Lab 1 Assessment Questions PDF

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Laboratory Assessment 2

Name: Olivia Pandola Date: 9/2/19

LAB 2: Scientific Method in Veit’s Woods Each week, before leaving lab, have your instructor initial the space provided at the top of the assessment sheet to indicate that he/she has checked your completion of the laboratory exercises. There may also be areas indicated in the lab that have specific checks that will be counted toward your assessment or include part of the work involved during lab. Often there will also be questions that will be answered after lab has been completed. Therefore, it is important that you all work together and individually you are responsible for following and understanding the lab before you leave. ALL LAB ASSESSMENTS MUST BE COMPLETED INDIVIDUALLY, USING YOUR OWN WORDS.

When you are finished, answer the following questions to be handed in on BlackBoard. 1. Discuss your overall evaluation of both sources (Article 1 and Article 2), focusing on the general websites not the articles. Were you able to identify any echo chamber evidence or clickbait headlines with either? Describe what you found for each, including specific evidence: Regarding whether either article provided evidence of echo chamber or clickbait headlines, the first article stuck out more than the second. With a title as bold as “Vaccines Kill More People Than Sharks, Alligators, Bears, Snakes And Spiders Combined”, it definitely grabs the attention and thus, serves the purpose of a clickbait headline. Moreover, the source of Article 1 definitely services an echo chamber community, considering the website addresses other skeptical topics. These include “harmful medicine”, “toxic chemicals” and “toxic ingredients”. 2. Describe the credentials (degrees, awards, experience) for the authors of both articles that we evaluated. Which author do you believe has more credibility? Explain your answer, using their credentials as evidence: As for which article has the more credible author, the second article from the Washington Post fits the bill much better. The author for the first article from Vaccine News, D. Samuelson, really has no credentials or biography online. After doing some research, other articles this author has written all relate to antivaccine materials, such as A healthy, 9-year old Florida girl was paralyzed by the flu shot and Flu deaths keep mounting in people vaccinated against the flu. However, the author for the second article, Lena H. Sun, appears much more qualified. Not only is her educational background verified, but research also goes to show the numerous awards and honors she has received for her work throughout her career. According to the Post, Lena H. Sun attended both Cornell and Columbia University and has achieved a Pulitzer Prize as well as a Robert F. Kennedy journalism award relating to her field. 3. Based on your first Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System search, how many VAERS reported deaths were there in 2015? Compare this to Claim 1, the vaccines.news article statement that the VAERS source attributes 5,000 deaths to vaccines annually; is this accurate? Explain your answer: Compared to Claim 1 from the first article, research from VAER validates that there were significantly fewer vaccine-related deaths in 2015 than claimed by Vaccine News author D. Samuelson. Evidently, there were only 118 deaths

