8 ms·

I thought all anti-vaxxers were idiots. Then I married one

39 points by rvikmanis 11y ago

altern8 11y ago
There are people who believe our planet is 2000 years old, too...
- rjsw 11y ago
  Don't you mean 4000 years old ?
  - krcz 11y ago
    Isn't it supposed to be 6000 (4k before Christ and 2k after)?
    - knieveltech 11y ago
      [reserve not met]
pluma 11y ago
You don't have to be an idiot to be an anti-vaxxer but it certainly helps.
XorNot 11y ago
So did Jim Carrey.
sharemywin 11y ago
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 http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/should-not-vacc.htm then what do you do about the other child?
- donkeyd 11y ago
  Well, most people in the pro-vaxx community won't deny that vaccinating has risks. The risks of not vaccinating, however, are bigger in a lot of cases. I think that's the most important message in the article, that their concern might be justified, but that the coin has another side.
- _ph_ 11y ago
  The exceptions in this list are almost entirely due to possible allergic reactions. Take flu vaccines - most of them are created via eggs, so people allergic against eggs cannot use these vaccines, until especially prepared without using eggs. If no vaccine is available for your child, it should skip this especial vaccination. This also is the reason why it is so important that every child which can, should be vaccinated. If a small percentage of the population is not vaccinated, they are still safe/no danger to society due to the protection given by the vaccinated part of the population. This is not a reason to skip vaccinations for non-medical reasons.
- coldtea 11y ago
  How do you convince your wife when your child gets the disease that vaccination would have protected them against (which is far more likely to happen, and has cost thousands upon thousands of recorded deaths in the past)? Your question is analogous to: "If you told you kid it's ok to go out and play, and while outside a car hit him, do you let the other child ever go out again?" probability wise.
  - henalye 11y ago
    But that's exactly what happens sometimes. Family was ridiculously overprotective of me and crossing roads because my sister got run over by a car. I was barely able to go out and do anything at all outside until I managed to get out of that environment because my older cousin got herself into drugs. While this is merely anecdotal evidence, my story is not unique. The younger sibling paying dearly for the bias caretakers incurred thanks to correlation to a bad incident is far, far from a rare occurrence.
    - 11y ago
JTon 11y ago
TL;DR: Anti-vaxxers aren't idiots. They are driven by fear.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  More correctly, phobia. Phobias are irrational fears.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
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?
- donkeyd 11y ago
  AFAIK it's mostly used to describe people who don't vaccinate themselves or their children.
- pc86 11y ago
  It means you're against vaccination. If you think vaccination is good (or even just "meh") then I don't think the term can rightly be applied to you, regardless of how you feel about it being compulsory.
- Alex3917 11y ago
  I haven't actually read the The Precautionary Principle, but I'm guessing NNT is in that category.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  If you don't make it compulsory, then it doesn't work. Vaccination relies on herd immunity because the vaccination doesn't work for everyone; some people can't have the vaccine (allergic to one of its components), for other people it just doesn't take effect (biological systems are unreliable like that), so you have to have an over 90% vaccination rate for herd immunity to actually work. By allowing people to opt out, you're condemning a bunch of people to illness and death. Lemme guess, you're a libertarian, right?
  - Grue3 11y ago
    So you're arguing that flu vaccine must be mandatory? All the other vaccines (there sure are plenty)? You're just plain wrong about vaccination relying on herd immunity. Vaccine is still effective for those who take it. And the oft-repeated number "90%" has no scientific basis whatsoever, the herd immunity threshold is heavily dependent on how infectious the disease is, and plenty of other factors.
everyone 11y ago
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.
- donkeyd 11y ago
  Confirmation bias works both ways. In one way or another everybody is influenced by it, whether you're on the right side, or the wrong side of facts.
  - AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
    > In one way or another everybody is influenced by it, whether you're on the right side, or the wrong side of facts. I disagree. I'm always on the right side and am never influenced by confirmation bias - at least that's what the comments I approve on my blog say!
    - donkeyd 11y ago
      I have to disrespectfully disagree, because my filter bubble always shows me that my views are correct.
  - leephillips 11y ago
    It's true. Everywhere I look I see confirmation bias.
- slavik81 11y ago
  A thorough literature review of a field you have no training in is a rather significant undertaking. It's nice to take a look at individual papers sometimes, but without a lot of context it's difficult to be sure you're interpreting them right.
  - pc86 11y ago
    Wait you mean you don't log into JSTOR any time someone mentions something outside of your field of expertise?
iSnow 11y ago
Dick trumps brain, nothing surprising there.
- vermooten 11y ago
  :)
plg 11y ago
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.
- donkeyd 11y ago
  There's a 'flat-earthers' movement apparently. Compared to them, anti-vaxxers seem like sensible people.
  - goodJobWalrus 11y ago
    There is also a "religious" movement, who believe all kind of crazy things about the universe and evolution. And there are a lot of them (in the US at least)....
- chillingeffect 11y ago
  The difference and paranoia arise from the intangibility of microbes and electricity/software. The closest you'll find are the "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" people who exercise doubt in the face of the strength of structures.
- slavik81 11y ago
