Deaf Dogs Tragedy
Hoaxes, Marketing, Errrors or Fraud?
Although the lessons relate to difficulties convincing the public to understand and use the benefits of research, they apply to other factual, ethical and moral concerns.
“On one hand” –
US exploitive marketing using “scare-stories” weren’t imagination. Deaf-dogs scare-stories in books and on the Web weren’t imaginary. The US Deaf-dogs Tragedy, continuing 30 years, was a “confluence” of events:
1) Inbreeding after centuries led to more frequent deafness and blindness
2) The fundamentally flawed BAER concept offered immense profits with few risks if ordinary owners of dogs could be frightened with scare-stories into testing their dogs
3) Puppy-mills (puppy mills were documented by the Humane Society)
a. Scare-stories obstructed selling of deaf dogs by puppy-mills
b. Scare-stories caused flooding of deaf dogs into rescues, shelters and fosters
c. Scare-stories encouraged killing of puppies by puppy mills and Breed Clubs
4) Breed Club and AKC persons plaisibly benefited from inbreeding, scare-stories, BAER testing, and killing deaf dogs/puppies
5) US researchers probably participated in fostering and concealing the tragedy while profiting from BAER and PTS (put to sleep)/ disposal of deaf-dogs
6) US media participated in fostering the tragedy (see data on mercury-vaccines hoax, following)
7) Internet organizations members, including some moderators, probably participated in and profited from the scare-stories tragedy
Posted Web-pages summarized an American (US) deaf-dogs tragedy:
- Pure-breed excessive inbreeding for “flashy coats” often with much white probably led to increased numbers of deaf dogs.
- Flawed BAER Concept
- Social Stigma Scare-stories helped sell BAER tests, PTS and disposal of deaf dogs
- BAER Business (and deaf dog PTS-disposal) Opportunities
- Misrepresenting and wildly exagerating the risks of dog deafness ~ Probably the primary origins of Scare Stories
Facts against Scare-Stories-Myths
Investigated Scare-Stories and Myths
- Deaf Dogs Fable of the Tragedy (an over-view)
- “Your Story”
“On the Other hand” --
Conversely, vital to rational understanding of the events: why were there no scare-stories about blind dogs, blind-deaf dogs, arthritic old dogs and so forth - that were as likely as deaf dogs to the sorts of behavior as mistreated deaf-dogs of research labs and puppy mills? [Ref. S. Coren, 2004]
Discussion
The existence of the US deaf dogs’ tragedy was readily verifiable by data posted on the Web through 2010, including the DCA "REDBOOK" of 1994 still in force, and available in bookstores (such as Amazon.com). The absence of data and scare-stories, that on technical grounds ought to be indistinguishable from the deaf-dogs scare-stories, about blind, blind-deaf, arthritic, and geriatric dogs, was dramatic evidence that the deaf-dogs scare stories were artificially created for marketing and profit- with participation by several organizations and persons who practically identified themselves to the public by 2012.
The use of scare-stories for profit and marketing in the US, and world-wide, was described extensively at various places on the Internet. Three were selected as illustrations and summarized here.
1) Commercial Marketing[1] - Artificial Social Stigmas[2], for example:
a. Whisk’s Ring around the collar, 1968; stigma: sweating laboring lower classes
b. Chinese dandruff ~ [… created a perception that dandruff – formerly a nonissue for Chinese -- as a social stigma: offered a product (Head & Shoulders antidandruff shampoo) to 'solve' it.]
Bruce Link and Jo Phelan indicated that stigmatizing groups can provoke explicit discrimination, [“Conceptualizing Stigma,”] and stigmas breed self-censorship.
2) Radon-scare: A Federal Spinoff: $12 to $15 billion US Market
[… December 4, 1970 the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency… two days after staff... <http://www.epa.gov/history/origins.htm>] When the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Surgeon General published a public health advisory about radon gas, the Radon detection businesses “sky-rocketed” in 1988. (The natural radioactive gas can seep into homes, and the EPA supposed that radon gas caused significant cancers risks. Although the data heavily implicated tobacco smoking as the primary cause of the lung cancers, at that time the EPA was unable to regulate tobacco smoking.) The following radon scare created business opportunities for the radon detection industry. With more than 50 percent of up to $15 billion nationwide, a company spokesman of a $20 million organization, in a 1988 article: "We're ready to ride it ..." Detecting radon gas was simple in homes through “better” units. One business’s revenues the next year grew with its radon kits: a 31 percent increase. In 1990, public anxiety about household radon fell, quickly and severely.
