GlyphGryph posted:

In my experience, it's all about identity politics.

Antivaxxers are antivaxxers because that's they think they are supposed to be. It's the "left-wing" version of the abortion protestors who are more than happy to make use of the services they are protesting against because as long as they return to the picket line their identity remains intact.

I personally know a great girl who is a major anti-vaxxer, and has recently moved to hollywood to pursue her acting career, and honestly - it doesn't seem that it's about logic or evidence or anything like that to her. It's just another piece of her image, a tool to define who she is, and she doesn't care about the consequences because they aren't real to her.

It's a fashion accessory that grants a whole bunch of psychological benefits to those who hold that view.

I can also kind of see how it got started because let's be honest most doctors and the medical system in general is kinda poo poo, and it's not really surprising if people begin to suspect some of that incompetence is outright malevolance when you're the one repeatedly getting screwed over and conned.

This doesn't exactly justify their tendency to run to the nearest obvious con man who offers an alternative, but... I can at least understand the desire.

Tigntink posted:

PRO VAXX

Tigntink posted:

Sorry, I was using it in a joking manner.

Maluco Marinero posted:

I argued for anti-vax on this forum a couple of years ago. Tell the truth my wife made the decision and I trusted her on it and didn't research it heavily myself. As a result the only material I was exposed to was her sources, which gives you a very skewed viewpoint. After I argued my case on an internet forum you can imagine how much push back I received, and set about rebuilding my beliefs from the ground up. I believed in the scientific method, but if a belief or idea gets there first and can be very hard to shake, especially when you have someone you trust implicitly reinforcing it.

That said, I moved on from that, but it left me at a difficult position. My kids are still unvaccinated. I've confronted my wife about it and it didn't go well, I've done as much as I can to argue for the evidence, and tried to get her to read Ben Goldacre's stuff as well, but its difficult to educate someone who doesn't want to get educated. When it came to a head a couple of years ago it got pretty heated, and basically the evident options were that she would leave me and take the kids if I tried to go over her head on it. We haven't revisited it for 2 years.

It leaves me torn. There's no evidence supporting us holding off on vaccinations, but by the same token if I force the issue I could tear our family apart, which will bring considerable harm as well. I'm not really bringing this up for E/N woe is me stuff, but to paint how difficult it can be to overcome the idea of anti-vax. It endures because it strikes at the heart of that which we hold dear, and as a result successfully arguing for and convincing people of an evidence based approach has been muddied up with decades of emotional propaganda.

Tbh I'll probably edit this out in a couple of days because its pretty private I guess, but I think its important to know what the inside looks like, with families that are locked into this path due to the persistence of just one half.

sleepingbuddha posted:

This is not true and not helpful.

Maluco Marinero posted:

To make sure I've got this right, I must destroy my family's sense of security, my ability to be a role model for my kids, my ability to support my wife in caring for those kids, and essentially remodel my entire life.

Great plan.

sleepingbuddha posted:

Risk, yes, but to call someone a child murderer is Godwin level of hyperbole. This goon certainly should stand up for getting this kids vaccinated, but calling him a murderer is not helpful.

Moatman posted:

If his wife is antivax, then there's a good chance she listens to other "alternative medicine" bullshit, too. If she leaves and takes the kids and what I just said is true, then the kids are in an even worse situation.

Caros posted:

And I am once again going to make it clear, I believe in mandatory vaccinations. I think that the Jenny McCarthy anti vaccination crowd should have to suck it or be excluded from society.

For the record I am also in favour of saying that these Christian scientists and so forth should be excluded from public schools because they don't have their vax cards and so forth. What are I am not in favour of is the argument that has been made in this thread that we should take away the children of people who have a real faith based belief that God doesn't want them to vaccinate.

The number of these people is so small that it won't make a real dent in herd immunity, they are in a tiny minority compared to the millions who cannot get vaccinated for other reasons. And as I mentioned earlier it's a really lovely Hill to die on, since the optics of taking a child from her mother because of her religious beliefs will feed the persecution complex and in my view will lead to more idiots trying not to get vaccinated simply out of spite from what the gubberment wants.

QuarkJets posted:

Part of the difficulty in treating the anti-vaccination movement is that followers of the anti-vaccination movement don't trust authority figures unless they're some sort of big celebrity personality. While it's true that Wakefield is the source of a lot of the anti-vaccination hysteria, it didn't really catch on in the US until Jenny McCarthy latched onto it.... Maybe people who are pro-vaccination need to provide a few anecdotal stories of their own

An Angry Bug posted:

Diseases exist. Vaccines help provide resistance against diseases. Diseases can kill. Not vaccinating needlessly increases the risks of disease killing a child under your care. How is that not reasonable based on anything but legalistic pedantry?

Vienna Circlejerk posted:

I'll venture to guess that if you do find more women expressing antivax views, it's probably because of the sexist division of labor that puts child rearing in the domain of women, and vaccination is largely a child rearing issue.

snorch posted:

There's nothing really wrong with Waldorf education relative to normal public schooling, its alternative nature just sort of attracts "crunchy" (god I hate that term, can we get a better word?) folks and everything that comes with it.

Pegged Lamb posted:

Is that even possible?

OwlFancier posted:

Does anybody remember learning to read? I thought everyone forgot that.

Vienna Circlejerk posted:

It still blows my mind that the two states in the US with sensible vaccine policies (no non-medical exemptions) are West Virginia and Mississippi.

Yarbald posted: