Ben Goldacre is supercilious and puritanical — but he’s got a point

19 June 2010

Toby Young suffers from Status Anxiety

Even more irritating are those parents concerned about their children being re-infected. One mum cancelled a play date with Freddie, explaining that she couldn’t face the prospect of her son getting chicken pox for a second time. When I told her that 99.9 per cent of people who’ve had chicken pox are safe from re-infection she was completely incredulous. ‘But I’ve had it twice myself,’ she said.

I then embarked on a conversation that I’ve had at least a dozen times since in which I attempted to explain the difference between shingles and chicken pox. Shingles is a skin rash that you can develop if you’ve had chicken pox, but isn’t triggered by exposure to someone infected with the disease. A fairly simple distinction you would have thought, but one that surprisingly few people are able to grasp. The general attitude towards Freddie among most of the parents I know is that he is best avoided even if their children have already had chicken pox.

The defence these parents come up with is that even if the risk of re-infection is infinitesimally small it is still not worth taking if the cost of avoidance is insignificant. It is a similar argument to the one made by parents who don’t want to risk giving their children the MMR vaccine — a particularly detestable group in Ben Goldacre’s eyes. Andrew Wakefield is almost certainly wrong, but why take the chance when the cost and inconvenience of giving your child the vaccines separately is so low?

Anyone who’s studied philosophy will recognise this as Pascal’s Wager and it’s the form of reasoning used by nearly all parents who are risk-averse on behalf of their children. Problem is, it only gives the appearance of being rational. In reality, the probability of a child getting re-infected with chicken pox — or developing autism from the MMR vaccine or being bitten by a fox — is almost zero and, consequently, almost any cost associated with avoiding such risks is too high. Case in point: it costs over £1,000 to vaccinate your children separately for measles, mumps and rubella in a Harley Street clinic.

Having seen my son adversely affected by the public’s poor grasp of the risks associated with chicken pox I can understand where Ben Goldacre gets his prosecutorial zeal from. It’s not people’s ignorance that is so infuriating — that’s excusable — but their conviction that they’re right. After the week I’ve had, I think I’m going to give all my friends a copy of Bad Science for Christmas.