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Climate Change, Evolution, Flu Shots and lots of other questions are public policy battle grounds, especially in forums like this, where science is invoked by both sides. How do you figure out what the truth is?
The original inspiration for this article came from an article I found at Weather.com:
Flu Spreads Across U.S., Right on Cue
This is a good example of the kind of ... not "junk science" but certainly "sponsored consumer science" ... that you will find spread across the net like billboard signs on a freeway. It's written by the "Content Manager" at Weather.com. I've done similar work for more than a decade now. You can be sure that all of the material used in the article comes from industry sources. There's nothing there that wasn't supplied directly, or at least selected, by someone with an agenda. That doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means that you can't trust it without some sort of corroboration.
My wife and I have been flu shot non-believers for decades now. She was a public employee in a lab environment and was required to get flu shots for years. I wasn't. She got the flu every time she got a shot. I never did. More recently, I got a horrible case of the flu two years ago that put me down to the point that I couldn't even walk for several days. But at the time, I was up against a publication deadline (technical book) and working about 14-7 (Really!) just before I came down with it. I think the stress had a lot to do with it. My wife, right there in the house with me, never did get it. Neither of us have had a flu shot for decades.
But this kind of individual experience doesn't confirm anything either. I'm enough of a scientist to understand that you need more rigorous proof than just your own personal observations. After reading the Weather.com article and the argumentative and emotional forum posts, I decided to see if I could locate some kind of real science about it on the net.
Surprise!! (Not!) The best information I could find is summarized and footnoted with references you can read in Wikipedia. The article provided a link to The Cochrane Collaboration which concluded, as a sample:
The authors concluded that: "The available evidence is of poor quality and provides no guidance regarding the safety, efficacy or effectiveness of influenza vaccines for people aged 65 years or older."
The net-net for me was confirmatory. I'm going to continue to eat leafy green vegetables and get some exercise and sunshine every day as my personal "flu shot". (But you should read the whole thing for yourself rather than taking my word for it.)
The theme of this article, however, is not flu shots, but rather science and how to make a decision in a confused storm of conflicting claims. Here's my prescription on that.
*** Read, Read, Read! The truth is out there. Conspiracy nuts notwithstanding, you can find the truth if you look for it. It's not "1984" yet. But you can't just look for the truth in your own echo chamber. You have to actually read what people you might not agree with (or even like much) have to say about it.
*** The best, single way to decide who's lying and who's not is that advice from Watergate: "Follow the money!" Try to figure out who will make a profit from public policy being twisted one way or the other. In the case of flu shots in particular, there is a huge industry making a profit from them. Leafy green vegetables and a nice brisk walk in the sunshine doesn't provide much of a profit for anyone, however. This works for other hot-button issues like climate change, too. But I don't want to get off in the weeds on that so I won't say anything else about it.
*** Be willing to doubt yourself. The person you, personally, will lie to most often and most convincingly is yourself. The more I read about the actual way the human brain functions, the more I understand how I simply can't trust my own uncorroborated conclusions.
*** Trust the scientific method. And before that, understand the scientific method. It's responsible for everything we have today that makes us different from naked apes living in caves. This may be the step that actually takes the most work to accomplish. About.com has a nice, readable introduction here: Introduction to the Scientific Method.
Forums like this (and the one at Weather.com) are just full of nuts, fruits, and flakes. Try not to be one.