recorded in relation to this cause. However, this is a large difference from the 5,000 reported in the first article. Therefore, the data for vaccine-related deaths from the first article is completely exaggerated and inaccurate. 4. Describe each claim that you found within each article (Article 1 and Article 2) that didn’t have a citation that you thought should have (quote the articles). Explain why you think each claim doesn’t have a citation, and why you think it needs one. If you weren’t able to find a claim that wasn’t cited, state this: After reviewing both articles, I personally could not find any piece of information in the second article that required further citation. In comparison to this, the first article from Vaccine News has a plethora of information that needs to be cited. For one, the cover photo for the article doesn’t have a source. While this may not seem as pressing as a quote, this still presses the issue of potentially stolen imagery that this website is using for their own gain without giving credit to the proper source. As for a direct quote, the article claims “VAERS data constitutes as little as 10% of actual injury and death cases, the annual death rate from vaccines swells to about 39,000”. With no source to prove this, it is safe to assume that the information at hand is both fabricated and exaggerated from the truth, thus why a source is dismissed. The author most likely is trying to prevent consumers from fact-checking their claims and debunking their article. However, with such a large claim, there should be credentials provided for the public to review should they actually be considering this information when making health-related decisions. In like manner, the first article also states. “You are more than 200 times more likely to suffer mortality following a government-recommended shot... than you are dying from… aforementioned animals.” As previously stated, this quote has no source to back it up but certainly deserves one in order to help consumers make well-informed decisions regarding their health. 5. As you may have noticed during your investigation, the VAERS website contains a lot of information, including background, disclaimers, and caveats to the database. One such example reads “A report to VAERS does not mean that the vaccine caused the adverse event, only that the adverse event occurred sometime after vaccination.” What does this mean? How does this contribute to or change your approach to interpreting VAERS data?: VAER’s claim surrounding potential flaws with their database is not very concerning. In fact, it makes complete sense. The data at hand from their information system does not conclude anything in relation to whether these reported deaths stem from vaccination. For the purpose of this lab, it is only slightly concerning considering that the purpose is to validate the true number of vaccine-related deaths. However, when it comes to making a change in how to interpret data from VAERS, it only requires a slight change in focus. Although the data is not certain, it provides a stronger foundation to go off of when comparing to less reputable sources. 6. Based on your research on VAERS database underreporting, is underreporting a problem with VAERS? Given the VAERS underreporting disclaimer that you summarized during your investigation, how do you respond to the Article 1 (vaccines.news article) Claim 2, that ~90% of vaccine associated deaths aren’t even reported?: Evidently, it does appear VAERS may have a slight problem with underreporting. As made apparent by their organization, not all cases of vaccine-related events are turned in. In most cases, only the larger, more extreme situations are submitted for review. Although this makes sense in retrospect, it does leave some room for doubt when looking at the data at hand. However, it is still hard to believe that Article 1’s claim that roughly ninety percent of vaccine-associated deaths are not reported. This still seems like a stretch, given the unreputable nature of the source writing the article. Despite providing a small amount of

credibility for that specific claim, it is still difficult to fully validate the truth behind it-whether VAERS suffers from underreporting or not. 7. Check the math. Consider Article 1 (vaccines.news) Claims 1 and 2 in terms of numbers. For the sake of analysis, let’s assume that 5,000 vaccine associated deaths stated in Claim 1 really does represent only 10% of the actual (reported and unreported) vaccine associated deaths, as stated in Claim 2. If this true, then does the second part of Claim 2, that the actual death vaccine associated death rate “swells to about 39,000”, make sense, mathematically? Is it mathematically possible for the numbers stated in Claims 1 and 2 to be true? Explain your answer, including your logic and calculations: According to the first article, only ten percent of vaccine-related deaths are reported. Moreover, this author goes on to claim that the number of deaths therefore swells up to about 39,000 actual vaccinerelated incidents. However, mathematically this does not make sense. If only ten percent of deaths by vaccination are recorded, ten percent of 39,000 is 3,900-- not 5,000. Therefore, the author’s first claim of 5,000 vaccine-associated death reports is a heavy exaggeration. 8. How many animal related deaths were recorded in 2015, as presented by the CDC Wonder Cause of Death database? Compare this number to the VAERS reported vaccine deaths (that you found in your first VAERS search); what is your response? How does this information impact your interpretation regarding the validity of vaccine.news article Claim 3? Explain your answer, including your logic and calculations: In 2015, CDC Wonder reported there were 208 animal-related deaths from their database. This same year, according to VAERS, there were 118 vaccine-related deaths; in turn, this is ninety fewer people who passed away from vaccines in contrast to the “aggressive animals” stated in Vaccine News. In like manner, the article goes on to claim that man is 200 times more likely to “suffer mortality following a government-recommended shot… then you are dying from… aforementioned animals”. However, looking at the math, this is impossible. Provided that the amount of deaths by vaccination is significantly less than the number of deaths related to animals, there is simply no way it is possible to be more likely-- let alone 200 times more so-- to die of vaccination than an animal attack. Therefore, yet another false statistic discredits the legitimacy of Article 1 due to the inaccurate and exaggerated claims and numbers provided. 9. How many vaccine-attributed deaths are on record within the CDC Wonder database from 2015 (recall, you might have needed to click for “More Information” to learn more after searching for this result)? What does this tell you about the number of data recorded vaccine-attributed deaths in the US in 2015?: According to CDC Wonder’s Cause of Death database, about 449 people passed away due to vaccine-related issues. Evidently, this number is a little bit different than the one provided by VAERS. However, different databases collect from different audiences; one might be more well known than the other or more hands-on when collecting data. In turn, this could attribute to why CDC contains a higher number of deaths than VAERS. Regardless, both numbers do not appear to be significantly large in retrospect with the number of deaths that occur each year. In sum, this means that the amount of data recorded for vaccine-related deaths in 2015 is fairly hard to confirm-- however, based on the information provided, it does not appear to hold significance in contrast to the annual amount of deaths. 10. Consider each search data site that we have used in this investigation; review your comparison in of the CDC Wonder and VAERS data verifiability. Discuss your interpretation of the credibility of the data presented on these sites. Which data are more credible? Provide at least 2 reasons to support your conclusion: Comparing both