  > "anti-aeronautical-engineers" who "believe" through common sense that planes can't fly? There are plenty of people who won't fly because they're afraid it will crash, despite that being tremendously unlikely. > Electricity is reading our brainwaves. I got some great pamphlets in my mailbox about how the neighborhood powerlines were going to affect my mood. But, no. They are not in need of psychiatric help. They're just wrong about something.
  - Ensorceled 11y ago
    > There are plenty of people who won't fly because they're afraid it will crash, despite that being tremendously unlikely. I know people like this. They don't think their view is rational and they do things like buy plane tickets for their kids.
drglitch 11y ago
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.
- chillingeffect 11y ago
  This is a deep observation and it's how a lot of Art works: it's not the immediate object/product/action that makes sense. It's when you put it into a context to generate meaning. To persevarate: I'm sure if the author ever breaks up, he'll cop to being led around by his hormones. In the meantime, his unaware writing is a bold sample of the process of mental rationalization. And in that way, the artist is often in a bind: to intentionally produce a work that reveals an unconscious incorrectness, in order that other can properly contextualize it. The artist must be wrong in order to be right, to ruin their reputation to grow one.
  - calinet6 11y ago
    He didn't work to change his opinions at all, if you read the article. He simply came up with a strategy to try to change others opinions in a different way. This ain't no artist.
condescendence 11y ago
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.
- cname 11y ago
  If you read the whole article, it's pretty clear that he hasn't missed any aspect of "the argument". From the article: "But vaccines only work when everyone buys in. Public health depends on anti-vaxxers confronting their greatest fears for the benefit of others."
  - condescendence 11y ago
    I'm pointing out the fact that this person is playing mental mind games to justify the SO's point because he is head over heals so to speak. I read the full article, and your comment furthers my point. The author is playing on both sides of the fence. It's like my SO for example, I hate when people chew with their mouth open I find it a little disrespectful and yet she does it and I don't find it disturbing. My preferences and beliefs are strayed because of my love for her. This is basically a blog post explaining how someone can have an affect on even the strongest of beliefs solely because of emotions....no matter how ridiculous. Powerful stuff.
    - cname 11y ago
      It doesn't sound like his beliefs were affected at all. In the end, she decided to get her kid vaccinated. He was playing the long game, and it sounds like it paid off. It seems to me that you're the one missing the point.
astalwick 11y ago
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.
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  >both medicine and the science behind drugs have been spectacularly wrong more than once On the other hand, non-medicine (alternative medicine) and non-science (pseudoscience) have been spectacularly right more than once. That's the point. Agree with empathy angle and need for emotional arguments, though.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Can you give some examples of what you're thinking of here?
    - vdaniuk 11y ago
      Medicine is usually right and only sometimes wrong, but alternative medicine is usually wrong and only sometimes right. The fact that medicine can be spectacularly or trivially wrong doesn't provide any inputs for change of personal healthcare strategy.
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        I understand what you wrote. I was asking for specific examples.
    - palimpsests 11y ago
      My guess is that this demographic would tend to categorize traditional Chinese medicine as being pseudoscience – if you agree, here's an example from within that system: The 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to a Youyou Tu, a Chinese pharmacologist who identified powerful antimalarial compounds in a traditional Chinese medical formula that has been used for centuries to treat Malaria: > Youyou Tu in China turned to traditional herbal medicine to tackle the challenge of developing novel Malaria therapies. From a large-scale screen of herbal remedies in Malaria-infected animals, an extract from the plant Artemisia annua emerged as an interesting candidate. However, the results were inconsistent, so Tu revisited the ancient literature and discovered clues that guided her in her quest to successfully extract the active component from Artemisia annua. Tu was the first to show that this component, later called Artemisinin, was highly effective against the Malaria parasite, both in infected animals and in humans (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2015/press.html http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/20...). There are plenty of other examples if you are curious and inclined to do the research. As an aside, I would argue that the type of empiricism within this system of medicine is indeed a type of science (cataloguing pharmacological agents for thousands of years and recording their effects in the treatment of myriad medical conditions), but it probably has little to no examples of the modern day notion of randomized clinical trials.
jacquesm 11y ago
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-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccin...
- Alex3917 11y ago
  Also the HIV epidemic is thought to have been started by government vaccination programs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS But a lot of 'pro-vaccine' folks just completely ignore the black swan problem, which is wrong. Also the flu vaccine lowers your chances of dying in any given winter, but many studies show that it increase your chances of the flu dying over the course of your life. This is because the flu vaccine only confers immunity against those strains for 6 - 18 months, whereas getting the flu confers immunity against those strains for decades: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870374/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870374/ http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/11/study-adds-more-data-effects-consecutive-year-flu-shots http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/11/study-add... Also a lot of vaccines have had very little human testing. E.g. if you look at the CDC webpage for the japanese encephalitis vaccine, it says "There are no efficacy data for Ixiaro. The vaccine was licensed in the United States on the basis of its ability to induce JE virus neutralizing antibodies as a surrogate for protection." http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2016/infectious-diseases-related-to-travel/japanese-encephalitis http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2016/infectious-disea... I think there is a major lack of critical thinking of both sides of the issue.
