Latest news with #Dr.Phil
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Dr. Phil's son linked to tribal lender accused of predatory 700 percent interest loans
Jay McGraw, son of famed daytime talk show host 'Dr. Phil' McGraw, reportedly profited handsomely from a lending business targeting low-income people with high-interest loans, some with interest rates as high as 700 percent. Jay McGraw, a successful TV producer, was once listed as president and secretary of a company called CreditServe, which helps arrange small, high-interest loans through a company owned by a Native American tribe in Alaska, according to records obtained by an investigation from ProPublica and the Anchorage Daily News. Though records no longer list McGraw as a top officer in the company, a federal lawsuit filed in Illinois in November accused McGraw of providing 'tens of millions of dollars' in capital for the loans and serving as the 'principal beneficiary' of the business, only using the tribal corporation as a 'front.' (The suit settled confidentially in May.) The loans went out through a company called Minto Money, which is based in the tribal community of Minto, Alaska, a remote log-cabin village of about 160 people. The company's operations grew from $2 million in annual revenue in 2020 to roughly $12 million by 2024, according to the investigation, generating millions of dollars for the Minto community. Minto Money has been the subject of more than 280 consumer complaints to the Federal Trade Commission, according to the investigation, and holds an 'F' rating with the Better Business Bureau. 'What these people are doing should be illegal,' one individual wrote in an anonymous complaint to the Bureau in February. 'They're charging me over 700% interest. It makes it impossible to pay off the loan! They're taking $400 of my money every month and I only borrowed $725. After months of payments I've only paid $35 toward the balance!' The Independent has contacted Jay McGraw, CreditServe, and Minto Money for comment. Dr. Phil is not linked to the lending operation, and Merit Street Media, which airs his show, defended Jay McGraw in a statement to ProPublica. 'Dr. Phil knows his son Jay to be a smart, strong, caring human being, and while he does not know his business, Dr. Phil supports him 100%,' the statement said. Investors have been known to seek out tribes as business partners to avoid various forms of financial regulation, a strategy sometimes referred to pejoratively as 'rent-a-tribe.' While incomes in Minto are well below the state median, Jay McGraw appears to live a high-income lifestyle, with a lakeside mansion in Texas and trips to Paris, Palm Beach, and Napa. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Gulf Today
19-05-2025
- Health
- Gulf Today
On autism and vaccines there are lies and statistics
Lynne Peeples, Tribune News Service During an interview in late April with Dr. Phil, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reiterated his appeal to parents on vaccine safety: 'We live in a democracy, and part of the responsibility of being a parent is to do your own research.' The US health secretary has also announced his own investigation, pledging to find an answer to the autism 'epidemic' by September. It's an ambitious goal. It's also a realistic one but only if he already has an answer in mind. To tell the story you want with statistics, you don't have to lie or fabricate data — though that happens, too. More often, statistics are manipulated, figures massaged and results skewed through subtler means. Sometimes, it's sloppiness or unconscious bias at work. Other times, the distortion is deliberate. Whether the numbers attempt to tell a story about the economy, immigration, education or public health, we should empower ourselves to recognise the deception. Vaccine data are far from immune to statistical trickery and its consequences. Not only might individuals skip a vaccine and get unnecessarily sick, but the viral spread of misinformation can poke holes in the herd immunity needed to protect a population. One new, untampered statistic tells a chilling story: A meager 10% drop from today's already dangerously low measles vaccination rates could spark an estimated 13-fold increase in annual cases. Statistics wield incredible power. I developed a deep respect for them during my first career as a biostatistician. Today, as a journalist, I see numbers leveraged for good and for bad. I've seen them help the public and policymakers interpret complex data, detect patterns and make better decisions — evidenced in my reporting on data dashboards during the COVID-19 pandemic. I've also seen data withheld and statistics doctored for less-than-noble aims by chemical companies, the gun industry, police departments, the US military, climate change deniers and vaccine skeptics, to name a few. If left unaware of the deceit, the public can't hold these groups accountable. And if citizens base their votes and other decisions — like whether to vaccinate their child — on distorted or false information, our democracy and our health lose again. Fortunately, inoculation against misinformation is available. As Kennedy and his collaborators dig into vaccine and autism data, as measles cases mount, and as you 'do your own research' or simply digest your news and social feeds, here are five red flags to watch for. Chance: The infamous paper that launched the vaccine-autism controversy was based on just 12 children. Its author claimed that eight showed signs of developmental regression after receiving