# Ontario requires anti-vaxx parents to take a class on vaccines **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 16, 2016, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901 "2016-05-16T05:40:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/21 "2016-05-17T19:10:06Z")
> [@Rysto](#): > > Here’s how I’d run the class. The first thing that I’d do is get 20-30 parents to give their child’s name (and if possible, show us all a picture). Write the names on the whiteboard. Then the teacher announces that we’re going to pretend like it’s 1950 and there are no vaccines. Pick a name at random, and then: “Mrs. Smith, I’m very sorry to tell you, but your daughter contracted Smallpox and has died.” > > Continue the lesson, but intersperse it with inflicting random children with diseases, at historical rates. Have some of them killed, some of them pull through, and have some experience permanent, life-changing side effects. Make it _personal_ for the parents. That will be a lot more effective then hitting them with stats. I’d also have a class where all that was done was show a 45 minute video of a 6 month old baby with Whooping cough. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/22 "2016-05-19T00:31:07Z")
> [@Rysto](#): > > Here’s how I’d run the class. The first thing that I’d do is get 20-30 parents to give their child’s name (and if possible, show us all a picture). Write the names on the whiteboard. Then the teacher announces that we’re going to pretend like it’s 1950 and there are no vaccines. Pick a name at random, and then: “Mrs. Smith, I’m very sorry to tell you, but your daughter contracted Smallpox and has died.” > > Continue the lesson, but intersperse it with inflicting random children with diseases, at historical rates. Have some of them killed, some of them pull through, and have some experience permanent, life-changing side effects. Make it _personal_ for the parents. That will be a lot more effective then hitting them with stats. Actually, by the 1940s when I was growing up, there were very deaths from the childhood diseases. Measles was the worst of them (we did have DTP, otherwise whooping cough would have been the worst) but very few actually died, although I did know of one whose brain was destroyed from measles encephalitis. My point is that you would need a class of 1000 before you could do this without wild exaggeration. But exaggeration will destroy your credibility. I went through the usual measles, mumps, chicken pox and survived and nearly all kids did. I do approve of this bill and hope they keep careful stats on how successful it is. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/23 "2016-05-19T00:44:56Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Actually, by the 1940s when I was growing up, there were very deaths from the childhood diseases. Measles was the worst of them (we did have DTP, otherwise whooping cough would have been the worst) but very few actually died, although I did know of one whose brain was destroyed from measles encephalitis. My point is that you would need a class of 1000 before you could do this without wild exaggeration. But exaggeration will destroy your credibility. I went through the usual measles, mumps, chicken pox and survived and nearly all kids did. > > I do approve of this bill and hope they keep careful stats on how successful it is. Good idea, but what I’d do is every ten minutes have a parent draw a card from a hat, and it would have the name of the disease their child contracted. It might be smallpox, polio, chickenpox, measles, Hib-- anything for which there is a vaccine. The card would have the statistics of different outcomes. I’d have the parents roll a percentile die (like in D&D), and then let them know what outcomes their child had-- death, complications, surgery, recovery, but with disabilities, recovery, but infected their friend, recovery, but missed so much school, they had to repeat a year (really happened with polio). It’s complicated, but it’s meant to be, because it shows how much parents had to think about and keep in mind, and worry about. I’d have parents bring in pictures of their children, and take the picture away if the child died. If the child survived one illness, they could still get another. You’d keep passing the hat-- actually, you’d see how many pictures parents brought-- in other words, how many collective children they had, divide by the number of minutes of the class, and the product is how often you would interrupt the videos to draw a disease. Sometimes the card might say “exposed to measles at birthday party,” and a roll of the die might end up saying that the child didn’t come down with it, but the parent would still have to sweat wondering if the kid would get sick. I’m basing this on an activity I saw a high school science teacher do, where she drove home the point that \*\*anyone \*\*who had unprotected sex could get HIV, even if you think you know your partner. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/24 "2016-05-19T02:07:00Z")
> [@](#): > > But objection to abortion is a moral issue, whereas anti vax is really about scientific ignorance, so not a great comparison, I think. Education is a good choice, I think. There’s a big difference between telling women a bunch of outright lies about abortion in an effort to change minds vs. telling parents a bunch of scientific facts about vaccines in an effort to change minds. Besides, abortion affects only two people, the parents, and why anyone else feels the need to butt in is puzzling. Anti-vaxxers are risking everyone’s lives. ---
