I’m wondering if its my own news bubble that I’ve put myself in, but it seems to me that there is suddenly a change in the public opinion on vaccinate vs. anti vaccinate movement. Where prior to the Disneyland outbreak, there seemed to be a desire to give anti-vaxxers a voice in the interest of being “balanced” in the media, and a willingness for people to say “well, I vaccinate, but it is a choice a parent should make” it seems like suddenly public opinion has swung towards anti-vaxxers being irresponsible.
I suspect its twofold. One - during our election related Ebola scare in the U.S. there were huge cries for “we’ve known about this for years, where is our vaccine!” and some reporting on how underfunded Ebola vaccination research was. Suddenly, the vaccination narrative had nothing to do with big pharma giving your precious child autism and switched to how irresponsible big pharma was for not doing the R&D that would save your life. (Poor big pharma doesn’t get a break in any of the public narratives, do they?)
Then, with that still in our short term (Squirrel!) memories, we have the Disneyland measles outbreak. Which is causing some amount of panic - and a practical place to explain what heard immunity means. Your infant, who you drag to Disneyland (DisneyWorld, the mall, anywhere where there are lots of people) with your older children, is not fully immunized - now your woo-ish friend’s choice not to vaccinate isn’t her business - it suddenly comes home to you that it is your business - the threat becomes real, and the understanding of herd immunity has a real, and scary example.
Anyone else see it? Do you think it will stick for real change?
I hope it sticks. People needed to see consequences. Now that antivaxers have moved beyond a few special snowflakes into a substantial slice of the parenting pie, people are seeing those consequences, and they hate them.
The US measels outbreak in the late 80’s is largely responsible for driving vaccination to its current high-levels, so its hardly impossible that another widely reported outbreak would further sway public opinion. Though that outbreak was considerably larger than the Disney one, involving sevearl tens of thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths.
Vaccination rates in the US have been pretty consistantly high since the 90’s, and indeed have improved slowly as public health services do a better job at reaching the poor. Anti-vaccers are a problem, but I don’t think there’s actually much evidence that they’re a growing one (in the US, anyways).
There’s long been expectation among immunization advocates that serious preventable disease outbreaks would have to occur, in order to immunize parents against antivax foolishness and spur them to keep vaccination rates high.
I still expect it’ll take a significant number of deaths before antivaxers truly achieve their deserved pariah status, and stop being treated by news media as holding an alternative view that deserves equal status with that of public health professionals.*
*even with the current measles outbreak centered in the southwest U.S., some major media sources are falling back into the “equal time” trap with interviews of antivax pediatricians and spokespeople for antivax organizations.
Since I spend an inordinate amount of time immersed in monitoring the world of the vaccine denialist cult, it’s hard for me to think/see that there’s been a shift in actual OPINION on the issue. What I seem to be seeing (and I fully admit that this might be my own bias) is two-fold.
First, the media is starting to call out the cult members in a way they haven’t before, with their obsessive need for “false balance” in stories on vaccination. When they do have an anti-vaccine person in a news story (and I agree with Jackmanni that some of them are increasing their inclusion of cult members in news stories), I see them being more confrontational than I remember in the past.
Second, parents who understand the science of vaccination, and know that vaccines are safe and effective, are starting to be more vocal. They are starting to realize that they’ve allowed the vaccine denialist cult to dominate the public narrative for too long. They are also realizing that they can no longer tolerate their friends and family members who are members of the vaccine denialist cult in the interest of being polite or not making waves.
I do hope that I’m wrong, and that actual opinion is beginning to condemn the cult for the danger that they are.
I agree that it has, and I’m glad.
I think it being Measles changed the priority in most peoples minds. The vax debate has largely been in the context of Flu. And most people realize the flu vaccine isn’t perfect and most people can expect it a few times in a life time anyway. The consensus among intelligent people was that not getting the flu shot is stupid but overall not that critical.