the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. The study was later retracted for scientific misconduct. But even without fraud, the sample size should raise alarm. Chance alone could explain such a small cluster of cases. Contrast that with rigorous studies — like one in Denmark with more than 650,000 participants — that consistently find no relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism. We should be just as wary when studies test a grab bag of possible outcomes. Suppose researchers ask whether a vaccine causes heart disease, diabetes, any of a dozen types of cancer or any of five neurodevelopmental disorders. Even if the vaccine is in reality not affecting any of those 20 outcomes, when researchers try to study so many things all at once, statistical noise can mean one may erroneously appear 'significant' just by chance. A more rigorous and targeted study would be far less likely to give that false positive. Count quality: Big numbers can impress. But quality counts. In 2021, the Delphi-Facebook survey estimated near real-time COVID-19 vaccine uptake using weekly responses from around 250,000 people. On paper, the large sample size conveyed statistical confidence. But in practice, the data missed the mark. The sample was biased and unrepresentative of the overall population. By late May, the study had overestimated vaccine uptake by a wide margin — 70% compared with the true rate of 53%. That inflated figure may have lulled the public and policymakers into a false sense of security. Beware, too, of the misuse of raw data. Figures from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System appear in many papers and posts asserting vaccine harms. But this system was set up only as an early warning system. Anyone can submit a report on a suspected reaction. If a hint of a pattern emerges, then researchers will investigate to determine if the signal represents an actual risk. As its own website warns, the initial reports may be 'incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable.' People may be apt to connect an event that occurs shortly after vaccination with the shot itself, for example, especially if they personally fear the safety of vaccines. To demonstrate the system's fallibility, a doctor filed a report saying he turned into the Incredible Hulk after receiving a flu vaccine. The entry was initially accepted into the database. Cherry-picking: One study circulating in the anti-vax community was led by David Geier, the same figure tapped by Kennedy to head his federal autism and vaccine investigation. The study found a connection between autism and vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal. But it hinges on a critical flaw: Cases of autism and the comparison group came from different time periods. Because vaccination rates changed dramatically over time, the design introduced a spurious association. Among myriad ways to manufacture a desired conclusion is the strategic choice of time frame, analysis method or how the data are presented. By plotting only convenient variables or truncating inconvenient values, for example, you can tell the story of your choosing. One COVID-era graph appeared to show that vaccines did not prevent deaths. The trick? It compared vaccine uptake with cumulative deaths— a number that can only rise over time, and so of course would broadly move in the same direction as the uptake rate of a desperately needed new vaccine that the public is clamoring for. Another sleight of hand to play down the size of a problem: Acknowledge a not-so-unusual number of outbreaks while ignoring how large or how deadly those outbreaks were, just as Kennedy did in February with measles. Correlation vs. causation: A widely shared study recently referenced by Kennedy reports a link between vaccination and neurodevelopmental disorders among 9-year-olds in Florida. This one, too, is riddled with problems — namely, its failure to account for other factors that could explain the results. Children whose parents more regularly use the health care system, for example, are more likely to get both vaccinated and diagnosed. Healthcare engagement confounds the relationship. So, we can't say the vaccine caused neurodevelopmental disorders any more than we could say that increased consumption of margarine resulted in a higher divorce rate in Maine. These are cases of correlation, not causation. Something similar and even more interesting cropped up when people compared death rates by COVID-19 vaccination status. At first glance, an unexpected pattern emerged: The vaccinated were dying at about twice the rate of the unvaccinated. The catch here? The analysis didn't account for age. Older people were more likely both to die and to get vaccinated. Once researchers broke the data down into age groups, a more accurate — and reverse — picture emerged: The unvaccinated were dying at higher rates. Context and conflicts Talk of an uptick in autism diagnoses often skips crucial context: expanded awareness, broader diagnostic criteria and financial incentives for diagnosis. There could well be a surge in the number of cases without any surge in the true incidence of the disorder. Also, discussions motivated by a desire to explain autism or to oppose vaccines tend to omit the robust studies that have debunked any link between vaccines and autism — because those would be unhelpful to the agendas. Vaccine opponents may further ignore the glaring conflicts of interest behind many of the studies still pushing that autism narrative. Geier had a study retracted, in part, for not disclosing his involvement in vaccine-related litigation.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
