Skeptical reporter @ 2013-04-19

Skeptical Reporter for April 19th, 2013 Almost 80,000 Australian children are not immunized against deadly diseases, and the highest number live in Sydney's west. Experts say the "baby Einstein" demographic - parents who take an intensive interest in their children's education and health, eat organic food and use alternative medicines - is responsible. Sydney's west has an immunization rate of 90 per cent for five-year-olds but last financial year was home to 3.600 children who were not fully immunized. In wealthy Manly, Mosman and eastern Sydney, however, fewer than 85 per cent of children are immunized in some age groups. The figures are contained in a National Health Performance Authority report. The World Health Organization says immunization rates for measles must be above 93 per cent to prevent its spread. Immunization expert Julie Leask says parents who perform extensive research and are often suspicious of medicine are more likely to object to vaccination. "I think what these figures say is... you can't rely on herd immunity in your region," the University of Sydney academic said. Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture announced that it will be extending the deadline for applications for this year's two intensive nine-day seminars on science, society and intelligent design for college and graduate students. The official deadline fell on April 15th, but applications will still be accepted through Monday, April 22nd. The Center’s seminars are free, but it still has not managed to attract a sufficient number of students. The first study track, the Seminar on Intelligent Design in the Natural Sciences, will prepare students to make research contributions advancing the growing science of intelligent design, according to the description. The second study track, the C.S. Lewis Fellows Program on Science and Society, will explore the growing impact of science on politics, economics, social policy, bioethics, theology, and the arts. In the United States, the Tampa Bay Times won a Pulitzer Prize for the nith time for a series of editorials last year by Tim Nickens and Daniel Ruth after the Pinellas County Commission moved to stop putting fluoride in the drinking water, affecting the dental health of 700,000 people in the county. As Nickens and Ruth wrote in the last of the 10 editorials submitted for the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing, "It took nearly 14 months, an election and the clarion voice of PinellasCounty voters to persuade county commissioners to correct a serious error in judgment". And the newly reconstituted commission quickly moved to vote to restore fluoride to the water system. Here is what the Pulitzer nominating letter said: “In October 2011, the Pinellas County Commission turned back the clock. The commission, pressured by antifluoride zealots and tea party conservatives, abruptly voted to stop adding fluoride to the drinking water. The commissioners ignored established science and the public health, and in January 2012 the Pinellas water system suddenly became one of the nation’s largest without fluoridated water. More than 700,000 residents no longer benefited from what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls one of the nation’s greatest health care advances. The Tampa Bay Times editorial board went on mission to correct this travesty. With original reporting and persuasive arguments, Tim Nickens and Dan Ruth educated readers and delivered a clarion call for action on behalf of those who need fluoridated water the most: the poor families and the children of Pinellas County”. In Great Britain, the GP and Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston is calling on homeopathy's governing bodies to make it clear to parents that their alternative remedies will not protect children from measles outbreaks. Large numbers of children have not had the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, largely because of the scare that followed the publication of research by Andrew Wak...