Let me know what you think 

Presumed Problem

It has been asserted that vaccinations, such as flu shots or children’s innoculations are more dangerous than the illnesses they are intended to prevent.

Solution

Stop vaccination programs, especially for kids.

Narrative

It would be impossible to estimate how many human lives have been saved thanks to the research and experimentation of Edward Jenner and Louis Pasteur in their developing the idea and procedures for immunization against diseases through vaccination. When people contract a disease like smallpox or influenza, their bodies set to work creating anti-bodies to counteract the disease. If they are lucky enough to survive the disease, they are subsequently immune to it. Vaccination involves infecting the patient with a very small dose of the disease, leading the patient’s body to create those anti-bodies that will protect against the real thing should the patient later be exposed to it.

You are probably familiar with this process in two ways. First, children in modern societies are routinely vaccinated against such diseases as diphtheria, typhoid, measles, mumps, and rubella among other potential threats. If you are older, you may have formed the habit of getting an annual flu shot and a periodic pneumonia shot. These have become standard fixtures in modern life. (I haven’t had the flu in years.)

There has always been a small degree of resistance to the practice of vaccinations, especially for young children, but that has been a distinctly minority view. Beginning in 2011, however, this resistance gained political currency and some politicians were urging parents to avoid vaccinating their children. In one well-known instance, then-Congresswoman and Republican presidential hopeful Michelle Bachmann reportedly was contacted by a supporter who said her child had developed autism subsequent to being vaccinated. Bachmann concluded from that story that vaccinations may cause autism, and the bandwagon began.

Two years earlier, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, another Republican candidate for President, had ordered that sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against human papilloma virus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer. As the primary campaign heated up, Bachmann had an issue that distinguished her from Perry.

Soon, most politicians were being routinely asked where they stood on childhood vaccination. Many tried to evade the question, often taking the libertarian position that parents should decide for themselves. Senator Rand Paul, M.D., went a step further, reporting that in the Swine Flu scare of 2009, more people died of the shot than of the flu. However, he offered no numbers to flesh out that claim.

Was the Problem Real?

There are so many forms of vaccine used with so many different kinds of people in different situations that it would probably be foolhardy to make global generalizations. However, there has been enough research on the 2009 Swine Flu epidemic that we can test the assertion made by Rand Paul.

During the pandemic itself estimates of deaths varied widely, partly due to a varying quality of medical reporting in different countries. Other factors complicated the accounting. Let’s say you are an older person, coping with a chronic cardiovascular problem. As long as you watch your behavior and take your medication, you get by. However, the flu could very well push you over the edge and into cardiac arrest. The cause of death, then would probably be recorded as heart attack, even though the flu was what prompted your demise. For several years following the pandemic, it was commonly reported that the number of deaths was between 151,700 and 579,000—quite a range.

By 2013, an international group of scientists had evaluated and analyzed all the data available from around the world and concluded that as many as 203,000 people died of the swine flu. As large a number of deaths as that represented, Senator Paul asserted even more died of the flu shots.

Worldwide that year, it is estimated that fewer than 1500 people died of the flu shot, however. In short Dr. Paul’s report was off by more than a factor of more than 100 to 1. In case 1500 deaths worldwide still seems like a lot, it is worth noting that 22,000 Americans died that year due to reactions to presecribed drugs.

Clearly, people were better advised to get vaccinated than to avoid it. The problem he and his colleagues sought to “solve” didn’t exist. However, the “solution” had consequences of its own.

Negative Consequences

Many parents became so confused that they chose what they regarded as the conservative path and withheld vaccinating their children. One consequence was a widespread measles epidemic in California. Not only were schoolchildren suffering the preventable disease but vulnerable populations, such as the very elderly and very young were put at risk.

In the midst of this public health regression, another rumor began to spread. It was said that those who were vaccinated could infect those who were not. The medical community’s response was that (1) it was conceivable but would be extremely rare and (2) if it did happen, the unvaccinated party would “catch the vaccine,” not the disease itself. In other words, they would become vaccinated.

© Earl Babbie 2016, all rights reserved  Terms of Service/Privacy

Sources

Bahar Gholipour, “2009 Swine-Flu Death Toll 10 Times Higher Than Thought,” LiveScience, November 26, 2013 – http://www.livescience.com/41539-2009-swine-flu-death-toll-higher.html – accessed September 24, 2015

The Skeptical Libertarian, “By the Numbers: Did more people die from the swine flu vaccine than from swine flu?” September 16, 2014 — http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2014/09/16/by-the-numbers-did-more-people-die-from-the-swine-flu-vaccine-than-from-swine-flu/ — accessed October 3, 2015

Let me know what you think 

From time to time, I will present some thoughts on Solutions without Problems (soluprobs) as a general phenomenon. For example, they often take the form of “Group Punishment.”

