The CIA did more for the anti-vaccination movement than any kind of scientific publication ever will. People that are afraid of vaccination are so for many reasons (some of them totally nonsense, others with some basis in fact). But to have actual proof that a three letter agency used a (fake) vaccination drive to gather DNA from large numbers of innocents in order to get at a fugitive was something we could have really done without.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccin...
The author tries to make some fair points based on anecdotal evidence, but at its core, the article simply states that "I had a strong opinion about X that i imposed upon others. After being influenced by a romantic interest, I biased in another direction. Now I have a (new) strong opinion that i wish to impose upon others.".
In other words, the fundamental act is still same, it is just opinion that has changed.
You're missing a big part of the argument here:
>Go tell arachnophobic parents that you must put spiders on their child because society depends on it, and see how that goes
When children don't receive vaccines it is not just seen that they are endangering themselves, but other children aswell because of the possibility of spread/mutation (whether this is true or not it doesn't really matter, that's just a majority of public view at the moment).
So unlike the spider example, a direct vaccination example from a pro-vaxor's standpoint would be that NOT vaccinating everyone will put children in harm's way.
How come there aren't any "anti-civil engineers" who go around claiming bridges aren't safe or "anti-aeronautical-engineers" who "believe" through common sense that planes can't fly? Electricity is reading our brainwaves. Vacuum cleaners suck out our souls. If there are they are rightly recognized as crackpots in need of psychiatric help.
How do you convince your wife when her kid got sick and went into a seizure after a vaccination.
Especially when the CDC recommends against it for your child: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/should-not-vacc.htm
then what do you do about the other child?
I'm curious how far the label "anti-vaxxer" extends. Does it also include people who accept the science behind vaccination, but who as a political principle are opposed to it being made compulsory?
I looked at this article as a simple case study in being compassionate.
For me, learning to be compassionate has been a pretty big deal. While it is clearly great from a moral perspective, even from a selfish perspective it provides value. Just like the article states, it greatly improves communication and cooperation. Beyond that though, being compassionate makes me feel good.
I definitely recommend practicing compassion, particularly if you tend to be naturally critical, judgmental or cynical.
Is there any research anyone is aware of about a possible connection between movements like these and how Facebook promotes and displays certain types of articles to certain people?
Scaring people is a fantastic way to create and emotional connection and increase engagement do to the fear of missing out on new information. The type of thing that will get you to check your phone every couple minutes all day.
In the back of my head I've always felt(without any information to back it up) that the anti vaccination movement was one of the first real big public health impacts to come out of Facebook and other social applications that serve content designed to cause emotional reactions to increase engagement.
I should add that I do not believe any of this is intentional as opposed to simply optimizing for engagement over time.
The whole anti-science movement is in parts self inflicted. If someone reads one day that scientists discovered "walking" causes cancer and the next day that "walking" is the key to eternal living it is no wonder nobody takes any form of evidence serious anymore. We just see those studies coming out every other day - and journalists certainly playing their part by over-hyping them.
Once you realize how hard consensus finding is and all the personal interests and agendas involved, including the "big" failures of science (e.g smoking is save), I can see the point of people rejecting science as subjective.
TL;DR: Anti-vaxxers aren't idiots. They are driven by fear.
I know a couple anti-vaxxers, and they are very rational, but just selfish, people: they don't believe vaccines are evil in general, but rather they believe what is, basically, true: it is best of all if everyone else is vaccinated, but you aren't.
Rotavirus Vaccine (RotaShield®) and Intussusception
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/rotavirus/vac-rotashield...
And what does it protect against? a bad case of diarrhea.
An intussusception is a medical condition in which a part of the intestine invaginates (folds into) into another section of intestine, similar to the way the parts of a collapsible telescope slide into one another.[1] This can often result in an obstruction. The part that prolapses into the other is called the intussusceptum, and the part that receives it is called the intussuscipiens. Intussusception is a medical emergency and a patient should be seen immediately to reduce risk.
A really good article. Similar things are happening with so many things in our lives (feminism for instance). The worst is when people begin to deny the existence of real problems (like with vaccines, although they make sense, there really is some risk for the people that get vaccinated).
This article doesn't really dive into the issue in a real, honest way.
