
How Anti-Vaccine Sentiment Took Hold in the United States - mhb
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/health/anti-vaccination-movement-us.html
======
pcmaffey
To understand this perspective better, step back and ask yourself how much do
you trust the US healthcare system and pharmaceutical industry to have your
best interests as it’s top priority?

Given everyone’s various degrees of lack of trust in a highly corrupt and
inefficient system, it’s perhaps easier to see how people “throw the baby out
with the bathwater” when it comes to understanding science & medicine relative
to the industries that profit from their corrupt establishment. If you don’t
trust the messenger, how can you trust the message?

~~~
mft_
I think you’re giving them too much credit.

I don’t think it’s based in science, or distrust of a “corrupt“ or
untrustworthy system. It seems to be a combination of cult-like group-think,
misplaced parental emotions, and social media-driven fear-mongering, all
brought together by a determinedly anti-intellectual anti-science stance.

~~~
mindfulgeek
Who are you referring to when you say “them?”

~~~
charles_f
Based on the two previous messages I am inferring they meant "people who hold
an anti-vaccine sentiment".

~~~
mindfulgeek
What qualifies a sentiment as “anti-vaccine?”

Not sure why this is downvoted. I’m genuinely curious. The perspective that
having a sentiment puts someone into a group is one I haven’t considered and I
would like to understand it more.

------
adolph
_“We ask parents in the first two years of their child’s life to protect them
against 14 diseases, that most people don’t see, using fluids they don’t
understand,” Dr. Offit said. “It’s time for us to stand back and explain
ourselves better.”_

The last paragraph is the whole article.

~~~
radicalbyte
The whole anti-vax thing started in the UK. I went to school in the UK and we
spent a lot of time talking about how horrible some of these diseases were and
how we can be thankful for vaccination and antibiotics.

It's more of a media thing IMHO: the media love scandals because it generates
a lot of viewers. What better than a scandal involving your defenseless babies
to drive those $$$?

~~~
NeedMoreTea
In fairness, that initial _fraudulent_ study was all over the media, and it
did appear to show a real link between MMR and autism. Of course it did, he
was faking the figures with intent to deceive.

The media and public reaction was, initially, entirely understandable.
Particularly where few remember how bad measles and the rest can affect the
unvaccinated. It necessarily took time to disprove and strike-off Andrew
Wakefield.

What I fail to comprehend is that now he's no longer allowed to call himself
Dr, he is permitted to spread his lies in the US. Somehow he has managed to
become and remain something of a personality doing so.

~~~
radicalbyte
Good point, he was a doctor who had release a groundbreaking study so it was
pretty rational to get worried about it.

On a tangent: what has your post been down-voted? It's a good well reasoned
reply to my comment. It should be getting up-votes.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
_shrug_ Someone didn't like my opening sentence I guess. The first down landed
in a second or two - far too fast for someone to have read all. :D

------
zby
I have observed a case here in Poland - the parents refused a vitamin K shot
to their baby because they found something in the leaflet. Later it turned out
that this particular vitamin K was not approved in Poland for normal use, only
for urgent cases - but still was used routinely on newborns by the hospitals
because there was no other. Of course the parents were called crazy anti-
vaxxers - but who is there to read the leaflets and check the doctors if not
the parents?

Parents can be ignorant - but they are more reliable to have their children
interest as their main objective then any institution. In communism times, and
probably generally in the past, the institutions like hospitals were much more
authoritarian, and in my family there is a personal story about how horrific
it sometimes was.

Of course doctors don't like being checked.

Now vaxination is a kind of shibboleth - something you need to agree with, and
agree quickly and automatically, to be admitted to the 'enlightened' society.

I think the hysteria around anti-vaxxers is the worst thing.

~~~
DrAwdeOccarim
I'm not sure what you mean by "particular vitamin K was not approved in Poland
for normal use". Was it the dosage? Because Vitamin K is Vitamin K, so I'm not
sure I follow why this would be bad. In the US, the FDA allows doctors to
prescribe any approved drug for any need. So called "off label" use of drugs
is common. The only issue is sometimes insurance will not cover the costs.

