Survey on attitudes

[JaneC]

It's Epilepsy Awareness Week in the UK. Sound like we desperately need it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...tml?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[SlimBlue]

Wow, and I thought the Mail and the Granuaid were bad papers. Obviously it's good they're reporting Awareness Week, but I get the feeling this report is just the usual shocking headline + statistitian BS.

I mean, really- 18% were asked if they could talk to spirits, after a seizure??!

I can imagine that as a child it must be extremely difficult to cope with and yes, I guess kids can be very mean, but as an adult with epilepsy for 20-odd years I've never experienced anyone treating me like that- random strangers in the street have helped me after a grand mal, not tried to shun the devil's spawn...

 

[JaneC]

It would be unusual for the Independent to be sensationalist - here's the version from Young Epilepsy itself. I must say my daughter hasn't encountered much nastiness (plenty of ignorance though) but then most of her seizures have taken place at home. However, presumably they didn't just make these figures up!


http://youngepilepsy.org.uk/news-an...-face-stigma-and-discrimination-across-the-uk

 

[SlimBlue]

I was going to go into a long tirade on how researchers like Opinion Matters create skewed surveys for money, but if you're curious:

http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/Lies_damn_lies_and_marketing_data_4_ways_survey_re_7479.aspx

I'm not suggesting that these figures aren't true however - it's just that if they are, then it really is quite a sad state of affairs.

We can cure medical ignorance- and I do think attitudes have changed for the better since I was a child- but there's not much we can do about ingrained religious beliefs