  - spleeder 11y ago
    In my country (Romania) HIV was actually spread through vaccinations. Indeed that is how I got infected as an infant. The problem was supposedly not with the vaccines themselves though but with the fact that they were reusing needles.
sputr 11y ago
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/ http://thescepticalpirate.eu/vaccinations-dont-blame-parents...
FastComputer 11y ago
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.
krcz 11y ago
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?
- DanBC 11y ago
  Sure. Yelling at people doesn't seem to help them with their irrational fear, and may well make it worse.
pheroden 11y ago
Um, no, she's an idiot, and you're justifying it her stupidity.
bluedino 11y ago
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.
- chrisbennet 11y ago
  Asprin is derived from the bark of the willow tree. From Wikipedia: "The therapeutic properties of willow tree bark have been known for at least 2,400 years, with Hippocrates prescribing it for headaches" "By definition, alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine;" (From Tim Michin's poem "Storm") http://www.timminchin.com/2011/04/08/storm/ http://www.timminchin.com/2011/04/08/storm/
- issa 11y ago
  Sounds like you're conflating a few different things here. I don't know any vegans who are vegan out of fear. Usually it is a question of empathy for animals, or for the health benefits.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  You made the right choice. I wish someone had convinced me to avoid my marriage. My last wife wasn't a really strong anti-vaxxer (we never had kids, so it never was a big issue), but she did buy into it and closely related, she was really big into "alternative medicine". She spent a ridiculous amount of money on that crap, and of course that was one of the big factors that lead to our marriage failing. I agree with the other guy though about you conflating things. You're right that being anti-vax and using alternative medicine is largely about fear (which she has problems with in many other areas too: she's afraid of terrorists, she's afraid of illegals, I could go on and on), but veganism, as far as I can tell, is not about fear, it's about an extreme philosophical position where those people don't want to hurt or abuse animals in any way. (The problem with the position, of course, is it's just not very practical.) I don't see the two as the same at all; my wife wasn't into veganism at all. She was into organic stuff though, which of course is based on fear, though not completely irrational as a lot of our food in this country is of shitty quality and many farming practices are questionable (for instance, giving livestock tons of antibiotics even when they don't need it, which is causing more antibiotic-resistant bacteria to arise). If you're in the position of dating someone who you might have kids with, and she's anti-vax, I recommend getting out ASAP. You're going to end up having horrible fights over it. If you're past the age of having kids, it's less of an issue, but it's still a good indicator of a very different worldview, so I recommend avoiding those people.
1337biz 11y ago
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.
- jinushaun 11y ago
  Science isn't the problem. It's lay people ingesting their information from dumbed down articles written by professional journalists looking to sell more newspapers or get more clicks. Even if these studies were free and not stuck behind a paywall, your average person will not bother to read the details. Maybe it's human nature to want to be told what to believe. No one has time to do the independent research on every little thing they hear or read.
legulere 11y ago
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).
anovikov 11y ago
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.
- calinet6 11y ago
  Vaccination libertarians. Interesting. At least that's an understandable, rational argument.
CuriouslyC 11y ago
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.
tinco 11y ago
"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.
- Alex3917 11y ago
  It was already known that lead was poisonous when leaded gas was invented, but there was a huge amount of lobbying saying it was safe by the car industry.
Ensorceled 11y ago
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.
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  There are laws that you aren't allowed to wear your seatbelts in certain situations; e.g. on some ice roads in some countries (Estonia). Not that this is very relevant to anti vax.
  - Ensorceled 11y ago
    Where I'm from, we also take our seat belts off and roll down our windows while driving out to our ice shacks to go fishing. I agree though, there are children with compromised immune systems who CAN'T take vaccines. And anti-vaxxers increase the risks to those children.
hiou 11y ago
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.
calinet6 11y ago
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.
LinkPlug 11y ago
> She had a very unfortunate run-in with a complacent MD in her late teens I can relate with this.
sharemywin 11y ago
Rotavirus Vaccine (RotaShield®) and Intussusception http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/rotavirus/vac-rotashield-historical.htm 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.
- jwmerrill 11y ago
  Diarrhea kills more than a million people each year. In 2012, it was the second most common cause of deaths in children younger than five (0.76 million or 11%). Be thankful that you live in a time and place that allow you to not take it very seriously. I know I'm thankful for this. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarrhea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarrhea
batarjal 11y ago
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.

