To be fair, if he knew he was wrong, why didn’t he later vaccinate his kids? He’s had many years to fix his mistake. He KNEW he was wrong, yet did nothing.
I was thinking the same thing. I’m guessing that he only realized he was wrong after his own kids got sick.
Your premise is false. When parents are genuinely open minded and seeking knowledge, people are invariably helpful in answering their questions and directing them to resources to help them understand that vaccines are safe and effective.
But the loud proselytizing anti-vaxxers are not asking questions or seeking to learn anything, just in spreading harmful conspiracy theories. You will never change their minds, so the only appropriate response is to ridicule and shame them, because of the influence they may have on other parents. And to legislate to protect society from them.
Anti-vaxxers are not open minded about this. They have already decided that they do not want vaccines for their kids. As stated upthread, I think this is mostly that they are nervous about somebody stabbing their kids. They’ve decided they don’t want their kids getting shots, so they latch on to all of the conspiracy theories advocated by a much smaller group of hardcore anti-vaxxers.
You can’t logic them out of their bad decision, because they didn’t logic themselves into it in the first place.
Yes, absolutely make sure that there is lots of correct information is out there, but it’s been shown in multiple studies that if people have a strong opinion on something, showing them their opinion is based on incorrect data does nothing to change it, and may even strengthen it. That’s pretty obvious to me, because my hypothesis is that their opinion is not based on incorrect facts, but based on other non-factual things. They’ve just used the incorrect facts to reverse justify their opinion, because “I’m scared of needles” is not considered a valid excuse.
And one difference between people who fear flying and anti-vaxxers is that refusing to fly doesn’t actually affect anyone else. Refusing to vaccinate destroys herd immunity and seriously cripples our modern societal defenses against epidemic diseases. For everyone.
Even before, actually. Before the Jenner vaccine people inoculated others with smallpox, hoping that there would be a weak case after which the people would be immune. There was a risk of death. In the Revolution the British did this, and Washington wanted to do this also. The anti-vax Continental Congress did not approve and forbade it. Washington did it anyway, the death rate from smallpox in the army plummeted, and the Congress decided it was okay.
Most discussions don’t start with yelling, it starts with giving the statistics and the science - which usually does not help. Some of the anti-vax position comes from fear, some comes from bad experiences which the parents want to blame on something, and some comes from greed. Such as no longer a doctor Andrew Wakefield. Many of the anti-vaxxers on Twitter sold supplements or were homeopaths.
When they say things like the polio vaccine didn’t stop polio, it was better sanitation, then one would be excused for wanting to yell.
As for shutting down vaccinations, the ones who say vaccines are poisoning children and all a scam from Big Pharma seem to be saying exactly that.
Hell, your average church going creationist might be ignorant about what science says, but the leaders aren’t. Same thing here.
I was thinking about this very thing this afternoon. The aggression needs to be directed at disrupting dissemination of misinformation.
I want to be clear: I’m pro-vax through and through. I work in public health these days, and flu is one of the issues I deal with this time of year. As I tell people, flu ain’t a cold, which is probably one misconception that fuels the anti-vax movement. People inevitably do a cost-benefit analysis and conclude “Foreign substance in my body might make me (my child) feel really bad or weird vs. getting a cold.”
No, flu ain’t a “cold”. Flu kills. Flu kills you. It’s more likely to kill your child. That’s what I tell people. A cold is rhinovirus, a few days of feeling like crud and maybe going home early from work on a Friday. The flu? You could go home on Friday and your family could be making funeral arrangements on Sunday night. Flu - kills. As in, dead.
They’re not as ignorant as you might believe. Anti-vaxxers do a lot of research and reading - they are well-read. They actually know a lot about the flu vaccine; they just get a few basic bits of critical information wrong, and they, like a lot of people, consume information that tends to feed a virus. A lot of us who scorn anti-vaxxers and write them off as ignorant primates might be find more in common with them on issues like, say, multiple chemical sensitivity.
