Thank you for continuing the journey of navigating vaccine-related information, news and changes with us throughout the last year. As we get ready to ring in 2025, we wanted to take a moment to look back over some of what we learned about and experienced together during the last year. See how well you do by answering these questions about information shared in the Parents PACK newsletter during 2024.
Question 1: Which of these demonstrates an error in logical reasoning called a “causal fallacy?”
- A rise in the number of senior citizens led to an increase in the popularity of pickleball.
- Fewer teens are going to college because fewer are getting driver’s licenses.
- More vaccinations in childhood have led to increases in video game playing.
- More vaccinations have led to increases in chronic diseases.
- a and b
- c and d
- All of these
The answer is g. All of these. Causal fallacies occur when people assume two things that happen at or near the same time are causally related. The May 2024 Parents PACK feature article, “Do Vaccines Cause Chronic Diseases?,” focused on how we know vaccines do not cause chronic diseases, describing how the immune system works and how the body processes and responds to vaccines.
Question 2: Are mRNA vaccines a type of gene therapy?
This question was the title of the April 2024 Parents PACK feature article. The short answer to the question is no; however, the article went into additional details. Using the example of different goals of running (e.g., running for health versus running to resolve a situation), the article outlined differences between using mRNA in vaccination and gene therapy.
More recently, The Hilleman Chronicle, our newsletter for science and history enthusiasts, took a more detailed look at some of the promise of mRNA technology, highlighting three potential applications beyond vaccines.
Question 3: Which of the following can be used to make vaccine ingredient information seem scarier in online posts?
- Black backgrounds with harsh fonts
- Images of syringes
- Chemical names
- Lack of context
- All of these
The answer is e. All of these. In the October 2024 Parents PACK feature article, “What’s in Vaccines and Why?,” the Vaccine Education Center team shared several resources related to vaccine ingredients, including new tables listing the ingredients in routinely recommended vaccines and their role in the vaccine production process.
The article also highlighted several resources related to evaluating information, so people can more easily assess the legitimacy of information they are seeing online.
Question 4: How many people died from COVID-19 per hour in the U.S. between October 2023 and mid-May 2024?
While COVID-19 death rates have decreased since the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 continues to be deadly. In the June 2024 Parents PACK feature article, “Empty Chairs at Dinner Tables,” it was revealed that eight people per hour died from COVID-19 during the 7 1/2-month period between fall 2023 and spring 2024. The article also described death rates from other respiratory infections, like influenza and RSV.
Question 5: What are tertiary cases during an outbreak?
During an infectious disease outbreak, the first person (or group of people) to become ill is the index case, or patient zero. Individuals who get infected after exposure to the index case are called secondary cases. If secondary cases infect additional people, the newly infected individuals are tertiary cases, and so on until the outbreak is contained.
In the January 2024 Parents PACK feature article, “Deadly Decisions?,” we described an outbreak of measles in Philadelphia. During the outbreak, one of the secondary cases did not follow quarantine procedures directed by public health officials, causing the outbreak to grow to include tertiary cases.
The article also discussed how individual choices about infectious diseases can affect others in the community differently than individual choices related to other public health issues.
Question 6: What is the difference between a primary and a secondary source of scientific information?
As described in the November 2024 Parents PACK feature article, “Going to the Source: Finding Out More About a Message That Includes Science,” a primary source is the original publication of a scientific observation, whereas secondary sources are publications that describe what is known from studies. Scientific journals are primary sources, whereas media reports, websites and textbooks are examples of secondary sources.
The article described how scientists decide where to publish, how to evaluate the quality of scientific journals, and how primary sources can be used as tools of deception.
How did you do?
As these questions demonstrate, we covered A LOT of information during 2024, and you aren’t alone if you did not remember all the answers. But, we hope you remembered some of the articles, took the opportunity to go back and check others you might have missed, and appreciated a few that you recalled finding useful or timely throughout the year.
Two notes of gratitude and one request
As 2024 comes to an end, we have two notes of gratitude and one request:
- Thank you for your continued support of and participation in our Parents PACK community.
- Thank you for your ongoing inquisitiveness and efforts to find (and share) accurate vaccine-related information.
- Please consider sharing the Parents PACK with at least one other person who might find it useful. We want to continue growing the Parents PACK community because together we are stronger and better able to address inaccurate information and ill-founded or poorly reasoned assumptions.
We look forward to again traveling together through the vaccine-information universe in 2025! Enjoy the remaining days of 2024 with your family and friends.
Download a PDF version of this article.