When I have said elsewhere that a problem doesn’t exist, that is sometimes a slight exaggeration. For example, Voter ID laws are designed to prevent in-person election fraud: pretending to be someone else, someone who is eleigible to vote. All the studies of this problem conclude that it is extremely rare, but it does happen in a few cases.

Similarly, a Michigan legislator proposed forcing foster chlldren to purchase clothes from thrift shops as a way of preventing foster parents from spending the children’s clothing allowance on booze. (I was never clear on the logic of that.) He never offered evidence as to how much clothing allowance was being boozed away or whether the problem really existed at all. But let’s be momentarily cyncial and assume it happens sometimes.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume there were NO witches in Colonial Salem, but I think it’s fair to say that many of the other examples discussed on this website are solutions to problems that are RARE but may occur sometimes.

I would suggest there are two reasonable responses to problems that almost never happen.

Option One: ignore them. Life isn’t perfect. No matter how hard we try to prevent problems, a few slip through the cracks–and we survive.

Option Two: track down the specific instances of the rare problem and sanction them. If somebody tries to vote using someone else’s name, arrest them, try them, and put them in prison. If you discover foster parents spending the clothing allowance on booze, arrest them, try them, and put them in prison–at the very least, don’t let them be foster parents.

Make sense? Of course. More commonly, however, when we sense that a problem exists, we establish a “solution” that applies to everyone, the few wrongdoers and the great majority of straight arrows. Everyone has to get a Voter ID card, the vast majority of whom are eligible voters who have never cheated at the polls. What’s the likely impact of this group punishment?

Those who were doing nothing wrong are suddenly burdened with sanctions they don’t deserve. All those foster parents who spent the kids’ clothing allowance on, well, clothing for the kids now face limits on how to do their jobs. They probably have to fill out forms and jump through other hoops. Moreover, they will know that those in government assume they are misusing the funds, when they have been doing nothing but good.

How about those few wrong-doers? Do you think there’s any chance they’ll figure out a way to get around the new rules? Maybe they’ll forge receipts, find thrift store employees who’ll look the other way, etc. Officials who are busy applying the rules to all the innocent foster parents will probably miss the few bad apples.

All this can be avoided easily. Before taking action, measure the problem. See if it’s big enough to deserve a one-size-fits-all solution. If it’s not all that big a problem, ignore it or deal with the few cases that do exist. Don’t punish all the people who are playing by the rules.

© Earl Babbie 2016, all rights reserved  Terms of Service/Privacy

Let me know what you think 

Presumed Problem

The British were boarding American vessels, taking sailors believed to be British, including some Americans, and forcing them into service in the British navy: a practice known as impressment.

Solution

Declare war on the world’s great naval power and make them stop impressing our seamen.

Narrative

The 2003 invasion of Iraq was not the first time the USA used war as the solution to a non-existent problem. For another example, we’ll look at one of America’s oddest wars, one that is little understood by Americans: the War of 1812.

At the opening of the 19th century, Britain was caught up in a long, expensive war with Napoleon Bonaparte and France. America was theoretically neutral, which offended both parties, but American merchantmen were actively supplying France much of the time. Matters were further complicated by divided loyalties among American citizens. For many, England was still felt as their cultural homeland, despite political independence. Others felt a special loyalty to the land of LaFayette for their support of the American fight for independence decades earlier. Still others saw an opportunity for money to be made.

American-British relations became more strained through the policy of impressment. As the French war dragged on, a number of British seamen had decided to desert the British Navy sign on with American ships for better pay and less danger. At the same time, Britain was feeling the pinch of diminishing resources–and the lack of able-bodied seamen was part of the problem. The British solution was to begin boarding American commercial ships at sea and capturing any crew members who seemed to be British–including some American citizens. The captured seamen were impressed into service on British ships of the line. American unhappiness with Britain also involved economic issues, but outrage at the impressment of American seamen was a powerful rallying cry.

The British policy of stopping American merchantmen at sea, which laid the grounding for inspecting the crews and seizing any believed to be British, was known as “Orders in Council,” first enacted on January 7, 1807. American official protests to Britain were to no avail, and the British continued stopping American commercial vessels at sea and impressing any seamen who looked and sounded British. President James Madison became convinced that more deliberate action was needed, and he lobbied Congress for a declaration of war against the most powerful nation on earth. Congress was reluctant, but Madison’s urging finally paid off with a divided vote in his favor, and he was able to sign a declaration of war on June 18, 1812.