As for the mistrust of medical professionals, I cannot fathom what it was like
to live in a society that blindly followed the State without data to support
the position--that must be horrible. Fortunately in the developed, modern
world, the data is free for everyone to look at and decide for themselves.
Here is a nice review with references showing just how amazing vaccines are:
[https://medium.com/@visualvaccines/graphic-proof-that-
vaccin...](https://medium.com/@visualvaccines/graphic-proof-that-vaccines-
work-with-sources-61c199429c8c)

I think part of the reason 'enlightened' society requires everyone to be
vaccinated is herd immunity. Not everyone can take a vaccine and be protected,
so it's up to the majority of society to protect them. Granted, this is
another discussion of who's responsible for taking care of whom, but in modern
developed societies we have agreed as a majority to help the less fortunate.
An example here are small children, people undergoing chemotherapy, the
elderly, and people with compromised immune systems. These are the people that
vaccine herd protection protects.

I'm sorry you feel the hysteria around anti-vaxxers to be the worst thing. I
can imagine how difficult it must be to feel better informed than the masses
and everyone to think you're the fool. Numerous people throughout history have
been murdered for speaking truth to the masses because what they were saying
was not convenient.

~~~
zby
Citing wikipedia: "Vitamin K is a group of structurally similar, fat-soluble
vitamins found in foods and in dietary supplements", but of course drugs
always contains also other substances - so different label drugs do differ and
can have different side effects.

Herd immunity is indeed the part that makes the whole thing political and
difficult, because it is a common good. But in a healthy debate there should
be a place for people sceptical about something - they should not be
automatically demonized.

I don't quite understand what you write about my feelings - because I don't
identify as antivaxxer, I vaccinated my children and I trust the scientific
data in general. I just feel better thinking that there are people who read
the leaflets and double check the doctors and I don't think they should be
vilified even if in the most part these people are not reasonable in their
distrust. I also believe that it is better if we don't mandate trust in
vaccination - but let people make their minds individually, even if we
sometimes lose herd immunity, because the alternative authoritarian system
leads to worse things.

------
spaginal
It's the grouping, amount, frequency, and unsolved health issues around early
childhood issues such as SIDS and autism that freaked parents out.

The fact that the only answers to the questions and concerns is to employ
shaming tactics is not compelling or rational enough to push parents with
major concerns into doing it.

The medical communities modus operandi of "we have a drug or pill for that",
especially around opioids for instance, has created distrust amongst a lot of
people also that had recent interactions with doctors.

It is kind of a perfect storm of issues in my opinion.

------
slv77
When our kids were born our pediatrician who was from Germany mentioned that
the US vaccine schedule was accelerated compared to Europe. The reason was
that parents here are more likely to just stop bringing their kids in for
scheduled checkups at some point and the accelerated schedule somewhat
compensated for that. In addition pharmaceutical companies don’t or won’t
coordinate so there are fewer combo vaccines and more shots than necessary.

So take a new parent who’s surging with oxytocin and vasopressin; give the
parents only one choice (vaccinate or don’t); and then stick a needle in their
kid. Then repeat that the next visit but with multiple shots.

Hmmmm... yep it is the internet...

How about this:

\- Create two vaccination schedules to provide parents choice

\- Force vaccine providers to package vaccines to reduce the number of shots

\- Eliminate vaccines at birth when parents hormones are surging

\- Centralize tracking of vaccinations to reduce the burden on parents who
move between health care providers because of changes in insurance

\- Offer in-home checkups and vaccines for at-risk groups that you wouldn’t be
able to reach otherwise

~~~
hhas01
So what you’re proposing is to increase the period in which unprotected
infants may be exposed to dangerous diseases, just to pander to a bunch of
noisy know-nothing narcissists?

The CDC et al already tried placating those malevolent turds by removing a
perfectly safe preservative from vials (increasing the cost and risk of those
vaccines to everyone), and the only thing that happened was those messianic
loons and malignant grifters took that “goodwill gesture” as a validation of
all their egomaniacal bullshit, and so doubled-down on their screeching and
lies in return.

[https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/vaccines-still-dont-
cause-a...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/vaccines-still-dont-cause-
autism/)

Here’s a much better idea: how about taking each one of those new parents for
a good long walk around every nineteenth-century graveyard in town, and count
up all the gravestones under which little kids lie, from a time when even in a
“first-world” society endemic diseases killed one in ever two or three before
adulthood, and tell all thpse blessedly ignorant modern-day parents of yours
to _grow the fuck up_.

