Overdose awareness is great, but more social support is needed

Opioid overdose is an increasing public health problem that kills more people per year than traffic accidents. Many communities have had enough, and have created many "just say no" campaigns to discourage opioid use. There is a chance that these campaigns may discourage use from those who have never used opioids; however, it is not likely to affect someone that already has a substance use disorder or has underlying psychiatric disorders.

Fact: Over 60% of people who meet clinical criteria for a substance use disorder have an underlying comorbid mental health disorder such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or PTSD, etc.

Thus, it is extremely important that campaigns do not stigmatize or marginalize drug users. Marginalization can make a user feel shame, guilt, and self-hatred.  This can perpetuate pre-existing mental health issues and actually motivate one to use drugs even more.

Awareness efforts should focus on opioid use as a major public health problem and psychiatric disorder, not simply blacklist and punish those that use opioids. People that use opioids need friends, love, support just like any other human and this social support could assist in motivating someone to get proper treatment.

Awareness efforts are always very well intentioned. Everyone, including myself, is tired of seeing friends die from drug overdoses. But in order to help, we have to think critically and compassionately about the complexities of addiction -- and not act impulsively. Opioid overdose is a sensitive topic, and we need to treat it as such. Let's support our friends whether or not they use drugs. It's sometimes difficult to do, but it's best to show support with compassion understanding, not by punishment.

Fact: over 50% of all fatal opioid overdose cases occur in conjunction with alcohol or nervous system depressants like benzodiazepine. If you use opioids, never mix these drugs. It can cause fatal respiratory suppression.

Fact: Naloxone saves lives. If you or someone know uses opioids, have a naloxone kit on standby. In many states, Naloxone is free at pharmacies and a pharmacist can train you how to administer it.

More information on Naloxone here.

Dear Trump: Vaccines do not cause autism.

Let's make this clear: vaccines do not cause autism. Vaccines do not interact with other vaccines to cause autism. There are no neurotoxic chemicals in vaccines that could cause autism.

There are no heavy metals in vaccines that could cause autism.

Vaccines are not associated with autism nor do vaccines increase the risk of even potentially developing autism.

Vaccines save lives, prevent life-threatening childhood disease, and discouraging the use of vaccines puts people's lives at risk.

Meanwhile, the president-elect of the United States says this:

This is particularly problematic. Not only does President-elect Trump misinform the public about vaccines, he suggests that doctors purposefully and willingly lie to patients.

Consider how many people that now may be less willing to seek general treatment due to this.

As a scientist, it is unfortunate that science and politics have now merged, but statements like this coming from the new leader of the United States is a clear threat to science, health care, and population health.

Science is objective and non-partisan, but statements like these -- whether democrat or republican --are entirely false and dangerous. Scientists must speak out against such blatant misinformation.

Here are the facts:

"A child’s risk for developing an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is not increased by receiving “too many vaccines too soon,” according to a new study published in The Journal of Pediatrics .

Although previous scientific evidence has shown that vaccines do not cause autism, more than 1 in 10 parents refuse or delay vaccinations for their young children. A main safety concern of these parents is the number of vaccines administered, both on a single day and over the course of a child’s first 2 years of life.

In the first study of its kind, researchers from the CDC and Abt Associates, Inc. compared vaccine records for over 1000 children born from 1994–1999, some of whom were later diagnosed with ASD. The researchers calculated the total number of vaccine antigens each child received between birth and age 2, as well as the maximum number of antigens each child received on a single day.

The study found that the total number of vaccine antigens received was the same between children with ASD and those without ASD. Additionally, antigen number was also found to be unrelated to the development of two sub-categories of ASD—autistic disorder and ASD with regression.

The researchers concluded, “The possibility that immunological stimulation from vaccines during the first 1 or 2 years of life could be related to the development of ASD is not well-supported by what is known about the neurobiology of ASDs.”" 

- https://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2013/autism-risk-unrelated-to-total-vaccine-exposure-in-early-childhood.shtml

References

Journal of Pediatrics - http://www.jpeds.com/content/JPEDSDeStefano

National Institute of Health - https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2015/04/28/no-link-between-mmr-vaccine-and-autism-even-in-high-risk-kids/

Common sources of bias in the media

The media has been under constant scrutiny amidst the recent presidential campaign. 

Both candidates had a tendency to blame the media when do not go their way. Claims of the media "lying" and "inciting protests" and skewing the public opinion is nothing new or even exclusive to this election. 

I argue there are some fundamental issues regarding content validity stemming from major news sources like CNN, FOX News, etc. However, I have seen no evidence that these sources intentionally skew their content in order to mischievously manipulate the public. Who knows.

Regardless, their methods of collecting and sharing information frequently lack basic scientific rigor, which is needed to create valid and accurate information for public consumption.

This creates a real problem in society. An uninformed public is more dangerous than a misinformed public. People are frequently not digging into the details or critically searching for opposing arguments. Many people, in fact, avoid opposing arguments or viewpoints, and only surround themselves with like-minded discourse on social media. 

However, the media facilitates this current trend in misinformation by broadcasting information that has not undergone critical scientific evaluation. There are many reasons for systematic or methodological bias in the media, but I have found that selection bias is particularly problematic in the media lately. 

"Selection bias" occurs when a researcher pre-selects a group of participants to represent an entire group in a study while ignoring other participants. 

This also creates a moral hazard in journalism and can mislead audiences to make false attributions towards groups of people. 

1 on 1 interviews with citizens and bystanders is inherently subject to this selection bias, which have severe consequences on the validity of the information delivered to the audience. This is not very objective. 

More on selection bias here. 

The information provided by an interviewee can misinform or give the viewers a skewed perception of the entire population and can facilitate false generalizations. 

Here are 2 examples of selection bias regarding the recent "anti-trump" protests: 

1. Fox News, a usually conservative source of media, interviews a protester who appears largely uninformed about the protests. Watch here. 

It is likely this post would resonate well in a conservative viewer base.

These reporters frequently interview a handful of people and air the most "triggering" interview in order to receive more of an emotional response from their viewer base, which is largely conservative. This equates to more views and more profits. 

2. CBC a more "liberal" news source in Canada posts an interview from the same crowd, except this individual responded very eloquently and described the event as a movement that is not in opposition to the result of the election. Read here.

It is likely that this post would resonate well with a more liberal viewer base.

But from a scientific standpoint, we still do not have enough information to generalize this population of people. Currently, we have a sample size of 2 out of approximately 10,000.

But people make these generalizations anyway. The economic drive for TV ratings encourages this style of reporting, which can be misleading and opens the door to discrimination and can perpetuate stereotypes.

Lastly, science and unbiased information is typically dry, boring, and does not always generate good ratings. Emotionally salient or "triggering" information -- regardless of validity -- usually generates more traffic, and thus more ratings.