The war that followed was not America’s most gallant. Initially, Britain ignored the declaration of war as something of a farce. America’s navy was hardly a threat to the British fleet. America decided to make the war more real through several invasions of Canada. All failed, despite a relative lack of support from Britain for the locals. Canadians celebrate the War of 1812 as their own War for Independence. Americans were the bad guys in that version of the war.

Once the British had defeated Napoleon’s troops in Europe, they were able to turn their attention to the annoying fuss across the pond. As you may recall, the British invaded Maryland, marched to the nation’s capital in Washington, trashed the city and burned the White House. You may have read about FLOTUS Dolly Madison’s heroism as she stayed in the White House until she was able to rescue important documents and paintings–fleeing the city just ahead of the British firebugs.

So, all things considered, the war wasn’t going really well for the Americans. But I’m sure you know of the one shining exception: thanks in large part to singer Johnny Horton. The Battle of New Orleans, culminating on January 8, 1815, was America’s finest engagement in the war. Overwhelming British forces under the command of the great British general, Edward Pakenham, faced off against General Andrew Jackson and a smaller, less professional, less experienced American force.

The final score sheet for the battle was as lopsided as such things can be. The British lost 2600 men: 700 of them died in battle, 1400 were wounded, and another 500 were taken prisoner. On the other side, 7 Americans died and another 6 were wounded.

Another oddity about the January 8th, 1815, battle had to do with timing. Being fought 167 years before the advent of the internet, 110 years before television, and 43 years before the transatlantic telegraph cable, the Battle of New Orleans was fought two weeks after the Peace Treaty of Ghent ended the war.

.

Was the Problem Real?

What qualifies the War of 1812 for inclusion in this project? While the practice of impressment had been a “recruitment” policy for the British navy for centuries, American Independence saw treaty procedures for the return of any Americans falsely impressed in the belief that they were British. (The common language and lack of formal birth certificates made some degree of erroneous impressment inevitable.) John Deeben argues that the size of the problem was much less than commonly imagined. Moreover, he offers federal archival evidence that the United States was also impressing seamen into service and, like the British, made mistakes as regards the nationality of their new recruits.

In June, 1812, in response to American complaints, Britain repealed the “Orders in Council” that allowed them to board American ships at sea. Two days later, James Madison signed the declaration of war. Obviously the U. S. did not know about the suspension of the Orders until after war had been declared, but it was known before serious fighting began.

All historians seem to agree that the British stopped the practice of impressment altogether upon the defeat of Napoleon in 1814. Thus, the presumed cause of the war had completely disappeared prior to the invasion of Maryland, the burning of Washington, and the Battle of New Orleans. While impressment, real and imagined, may have been a key problem for which war was the intended solution, it ceased as a problem before the war commenced and was surely not a problem that could be solved by the most dramatic events of the war.

Negative Consequences

Well, let’s see: the British burned the White House and most of Washington. There was expense, destruction, and loss of life throughout the young nation.

While Britain may have learned to take the USA a little more seriously, Canada learned not to. Any visions the Americans had for annexing their northern neighbors were dashed in the War of 1812.

I mentioned earlier that President Madison had some trouble getting Congressional approval for the way, and the division of opinion was largely regional. New England was generally opposed, and the war’s conclusion left some bitter feelings on both sides of the issue. To some degree, the Southern hawks viewed Northern opposition as disloyalty to the nation.

The South suffered in another way. Prior to the war, they were able to maintain a view that their slaves were contented with their status. However, when the British offered freedom to any slaves who would join them, and many slaves deserted their masters and did precisely that. What must have been a disappointment to slaveholders was a preview to a similar disenchantment later on,  in the Civil War.

Compared to other American wars, the negative consequences of the War of 1812 were relatively mild, but we need to remember it was a solution to a problem that didn’t really exist.

© Earl Babbie 2016, all rights reserved  Terms of Service/Privacy

Sources

An excellent history of the War of 1812 is Troy Bickham’s The Weight of Vengeance: The United States, the British Empire, and the War of 1812, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Consequences of the War of 1812

Let me know what you think 

Presumed Problem

Women seeking abortions in abortion clinics face special risks to their health and safety.

Solution

Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) Laws seek to remedy the presumed problem by requiring that clinics satisfy major physical-plant specifications and requiring that those physicians providing abortions have admitting privileges at a local hospital.