3) Vaccine-Autism scare [3]: Complex Conflicts of Interest
a. About 1997 the US vaccine scare apparently began. A government bill called for the FDA to inventory in its regulated items all possible sources of mercury. The inventory came when there were increased numbers of injections that children were receiving. FDA found that children were exposed to more than expected amounts of ethyl mercury. They applied the “precautionary principle” and urged to eliminate use of mercury, done by 2001. In the hands of interested parties, actions to reassure were alleged as disclosures of problems.
b. Coincidentally at nearly the same moment there was a vaccine scare in the UK. W__ published a claimed link between the MMR vaccine (that had no mercury) and autism. W__ was charged with research improprieties and conflicts of interest, and the original results could not be confirmed. Measles cases rose.
c. Advocates who were linking vaccines and autism demanded the scientific community follow them down a “mine-shaft” of potential fears. As the research community replied with evaluations of ideas, the skeptics replied with threats. Skeptics used procedures of the scientific community against science. An advocacy group (including a probable marketing consultant) published in a journal: "an unconventional journal that welcomed even probably untrue papers.'" A MD without disclosing the case involved his daughter, and that he was pursuing the case in the US vaccine court, wrote a report. Some anti-science skeptics offered improbable autism ideas while profiting from alleged "cures". // PLoS Biology, 2009. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000114
By 2002 evidence showed that the MMR didn’t cause autism. It was noticed that ___ earned over 400,000 as an expert witness for preparing a lawsuit for autistic children’s parents. He apparently had a patent on a vaccine he developed just before calling for ending the existing vaccines. He was found guilty, following investigative journalism by Brian Deer of The Sunday Times, of unethical behavior, needlessly doing invasive tests on autistic children, and bribing children for samples. After the conflict-of-interest and unethical research findings the Lancet retracted its original article. ….
Some Lessons learned:
The research community hurt its credibility by allowing researchers and doctors to obtain money from profit-seeking companies and power-seeking organizations or people. Those actions were not directly related to vaccines, but led to a sense of corruption and lost trust - - many people treated research findings as news of political options, of personal concern only. They had begun to view public health experts as opinion sources. …
The mercury-vaccine scare surfaced a vital problem in the mis-reporting of science by US media. So-called archive public record national newspapers who claimed to have in-house “fact-checkers,” and other media, reported on the Lancet article sooner or later. For years, media pumped up nearly all hints of risks, and neglected meta-research and reports that confirmed none alleged were real. While rational business decisions for marketing news-space, eye-balls and advertising, it was ethically and morally inexcusable.
Further, a media compulsion for the appearance of “balance” can be to blame. “Balance” means the giving of equal weight (regardless of merit of the facts) to opposing opinions. This can work in political journalism, but for research, engineering and other science concerns it typically has one person, an expert in the field who “agrees with biology and physics science” –– and a zealous “opposite” one - often a crackpot or conspiracy theorist. The two views rarely or perhaps never have equal value. But it formed an appearance of objectivity –a shortcut liked by journalists. It is dangerous and inadequate. At the time the research community wasn’t ready to withstand the issue in the popular media. Reporters allegedly often mis-presented research issues with the same "voting-balance" they used for political ones, though it's badly inappropriate [Try voting on the existence of the Law of Gravity – gravity will pay no attention to the outcome of a vote !].
Lessons related to difficulties convincing the public to understand and use the benefits of medical research probably apply to other research and science factual, ethical and moral concerns.
[1] < http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/126/a-dirty-shame.html>; Downloaded Apr 2011; TOP 100 ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS OF THE CENTURY, By Bob Garfield
[2] < Dirty Marketing Campaigns <http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/126/a-dirty-shame.html> By: Dan & Chip HeathJune 1, 2008 ; Downloaded Apr 2011
[3] See: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/05/unravelling-the-history-of-the-vaccine-autism-scare.ars ; “Unraveling the history of the vaccine-autism scare”; By John Timmer | Last updated May 27, 2009 2:08 PM and http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tomchivers/100008226/mmr-autism-scare-so-farewell-then-dr-andrew-wakefield/; “MMR – autism scare: so, farewell then, Dr Andrew Wakefield”; By Tom Chivers Last updated: May 24th, 2010
To go to the page TOP click here
Although the lessons relate to difficulties convincing the public to understand and use the benefits of research, they apply to other factual, ethical and moral concerns.