39 points by rvikmanis 11y ago

altern8 11y ago

There are people who believe our planet is 2000 years old, too...

rjsw 11y ago
Don't you mean 4000 years old ?
- krcz 11y ago
  Isn't it supposed to be 6000 (4k before Christ and 2k after)?
  - knieveltech 11y ago
    [reserve not met]

pluma 11y ago

You don't have to be an idiot to be an anti-vaxxer but it certainly helps.

XorNot 11y ago

So did Jim Carrey.

sharemywin 11y ago

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 http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/should-not-vacc.htm then what do you do about the other child?

donkeyd 11y ago
Well, most people in the pro-vaxx community won't deny that vaccinating has risks. The risks of not vaccinating, however, are bigger in a lot of cases. I think that's the most important message in the article, that their concern might be justified, but that the coin has another side.
_ph_ 11y ago
The exceptions in this list are almost entirely due to possible allergic reactions. Take flu vaccines - most of them are created via eggs, so people allergic against eggs cannot use these vaccines, until especially prepared without using eggs. If no vaccine is available for your child, it should skip this especial vaccination. This also is the reason why it is so important that every child which can, should be vaccinated. If a small percentage of the population is not vaccinated, they are still safe/no danger to society due to the protection given by the vaccinated part of the population. This is not a reason to skip vaccinations for non-medical reasons.
coldtea 11y ago
How do you convince your wife when your child gets the disease that vaccination would have protected them against (which is far more likely to happen, and has cost thousands upon thousands of recorded deaths in the past)? Your question is analogous to: "If you told you kid it's ok to go out and play, and while outside a car hit him, do you let the other child ever go out again?" probability wise.
- henalye 11y ago
  But that's exactly what happens sometimes. Family was ridiculously overprotective of me and crossing roads because my sister got run over by a car. I was barely able to go out and do anything at all outside until I managed to get out of that environment because my older cousin got herself into drugs. While this is merely anecdotal evidence, my story is not unique. The younger sibling paying dearly for the bias caretakers incurred thanks to correlation to a bad incident is far, far from a rare occurrence.
  - 11y ago

