"How to talk to an anti-vaxxer"

Coming from a people nearly wiped out by disease, I say, “Fuck you, you superstitious, selfish anti-vaccination assholes.”

As noted here, vaccination is part of the duty of citizenship or more generally living in a society where harm to others is something you are supposed to care about.  Even if this means you have to sacrifice a bit of liberty  The tweet itself reminds me of the case where a lawyer noted that instead of banning peyote, Native Americans might worry about the evils of alcohol.  Different perspectives can be useful, huh?


There is a continuing demand to deal with the basics, even when many think they are so basic that anyone should recognize them.  Thus, birth control, Medicaid and now vaccines are controversial issues again.  Oh vey.  This leads to some people calling people out, especially when the comments are made in places where they amount to speaking to the choir. Following up on another person who argued belittling people like Jenny McCarty on the vaccine thing is not the best way to go, here is more discussion on "how to talk to an anti-vaxxer." The discussion is not only applicable to one range of people who some rather just snark attack. 

One bit of advice is to have empathy for their concerns, but the overall discussion still suggests you use some facts.  Facts alone won't convince when people think they are among the Illuminati who have special evidence the herd don't know or ignore, but even such people reason somewhat.  The same with those who ultimately rest on belief in regard to things like same sex marriage.  You aren't going to convince them all, but you might be able to whittle things down to some degree. People do change their views, especially when they don't rest their lives on them.  And, to me, empathy includes respectfully reasoning with people as much as possible.  It's not always successful, but is less mean too.

Also, degree of belief can matter a lot, especially when accepting certain things. Thus, at some point, the Catholic Church stopped trying to get the state to actually ban birth control, at least across the board. (They still are trying to stop it in certain cases, such as efforts against the morning after pill or funding insurance where individuals decide the question.)  We have gotten to a tipping point here in the area of same sex marriage. Some even today are not supporters of interracial marriage, for instance, but they realize they cannot ban such a thing.  Rationality can help here.

"Doc Amazing" adds more:

First, as has been pointed out, the vaccine-shy are not a monolithic population. Those who dogmatically oppose all immunization are, in my experience, fairly rare. When I am speaking with them, I open the discussion on immunization, make it clear that we can initiate immunization at any time if they change their minds, and move on. Can I spin scary stories? Sure. If I perceive that those will be useful, I’ll pull a few out–I have studied abroad and in Bakersfield, so I’ve seen the ravages of vaccine-preventable illness. However, some people are merely hardened by scary stories. Can I address some of the objections to immunizations? Sure. I even pull up numbers to show parents who are worried about Big Pharma that vaccines are very low-margin and that pharma companies have to be bribed by the government to continue to manufacture them. 

The majority of vaccine-shy parents are concerned about what I call “the immune-overload hypothesis”–the idea that giving too many vaccines all at once is a heavy load on the immune system. Can I point out that a ride on a city bus exposes one to much more of an immune load? Sure. Not useful most of the time. Many of these parents are fans of the Robert Sears MD school of spacing out immunizations. Is that ideal? No, but it’s harm reduction. As long as I can talk them into getting an MMR into their kid at twelve months, we’ve accomplished something.

As noted, "people are irrational," so you have to work with a flawed population.  The article for instance notes that Mississippi of all places has a strict policy regarding vaccination to enter public school and the rate of vaccination is high in the state.  (I wondered earlier if such a rule was really enforced, but guess there is some evidence it is followed.) I have an idea that the state is something of an outlier given its poverty and perhaps the high black population that the state traditionally was more willing to control. But, a hard and fast rule can lead to acceptance of authority, even if many on their own might not do that thing.

And, snark and ridicule has limited uses. It is first and foremost a sort of coping mechanism to deal with all that irrationality and other bad stuff that are not easily addressed.  Second, people in general are followers and also don't like to be shamed/ridiculed. There has to be some strength to their irrationality and confusion here to being willing to continue it. And, shaming and ridicule is a way to demean certain arguments that are seen as so bad that they do not even warrant discussion. Finally, shame and ridicule might affect politicians and others who may not be true believers, but in effect troll-like are truthers/deniers.  Shame and ridicule can deter some.

Finally, the article argues that the problem here is not as big as other lethal issues. It is true on some level that there are problems like guns, drowning, car accidents and so forth that are much more lethal.  But, these are more avoidable and/or more a matter of personal failings (especially guns) than not vaccinating.  You can avoid being hit by a car more easily than keeping your child out of places where unvaccinated children might harm them.  Plus, the reason why it is not a bigger problem is because of the advancements in public health because of things like vaccines.

Still, yes, snark only takes us so far.