John Cook's discussions

Stephen congratulations, I’m glad to hear you’ve stopped wasting your time on video games. Read more

thank you Read more

i shot a bb gun at a moving car from the roof of my house and blew out the driver-side window and the driver stopped and saw me and my friends on the roof and we ran in different directions and the driver caught up to one of my friends and beat the shit out of him. we were 13. Read more

Have you ever seen Seinfeld2000? It is really, really, very quite funny. Read more

why did you post goatse Read more

Thank you for your interest, but Ms. Weaver is unavailable at the moment. Read more

The alternative is to not go on a regulatory binge generating new rules for what journalists can and can't do. It's not clear, for instance, whether simply receiving private medical records is a prima fascie crime here—*sources* who have passed medical records to reporters have been prosecuted, but no reporters… Read more

The original owner of the MP's expense CD was presumably a public official, and as such, a bribe-taker. My point with the other instances of paying sources was that a) some of them likely pay public officials as well as private individuals and b) there's a plausible danger that when regulators here or in England begin… Read more

Actually quite pleasant and professional. Read more

Yes, re-examine your life choices. I'm not saying reporters ought to steal children's medical records. I'm saying we should be wary of moves afoot to criminalize obtaining ANY medical records, or similar data, for the purposes of reporting. There's no coherent regulatory scheme I'm aware of that would allow for those… Read more

@smnookin: Thanks Seth. Read more

Wait there's one more: Can I borrow this shirt?

OK Seth thanks for coming and good luck with the book. Last question: You live in Brooklyn, where you can't throw a rock without hitting someone who either delayed or skipped vaccines for their kids out of fear. Do you know many people who buy into the vaccine hypothesis? How have they reacted to the book? Read more

Aside from the mythical autism connection, do you think overvaccination is an issue? After having a kid two years ago, I was shocked to find that I have to vaccinate him against chickenpox if I want him to go to NYC public schools. You demonstrate rather viscerally in the book that the ravages of hib or whooping cough… Read more

You said down below, "Don't get me started on HuffPo." Get started on HuffPo! McCarthy and others have used it as a really effective platform—with zero editing—to spread disinformation, right? Read more

@smnookin: Seth should add that the book has two great chapters on how Katie Wright came to believe in the vaccine hypothesis and the rifts that it caused in the autism world. Read more

How much blame does the medical establishment bear for the persistence of the notion that vaccines are involved in autism? There never seemed to be a forceful—or forceful enough—pushback against the idea from any of the medical institutions—NIH, CDC, etc.—that govern policy. Did sensitivity to the plight of suffering… Read more

@Swordfish: There is! At the top of the page. Read more