Thank you for continuing the journey of navigating vaccine-related information, news and changes with us throughout the last year. As we get ready to ring in 2025, we wanted to take a moment to look back over some of what we learned about and experienced together during the last year. See how well you do by answering these questions about information shared in the Parents PACK newsletter during 2024.
Question 1: Which of these demonstrates an error in logical reasoning called a “causal fallacy?”
- A rise in the number of senior citizens led to an increase in the popularity of pickleball.
- Fewer teens are going to college because fewer are getting driver’s licenses.
- More vaccinations in childhood have led to increases in video game playing.
- More vaccinations have led to increases in chronic diseases.
- a and b
- c and d
- All of these
The answer is g. All of these. Causal fallacies occur when people assume two things that happen at or near the same time are causally related. The May 2024 Parents PACK feature article, “Do Vaccines Cause Chronic Diseases?,” focused on how we know vaccines do not cause chronic diseases, describing how the immune system works and how the body processes and responds to vaccines.
Question 2: Are mRNA vaccines a type of gene therapy?
This question was the title of the April 2024 Parents PACK feature article. The short answer to the question is no; however, the article went into additional details. Using the example of different goals of running (e.g., running for health versus running to resolve a situation), the article outlined differences between using mRNA in vaccination and gene therapy.
More recently, The Hilleman Chronicle, our newsletter for science and history enthusiasts, took a more detailed look at some of the promise of mRNA technology, highlighting three potential applications beyond vaccines.
Question 3: Which of the following can be used to make vaccine ingredient information seem scarier in online posts?
- Black backgrounds with harsh fonts
- Images of syringes
- Chemical names
- Lack of context
- All of these
The answer is e. All of these. In the October 2024 Parents PACK feature article, “What’s in Vaccines and Why?,” the Vaccine Education Center team shared several resources related to vaccine ingredients, including new tables listing the ingredients in routinely recommended vaccines and their role in the vaccine production process.
The article also highlighted several resources related to evaluating information, so people can more easily assess the legitimacy of information they are seeing online.
Question 4: How many people died from COVID-19 per hour in the U.S. between October 2023 and mid-May 2024?
While COVID-19 death rates have decreased since the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 continues to be deadly. In the June 2024 Parents PACK feature article, “Empty Chairs at Dinner Tables,” it was revealed that eight people per hour died from COVID-19 during the 7 1/2-month period between fall 2023 and spring 2024. The article also described death rates from other respiratory infections, like influenza and RSV.
Question 5: What are tertiary cases during an outbreak?
During an infectious disease outbreak, the first person (or group of people) to become ill is the index case, or patient zero. Individuals who get infected after exposure to the index case are called secondary cases. If secondary cases infect additional people, the newly infected individuals are tertiary cases, and so on until the outbreak is contained.
In the January 2024 Parents PACK feature article, “Deadly Decisions?,” we described an outbreak of measles in Philadelphia. During the outbreak, one of the secondary cases did not follow quarantine procedures directed by public health officials, causing the outbreak to grow to include tertiary cases.
The article also discussed how individual choices about infectious diseases can affect others in the community differently than individual choices related to other public health issues.
Question 6: What is the difference between a primary and a secondary source of scientific information?
As described in the November 2024 Parents PACK feature article, “Going to the Source: Finding Out More About a Message That Includes Science,” a primary source is the original publication of a scientific observation, whereas secondary sources are publications that describe what is known from studies. Scientific journals are primary sources, whereas media reports, websites and textbooks are examples of secondary sources.
The article described how scientists decide where to publish, how to evaluate the quality of scientific journals, and how primary sources can be used as tools of deception.
How did you do?
As these questions demonstrate, we covered A LOT of information during 2024, and you aren’t alone if you did not remember all the answers. But, we hope you remembered some of the articles, took the opportunity to go back and check others you might have missed, and appreciated a few that you recalled finding useful or timely throughout the year.
Two notes of gratitude and one request
As 2024 comes to an end, we have two notes of gratitude and one request:
- Thank you for your continued support of and participation in our Parents PACK community.
- Thank you for your ongoing inquisitiveness and efforts to find (and share) accurate vaccine-related information.
- Please consider sharing the Parents PACK with at least one other person who might find it useful. We want to continue growing the Parents PACK community because together we are stronger and better able to address inaccurate information and ill-founded or poorly reasoned assumptions.
We look forward to again traveling together through the vaccine-information universe in 2025! Enjoy the remaining days of 2024 with your family and friends.
Download a PDF version of this article.