that they don’t need to protect their children from all risk and it [comes down to] considering, is this a reasonable risk?

You don’t say, Karleen. Does that mean going forward you plan to acknowledge that when it comes to deciding between breastfeeding, bottle feeding or both, we need to consider that mothers are people, too? Do you plan to apologize to women for the shaming tactics of lactivists that imply that women must protect their children from even the theoretical “risks” of bottle feeding?

I’m guessing “NO,” because shaming other mothers for their feeding choices is just too delicious to surrender without a struggle.

How did we get to a place where a judge believes it is okay to ban a woman from breastfeeding because of theoretical risks of her tattoo?

We got here courtesy of lactivists who believe that women can’t be trusted to make feeding decisions for their babies and others should be allowed to decide for them.

Irony, indeed!

They say that a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth.

If that’s the case then anti-vax charlatan Dr. Bob Sears has committed the ultimate anti-vax gaffe. He unwittingly acknowledged that unvaccinated children are exquisitely vulnerable to vaccine preventable diseases.

Join me in Mission Viejo tomorrow night for a town hall meeting on SB 277. There will be several speakers. I will discuss navigating and circumnavigating the current language of the bill and what it means for parents and kids now and in the future. 7 to 9 pm…

Note: no recently-vaccinated kids allowed. We wish to take precautions against viral shedding. (my emphasis)

What does Dr. Sears mean by vaccine shedding? He’s apparently referring to a theory, popular among anti-vax advocates, that unvaccinated children can acquire vaccine preventable disease from vaccinated children. How? According to the “theory,” the virus in live attenuated vaccines can survive to infect an unvaccinated child who is exposed to it.

Inadvertently, Dr. Sears has acknowledged not merely that vaccine preventable disease pose a deadly threat to unvaccinated children, but that unvaccinated children are especially sensitive to that threat.

We fight off disease by making antibodies to the bacteria or virus that causes the disease. We’re not born with those antibodies, though. We make them in response to a threat. For example, we are not born with antibodies to the chickenpox (varicella) virus. When exposed to the varicella virus, though, we can learn to make antibodies to it. It takes time, but gradually we can produce enough antibodies to fend off the disease.

Unfortunately, we don’t always get the time we need. We can make antibodies to smallpox, for example, but many individuals are overwhelmed and killed by the virus long before they could make enough antibodies to fend it off. Imagine, though, if you could learn to make the protective antibodies without actually getting sick. That’s the theory behind vaccines.

In order to make antibodies to a virus (or bacterium) the body needs to “see” the virus. In other words, it needs to have direct exposure to the virus, but that virus doesn’t have to be functional, and it doesn’t even have to be whole. A virus can be inactivated (live attenuated) or killed and still produce an immune response. It can also be broken down into its constituent parts and the parts can produce an immune response. Any future exposure to the live virus (though contact with others who have the disease) will be met with rapid and massive production of antibody, preventing the individual from getting sick at all. A vaccine is merely an inactivated or dead form of the virus, letting you learn to make antibody without getting sick in the process.

How many children have you known that have acquired a vaccine preventable disease through shedding from a vaccinated child?

Zero, right?

To the extent that vaccine shedding of live attenuated virus poses any threat, it threatens children who are immuno-compromised. Immune competent children make antibodies and don’t get the disease at all. That’s the whole point of the vaccine.

So when Dr. Sears bans recently vaccinated children from his meetings (as if their parents would have any interest in listening to his nonsense), it’s because he believes that not only do live viruses pose a deadly threat to unvaccinated children, but even inactivated viruses pose a threat to them. They aren’t protected by breastfeeding, or healthy eating, or vitamins and supplements. The immune systems of unvaccinated children can’t even fight off inactivated viruses, let alone fully functioning viruses.

I commend Dr. Sears for taking steps to protect his followers. Their children aren’t merely vulnerable to deadly vaccine preventable diseases, he believes they are MORE vulnerable than average children.

But if Dr. Sears were honest with the parents who follow him, he would do more than protect them from inactivated viruses; he would protect them from fully functioning viruses.

How?

By vaccinating them of course.

Update: Please sign the petition asking Dr. Bob Sears to withdraw his odious comparison.

Dr. Bob Sears is a jerk.

That’s not news.

What’s news is he’s now serving his typical anti-vaccine effluvium, seasoned with self-pity and accompanied by a side of Jew baiting.

From his Facebook page:

The effluvium:

So, I’ve been getting a lot of new patients. Well, refugees really. Patients who have been kicked out of their doctor’s offices all across Orange County as pediatricians band together to form a united front against parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. Even declining one vaccine gets you cut from the team. Not exactly sure what team that is. Society perhaps? …

When I tell them they are completely welcome here, that about half my patients don’t vaccinate, and that they are in good company, I can see all the tension leave and the relief flood into them. It angers me to see how other doctors, sworn to serve these families, have made these patients feel. It’s so far outside the Hippocratic Oath that I don’t even know what to say.