HHS Secretary RFK Jr. falsely claimed measles vaccine was never fully safety tested
Statement: It's 'all true' that the measles vaccine wanes quickly, was never fully safety tested and contains fetal debris. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s comments about the measles vaccine briefly took center stage during his May 14 Senate testimony. Kennedy appeared before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to discuss Health and Human Services' 2026 budget, and senators questioned him about the 2025 measles outbreak that has killed three people, including two children. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., questioned Kennedy's statements about the measles vaccine. "You have consistently been undermining the measles vaccine," Murphy said. "You told the public that the vaccine wanes very quickly. You went on the 'Dr. Phil' show and said that the measles vaccine was never fully tested for safety. You said there's fetal debris in the measles vaccine." Kennedy answered, "All true. All true." Murphy tried to point to Kennedy's remarks from his testimony earlier the same day, but Kennedy interrupted: Murphy: "This morning, in front of — " Kennedy: "Do you want me to lie to the public?" Murphy: "That's not — None of that is true." Kennedy: "Of course it's true." Before becoming the nation's top public health official, Kennedy notched two decades of work as a leader in the antivaccine movement. Kennedy's inaccurate statements mischaracterize how the measles vaccine is made, how it was tested and how it works. Infectious disease and vaccine experts told PolitiFact that the two-dose MMR vaccine provides lifelong protection; that scientists safety tested it before it was approved for use; and that it does not contain human fetal cells or whole fetal DNA. We contacted HHS and received no response. In early April, Kennedy told CBS News that measles persists because the vaccine's effectiveness decreases fast. "We're always going to have measles, no matter what happens, because the vaccine wanes very quickly," he said. That's inaccurate, vaccine experts said. The measles vaccine is part of a combination vaccine known as the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or the MMR vaccine. It also can include the varicella vaccine, called the MMRV vaccine. Two infectious disease doctors and a vaccinology professor told PolitiFact that when people receive the measles vaccine's recommended two doses, it provides strong, long-lasting protection against measles infection. "You will have about a 97% chance of being protected and that protection will extend lifelong," said Dr. William Schaffner, infectious disease professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. That matches what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — an agency Kennedy oversees — says about the measles vaccine's efficacy. The MMR's measles vaccine "provides one of our most remarkably durable and long-lasting protective vaccine-induced antibodies," said Patsy Stinchfield, a retired pediatric nurse practitioner and the immediate past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. Measles antibodies might decrease over time, but that doesn't mean a person's vaccine-induced protection against measles infection is waning, experts said. Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said that to be protected against disease, "all you need is immunological memory cells," Offit said. When you're exposed to the virus, there's plenty of time for those memory cells to become activated and trigger the immune system to make measles antibodies, he said. For other diseases covered by the MMR vaccine, the protection can wane over time, said Paulo Verardi, a University of Connecticut virology and vaccinology professor. That's true of mumps immunity, for example, so people who got vaccinated as children might be less protected from infection as adults, he said. But the measles vaccine doesn't have that issue, he said. "It is rare for someone who has been vaccinated to get measles, and if they do, it is usually a mild case," Verardi said. "Most outbreaks happen not because the vaccine wears off quickly, but because not enough people are vaccinated." During a town hall hosted by TV personality Phil McGraw, known as Dr. Phil, Kennedy said, "The measles vaccine works," and said HHS recommends vaccination against measles. But there are "problems" with the vaccine, Kennedy added. "The problem is — it's really with the mumps portion of the vaccine and the combination — and it was never safety tested," he said. "That combination was never safety tested, and people just assumed that, you know, if the three separate vaccines were safe, then when you combined them they would be safe. But we now know there's some viral interference." Varardi said U.S. regulators approved the first combined MMR vaccine in 1971 "after extensive clinical testing to make sure it was safe and worked well." Kennedy also often talks about testing vaccines against placebos — inactive substances that provide no protection against disease — and HHS recently announced potential changes to vaccine testing that would require placebo testing. When the MMR vaccine was combined, research had shown that each of the components was safe and effective individually, and it isn't always ethical to test them against placebos that would leave test subjects unprotected from infection, Offit said. Fortunately, Offit said, we have "about 50 years of data" on