(February 7, 2015 at 2:54 pm)Nestor Wrote: Of course. I'm not saying people shouldn't get vaccines or that, as Chas says, they're not proven highly effective. I'm saying people have good reason not to trust the medical establishment or the government so when the focus is pressuring people to get vaccinated (not coercing them) it should primarily involve restoring their own credibility, conducting better efforts to inform the public, and dispelling false information.
The trouble is that human beings, especially those who take pride in their counter-stances, don't really work that way. This issue is an emotional thing to the anti-vaxxers, confirmed by their incredibly basic knowledge of medicine and good old Dunning-Kruger bullshit, not something that can be resolved by additional information. Frankly, it's a position that a lot of them are going to hold onto no matter what they're told, because they instinctively mistrust the scientific and medical establishments, convinced they have some ulterior motive.
Case in point: the Wakefield report that spurred the anti-vax movement into existence has been rebutted at every level, from the factual case behind it to the motivations of the reporter, even to the extent that Wakefield himself lost his medical license due to professional dishonesty and abuse of children in that very report... and yet here we are. The anti-vax movement still exists, still insistent that vaccines are harmful: tell me again how informing the public and dispelling false information will quell the anti-vaxxers?
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