“On one hand” –
US exploitive marketing using “scare-stories” weren’t imagination. Deaf-dogs scare-stories in books and on the Web weren’t imaginary. The US Deaf-dogs Tragedy, continuing 30 years, was a “confluence” of events:
1) Inbreeding after centuries led to more frequent deafness and blindness
2) The fundamentally flawed BAER concept offered immense profits with few risks if ordinary owners of dogs could be frightened with scare-stories into testing their dogs
3) Puppy-mills (puppy mills were documented by the Humane Society)
a. Scare-stories obstructed selling of deaf dogs by puppy-mills
b. Scare-stories caused flooding of deaf dogs into rescues, shelters and fosters
c. Scare-stories encouraged killing of puppies by puppy mills and Breed Clubs
4) Breed Club and AKC persons plaisibly benefited from inbreeding, scare-stories, BAER testing, and killing deaf dogs/puppies
5) US researchers probably participated in fostering and concealing the tragedy while profiting from BAER and PTS (put to sleep)/ disposal of deaf-dogs
6) US media participated in fostering the tragedy (see data on mercury-vaccines hoax, following)
7) Internet organizations members, including some moderators, probably participated in and profited from the scare-stories tragedy
Posted Web-pages summarized an American (US) deaf-dogs tragedy:
- Pure-breed excessive inbreeding for “flashy coats” often with much white probably led to increased numbers of deaf dogs.
- Flawed BAER Concept
- Social Stigma Scare-stories helped sell BAER tests, PTS and disposal of deaf dogs
- BAER Business (and deaf dog PTS-disposal) Opportunities
- Misrepresenting and wildly exagerating the risks of dog deafness ~ Probably the primary origins of Scare Stories
Facts against Scare-Stories-Myths
Investigated Scare-Stories and Myths
- Deaf Dogs Fable of the Tragedy (an over-view)
- “Your Story”
“On the Other hand” --
Conversely, vital to rational understanding of the events: why were there no scare-stories about blind dogs, blind-deaf dogs, arthritic old dogs and so forth - that were as likely as deaf dogs to the sorts of behavior as mistreated deaf-dogs of research labs and puppy mills? [Ref. S. Coren, 2004]
Discussion
The existence of the US deaf dogs’ tragedy was readily verifiable by data posted on the Web through 2010, including the DCA "REDBOOK" of 1994 still in force, and available in bookstores (such as Amazon.com). The absence of data and scare-stories, that on technical grounds ought to be indistinguishable from the deaf-dogs scare-stories, about blind, blind-deaf, arthritic, and geriatric dogs, was dramatic evidence that the deaf-dogs scare stories were artificially created for marketing and profit- with participation by several organizations and persons who practically identified themselves to the public by 2012.
The use of scare-stories for profit and marketing in the US, and world-wide, was described extensively at various places on the Internet. Three were selected as illustrations and summarized here.
1) Commercial Marketing[1] - Artificial Social Stigmas[2], for example:
a. Whisk’s Ring around the collar, 1968; stigma: sweating laboring lower classes
b. Chinese dandruff ~ [… created a perception that dandruff – formerly a nonissue for Chinese -- as a social stigma: offered a product (Head & Shoulders antidandruff shampoo) to 'solve' it.]
Bruce Link and Jo Phelan indicated that stigmatizing groups can provoke explicit discrimination, [“Conceptualizing Stigma,”] and stigmas breed self-censorship.
2) Radon-scare: A Federal Spinoff: $12 to $15 billion US Market
[… December 4, 1970 the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency… two days after staff... <http://www.epa.gov/history/origins.htm>] When the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Surgeon General published a public health advisory about radon gas, the Radon detection businesses “sky-rocketed” in 1988. (The natural radioactive gas can seep into homes, and the EPA supposed that radon gas caused significant cancers risks. Although the data heavily implicated tobacco smoking as the primary cause of the lung cancers, at that time the EPA was unable to regulate tobacco smoking.) The following radon scare created business opportunities for the radon detection industry. With more than 50 percent of up to $15 billion nationwide, a company spokesman of a $20 million organization, in a 1988 article: "We're ready to ride it ..." Detecting radon gas was simple in homes through “better” units. One business’s revenues the next year grew with its radon kits: a 31 percent increase. In 1990, public anxiety about household radon fell, quickly and severely.
