Ask HN: Conclusive evidence to turn anti vax into anti anti vax
Have some friends that are anti vax.. what are your go to resources to show them the light? If you are anti vax, what are your reasons/evidence for being so?
It’s an emotional decision to be anti vax.
No logic or facts you can present will change their minds.
Key life lesson: emotional positions cannot be changed by logic. Wish I’d known that years ago.
Except perhaps factual accounts of children of anti vaxers who became very sick, with for example whooping cough or measles.
Mostly we make decisions based on a gut instinct and then look for evidence to back that up, ignoring or down voting contrary evidence. In fact seeing opposing views can actually reinforce the original opinions.
Changing an opinion routed so deeply is rarely a single moment of revelation and move likely a slow, drop by drop erosion. So just be one of those drops.
You could read Street Epistemology's basics about how to begin discussing it: https://streetepistemology.com/publications/street_epistemol...
Vaccines mostly work, and at scale that translates into thousands of people having adverse reactions to them, and it's exacerbated by vaccine companies mixing different vaccines together and adding preservatives that aren't strictly necessary but increase the life span and thus profit.
For the record, I'm pro-vaccine but it's a nuanced issue.
This is an example that's always stuck in my mind
>For example, a study into the vaccine used during the 2009 swine flu outbreak found that for every million people who had the vaccination, there were less than two extra cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome.[0]
That's the kind of thing anti-vaxxers seize on.
There's also the 'vaccine court'[1] that's paid out over 4 BILLION DOLLARS[2] for injuries from vaccines.
Something that gets lost in the noise is pharma companies are pro-profit, the more vaccines they sell[3] the more money they make. The more they can combine vaccines, the more money they can make. Increasing shelf life by adding things like thimerosal decrease production costs but increases risk etc etc.
Pharma companies don't care about health, they care about profit.
So, again, I'd like to reiterate I'm actually pro-vaccine but it's not black and white, and I'd really like if pro-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers could come together and discuss this stuff rationally without the hysterics!
0 https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/guillain-barre-syndrome/causes...
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_court
2 https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/data/index.html
3 https://vaxopedia.org/2018/07/15/do-kids-really-get-72-doses...
"Being awarded compensation for a petition does not necessarily mean that the vaccine caused the alleged injury. In fact:
-Almost 80% of all compensation awarded by the VICP comes as result of a negotiated settlement between the parties in which HHS has not concluded, based upon review of the evidence, that the alleged vaccine(s) caused the alleged injury.
-Attorneys are eligible for reasonable attorneys’ fees, whether or not the petitioner is awarded compensation by the Court, if certain minimal requirements are met. In those circumstances, attorneys are paid by the VICP directly. By statute, attorneys may not charge any other fee, including a contingency fee, for his or her services in representing a petitioner in the VICP.
According to the CDC, from 2006 to 2016 over 3.1 billion doses of covered vaccines were distributed in the U.S. For petitions filed in this time period, 5,576 petitions were adjudicated by the Court, and of those 3,785 were compensated. This means for every 1 million doses of vaccine that were distributed, 1 individual was compensated."
- https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/data/index.html
so, anti-vax/people with minor reactions people sue the special court (vaccine court), and the court pays the lawyer fees for themselves and settles with the suer.
i do agree that big pharma doesn't care for the people they serve, that's why insulin is now 300% more expensive.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/febrile-seizures....
My daughter has a history of febrile seizures. It is hard to deal with your 9 month old with eyes rolled back, mouth open, convulsing in your arms. It'd be harder if she had polio, etc.
We still vaccinate. I do wish vaccinations had more controls and weren't manufactured in China though.
Live virus vaccines are adjuvant-free. MMR vaccine, studied in the "vaccines cause autism" study and refuted by countless other studies, is actually adjuvant-free.
TL;DR -- Adjuvants are likely to overstimulate some peoples' immune systems, because they're designed to strongly stimulate peoples' immune systems.
Still better to use adjuvanted vaccines than be unvaccinated and get terrible illnesses though.
Do you want to not be friends with them and have them not vaccinate their kid? Show them whatever research you want, you’re not changing their minds.
Ask about statistics, though. Have them show you the stats. Then ask this:
Would you not wear a seatbelt because in some rare cases the seatbelt can actually bring about a negative outcome?
Herd Immunity doesn’t apply to seatbelts but they are freeriding on others’ herd immunity.
By pro vax, I mean the folks who feel compelled to push their vaccine views and agenda on other people. Like you.
When I was growing up, statistics on vaccinations were counted in the "We have successfully vaccinated X percent of people" way. It wasn't expected to achieve 100 percent coverage for the entire population. Now, we tend to discuss it in the vein of "X percent of people failed to get vaccinated or refused vaccines." like it's a failure if we don't have 100 percent coverage.
There are legitimate exceptions to getting vaccinated. There are people with serious health issues for which vaccines are actually contra-indicated.
If we would stop acting like 100 percent of all people must be vaccinated and resistance is futile and just let those folks with issues quietly not get vaccinated without having to actively justify their choice, then a lot of this rhetoric and politicking would go away.
There are ways to deal with a small percent of folks not being vaccinated that respect their right to choose without endangering other people. If you are genuinely worried that some small percentage of folks are a threat to your health, then looking into how we can design a world that is safe for both the unvaccinated and those who fear them is a better approach.
I have all my childhood vaccinations. I'm "supposed to" get the annual flu shot because of my respiratory condition. I stopped getting it years ago because all the people helping me get healthier after doctors wrote me off for dead were strongly anti vax.
I'm not strongly anti vax. Anti vaxxers hate on me. Pro vaxxers hate on me. I'm just someone who wants to exercise my right to opt out of the fucking annual flu shot, which isn't actually required, yet I can't do that without being given hell by some internet stranger or other who lives nowhere near me, yet still wants to inform me that I am evil incarnate and a danger to their welfare or the welfare of some sickly family member of theirs.