------
softwaredoug
Part of the problem with trust in the medical community is how inconsistent
doctors themselves can seem.

I’m on my 6th doctor (2nd urologist) and finally I think I have a diagnosis
for a long standing issue. Every doctor has a different opinion or way to
treat what I have. Some of it is because the science is actively evolving. But
a lot of it is because doctors themselves have their own opinions about the
science based on their own anecdotal experiences treating patients.

Eventually I have to go with the doctors opinion that “feels right” to me.

I know vaccines fall in a seemingly “obvious” category, but when my experience
is fairly typical, I can understand the frustration with being told to take
the doctors opinion as gospel.

------
poilcn
We almost don't have these anti-vaxer folks here, but it seems to me that
people who spread hate towards them are incomparably more worse. It's like a
hate cult. People buy whatever the media sell them and start to harass any
group they were told to hate and fear, actually giving these groups growth.

------
lovemenot
This article hints at, but doesn't fully articulate, the irony of two
apparently very different disciplines applied upon each other.

Vaccine-resistance, as a mental-state looks akin to the immune system, which
normally confers disease immunity but, when running amok can trigger
allergies.

It is implied that some medical sociologists now consider vaccine-resistant
thinking as a kind of allergy to benign societal forces and are planning a
social vaccination program to eradicate such wrong-headedness.

As an aside, the word _meme_ was used near to its original sense - as Dawkins
defined it - in the last chapter of his classic "The Selfish Gene".

------
gumby
If these people fear Big Pharma shouldn’t they believe that vaccines are a
blow against the “man” because every prevented disease prevents Big Pharma
from selling medication?

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t_mann
Anti-vaccers always make me think of things like these:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis)

I'm by no means a biologist, so I have no idea how much substance the idea
has, but it seems to me like the existence of anti-vaccine mindsets in general
should provide an evolutionary advantage for many strands of germs.

------
jjuhl
Why are people so _STUPID_? Why would you A) not protect your child from
harmful disease by vaccination. B) Put other people at risk by reducing herd
immunity. Why? Fuck, I hate humanity.

~~~
cameronbrown
This is the simply the result of the US education system. You reap what you
sow as a country, but it's a tragedy that defenseless children will be the
ones who bare the brunt of it.

~~~
StreamBright
Not necessarily, this is the result of many things combined. Social media made
it super easy to spread lies and misinformation. You could have a broken
education before, but without the means to distribute your lies, your impact
on society was small. Also Hollywood celebrities are the biggest contributors
to anti-vaccination sentiment.

[https://jezebel.com/heres-a-fairly-comprehensive-list-of-
ant...](https://jezebel.com/heres-a-fairly-comprehensive-list-of-anti-
vaccination-c-1714760128)

~~~
cameronbrown
No. Social media is an extension of ourselves. Better education stops lies,
not censorship - which is the only viable alternative to fake news and come
with all the obvious pitfalls.

------
xvilka
Easy to solve. Just bill antivaxers for the moral and economical consequences
of every outbreak. That will teach them a lesson.

~~~
ianai
Some antivaxers are doing it because they’d can’t afford medical care...

~~~
Pfhreak
Getting measles is cheaper than getting a shot? Even uninsured, I'm sure you
could call the doctor and work out a low or no cost solution.

~~~
ianai
That’s not the context the decision is being made within, I’m afraid.

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freejulian85
The government can’t even protect us from a known carcinogen - RoundUp. And
we’re suppose to just trust them when it comes to vaccines and their side
effects? Most anti-vaccine people I know don’t doubt it protects from a
specific virus. They question the side effects and secondary impacts vaccines
can cause to the body. Just like there’s no doubt that RoundUp is an effective
pesticide — but that’s not the issue, is it?

~~~
freejulian85
Sorry, my comment must not conform to the hackernews groupthink. If you think
some vaccines don’t have significant side effects, you’re also not very smart
(as so many comments are stating anti vacciners are).

------
_red
This article is mainly pro-pharma propaganda. Not because its “pro-vaccine”,
since vaccines themselves are very useful medical tools. It’s that it frames
the issue that “any questioning of the 25 vaccine schedule orthodoxy means you
are an anti-science religious whack job” It’s fine to be both pro-vaccine,
without feeling the need to purchase the whole Merk lifetime subscription
catalog.