Narrative

In 1973, the U. S. Supreme Court legalized abortion throughout the nation in its landmark Roe v. Wade decision. While that brought about profound changes for women’s reproductive rights, it probably changed very few minds on the topic. Resistance to abortion has persisted and numerous legislative actions have sought to chip away at women’s right to choose an abortion.

One form this resistance has taken is the TRAP laws that raise the bar to practice so high that few clinics can satisfy the requirements. The Guttmacher Institute provides an overview.

Was the Problem Real?

There has evidently been a substantial concern for the safety of women getting an abortion. Has that concern and the resulting solutions been justified?

As the Center for Reproductive Rights reports:

Leading medical associations have gone on record opposing TRAP requirements. For example, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) oppose a Texas law requiring abortion facilities to meet ambulatory surgical facilities requirements and physicians providing abortion services to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. In a court brief, those two leading medical associations argued that the Texas law “does not serve the health of women in Texas but instead jeopardizes women’s health by restricting access to abortion providers.”

While it is often argued that women’s safety requires that abortion clinics and abortion providers have admitting privileges at local hospitals in the event that emergency medical care is needed. Actually, President Reagan and the U. S. Congress solved this problem in its Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986, requiring that emergency rooms treat patients in need–even if they aren’t citizens or are unable to pay. It doesn’t matter if their physician has admitting privileges or even if they have a physician.

The argument that TRAP laws have nothing to do with women’s safety and are merely an attempt to prevent them from getting abortions has been given additional support  by the pronouncements of various anti-abortion crusaders.

Mississippi Governor Bryant heralded the passage of his state’s TRAP laws as “the first step in a movement, I believe, to do what we campaigned on: to say that we’re going to try to end abortion in Mississippi.” The law was later blocked by a federal judge, who pointed out that no case had been made regarding women’s health and safety.

Ironically, abortions can pose a threat to the health and safety of women, as this graph from the Guttmacher Institute dramatically shows.

 

Negative Consequences

I’ve just alluded to a major problem flowing from the unnecessary TRAP laws: to the extent that shutting down legal abortion providers will force some women to seek truly dangerous alternatives. Thus alleged attempts to protect women will endanger them.

For women who try to adapt to the restrictive circumstances they now face, there will be necessary time and financial costs. Single mothers working low-paying jobs, for example, may need to take time off work to drive a hundred or so miles for consultation and then again, later, for treatment.

The clear effect of TRAP laws in Texas and elsewhere is to make it harder for women to obtain safe, legal abortions. A study by the University of Texas at Austin, summarized the logistical difficulty for Texas women this way:

Researchers analyzed surveys from 398 women seeking abortions at ten Texas abortion facilities between May and August 2014. The analysis shows that women whose nearest clinic had closed after HB2, which was the case for 38 percent of study participants, lived farther from open clinics and traveled longer distances to obtain services compared to women whose nearest clinic remained open. After HB2, the average one-way distance to the nearest abortion provider among women whose nearest clinic closed was 70 miles, compared to an average one-way distance to the nearest clinic of 17 miles before HB2 was passed. Some women confronted extreme travel burdens due to clinic closures, with 25 percent of women whose nearest clinic closed living more than 139 miles from the nearest facility and 10 percent living more than 256 miles away.

However, the Texas TRAP laws were not just inconvenient for women but expensive as well.

The study also documented increased out-of-pocket costs, overnight stays, and frustrated demand for medication abortion among women whose nearest clinic closed after HB2. Thirty-two percent of women whose nearest clinic closed reported spending more than $100 in out-of-pocket expenses beyond the cost of the abortion (i.e., lost wages, child care, transportation, or overnight costs) as opposed to 20 percent of women whose nearest clinic did not close. More than three times the number of women whose nearest clinic had closed reported needing to stay overnight (16 percent compared to 5 percent among those whose nearest clinic did not close). Thirty-seven percent of women whose nearest clinic closed did not get the medication abortion they wanted—instead scheduling a surgical procedure—as opposed to 22 percent of women whose nearest clinic did not close. Women themselves noted the burdens to obtaining care, with 36 percent of women whose nearest clinic closed reporting that obtaining an abortion was difficult, in comparison to 18 percent in the nearest-clinic-open group.

This is also a truly ironic negative consequence of many of the TRAP laws. Much of the anti-abortion anger has been focused specifically on one provider: Planned Parenthood. Discussions of this matter have revealed that abortions constitute three percent of PP’s services. Primarily they offer cancer screening and other medcal exams and treatments. As their name suggests, much of their work is in relation to family planning, offering a variety of contraceptive methods.

