Think for the kids

In this important Twitter thread for Australian parents Fiona Russell, Uni of Melbourne professor and Paediatrician (and Director, Child and Adolescent Health PhD Program) shares her thoughts on considerations for 5-11 year-olds.

The 9th tweet is critical and illustrative, revealing as it does that valid concerns over risk / benefit and unknowns are originating from otherwise 'pro' scientists.

That's where all the interesting debate and discussion is occurring, yet media coverage only ever seems to want us to fixate on the most hare-brained 'anti' positions, statistical errors and defective analyses.

It's as if no-one in the media business is particularly interested in cultivating informed and educated debate on critical societal issues, and instead have a very strong prefence to guide us — emotionally, not intellectually — towards an approved position.

The reasons for this seem relatively mundane, primitive and structural, but it doesn't make the situation any less unsatisfactory.