But ignore the more sensationalistic documentaries and interviews with anti-vaxxers, and ignore the Jim Carrey and Jenny McCartheys for a moment. Most of your anti-vax people are people who are quiet and just scared of putting foreign substances in their bodies. I can relate because I’m also skeptical myself. I tend to eschew medication unless I know it’s necessary. I’d rather fight off a cold with bed rest, water, abstaining from booze and upping my good habits than going to Walgreen’s and grabbing the first antihistamine I can grab off the shelf. Anti-vax is an extension of that, in a lot of cases.
I think the battle is won with an understanding of how these people get their information - there are more bullshit information platforms available and, in turn, they can spread more bullshit using these platforms. Maybe go after - or go on - these platforms. Stop the spread of fake news. But also understand that some people just have bad experiences. Try to understand their experience and listen, and then gain trust.
It’s also not a feasible approach when this is a public health problem that needs to be addressed by state and possibly national authorities. We don’t have a national active-listening team that can be sent to converse with people like this and gradually bring them around. ETA: And it would have to be a pretty big team.
If they are not ignorant about the evidence, if they have accessed the research, then they are reaching foolish and unwarranted conclusions. What’s your point?
You’re essentially claiming that if I don’t believe in unicorns, I have something “in common” with someone who (say) doesn’t believe HIV causes AIDs - just because we both don’t believe something.
The fact that I might not have certainty about an issue (MCS) that is still controversial and poorly understood does not mean that I have something “in common” with someone whose beliefs run counter to the overwhelming scientific consensus on an issue (vaccine safety & efficacy) that has been decisively settled by vast amounts of research and evidence. On the contrary, we are opposites - I care about facts and evidence and am inclined to be skeptical about conspiracy theories; the antivaxxer apparently cares little for facts and evidence and is credulous about conspiracy theories.
Cool patronizing story, bro. But this tone policing is just bullshit that you have pulled out of your ass. The problem is not that anti-vax people are treated badly, and that the problem would go away if we were just more touchy-feely and understanding. Your false premise is that parents who are genuinely seeking reliable information on vaccine safety & efficacy are routinely scorned. They are not. I have never seen genuine concerned parents treated scornfully. On the contrary, people bend over backwards to provide information and resources.
I’m generally okay with saying, “If your children aren’t vaccinated, they don’t get an education in a public school.”
But beyond that what kinds of powers does the government have? What rights do individuals have? I remember a time when people who claimed to have multiple chemical sensitivity were dismissed. It can work both ways.
What have you seen? Where have you seen it?
You were the one claiming that genuine questions from concerned parents are treated “scornfully”, and that if they were treated with more understanding they would be won over. Make your case, I have no burden of proof here.
You wrote:
What have you seen? Where have you seen it?
I said simply that I had not seen what you have claimed - people asking genuine questions about vaccine safety treated scornfully.
No, you said you had never seen such parents treated scornfully and that people bent over backwards to give them information. Where did you see this? In real life, or on YouTube?
You failed to give any evidence to support your claim that if we were just more kind and understanding to anti-vaxxers we could change their minds. That doesn’t imply that I have some burden of proof to defend my skepticism about your claim.
I don’t spend much time on youtube, but on here and in real life my own experience has not been that parents asking genuine questions about vaccine safety are treated scornfully.
Okay.
Well, my experience has been occasionally different than yours. So who “wins”? Not that I give a shit, one way or the other.
You devoted several extensive posts to making the case that if we were just nicer and more understanding to anti-vaxxers then everything would be wonderful. In other words - it’s our rudeness that’s the problem, not their stupidity.
You’ve now conceded that you really have no evidence to support this claim, and that you don’t really give a shit anyway. Okay then.
One recent article stated that, prior to the trip to Southeast Asia, the kids were given vaccinations for other things. Are those vaccinations required in order to travel?