JTon 11y ago

TL;DR: Anti-vaxxers aren't idiots. They are driven by fear.

moron4hire 11y ago
More correctly, phobia. Phobias are irrational fears.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

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?

donkeyd 11y ago
AFAIK it's mostly used to describe people who don't vaccinate themselves or their children.
pc86 11y ago
It means you're against vaccination. If you think vaccination is good (or even just "meh") then I don't think the term can rightly be applied to you, regardless of how you feel about it being compulsory.
Alex3917 11y ago
I haven't actually read the The Precautionary Principle, but I'm guessing NNT is in that category.
Grishnakh 11y ago
If you don't make it compulsory, then it doesn't work. Vaccination relies on herd immunity because the vaccination doesn't work for everyone; some people can't have the vaccine (allergic to one of its components), for other people it just doesn't take effect (biological systems are unreliable like that), so you have to have an over 90% vaccination rate for herd immunity to actually work. By allowing people to opt out, you're condemning a bunch of people to illness and death. Lemme guess, you're a libertarian, right?
- Grue3 11y ago
  So you're arguing that flu vaccine must be mandatory? All the other vaccines (there sure are plenty)? You're just plain wrong about vaccination relying on herd immunity. Vaccine is still effective for those who take it. And the oft-repeated number "90%" has no scientific basis whatsoever, the herd immunity threshold is heavily dependent on how infectious the disease is, and plenty of other factors.

everyone 11y ago

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.

donkeyd 11y ago
Confirmation bias works both ways. In one way or another everybody is influenced by it, whether you're on the right side, or the wrong side of facts.
- AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
  > In one way or another everybody is influenced by it, whether you're on the right side, or the wrong side of facts. I disagree. I'm always on the right side and am never influenced by confirmation bias - at least that's what the comments I approve on my blog say!
  - donkeyd 11y ago
    I have to disrespectfully disagree, because my filter bubble always shows me that my views are correct.
- leephillips 11y ago
  It's true. Everywhere I look I see confirmation bias.
slavik81 11y ago
A thorough literature review of a field you have no training in is a rather significant undertaking. It's nice to take a look at individual papers sometimes, but without a lot of context it's difficult to be sure you're interpreting them right.
- pc86 11y ago
  Wait you mean you don't log into JSTOR any time someone mentions something outside of your field of expertise?

iSnow 11y ago

Dick trumps brain, nothing surprising there.

vermooten 11y ago
:)

plg 11y ago

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.

donkeyd 11y ago
There's a 'flat-earthers' movement apparently. Compared to them, anti-vaxxers seem like sensible people.
- goodJobWalrus 11y ago
  There is also a "religious" movement, who believe all kind of crazy things about the universe and evolution. And there are a lot of them (in the US at least)....
chillingeffect 11y ago
The difference and paranoia arise from the intangibility of microbes and electricity/software. The closest you'll find are the "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" people who exercise doubt in the face of the strength of structures.
slavik81 11y ago
> "anti-aeronautical-engineers" who "believe" through common sense that planes can't fly? There are plenty of people who won't fly because they're afraid it will crash, despite that being tremendously unlikely. > Electricity is reading our brainwaves. I got some great pamphlets in my mailbox about how the neighborhood powerlines were going to affect my mood. But, no. They are not in need of psychiatric help. They're just wrong about something.
- Ensorceled 11y ago
  > There are plenty of people who won't fly because they're afraid it will crash, despite that being tremendously unlikely. I know people like this. They don't think their view is rational and they do things like buy plane tickets for their kids.

drglitch 11y ago

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.

chillingeffect 11y ago
This is a deep observation and it's how a lot of Art works: it's not the immediate object/product/action that makes sense. It's when you put it into a context to generate meaning. To persevarate: I'm sure if the author ever breaks up, he'll cop to being led around by his hormones. In the meantime, his unaware writing is a bold sample of the process of mental rationalization. And in that way, the artist is often in a bind: to intentionally produce a work that reveals an unconscious incorrectness, in order that other can properly contextualize it. The artist must be wrong in order to be right, to ruin their reputation to grow one.
- calinet6 11y ago
  He didn't work to change his opinions at all, if you read the article. He simply came up with a strategy to try to change others opinions in a different way. This ain't no artist.