**Author:** ![Sampsiceramos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Sampsiceramos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampsiceramos)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/25 "2016-05-19T02:16:05Z")
I must concur that the comparison to forced “education” about abortions is ill-considered at best and intellectually dishonest at worst. Anti-vaxxers are a non-insignificant public health risk; people who have abortions are not. I personally couldn’t give a rat’s ass whether idiot parents reserve the right to potentially get their children killed were it not for the fact that their doing so endangers swathes of people with absolutely no say in the matter. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/26 "2016-05-19T04:50:29Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > It’s not at all unusual for people to change their opinions when exposed to new facts. Do you have a study to back your view or just anecdotes? Because there have been a number of studies on this and they don’t back you. This is an example: > **[I Don’t Want to Be Right](https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/i-dont-want-to-be-right)** > > To change false beliefs, appealing to a person’s sense of self may be more important than the facts. A number of studies of how to change people’s minds have taken place in the context of the anti vax movement. Also even your anecdotes don’t counter the “didn’t reason in, can’t reason out” wisdom, because you appear to be talking about instances of people whose views were reasoned in (per their perception of the facts) and so can be reasoned out. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/27 "2016-05-19T09:25:52Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Also even your anecdotes don’t counter the “didn’t reason in, can’t reason out” wisdom, because you appear to be talking about instances of people whose views were reasoned in (per their perception of the facts) and so can be reasoned out. Well, if the course manages to move those people from the “no” to the “yes” group, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? There will be some people who refuse to vaccinate come Hell or high water, but the least of them there are the better. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/28 "2016-05-19T11:05:12Z")
The classes won’t matter because anti-vaxxers are _nuts_. They will simply become more entrenched in their beliefs. It would be analogous to forcing fundamentalist Christians to take classes on evolution. After the classes they will proclaim they were “tempted by Satan” or whatever, and they successfully rejected his evil influences. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/29 "2016-05-19T11:05:36Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Well, if the course manages to move those people from the “no” to the “yes” group, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? > > There will be some people who refuse to vaccinate come Hell or high water, but the least of them there are the better. Yes, true. But I was responding to Baal Houtham’s contention that it would work on those who hadn’t reasoned in. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/30 "2016-05-19T15:52:31Z")
They should restructure the class. Make the parents AND children attend, and have the kids attend separately. We might not be able to stop the parents from believing shit, but you still have hope for the kids ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/31 "2016-05-19T16:12:57Z")
Healthcare became too complicated for the average person to understand a long time ago. You can speak about ‘my body, my decision’ all you want, but the reality is that most people lack the education and the background to adequately understand the decisions they are required to make. Judging from the Ontario residents in my Facebook feed, non-vaccinators don’t have have heartfelt beliefs. They just don’t know anything about the topic. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/32 "2016-05-19T18:35:03Z")
Fuck “Your Body, Your Decision”-How about “Your Ignorance, My Child’s Health and Safety”? ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/33 "2016-05-19T18:56:23Z")
Here’s a better solution: No Exemptions\*. Your child puts other children at risk by not being immunized. - with the obvious caveat of an actual medical issue. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/34 "2016-05-20T01:19:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Judging from the Ontario residents in my Facebook feed, non-vaccinators don’t have have heartfelt beliefs. They just don’t know anything about the topic. I suspect this to be case for most as well. There are some entrenched loons, of course, but most just heard vague stuff about autism and side effects and panicked. A spot of education may well do some good. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901/35 "2016-05-20T10:44:57Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Yes, true. But I was responding to Baal Houtham’s contention that it would work on those who hadn’t reasoned in. Hi Princhester. Maybe you’re sacrificing accuracy for brevity there, but I didn’t contend that classes would be effective. You’ve taken an unreasoned position about my beliefs; would any additional information possibly change your mind about my beliefs? My post was just a declaration that the aphorism\* You can’t reason someone out of a position they did’t reason themselves\* etc was annoying and inaccurate and that I was tired of encountering it. What is an unreasoned belief? Is that the same as a belief based on incorrect information? Can you reason someone out of a reasoned belief?.. because based on the 10 page threads in Great Debates it doesn’t seem easier. As aphorisms go, that one is lot less useful than, say, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” Obviously human belief systems are complex; you’re not going to easily convince someone to abandon a belief that’s important to their self image and a major factor in their social interactions. And people trust different sources of information, if you’re going to offer someone better information you’ll first have to get them to accept the validity of your sources. So it’s complex, but if my post made anyone think, “oh yeah, I adjust my opinions and initial impressions as new info comes in” then I made my point. Anecdotally, but effectively. However… considering **Whiskey Dicken’s** enthusiastic, “I am so stealing that” comment (about the aphorism) I probably was ineffective. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ontario-requires-anti-vaxx-parents-to-take-a-class-on-vaccines/754901.md?page=1)