the billions of doses of the MMR vaccine that have been administered. Schaffner said scientists continue to monitor the MMR vaccine's safety. Ongoing vaccine safety surveillance is important to catch extremely rare side effects. A Finland MMR vaccine study found that 5.3 in every 100,000 people vaccinated experienced serious adverse reactions. A 2021 study found that among 12,032 vaccinated people, four people reported serious vaccine-related events. During an April 30 News Nation interview, Kennedy said some people "have religious objections to the vaccination, because the MMR vaccine contains a lot of aborted fetus debris and DNA particles, so they don't want to take it." The MMR vaccine contains weakened live viruses, and viruses must be grown in cells. The measles and mumps viruses are grown in chicken embryo cells and the rubella virus is grown in human fetal cells, which first came from an elective abortion performed in the early 1960s and have been replicated in labs and used to manufacture vaccines for decades. Before it becomes a vaccine component, the virus is extracted from the cells where it is grown and then it is weakened and treated with an enzyme that fragments any remaining DNA, Offit said. So, does the MMR vaccine contain "fetal debris," fetal cells or whole fetal DNA? No, said Offit and Varardi. Whatever DNA is present from the original cell line used to grow the virus likely could be measured in picograms, "meaning trillionths of a gram," Offit said. The origin of the cells used to grow the virus has historically sparked religious concerns. Religious leaders including the Catholic Pontifical Academy for Life concluded that it is both morally permissible and responsible to use the vaccine, the Catholic News Agency reported. Kennedy told Murphy that it's "all true" that the measles vaccine wanes quickly, was never fully tested for safety and contains fetal debris. Scientists say the measles vaccine offers lifelong protection that is 97% effective at preventing the virus. Scientists tested the MMR vaccine before it was approved for use and perform ongoing safety surveillance research; studies show that serious adverse effects are rare. Finally, the MMR vaccine may contain trace amounts of fragmented DNA, but it does not contain whole fetal cells or fetal DNA. We rate Kennedy's statement False. PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. PBS News, WATCH: RFK Jr. defends his questioning of measles vaccine while saying he recommends it, May 14, 2025 Interview with Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, May 15, 2025 Interview with Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, May 15, 2025 Email interview with Paulo Verardi, virology and vaccinology professor at the University of Connecticut, May 15, 2025 Email interview with Patsy Stinchfield, a retired pediatric nurse practitioner and the immediate past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, May 16, 2025 Dr. Phil Primetime on YouTube, Inside RFK Jr.'s Health Agenda 100 Days In | Dr. Phil Primetime, April 30, 2025 Medical News Today, Fact check: How long does protection from the measles vaccines last? April 16, 2025 CBS News, Watch: RFK Jr.'s first network TV interview as HHS secretary, April 9, 2025 Reuters, US Health secretary Kennedy revives misleading claims of 'fetal debris' in measles shots, May 1, 2025 Health, Fact Check: Does the MMR Vaccine Really Contain 'Aborted Fetus Debris'? May 2, 2025 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Vaccine Ingredients: Fetal Cells, accessed May 15, 2025 New York, RFK Jr. Claims the MMR Vaccine Contains 'Aborted Fetus Debris,' May 1, 2025 CIDRAP, Texas announces second measles death in unvaccinated child, April 7, 2025 NBC News, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. falsely claims measles vaccine protection 'wanes very quickly,' April 11, 2025 The Guardian, RFK Jr and health agency falsely claim MMR vaccine includes 'aborted fetus debris,' May 1, 2025 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Measles Vaccine Recommendations, accessed May 16, 2025 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health Alert Network, Expanding Measles Outbreak in the United States and Guidance for the Upcoming Travel Season, March 7, 2025 Medpage Today, Here's How We Know Vaccines Are Safe and Effective, May 15, 2025 Science News, HHS says new vaccines should be tested against placebos. They already are, May 14, 2025 News Nation YouTube channel, RFK Jr.: Measles cases in US not as bad as in other countries | CUOMO Town Hall: Trump's First 100 D, April 30, 2025 The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, Serious adverse events after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination during a fourteen-year prospective follow-up, December 2000 The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, Evaluation of the Safety and Immunogenicity of M-M-RII (Combination Measles-mumps-rubella Vaccine), November 2021 Cleveland Clinic, MMR Vaccine, accessed May 16, 2025 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, About the Vaccine MMR and MMRV Vaccine Composition and Dosage, accessed May 16, 2025 Catholic News Agency, What does the Catholic Church teach about vaccines? May 6, 2019 The Reporter Lansdale Pennsylvania, Merck Vaccine Tests Completed, Dec. 17, 1971 This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: RFK Jr. falsely claimed measles vaccine was never fully safety tested
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
4 takeaways from RFK Jr.'s dual congressional hearings