condescendence 11y ago

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.

cname 11y ago
If you read the whole article, it's pretty clear that he hasn't missed any aspect of "the argument". From the article: "But vaccines only work when everyone buys in. Public health depends on anti-vaxxers confronting their greatest fears for the benefit of others."
- condescendence 11y ago
  I'm pointing out the fact that this person is playing mental mind games to justify the SO's point because he is head over heals so to speak. I read the full article, and your comment furthers my point. The author is playing on both sides of the fence. It's like my SO for example, I hate when people chew with their mouth open I find it a little disrespectful and yet she does it and I don't find it disturbing. My preferences and beliefs are strayed because of my love for her. This is basically a blog post explaining how someone can have an affect on even the strongest of beliefs solely because of emotions....no matter how ridiculous. Powerful stuff.
  - cname 11y ago
    It doesn't sound like his beliefs were affected at all. In the end, she decided to get her kid vaccinated. He was playing the long game, and it sounds like it paid off. It seems to me that you're the one missing the point.

astalwick 11y ago

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.

vdaniuk 11y ago
>both medicine and the science behind drugs have been spectacularly wrong more than once On the other hand, non-medicine (alternative medicine) and non-science (pseudoscience) have been spectacularly right more than once. That's the point. Agree with empathy angle and need for emotional arguments, though.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Can you give some examples of what you're thinking of here?
  - vdaniuk 11y ago
    Medicine is usually right and only sometimes wrong, but alternative medicine is usually wrong and only sometimes right. The fact that medicine can be spectacularly or trivially wrong doesn't provide any inputs for change of personal healthcare strategy.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      I understand what you wrote. I was asking for specific examples.
  - palimpsests 11y ago
    My guess is that this demographic would tend to categorize traditional Chinese medicine as being pseudoscience – if you agree, here's an example from within that system: The 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to a Youyou Tu, a Chinese pharmacologist who identified powerful antimalarial compounds in a traditional Chinese medical formula that has been used for centuries to treat Malaria: > Youyou Tu in China turned to traditional herbal medicine to tackle the challenge of developing novel Malaria therapies. From a large-scale screen of herbal remedies in Malaria-infected animals, an extract from the plant Artemisia annua emerged as an interesting candidate. However, the results were inconsistent, so Tu revisited the ancient literature and discovered clues that guided her in her quest to successfully extract the active component from Artemisia annua. Tu was the first to show that this component, later called Artemisinin, was highly effective against the Malaria parasite, both in infected animals and in humans (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2015/press.html http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/20...). There are plenty of other examples if you are curious and inclined to do the research. As an aside, I would argue that the type of empiricism within this system of medicine is indeed a type of science (cataloguing pharmacological agents for thousands of years and recording their effects in the treatment of myriad medical conditions), but it probably has little to no examples of the modern day notion of randomized clinical trials.

jacquesm 11y ago

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-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccin...

Alex3917 11y ago
Also the HIV epidemic is thought to have been started by government vaccination programs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS But a lot of 'pro-vaccine' folks just completely ignore the black swan problem, which is wrong. Also the flu vaccine lowers your chances of dying in any given winter, but many studies show that it increase your chances of the flu dying over the course of your life. This is because the flu vaccine only confers immunity against those strains for 6 - 18 months, whereas getting the flu confers immunity against those strains for decades: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870374/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870374/ http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/11/study-adds-more-data-effects-consecutive-year-flu-shots http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/11/study-add... Also a lot of vaccines have had very little human testing. E.g. if you look at the CDC webpage for the japanese encephalitis vaccine, it says "There are no efficacy data for Ixiaro. The vaccine was licensed in the United States on the basis of its ability to induce JE virus neutralizing antibodies as a surrogate for protection." http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2016/infectious-diseases-related-to-travel/japanese-encephalitis http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2016/infectious-disea... I think there is a major lack of critical thinking of both sides of the issue.
- spleeder 11y ago
  In my country (Romania) HIV was actually spread through vaccinations. Indeed that is how I got infected as an infant. The problem was supposedly not with the vaccines themselves though but with the fact that they were reusing needles.

sputr 11y ago

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/ http://thescepticalpirate.eu/vaccinations-dont-blame-parents...