And people had a fake impression that the other diseases really weren’t a threat anymore, that they were just gone. But the phrase “measles outbreak” really kicked a lot of people in the face with how insidious anti-vax really is. Thpose deseases can be brought back any time by a traveler to certain countries. That it’s not easier to just ignorelike your raving idiot moon-denier Facebook friends. Anti-vax is really a major threat, that even if you don’t care about suffering and dead kids, the billions of dollars on unnecessary health care dollars wasted increasing your premium,is hard to ignore.
It’s hard for me to completely separate my own opinion from the public’s when it comes to things as patently ridiculous as this, but I never felt that anti-vaxers ever went much beyond the tinfoil hat, bat shit crazy moron stage. On a par with flat-Earthers, amusing to talk to and/or interview, but nobody really believed them. Did they?! :eek:
I think we have to get past this phase of “all opinions are equally valid and deserve equal consideration.”
'cos a lot of the reasoning behind this anti-vax bullshit is people saying “well, I know what’s best for my child.” Well, “no you don’t.” Reproducing is so mind-numbingly easy that practically every living thing on the planet does it. Having a kid doesn’t mean you know the first thing about medicine. And if you think you do, your opinion is stupid and should be scorned.
you may have a right to your own opinion, but you don’t have a right to your own facts.
Alas, enough people believed the anti-vaccination UL that it caused a hell of a lot more harm than the flat earth UL ever could. I can’t think of anything to compare it to.
(One might argue that creationism, by serving as a drag upon biology education, may have slowed medical progress and led to some meaningful number of deaths. Our own home-grown Lysenkoism. But the cause-and-effect linkage is so indirect, how could we ever calculate the lives lost?)
In some public schools in California, the rate of personal belief exemptions can be higher than 5%. Private school data isn’t available but most people believe private schools are often a LOT higher.
It seems like its starting to maybe turn. And thank god.
My niece and nephew both just got whooping cough. And they’ve been vaccinated, they’re just too young to have had the full series. Vaccination rates in their area are too low to sustain herd immunity.
These are kids that live a multi-million dollar lifestyle (bro has done well). And they’re getting third world diseases. It boggles the mind.
Yeah, flat-Earthers are like moon-hoaxers. Idiots, but essentially harmless, to be pitied not feared. Being a Republican I’m not big on the govt getting involved, but this was an area that was so important I felt they should have made a decided effort to discredit & re-educate people concerning vaccines. I blame political correctness, as if anyone’s voice must to be heard and not criticized even when it causes direct harm.
What is shocking to me honestly is how few of the cases are in those who have been vaccinated.
Of the 59 Disneyland cases only six were documented to have occurred in those who had received at east one dose of the vaccine. That’s pretty amazing.
The simple reality is that no vaccine is 100% perfect, this one reputably lowers the risk of catching measles after exposure down to 5%. Usually many many more people who are exposed to that index case are vaccinated then not. If the unvaccinated rate is as high as 5% then you will usually end up with half of cases still occurring in the vaccinated … just so many more of them exposed. (A fact that is usually twisted by the anti-vaxxers as “proof” that the vaccine does not work, the concept of herd immunity and the math of it being more than squirrel minds can focus on long enough to get.)
Either anti-vaxxers were clustered together there or the vaccine actually works even better than we have thought.
Of course those six, and the seven month old case, still got measles exclusively due to the negligent decisions of the anti-vaccine cultists, who do not only put their own kids at risk.
FWIW some of our refusers have indeed come in to get vaccinated but I have little hope it will last.
My one hope is that maybe the states will actually stop making it so easy for the refusers’ kids to attend public schools putting everyone else at risk. In the states that allow “religious exemptions” to the vaccine mandate (48 states) all a parent has to do is claim they belong to some trumped up religious belief interpretation, and 20 states don’t even require that the parent claim a religious belief - just a personal, philosophical, or “moral” one.
I am highly respectful of religious freedom and cut a lot of slack for individual religious freedom. But religious freedom does not justify putting other people at medical risk and the religious exemption as implemented is doing that.
If the tide turns such that states get rid of these (often complete bullshit) exemptions that make the mandate no mandate at all, then I will be thrilled.