As Planned Parenthood clinics are closed by TRAP laws, women are denied contraceptive support. The lack of contraception results in more unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. This means more women are in the market for abortions. The Guttmacher Institute has estimated that publicly-funded family planning in the U. S. annually prevents nearly two million wanted pregnancies that would have resulted in 810,000 abortions.  Thus, closing family planning clinics will likely increase the number of abortions.

If one were to argue honestly that the real problem being addressed was women’s ability to obtain abortions as guaranteed by the Supreme Court, TRAP laws would be a logical though unlawful solution. However, the pretense that the problem involves risks to women’s safety in abortion clinics is plainly false.

© Earl Babbie 2016, all rights reserved  Terms of Service/Privacy

Sources

“State Policies in Brief, as of March 4, 2016: Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers”  – accessed March 19, 2016 http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_TRAP.pdf

Let me know what you think 

Want to help make the fight against SoluProbs a reality? As this website  is being launched in late-April, 2016, it should be regarded as a Beta version of what it will become, and your help is needed for it to evolve. (I’m asking for your ideas, not your money.)

Welcome aboard. Here are ways to help. 

First, listed at the bottom of this page are some SoluProbs I am considering for future posts. Your observations, knowledge, and comments about any are encouraged and welcomed. Your input can make a difference helping to shape our articles and spread the word.

Second, I am especially interested in identifying SoluProbs that have escaped my attention. I know they are out there. I encourage you to suggest new SoluProbs with a Comment at the bottom of this page, or make a more structured suggestion, using the Join the SoluProbs Team section provided in the right column of this page.  Join our growing team and help spread the word. Your participation in this growing community makes a difference, and is welcomed.

Third, if you want to try your hand at drafting a SoluProbs article, or just provide the details to the degree you are aware of them, the outline to the right provides the format that helps pull it all together. Using the outline, remember the key elements of a SoluProb are:

• A presumed problem, such as voter impersonation in polling places that, in truth, is not a real problem.
• A solution to the presumed problem, such as Voter ID laws.
• Empirical evidence that the “problem” does/did not exist, such as the several studies indicating voter impersonation in polling places almost never happens. Empirical evidence matters, a pillar of our principled approach to raising awareness.
• A background narrative, that provides context, history, and  discussion of the presumed problem that led up to the “solution,” how, when, and where the “solution was implemented, and anything else that fleshes out the story to help readers make sense of it.  And finally…
• Negative consequences of the “solution.” This is the meat that matters, why it is important for all of us to raise our cultural awareness that ultimately affects public policy decisions that can help or harm society. Identifying the true, often horrifying consequences to individuals and society is necessary to reach inside of people, have them care, and take action that brings forward more enlightened, constructive, and healing social policy.

Any Comments you make will be automatically posted. I will review your more extensive submissions and, as appropriate, post exactly what you submitted or ask if you are interested in co-authoring a more extensive treatment.

Subscription: If you would like to stay in touch with this discussion, please use the subscription form to sign up for periodic notices.

Working together, I am confident we can shame this lunacy into remission, help our society Stop Shooting at Ghosts, and bring about more enlightened, constructive public policy.   

If you have any questions, just ask. If you want to share your thoughts or throw yourself into a SoluProbs article, go for it. Welcome aboard and thank you for taking action. Tell your friends. 

So I invite your participation and partnership. For now, here are some of the SoluProbs I am considering and/or working on.

Presumed Problem: Vietnam attacked the American Navy at Tonkin Bay

SoluProb: Vietnam Escalation by USA

Presumed Problem:  Mexicans and others are pouring over our Southern border

SoluProb: The Trump Wall

Presumed Problem: If women enjoy sex, they will be promiscuous

SoluProb: Female Genital Mutilation

Presumed Problem: Terrorists will enter the USA pretending to be refugees

SoluProb: Block Syrian Refugees

Presumed Problem: Foster Parents use clothing allowances for drugs

SoluProb: Make Foster Kids use thrift shops

Presumed Problem: The Federal government is dictating what students should learn

SoluProb: Dump Common Core

Again, your thoughts and further participation with these soluprobs and any that I have not yet identified, are welcomed. Together, we can help our society and its public policy makers stop chasing ghosts and ease the enormous human suffering these misguided “solutions” cause.   

© Earl Babbie 2016, all rights reserved  Terms of Service/Privacy