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Exploration Station: Autism/vaccines - Information Literacy

Information about the Fake News-related events at Bierce Library in April 2017

Autism/Vaccines - Information Literacy

To show how information literacy techniques and knowledge can be applied to evaluating information, our own
Susan Altmeyer, Reference Librarian at the School of Law, did a CRAAP analysis of the site.

As you can see, there is a lot of evidence that this is not factual, and that the website itself is highly questionable.

Autism/Vaccines - CRAAP Analysis

CRAAP - https://www.csuchico.edu/lins/handouts/eval_websites.pdf

Currency:  
2013 or possibly later, based on the content of the meme itself.  I could not locate the meme itself on the Natural News site, even in the infographics section.  I tried using the Google reverse image search but did not get any results that were from the Natural News site itself.
 
Relevance:
This meme is relevant to the question of whether vaccines cause autism.  However, the Relevance component also involves looking at a variety of sources, and whether one would be comfortable citing to this source in a research paper.  When more sources are examined, the accuracy of the meme becomes questionable.  I would not cite to a meme in a research paper unless it was included in an article from a reputable source.
 
Authority:
Looking at the About Us section of naturalnews.com, it says that Natural News, “is a science-based natural health advocacy organization led by activist-turned-scientist Mike Adams, the Health Ranger.  … The site strongly criticizes drugs-and-surgery medicine, vaccines…”  The site is obviously biased.
 
Mike Adams’ bio http://www.healthranger.com/Health-Ranger-Biography.html says,“Mike Adams has a four-year bachelor of science degree from a prominent university in the Midwest. He has minors in mathematics and economics.”  What was his major?  Which university? The bio says he started a software company (the company is not named), and then “launched Natural News (then NewsTarget.com). Natural News went on to become the internet's most trafficked natural health news website, reaching millions of unique readers each month.”  I read this as, “he is a clickbaiter.” (and maybe I reach this conclusion because I am already suspicious.) Other claims on his bio seem a little hard to believe – particularly the part about his patent applications he authored in 1995 for a Google Glass like product, but never filed because he did not have the funds.

Accuracy:
The facts in the meme are inconsistent with an article on the Natural News website itself: 78 percent increase in childhood autism rates over past decade coincides with sharp uptick in vaccination schedules, April 3, 2012.  This article states that the autism rate in 2000 was 1 in 150 children and the rate in 2008 was 1 in 88 children.  The meme assigns these rates to 2008 and 2013, respectively.  The article says the number of recommended vaccines “today” (2012) is 29, where the meme says there were 36 in 2008 and 46 in 2013.  So, Natural News is not consistent in the “facts” they are publishing. 
 
The facts are all called into question by Politifact Ohio:  http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2016/aug/29/viral-image/viral-image-perpetuates-misconception-vaccines-cau/ .  Politifact.com compared the figures in the meme with CDC data, such as the CDC Recommended Immunization Schedule - https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/downloads/child/0-18yrs-child-combined-schedule.pdf and autism rate data https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html. 

Purpose:
Natural News states up front that they are an advocate for natural medicines, and they are against vaccines.   The biography of site founder Mike Adams might lead a suspicious person to believe that the purpose of the site is click baiting – ie. Making money off ad clicks via a site of sensationalistic news.  There are LOTS of ads on the site, which might be a tip-off that it is a click-baiting site.