Vaccinations are generally a public health benefit, no doubt about it, but there's also much we don't understand about how the immune system works. It's not completely, entirely, 100% irrational to desire to avoid messing with something you don't fully understand. The more science you learn, sometimes, the more you learn how little we really know and understand about the complexities of our own bodies. With enough science, that can turn around and reinforce rationality; but I don't think we're there yet as a society in either the body of science available, nor the prevalence of good science education in the population.
I used to be in the same camp as the author. My mom is what I'd call a rational anti-vaxxer, and I hated her for it. She's a trained biologist. She vaccinated where she could see all the science and the benefit, but treated each vaccine as an independent entity, requiring new proof and new science and understanding of how it functioned and how effective it was and the cost/benefit to society before making the decision. When I turned 18, she turned the reins over to me and told me to make my own decisions based on all the data available. She trusted me with the science.
I took this to heart as an adult. I feel it is an excellent way to approach the problem, and in fact is more scientific than blindly accepting recommendations that have dozens of conflicting influences outside simple public health. This became particularly apparent to me as I now battle a chronic GI immune condition that has made my life extremely difficult over the past year. It took a full year to actually diagnose, and even then, what was the best doctors could tell me? "We have no idea what causes it, but we know it doesn't correlate to cancer. Here's some steroids. Good luck." I am not saying any vaccination causes this—I simply don't know—but it's that kind of doubt in the field that makes people doubt blanket statements on all vaccinations, whether that be right or wrong.
I agree with the author of this piece: we need more empathy, more understanding, and much less confrontation. But we also need more science, and a better understanding of science, and a more nuanced, honest discussion of vaccines in medicine and society. In a complex world, when a scientist hears "All X are good," they are right to be skeptical of it. We need to recognize that we live in a world where no one is allowed to have a conversation on vaccines based on reality. Instead, any discussion that doesn't qualify itself with the greatness of vaccines and the wrongness of anti-vaxxers instantly labels you an anti-vaxxer yourself, and loses you all credibility.
This article, too, succumbs to that mental virus. I refuse to. He says, "my point isn't that the anti-vaxxers might be right. They're not." With that attitude, we'll never be able to understand the problem scientifically as a populace, and that's what's wrong with our response to anti-vaxxers—not that they're wrong and delusional. If you want real empathy, stop calling people wrong all the time, and start trying to understand their fear instead of dismissing it and strategically trying to quell it.
If someone has an irrational fear that can pose harm to their child (or other children), the person should do something about it. Never letting a child to play with others, based on the fear that something might happen to in wouldn't be right, would it?
You don't have to be an idiot to be an anti-vaxxer but it certainly helps.
This whole discussion reminds me of seat belt law debate:
Pro-seat belt: "It will save hundreds of lives and reduce injuries"
Anti-seat belt: "What if an accident pushes my car into the water and the seatbelt jams and my child drowns."
Make it the law and put parents in jail. Better yet, since the first confrontation over vaccinations will be when the children are young, put them up for adoption. Lots of vetted, rational people looking to adopt young children.
You don't own "your" children, they are people and they have the right to proper medical care. Proper medical care isn't decided by irrational phobias and fears.
> She had a very unfortunate run-in with a complacent MD in her late teens
I can relate with this.
The author comes across as a bit of an idiot too in the article. Basing his opinions on blogs and a particular internet community. Rather than acquiring an understanding from the scientific source material on these issues.
The author gives a good overview of the psychology of an anti-vaxxer:
1) Anti-vaxxers aren't paranoid misfits TL;DR: Anti-vaxxers are normally rational people, but with an incorrect view on a topic.
2) It's all about fear TL;DR: Anti-vaxxers hold their view out of an irrational fear, similar to arachnophobia, and simply using reason and facts won't work, as they're not in a frame of mind to accept them.
3) If you think something is dangerous, it's logical to avoid it TL;DR: Though their starting premise is misguided, an anti-vaxxer's reaction to vaccines is logical. Thus, there is an emotional component in the initial premise that, when confronted with facts and reason, lead them to dig their heels into the sand and hold the line instead of thinking logically.