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified during back-to-back hearings in the House and Senate on Wednesday for the first time since his confirmation. Kennedy faced questions on vaccines, canceled medical research and his drastic overhaul of the federal health agency during the hearings about President Trump's budget request, which could lead to even greater cuts. Here are some key takeaways: Democrats used the hearings to hammer Kennedy on his vaccine messaging. Amid the deadliest measles outbreak in decades, the secretary has muddied his message about the importance of the measles shot in an effort to appeal to both the general public and anti-vaccine hard-liners. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) pressed Kennedy on new standards for vaccine approvals and on his comments about the measles shot. 'You told the public that the vaccine wanes very quickly. You went on the 'Dr. Phil' show and said the measles vaccine was never fully tested for safety. You said there was fetal debris in the measles vaccine,' Murphy said Wednesday afternoon. 'All true,' Kennedy shouted. 'Do you want me to lie to the public?' 'None of that is true,' Murphy retorted. Earlier in the day, House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told Kennedy he was 'promoting quackery.' 'Under your watch, our country is now failing to contain vaccine-preventable diseases,' she added. When asked by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) if he would choose to vaccinate his own children today against measles, Kennedy hesitated a bit before answering: 'Probably.' Kennedy has previously said he vaccinated his now-adult children but regrets that decision. 'What I would say is my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant,' Kennedy said. 'I don't think people should be taking medical advice from me.' He did not directly answer whether he'd vaccinate his children against polio or chickenpox, and he said he thinks vaccination is a personal choice. Kennedy defiantly defended his overhaul of HHS, even as he seemed hazy on some of the details and the impact of putting 10,000 employees on administrative leave. 'We had to act quickly' on the layoffs, Kennedy said in response to questions from Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.). 'We understood there would be some mistakes made and that we would go back and reverse them … but it was more important to do decisive action quickly.' Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) asked Kennedy about funding delays and cuts that would threaten domestic violence-prevention programs. 'My understanding is that the domestic violence funding was not cut,' Kennedy said. 'I don't know why people would be experiencing even delays.' But Murkowski pointed out that because of the agency layoffs 'it may be that you don't have people processing these things.' Kennedy dodged some specific questions about the reorganization of HHS, citing a court order. But he claimed it was his decision to fire probationary employees and that Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency provided information to aid the effort. 'I pushed back on certain ones and canceled certain ones,' Kennedy said. Speaking broadly, he denied that many HHS offices were being eliminated, saying instead that some were being transferred to the Administration for a Healthy America, a new office proposed by the Trump administration. Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) asked Kennedy exactly how many HHS employees have been laid off since January. Kennedy stated 10,000 people had been laid off and 10,000 more chose the Trump administration's 'fork in the road' deferred resignation offer. 'They're being paid to do nothing,' Frankel surmised. 'Well … a lot of them are supposed to be coming in still,' Kennedy responded. 'But they're coming in to do nothing,' Frankel pushed back. 'They're not allowed to work.' 'No, no. We want them working,' Kennedy insisted. GOP lawmakers zeroed in on moves by the Trump administration that impact their constituents on Wednesday as well. While not directly undermining Kennedy or questioning major moves, such as agency layoffs, Republicans pushed for answers on different parts of his agenda. Their questions showed a willingness to push back on 'Make American Healthy Again' priorities, particularly if the department's efforts conflicted with their districts' livelihoods. In the House, Republican lawmakers sought answers on how new regulations would affect their districts. They thanked Kennedy for reinstating some fired workers and sought assurances that programs crucial to their constituents would be reinstated. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) questioned how expensive the Food and Drug Administration's initiative to phase out artificial food dyes would be for the snack food manufacturers in his district. 'I think these dyes are safe. They've been approved but really trying to find substitutes — the costs we've seen estimate five to 10 times to try to fix that,' Fleischmann said, asking that Kennedy work with him on both the cost and the safety of any new dyes used to replace the ones being phased out. Rep. Riley Moore ( sought assurances from Kennedy that employees and programs at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) would be fully restored. Hundreds of NIOSH employees, including those at a Morgantown facility in Moore's district, had been laid off before being rehired this week by Kennedy. The West Virginia Republican also asked for guarantees that the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program and the Respirator Approval Program at NIOSH will be fully reinstated. Wednesday was also the first time Kennedy testified in front of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the chair of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions who publicly wrestled with whether or not to confirm Kennedy. Cassidy ultimately voted for Kennedy after receiving promises from Kennedy and the Trump administration to be kept informed about any controversial decisions made by the department. 