Send letter to journal:
Re: Description of search results is inaccurate

Dear Editor

The "antivaccination activists" paper[1] complains that the first 10 hits on Google for vaccination are all antivaccination web sites. But that's not true. Not any more, anyway. The first Google link is to Category: Health - Child Health - Immunizations, a directory listing of 23 web sites with a balanced set of facts and opinions. For example, it includes government and pediatrician sites promoting vaccines.

The next Google link is to http://www.avn.org.au/. This site is listed as one of the 100 antivaccination web sites, but it is not really opposed to vaccination at all. It merely provides information for and against vaccines and advocates allowing people to make an informed choice. Sites like this provide a useful service to parents making a vaccination decision.

A number of the links in the appendix are broken, so I posted a corrected list at http://www.schlafly.net/vac/.

Reference

(1) P Davies, S Chapman, and J Leask. Antivaccination activists on the world wide web. Arch Dis Child 2002; 87: 22-5.

Send letter to journal:
Re: Web research

Dear Editor

Because the www is constantly changing, as is its traffic pattern, replications of search strategies will often produce different results. Our study gave a snapshot of what we found when we ran our search terms: today the results are slightly different.

Roger Shaffley says that the Australian Vaccination Network site "merely provides information for and against vaccines and advocates allowing people to make an informed choice". Well, that's the rhetoric. But one click further in any direction on that site reveals a nakedly anti -vaccination site: there is not one sentence that could in any way be described as pro-vaccination. Join their discussion group and prepare to read it all ....