4) There's an industry supporting anti-vaxxers — and we're driving them into its arms TL;DR: There are people positioned to exploit fear, and it is these people who are validating the anti-vaccination movement, despite various ethical concerns, and allowing it to thrive. Without these people, the movement would have died out shortly after it had started. Also, anti-vaxxers seeks support from loved ones and people who have experience with the subject matter to validate their worldview.
5) Changing someone's mind doesn't just take love. It takes empathy. TL;DR: Anti-vaxxers come to their erroneous conclusion about vaccinations after bad experiences, not logic. The road to change minds is through empathy, not attack.
He makes an interesting quote in his article: "The anti-vax position was not a deal breaker for me, but suggesting that we should expose her daughter to grave dangers for no good reason was a deal breaker for my wife." This reasoning could (and arguably should) be applied in reverse: suggesting that we should expose children to easily preventable dangers (various potentially lethal childhood illnesses) for no good reason should be a deal breaker in any kind of relationship. While empathy could change an anti-vaxxer's mind, the dangers of having children unvaccinated while this strategy is employed is too risky, so a more direct approach, in my mind, must be taken. It's like trusting someone to drive you to the store while they're very drunk when it's better to never get into the car and to stop them from driving, if possible.
Likewise, he compares the anti-vaxxer movement to arachnophobia. His conclusion to drop his stance on vaccination doesn't logically follow from this comparison, however, as arachnophobia is a mental illness, treated by certified therapists when the phobia starts preventing people from living their lives or driving people to impact other people's lives. The logical conclusion to this comparison is to treat the anti-vaccination movement as a mental illness, encourage anti-vaxxers to seek out certified therapists, and enact laws to prevent people who don't vaccinate their children or themselves from spreading easily preventable but potentially life and quality of life threatening diseases.
There are many developmental problems that have been correlated and in some cases proven to be caused by the obesity of the mother and the child.
Yet there's no credible anti-obesity movement. In fact, many of the same parents who worry about obesity worry about making children self-conscious about "body image" and tolerate obesity--even though 400 people die every year from Anorexia compared to 300,000 yearly deaths from Obesity.
Why it's acceptable to worry about risks from vaccines but it's off limits to discuss a mother's or child's weight problem is a big, dangerous, mystery facing society today--especially because 2/3rds of Americans are overweight or obese.
So did Jim Carrey.
Dick trumps brain, nothing surprising there.
Um, no, she's an idiot, and you're justifying it her stupidity.
There are people who believe our planet is 2000 years old, too...
Damn, this is something I've been saying for a while (and also written a more succinct blog about[1]). The anti-vaxxer parents are victims of fraudsters who do this for monetary gain. It's the same story as with all pseudoscience.
Attacking parents will not stop it. Education and holding fraudsters responsible will. But education has to be, marketing wise, on the same level as what fraudsters are pumping out. Currently it really isn't (save for a few exceptions).
[1] http://thescepticalpirate.eu/vaccinations-dont-blame-parents...
"Lead paint, tobacco, bloodletting [..] we ought to remember that the same sentence has been said, earnestly and confidently, about things that absolutely were hazardous."
I've heard this argument before but it sounds really wrong to me. Did anyone ever really say lead paint is absolutely safe? For all of these things I feel people just didn't think about it. They never thought 'hmm maybe if we put poisonous metal in paint (we knew lead was poisonous) it could go into the air and affect the brain development of our children' they just went to a hardware store and bought the paint that was good and cheap, assuming that since everyone else bought it, it would be good. Same for tobacco.
I almost married an anti-vaxxer. And then I realized there are another couple million people in this country I could marry and not have to fight over that stuff about the rest of my life.
It wasn't just vaccines she was worried about. She was also vegan. Only ate organic. I'm fine if those are your choices but I don't want them forced upon me, or a lecture when I eat a hotdog, take an aspirin, or drink milk.
Constant fear of everything in the environment requires psychological help.
I'm so not surprised by the comments here, so far.
The core points here are good ones:
- In a fundamentally emotional argument, you 'win' with empathy, not by beating people over the head with the same (very reasonable) arguments they've heard a hundred times.
- Vaccines are certainly effective, they are the correct choice, but there are also absolutely legitimate reasons to distrust the medical and scientific arguments (as pointed out in the article, both medicine and the science behind drugs have been spectacularly wrong more than once). That's something that has to be addressed and overcome, and not just with numbers.