3) Vaccine-Autism scare [3]: Complex Conflicts of Interest
a. About 1997 the US vaccine scare apparently began. A government bill called for the FDA to inventory in its regulated items all possible sources of mercury. The inventory came when there were increased numbers of injections that children were receiving. FDA found that children were exposed to more than expected amounts of ethyl mercury. They applied the “precautionary principle” and urged to eliminate use of mercury, done by 2001. In the hands of interested parties, actions to reassure were alleged as disclosures of problems.
b. Coincidentally at nearly the same moment there was a vaccine scare in the UK. W__ published a claimed link between the MMR vaccine (that had no mercury) and autism. W__ was charged with research improprieties and conflicts of interest, and the original results could not be confirmed. Measles cases rose.
c. Advocates who were linking vaccines and autism demanded the scientific community follow them down a “mine-shaft” of potential fears. As the research community replied with evaluations of ideas, the skeptics replied with threats. Skeptics used procedures of the scientific community against science. An advocacy group (including a probable marketing consultant) published in a journal: "an unconventional journal that welcomed even probably untrue papers.'" A MD without disclosing the case involved his daughter, and that he was pursuing the case in the US vaccine court, wrote a report. Some anti-science skeptics offered improbable autism ideas while profiting from alleged "cures". // PLoS Biology, 2009. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000114
By 2002 evidence showed that the MMR didn’t cause autism. It was noticed that ___ earned over 400,000 as an expert witness for preparing a lawsuit for autistic children’s parents. He apparently had a patent on a vaccine he developed just before calling for ending the existing vaccines. He was found guilty, following investigative journalism by Brian Deer of The Sunday Times, of unethical behavior, needlessly doing invasive tests on autistic children, and bribing children for samples. After the conflict-of-interest and unethical research findings the Lancet retracted its original article. ….
Some Lessons learned:
The research community hurt its credibility by allowing researchers and doctors to obtain money from profit-seeking companies and power-seeking organizations or people. Those actions were not directly related to vaccines, but led to a sense of corruption and lost trust - - many people treated research findings as news of political options, of personal concern only. They had begun to view public health experts as opinion sources. …
The mercury-vaccine scare surfaced a vital problem in the mis-reporting of science by US media. So-called archive public record national newspapers who claimed to have in-house “fact-checkers,” and other media, reported on the Lancet article sooner or later. For years, media pumped up nearly all hints of risks, and neglected meta-research and reports that confirmed none alleged were real. While rational business decisions for marketing news-space, eye-balls and advertising, it was ethically and morally inexcusable.
Further, a media compulsion for the appearance of “balance” can be to blame. “Balance” means the giving of equal weight (regardless of merit of the facts) to opposing opinions. This can work in political journalism, but for research, engineering and other science concerns it typically has one person, an expert in the field who “agrees with biology and physics science” –– and a zealous “opposite” one - often a crackpot or conspiracy theorist. The two views rarely or perhaps never have equal value. But it formed an appearance of objectivity –a shortcut liked by journalists. It is dangerous and inadequate. At the time the research community wasn’t ready to withstand the issue in the popular media. Reporters allegedly often mis-presented research issues with the same "voting-balance" they used for political ones, though it's badly inappropriate [Try voting on the existence of the Law of Gravity – gravity will pay no attention to the outcome of a vote !].
Lessons related to difficulties convincing the public to understand and use the benefits of medical research probably apply to other research and science factual, ethical and moral concerns.
[1] < http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/126/a-dirty-shame.html>; Downloaded Apr 2011; TOP 100 ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS OF THE CENTURY, By Bob Garfield
[2] < Dirty Marketing Campaigns <http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/126/a-dirty-shame.html> By: Dan & Chip HeathJune 1, 2008 ; Downloaded Apr 2011
[3] See: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/05/unravelling-the-history-of-the-vaccine-autism-scare.ars ; “Unraveling the history of the vaccine-autism scare”; By John Timmer | Last updated May 27, 2009 2:08 PM and http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tomchivers/100008226/mmr-autism-scare-so-farewell-then-dr-andrew-wakefield/; “MMR – autism scare: so, farewell then, Dr Andrew Wakefield”; By Tom Chivers Last updated: May 24th, 2010
To go to the page TOP click here