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Comment by thomasmeeks | Hacker News Reader

That's true. But what about the people that never do take the time to educate themselves on their own? Could it be worth the extra expense to society to have a (presumably) trusted individual take a bit of time to explain some basic concepts about health?

I don't know the answer, but I do think it is an interesting question.

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The problem are the people who do educate themselves and after reading the CDC decide to try and get a "balanced view" and fall down an Internet hole into the antivaxx Upside Down. If they hadn't educated themselves and just done what their pediatrician recommended it wouldn't be a problem.

  decide to try and get a "balanced view"

I think this is myth. Nobody weighs opinions in search of a "balanced view" in other realms of medicine: "treat cancer, yes or no?" "Smoking bad, yes or no?" "Meth bad, yes or no?" "Splint and cast broken bone, yes or no?"

In Germany you typically have two options to get vaccines. Generally recommended vaccines are given by any general doctors. For other vaccines, usually for traveling, you can visit a "tropical institute".

I've had extraordinary good experience with the treatment in those cases. They perform a personalized risk assessment and thoroughly inform about risks of both the vaccination and the disease.

If they trusted the doctor, they would have gotten the vaccine already. I think doctors need to stop seeing people that refuse vaccines (I only visit provider groups whose policy is to refuse unvaccinated people), and also a government initiative to educate people about how a vaccine works and the history of its development, use, and efficacy. And removing any non medical exemptions.

We have thousands of people watching out for terrorist attacks, when the biggest biological threat is our neighbor.

That's a good point. Trust seems to be built on repeated interactions no? Could the doctor spend that time building the trust so that the education sticks?

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