'I will carefully watch for any effort to wrongfully sow public fear about vaccines,' Cassidy said at the time. But while Cassidy pressed Kennedy hard in his confirmation hearing, especially about Kennedy's long-standing false claim that vaccines cause autism, he took a much softer tone on Wednesday. 'Much of the conversation around HHS's agenda has been set by anonymous sources in the media and individuals with a bias against the president,' Cassidy said in his opening statement. 'Americans need direct reassurance from the administration, from you Mr. Secretary, that its reforms will make their lives easier, not harder.' Cassidy did not directly ask Kennedy about vaccines on Wednesday. At one point, he interjected to correct the record when Kennedy said no vaccine except the COVID-19 shot had been evaluated against a placebo. 'The rotavirus, measles and HPV vaccines have been and some vaccines are tested against previous versions,' Cassidy said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Contributor: On autism and vaccines, there are lies, damned lies and statistics
During an interview in late April with Dr. Phil, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reiterated his appeal to parents on vaccine safety: 'We live in a democracy, and part of the responsibility of being a parent is to do your own research.' The U.S. health secretary has also announced his own investigation, pledging to find an answer to the autism 'epidemic' by September. It's an ambitious goal. It's also a realistic one but only if he already has an answer in mind. To tell the story you want with statistics, you don't have to lie or fabricate data — though that happens, too. More often, statistics are manipulated, figures massaged and results skewed through subtler means. Sometimes, it's sloppiness or unconscious bias at work. Other times, the distortion is deliberate. Whether the numbers attempt to tell a story about the economy, immigration, education or public health, we should empower ourselves to recognize the deception. Vaccine data are far from immune to statistical trickery and its consequences. Not only might individuals skip a vaccine and get unnecessarily sick, but the viral spread of misinformation can poke holes in the herd immunity needed to protect a population. One new, untampered statistic tells a chilling story: A meager 10% drop from today's already dangerously low measles vaccination rates could spark an estimated 13-fold increase in annual cases. Statistics wield incredible power. I developed a deep respect for them during my first career as a biostatistician. Today, as a journalist, I see numbers leveraged for good and for bad. I've seen them help the public and policymakers interpret complex data, detect patterns and make better decisions — evidenced in my reporting on data dashboards during the COVID-19 pandemic. I've also seen data withheld and statistics doctored for less-than-noble aims by chemical companies, the gun industry, police departments, the U.S. military, climate change deniers and vaccine skeptics, to name a few. If left unaware of the deceit, the public can't hold these groups accountable. And if citizens base their votes and other decisions — like whether to vaccinate their child — on distorted or false information, our democracy and our health lose again. Fortunately, inoculation against misinformation is available. As Kennedy and his collaborators dig into vaccine and autism data, as measles cases mount, and as you 'do your own research' or simply digest your news and social feeds, here are five red flags to watch for. The infamous paper that launched the vaccine-autism controversy was based on just 12 children. Its author claimed that eight showed signs of developmental regression after receiving the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. The study was later retracted for scientific misconduct. But even without fraud, the sample size should raise alarm. Chance alone could explain such a small cluster of cases. Contrast that with rigorous studies — like one in Denmark with more than 650,000 participants — that consistently find no relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism. We should be just as wary when studies test a grab bag of possible outcomes. Suppose researchers ask whether a vaccine causes heart disease, diabetes, any of a dozen types of cancer or any of five neurodevelopmental disorders. Even if the vaccine is in reality not affecting any of those 20 outcomes, when researchers try to study so many things all at once, statistical noise can mean one may erroneously appear 'significant' just by chance. A more rigorous and targeted study would be far less likely to give that false positive. Big numbers can impress. But quality counts. In 2021, the Delphi-Facebook survey estimated near real-time COVID-19 vaccine uptake using weekly responses from around 250,000 people. On paper, the large sample size conveyed statistical confidence. But in practice, the data missed the mark. The sample was biased and unrepresentative of the