8 ms·

Talking about vaccine hesitancy in Africa must be accompanied by why there's a certain amount of justification of it and it can be viewed as entirely rational,

by harry8 5y ago

Talking about vaccine hesitancy in Africa must be accompanied by why there's a certain amount of justification of it and it can be viewed as entirely rational, if also wholly undesirable. Included in that must be the USA's role in creating that problem. A couple of examples quickly turned up with a search engine of which there seem to be far, far too many. I can recall a few not here being reported over the past decade or so. When you tell lies you incur a debt to the truth, the interest rate is very steep. What we're seeing now is one such payment. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/did-pfizer-bribe-its-way-out-of-criminal-charges-in-nigeria/68495/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/di... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vacci... https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/opinion/31washington.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/opinion/31washington.html

JamesBarney 5y ago
I would be surprised if this is the reason. The South African anti-vax arguments I've read were very similar to the anti-vax arguments I hear here. None of them argued the vaccines they're receiving are an experimental vaccines, or that the vaccines are a trick. They seem to mostly seem to have concerns about the actual vaccines similar to western anti-vaxxers.
- blitzar 5y ago
  > They seem to mostly seem to have concerns about the actual vaccines similar to western anti-vaxxers. You mean the western anti-vaxxers who say it is an experimental vaccine tricking the world into steralizing itself?
PostOnce 5y ago
That's plausible, but it's not the whole picture. It may only partially explain some of the problem. We have, in the wealthy west, millions of vaccine-hesistant and vaccine-denialist people. I'm not just talking about poor or uneducated people, either. I personally know wealthy, educated, analytical people who have bought into the fearmongering and propaganda. I was shocked to find how deeply skeptical they were. I was even more shocked to be linked to propaganda with hard-to-miss flaws, like the fact that the promoter is not talking on behalf of the AMA, but on behalf of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physic... ... and I'm not even in America. I also know people who got a dose of vaccine, read propaganda, became skeptical and delayed their second dose for a long time. It's not just the poor, the ignorant, or people we've betrayed. It's bigger than that. I don't think anyone fully understands it yet. Watching the people around me has stirred in me many new questions.
- teaearlgraycold 5y ago
  Is the propaganda really that good? Or did they want to be skeptical to begin with?
  - PostOnce 5y ago
    I think it's not a function of quality, but of time and volume; if you hear something enough, you might–if only fleetingly–find yourself asking "what if they're right?", because it's not like it's just one crazy guy, it's a lot of voices.
    - artificialLimbs 5y ago
      >> …it’s a lot of voices. A looooot of voices. https://thevaultproject.org/ron-johnson-holds-expert-panel-on-covid-and-shocking-vaccine-injuries/ https://thevaultproject.org/ron-johnson-holds-expert-panel-o...
  - gonehome 5y ago
    Most people believe insane things of some form and all of us are usually inconsistent in some way. It might have tighter correlations with economic and education status, but that’s not all of it. Whatever skill allows some to see the signal through the noise while others descend down rabbit holes that lead to delusion is hard to teach. The best community I’ve found that works towards it is the less wrong rationality community, but none of us are immune from cognitive bias or motivated reasoning. It’s all about recognizing it and trying to correct for it in order to struggle closer to the truth. Even so, I worry most people continually exposed to false ideas will eventually get infected by them - even if you have really good tools, it’s hard.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    They have been perfecting their message for years in the background. I've watched it start as a very left wing thing, then they discovered that the "freedom" message really resonated with the right wing libertarians about 10 years ago. They have been spreading in that crowd since. Make no mistake, they don't care about you or right/left wing. It might be right wing this time around, but only because they are still looking for a message that will appeal to the left wing as strongly. The biggest spreaders seem to have a supplement store. Follow the money often works very well.
nova22033 5y ago
Pakistan had a history of vaccine hesitancy before the CIA's fake vaccination campaign was revealed.
kaiwen1 5y ago
This argument is refuted by 1) no widespread evidence of Africans themselves making such claims about their reluctance to vaccinate; 2) widespread evidence of Africans making the same conspiracy claims as those being made in other countries not sharing Africa's history; and 3) widespread evidence that the claims of both Africans and non-Africans originate from the same sources of disinformation on social media.

by harry8 5y ago

JamesBarney 5y ago

I would be surprised if this is the reason. The South African anti-vax arguments I've read were very similar to the anti-vax arguments I hear here. None of them argued the vaccines they're receiving are an experimental vaccines, or that the vaccines are a trick. They seem to mostly seem to have concerns about the actual vaccines similar to western anti-vaxxers.

blitzar 5y ago
> They seem to mostly seem to have concerns about the actual vaccines similar to western anti-vaxxers. You mean the western anti-vaxxers who say it is an experimental vaccine tricking the world into steralizing itself?

PostOnce 5y ago

That's plausible, but it's not the whole picture. It may only partially explain some of the problem. We have, in the wealthy west, millions of vaccine-hesistant and vaccine-denialist people. I'm not just talking about poor or uneducated people, either. I personally know wealthy, educated, analytical people who have bought into the fearmongering and propaganda. I was shocked to find how deeply skeptical they were. I was even more shocked to be linked to propaganda with hard-to-miss flaws, like the fact that the promoter is not talking on behalf of the AMA, but on behalf of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physic... ... and I'm not even in America. I also know people who got a dose of vaccine, read propaganda, became skeptical and delayed their second dose for a long time. It's not just the poor, the ignorant, or people we've betrayed. It's bigger than that. I don't think anyone fully understands it yet. Watching the people around me has stirred in me many new questions.

teaearlgraycold 5y ago
Is the propaganda really that good? Or did they want to be skeptical to begin with?
- PostOnce 5y ago
  I think it's not a function of quality, but of time and volume; if you hear something enough, you might–if only fleetingly–find yourself asking "what if they're right?", because it's not like it's just one crazy guy, it's a lot of voices.
  - artificialLimbs 5y ago
    >> …it’s a lot of voices. A looooot of voices. https://thevaultproject.org/ron-johnson-holds-expert-panel-on-covid-and-shocking-vaccine-injuries/ https://thevaultproject.org/ron-johnson-holds-expert-panel-o...
- gonehome 5y ago
  Most people believe insane things of some form and all of us are usually inconsistent in some way. It might have tighter correlations with economic and education status, but that’s not all of it. Whatever skill allows some to see the signal through the noise while others descend down rabbit holes that lead to delusion is hard to teach. The best community I’ve found that works towards it is the less wrong rationality community, but none of us are immune from cognitive bias or motivated reasoning. It’s all about recognizing it and trying to correct for it in order to struggle closer to the truth. Even so, I worry most people continually exposed to false ideas will eventually get infected by them - even if you have really good tools, it’s hard.
- bluGill 5y ago
  They have been perfecting their message for years in the background. I've watched it start as a very left wing thing, then they discovered that the "freedom" message really resonated with the right wing libertarians about 10 years ago. They have been spreading in that crowd since. Make no mistake, they don't care about you or right/left wing. It might be right wing this time around, but only because they are still looking for a message that will appeal to the left wing as strongly. The biggest spreaders seem to have a supplement store. Follow the money often works very well.

nova22033 5y ago

Pakistan had a history of vaccine hesitancy before the CIA's fake vaccination campaign was revealed.

kaiwen1 5y ago

This argument is refuted by 1) no widespread evidence of Africans themselves making such claims about their reluctance to vaccinate; 2) widespread evidence of Africans making the same conspiracy claims as those being made in other countries not sharing Africa's history; and 3) widespread evidence that the claims of both Africans and non-Africans originate from the same sources of disinformation on social media.