articles discussed in this lab, it is extremely clear which of the two holds more credibility. By and large, the second article from the Washington Post presents a much more credible, reliable picture in contrast to the first article from Vaccine News. For one, Lena Sun, the author of the second article, can actually verify not only who she is, but effective credentials and awards associated with her career. Looking at Vaccine News’s author, D. Samuelson, this author has no real biography, cannot be identified fully, and therefore lacks proper credibility for writing the article. Moreover, the second article from the Post is heavily cited with information that makes sense and can be backed up by further research; there is no piece of evidence that lacks being sourced. Again, in comparison to this, Vaccine News has repeatedly spewed out false statistics that not only contradict validated data but fail to be cited or have any sense of credibility from outside sources. 11. Calculate and compare mortality rates. Based on the total number of deaths in 2015 and the VAERS reported number of vaccine attributed deaths for 2015 (for calculations sake) what is the mortality rate % associated with Vaccines from 2015? Based on the total number of deaths in 2015 and the CDC Wonder database number of animal associated deaths for 2015, what is the mortality rate % associated with animals from 2015? Do these number make sense; are you confident in the validity of these figures, why/why not? Additionally, does this calculation alter your previous conclusions regarding the validity of the Article 1 (vaccine.news article) Claim 3? Explain your answer, including your logic and calculations: Based on the information provided, when taking the 118 vaccine-deaths recorded by VAERS divided into the 2,712,630 total amount of deaths in 2015, this presents a mortality rate of 0.004%. Similarly, when taking the 208 animal-related deaths from CDC Wonder and dividing this into the total amount of 2,712,630 deaths in 2015, it presents a second mortality rate of roughly 0.007%. Generally speaking, these numbers make sense when really thinking about the odds of dying from both aggressors, whether vaccine-related or from an animal attack. Evidently, both statistics are low simply because both circumstances present low odds of harming someone. Moreover, the rate of dying by vaccination still presents even lower odds (0.003% lower) than dying from animal-related encounters. With both of these rates in mind, this only confirms suspicions of Vaccine News based on the first article’s claim on being 200 times more likely to die of vaccination than an animal attack. 12. Carefully consider your calculated vaccine induced mortality rate (determined based on the VAERS reported VAERS reported number of vaccine attributed deaths for 2015 and the total number of deaths in 2015). Compare this number to the mortality rate presented in the data table for those without vaccinations for measles, mumps, tetanus, and/or whooping cough. Now, compare these numbers with the mortality rate for those that have been vaccinated for these diseases. Based on these data, which of the following poses the greatest statistical risk (a higher mortality rate): dying a vaccine-caused death in 2015 (assuming the VAERS report data is accurate), dying from measles, mumps, tetanus, and/or whooping cough without being vaccinated, or dying from measles, mumps, tetanus, and/or whooping cough after being vaccinated? Which of these poses the least statistical risk? Explain your answer, including your logic and calculations: After comparing the three statistical mortality rates discussed, it has become clear which proposes the greatest and lowest risk for death. Assuming the data from VAERS is accurate, the self-calculated vaccine induced mortality rate is the lowest at 0.004%. This comes from the 118 vaccine-related deaths being divided by the total amount of deaths in 2015 at 2,712,630 people. In comparison to this, the greatest statistical risk for death would be dying from measles, mumps, tetanus, and/or whooping cough without being vaccinated at fifty-five point five to fifty-seven point five percent. After adding each mortality rate without

vaccination for each disease (measles, mumps, tetanus, and whooping cough) the probability comes out to be between fifty-five point five to fifty-seven point five percent, which is significantly higher than the VAERS self-calculated vaccine induced mortality rate....