overall population. By late May, the study had overestimated vaccine uptake by a wide margin — 70% compared with the true rate of 53%. That inflated figure may have lulled the public and policymakers into a false sense of security. Beware, too, of the misuse of raw data. Figures from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System appear in many papers and posts asserting vaccine harms. But this system was set up only as an early warning system. Anyone can submit a report on a suspected reaction. If a hint of a pattern emerges, then researchers will investigate to determine if the signal represents an actual risk. As its own website warns, the initial reports may be 'incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable.' People may be apt to connect an event that occurs shortly after vaccination with the shot itself, for example, especially if they personally fear the safety of vaccines. To demonstrate the system's fallibility, a doctor filed a report saying he turned into the Incredible Hulk after receiving a flu vaccine. The entry was initially accepted into the database. One study circulating in the anti-vax community was led by David Geier, the same figure tapped by Kennedy to head his federal autism and vaccine investigation. The study found a connection between autism and vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal. But it hinges on a critical flaw: Cases of autism and the comparison group came from different time periods. Because vaccination rates changed dramatically over time, the design introduced a spurious association. Among myriad ways to manufacture a desired conclusion is the strategic choice of time frame, analysis method or how the data are presented. By plotting only convenient variables or truncating inconvenient values, for example, you can tell the story of your choosing. One COVID-era graph appeared to show that vaccines did not prevent deaths. The trick? It compared vaccine uptake with cumulative deaths — a number that can only rise over time, and so of course would broadly move in the same direction as the uptake rate of a desperately needed new vaccine that the public is clamoring for. Another sleight of hand to play down the size of a problem: Acknowledge a not-so-unusual number of outbreaks while ignoring how large or how deadly those outbreaks were, just as Kennedy did in February with measles. A widely shared study recently referenced by Kennedy reports a link between vaccination and neurodevelopmental disorders among 9-year-olds in Florida. This one, too, is riddled with problems — namely, its failure to account for other factors that could explain the results. Children whose parents more regularly use the healthcare system, for example, are more likely to get both vaccinated and diagnosed. Healthcare engagement confounds the relationship. So, we can't say the vaccine caused neurodevelopmental disorders any more than we could say that increased consumption of margarine resulted in a higher divorce rate in Maine. These are cases of correlation, not causation. Something similar and even more interesting cropped up when people compared death rates by COVID-19 vaccination status. At first glance, an unexpected pattern emerged: The vaccinated were dying at about twice the rate of the unvaccinated. The catch here? The analysis didn't account for age. Older people were more likely both to die and to get vaccinated. Once researchers broke the data down into age groups, a more accurate — and reverse — picture emerged: The unvaccinated were dying at higher rates. Talk of an uptick in autism diagnoses often skips crucial context: expanded awareness, broader diagnostic criteria and financial incentives for diagnosis. There could well be a surge in the number of cases without any surge in the true incidence of the disorder. Also, discussions motivated by a desire to explain autism or to oppose vaccines tend to omit the robust studies that have debunked any link between vaccines and autism — because those would be unhelpful to the agendas. Vaccine opponents may further ignore the glaring conflicts of interest behind many of the studies still pushing that autism narrative. Geier had a study retracted, in part, for not disclosing his involvement in vaccine-related litigation. Conflicts of interest surround Kennedy as well. He has spent years pushing anti-vaccine claims despite overwhelming evidence of vaccine safety and despite not being a doctor or a scientist. Now that he is in a position of authority over public health, he should at least be held to the same ethical standards as a scientist. Modern scientific practice calls for statisticians to specify their hypotheses and analysis plans before data are collected. This ensures transparency and objectivity, and reduces the risk of data dredging and misleading results. Statisticians follow where the data lead rather than mold or seek out data to fit a predetermined narrative. Kennedy's team appears to be following a different playbook. According to a former top vaccine official, Kennedy's team requested a wish list of data seemingly to justify their autism theory: The team asked for cases of brain swelling and deaths caused by the measles vaccine. The official said there are no such cases. Someone who keeps hunting for evidence to back up his discredited theory is not conducting science. Our stories should be malleable. Our statistics should not. Lynne Peeples, a science writer, is the author of 'The Inner Clock: Living in Sync With Our Circadian Rhythms.' If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