FastComputer 11y ago

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.

krcz 11y ago

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?

DanBC 11y ago
Sure. Yelling at people doesn't seem to help them with their irrational fear, and may well make it worse.

pheroden 11y ago

Um, no, she's an idiot, and you're justifying it her stupidity.

bluedino 11y ago

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.

chrisbennet 11y ago
Asprin is derived from the bark of the willow tree. From Wikipedia: "The therapeutic properties of willow tree bark have been known for at least 2,400 years, with Hippocrates prescribing it for headaches" "By definition, alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine;" (From Tim Michin's poem "Storm") http://www.timminchin.com/2011/04/08/storm/ http://www.timminchin.com/2011/04/08/storm/
issa 11y ago
Sounds like you're conflating a few different things here. I don't know any vegans who are vegan out of fear. Usually it is a question of empathy for animals, or for the health benefits.
Grishnakh 11y ago
You made the right choice. I wish someone had convinced me to avoid my marriage. My last wife wasn't a really strong anti-vaxxer (we never had kids, so it never was a big issue), but she did buy into it and closely related, she was really big into "alternative medicine". She spent a ridiculous amount of money on that crap, and of course that was one of the big factors that lead to our marriage failing. I agree with the other guy though about you conflating things. You're right that being anti-vax and using alternative medicine is largely about fear (which she has problems with in many other areas too: she's afraid of terrorists, she's afraid of illegals, I could go on and on), but veganism, as far as I can tell, is not about fear, it's about an extreme philosophical position where those people don't want to hurt or abuse animals in any way. (The problem with the position, of course, is it's just not very practical.) I don't see the two as the same at all; my wife wasn't into veganism at all. She was into organic stuff though, which of course is based on fear, though not completely irrational as a lot of our food in this country is of shitty quality and many farming practices are questionable (for instance, giving livestock tons of antibiotics even when they don't need it, which is causing more antibiotic-resistant bacteria to arise). If you're in the position of dating someone who you might have kids with, and she's anti-vax, I recommend getting out ASAP. You're going to end up having horrible fights over it. If you're past the age of having kids, it's less of an issue, but it's still a good indicator of a very different worldview, so I recommend avoiding those people.

1337biz 11y ago

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.

jinushaun 11y ago
Science isn't the problem. It's lay people ingesting their information from dumbed down articles written by professional journalists looking to sell more newspapers or get more clicks. Even if these studies were free and not stuck behind a paywall, your average person will not bother to read the details. Maybe it's human nature to want to be told what to believe. No one has time to do the independent research on every little thing they hear or read.

legulere 11y ago

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).

anovikov 11y ago

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.

calinet6 11y ago
Vaccination libertarians. Interesting. At least that's an understandable, rational argument.

CuriouslyC 11y ago

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.

tinco 11y ago

"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.

Alex3917 11y ago
It was already known that lead was poisonous when leaded gas was invented, but there was a huge amount of lobbying saying it was safe by the car industry.

Ensorceled 11y ago

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.

seanmcdirmid 11y ago
There are laws that you aren't allowed to wear your seatbelts in certain situations; e.g. on some ice roads in some countries (Estonia). Not that this is very relevant to anti vax.
- Ensorceled 11y ago
  Where I'm from, we also take our seat belts off and roll down our windows while driving out to our ice shacks to go fishing. I agree though, there are children with compromised immune systems who CAN'T take vaccines. And anti-vaxxers increase the risks to those children.

hiou 11y ago

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.

calinet6 11y ago

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.

LinkPlug 11y ago

> She had a very unfortunate run-in with a complacent MD in her late teens I can relate with this.

sharemywin 11y ago

Rotavirus Vaccine (RotaShield®) and Intussusception http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/rotavirus/vac-rotashield-historical.htm 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.

jwmerrill 11y ago
Diarrhea kills more than a million people each year. In 2012, it was the second most common cause of deaths in children younger than five (0.76 million or 11%). Be thankful that you live in a time and place that allow you to not take it very seriously. I know I'm thankful for this. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarrhea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarrhea

batarjal 11y ago

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.