[pullquote align=”right” color=”#5a5a5a”]When was the last time an anti-vaxxer was worked to death, starved to death or gassed to death. NEVER![/pullquote]

Dr. Sears wouldn’t known the Hippocratic Oath if it slapped him in the face. He apparently needs to be reminded of one of its first principles, primum non nocere, first do no harm. It’s hard to imagine anything more harmful than encouraging patients to turn their backs on one of the most important and successful public health measures of all time. The only thing more harmful than that is to do so knowingly, unethically and simply for profit.

Dr. Sears knows that vaccines work. That’s why he explains in his best selling book touting his “alternative” vaccine schedule that it is okay to skip vaccination … as long as you make sure that your neighbors don’t skip it, too.

As a 2009 article in The New England Journal of Medicine The problem with Dr. Bob’s alternative vaccine schedule explained:

Perhaps the most disingenuous comment in the book is directed at parents who are afraid of the measles-mumps- rubella (MMR) vaccine. “I also warn [parents] not to share their fears with their neighbors,” writes Sears, “because if too many people avoid the MMR, we’ll likely see the diseases increase significantly.” In other words, hide in the herd, but do not tell the herd you’re hiding; otherwise, outbreaks will ensue…

Dr. Sears’ warning implicitly acknowledges that vaccines are highly effective and that their effectiveness is dependent on herd immunity. Those are the benefits of vaccination. But vaccines also have burdens: side effects. Therefore, he advises parents to foist the burdens on others and claim the benefits for themselves … and that’s unethical both for him to advise and for parents to follow.

The self-pity:

Each time I meet one of these new families, I can see the scars. The fear. The uncertainty. Even in MY office. It’s as if they can’t yet believe there’s an office who will accept them. As I ask each new patient what brought them to my office, they look around the room (not sure what or whom they are looking for – listening devices, hidden cameras, Child Protective Services? Their previous doctor? A state Senator?). They fidget with their hands, and whisper “We didn’t want to vaccinate.” …

So I tell them they don’t have to whisper. They can say it loud and clear, with confidence…

How sad for them that they can’t proudly blare their stupidity, gullibility and unethical behavior.

How about the Jew baiting? First, a definition. The best definition I’ve seen is that Jew baiting is making provocative, anti-Semitic statements while innocently declaring that the statements aren’t anti-Semitic.

Sears wrote:

Scarlet “V” anyone? No, not scarlet. Let’s make it yellow. And not a V – a star would be better. That way everyone can know at first glance who is safe to be around and who is not.

The yellow star has a long and ugly history of anti-Semitism. According to the Holocaust Memorial Center:

The Jews of Europe were legally compelled to wear badges or distinguishing garments … at least as far back as the 13th century. This practice continued throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissnace, but was largely phased out during the 17th and 18th centuries…

The Nazis resurrected this practice as part of their persecutions during the Holocaust…

…Those who failed or refused to wear the badge risked severe punishment, including death. For example, the Jewish Council (Judenrat) of the ghetto in Bialystok, Poland announced that “… the authorities have warned that severe punishment – up to and including death by shooting – is in store for Jews who do not wear the yellow badge on back and front.”

And then, as is characteristic of Jew baiting, he declared that the statements aren’t anti-Semitic.

This post is not intended as a reference to a holocaust. Rather, it’s intended to raise the issue of prejudice and discrimination…

Bullshit. Obviously it is intended as an EXPLICIT reference to the Holocaust, a monstrous event that resulted in the death of 6 million Jews (and many millions of others) for no other reason than having even one Jewish grandparent. They were slaughtered not for what they did, not for choices that they made, but because of who they were.

When was the last time an anti-vaxxer faced death for his beliefs? NEVER!

When was the last time an anti-vaxxer faced deportation to a concentration camp for her belief. NEVER!

When was the last time an anti-vaxxer was worked to death, starved to death or gassed to death. NEVER!

Dr. Sears is not merely anti-Semitic; he’s profoundly confused. There is nothing prejudiced about holding people to account for actions that harm others. An anti-vaxxer claiming that people are prejudiced against him is no different than a drunk driver claiming that laws against drunk driving indicate prejudice against drunk drivers. As two different Supreme Court Justices have noted: “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.” In other words, although government power should be restricted, the government must be able to ensure survival of the state and its people.

The Tuteur family was a German family. Everyone who has ever had the last name Tuteur was descended from two brothers. Almost the entire family, hundreds of members, were living in Germany at the time the Nazis came to power. Every single Tuteur either escaped or died, from the oldest to the youngest. There are Tuteurs who survived the early years of the Holocaust who are still living. The horrors they endured are beyond description.

That Bob Sears chooses to compare the inconveniences faced by anti-vaxxers (because of their dangerous beliefs) to the horrors endured by Jews in the Holocaust (simply because their parents or grandparents were Jews) demonstrates that he is not merely an unethical charlatan shilling for profits. He is also a reprehensible human being and a vicious bigot.