"Q. How do you know what you know? Name one new thing you learned using a social media site today and explain why you believe it is true. What source did you use to acquire this information? At times, are social media sites reliable for obtaining credible information?"


How do I know what I know:  Experience. Books. Newspapers. Internet surfing. Word-of-mouth. Formal and continuing education. Documentary films and public service television like C-SPAN and PBS.  With these points of reference you can extrapolate bits into a larger picture, turning information into knowledge.

Today I watched the documentary movie, Vaccine Nation. It is posted on a membership site online that I enjoy, greenmedinfo.com.  I now believe that the current vaccination schedule for children may be causing the epidemic of neurological disease in children.

There is no reliable source to reference a mother's intuition. As such, these types of counter-culture opinions that vary from the mainstream popular view have to be carefully vetted for accuracy or there are strong repercussions, including jail time for parents that wish to decline, or just forestall, the heavy vaccination schedule.  Although greenmedinfo.com is a special interest group, they utilize an extensive database which they say is  "the world's most widely referenced, open access, natural medicine database, with 20000+ study abstracts and references."

I admit that I have a bias, based on experience. But I read both sides of the issue and I no longer take statements at face-value alone. When my child was diagnosed with autism, I myself had to step across the threshold of comfortable faith from what I had previously accepted, and unlearn before re-learning.  My knowledge and information base widened --  medical journals like JAMA, online medical publication sites like PubMed, VAERS and other government databases, scientific journals and magazines, antique folk-medicine and veterinary books, off-the-record chats with doctors, court documents, studying the basis for herbal and chinese medicine, nutrition textbooks and social networking with other parents.

 I do believe there are many good websites for obtaining credible information, and some very bad websites that are published by special-interest, commercial for-profit sites and 'communication experts' schooled in the psychological realm of consumer and political sway; consumers of the internet (as paying customers) should be taught to become aware of the biases, conflicts of interests and motive. Then, it's possible put together all the small pieces of the puzzle into the larger picture to offset any internal or external bias that may have been missed, as consumer, investigator and writer. Because each of the small portions of knowledge will, together, form a verifiable and credible piece of journalism, or opinion, that may need to be acted upon and, perhaps, legally defended.

           "Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire."  F. Nietzsche (1865)

Sources:
Vaccine Nation documentary film by Gary Null (2008)
http://tv.greenmedinfo.com/vaccine-nation-36-injections-per-child-yet-few-question-why/
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/guide/health-guide-vaccine-research
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/downloads/parent-ver-sch-0-6yrs.pdf
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/US/story?id=3866502&page=1
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21839294/ns/health-childrens_health/t/parents-face-jail-not-vaccinating-their-kids/#.UlAgUiRLo0w
https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/index
Bibliography:
Kovach, B., Rosenstiel, T., (2011) Blur --  How To Know What's True In The Age of Information Overload, NY, Bloomsbury USA