EtA:epistemic status: I don’t really know what I’m talking about
I had a friend post on Facebook (I can’t find back who it was) and a friend in person (Haydn Thomas-Rose) tell me that maybe some/most antivaxxers were actually just afraid of needles. In which case, developing alternative vaccine methods, like oral vaccines, might be pretty useful.
Alternative hypotheses:
antivaxxers mostly don’t like that something stays in their body, and that’s what differentiate them from other medicine
antivaxxers are suspicious that *everyone* needs vaccines, and that’s what differentiate them from other medicine
antivaxxers are right
Of course, it’s probably a combination of factors, but I wonder which are the major ones.
Also, even if the hypothesis is true, I wouldn’t expect people to know the source of their belief.
I wonder if we could test this hypothesis short of developing an alternative method. Maybe not. Maybe you can’t just tell one person that you have an oral vaccine, and have them become pro-vaccine on the spot, but would rather need broader social validation and time to transition mentally.
Have you read any interviews with people who don’t like vaccines, or visited any of the websites/message boards where they explain their beliefs? Or do you think there’s a large population of these people who use other beliefs to hide their true beliefs, or don’t actually realize what their true beliefs are?
This seems like a lot of guesswork when, in my experience, people who don’t like vaccines are often quite vocal about their beliefs and reasoning.
Have you read any interviews with people who don’t like vaccines, or visited any of the websites/message boards where they explain their beliefs?
No, I’m uninformed. I added in the OP “epistemic status: I don’t really know what I’m talking about” :)
do you think there’s a large population of these people who use other beliefs to hide their true beliefs, or don’t actually realize what their true beliefs are?
I don’t know.
This seems like a lot of guesswork when, in my experience, people who don’t like vaccines are often quite vocal about their beliefs and reasoning.
I realize it would have been more helpful to link to examples of people discussing their opposition. While I don’t have the time to look for first-person sources, this page seems like a helpful summary to start with!
I’m gonna take flak for this, but the majority of anti-vaxxers are women, and have 2 things in common:
- a negative experience with a doctor in the 2 years preceding their initial interest in anti-vaxx, where they didn’t feel their concerns were taken seriously (there are refs for this) - fear of guilt for possible future harms caused by acts of commission more than acts of omission (not sure if there are refs for that, but i have seen it in several dialogues on and offline)
One thing seems to counter anti-vaxx well: a trusted GP
Assuming this is a factor, maybe improving society’s epistemic norms would also help? Like, making it clear that tu quoque is not valid reasoning and that people shouldn’t be penalized for noticing and admitting to irrational fears without rationalizing them.
(I’m saying this because if anything can be said to be a trigger for me, it’s needles. When I tell people what happened to make that the case, they—my therapist included—tend to say I’ve given them a new nightmare. I avoided getting immunizations for several years because of it. And yet it seems really damn easy to notice the real reason for that and recognize that it shouldn’t inform my normative judgments. Although, maybe it’s harder to do that if there’s no particular incident that obviously caused the phobia?)
I’ve looked into this before and I’m pretty sure the expected harm from an adverse reaction to some (many?) vaccines outweighs the expected harm from actually getting the disease it protects against (because the chance of an adverse reaction from eg. the polio vaccine is much higher than the chance you’ll actually get polio). I’d add that as another reason why people would be against personal vaccination, and it’s understandable.
EtA: epistemic status: I don’t really know what I’m talking about
I had a friend post on Facebook (I can’t find back who it was) and a friend in person (Haydn Thomas-Rose) tell me that maybe some/most antivaxxers were actually just afraid of needles. In which case, developing alternative vaccine methods, like oral vaccines, might be pretty useful.
Alternative hypotheses:
antivaxxers mostly don’t like that something stays in their body, and that’s what differentiate them from other medicine
antivaxxers are suspicious that *everyone* needs vaccines, and that’s what differentiate them from other medicine
antivaxxers are right
Of course, it’s probably a combination of factors, but I wonder which are the major ones.
Also, even if the hypothesis is true, I wouldn’t expect people to know the source of their belief.
I wonder if we could test this hypothesis short of developing an alternative method. Maybe not. Maybe you can’t just tell one person that you have an oral vaccine, and have them become pro-vaccine on the spot, but would rather need broader social validation and time to transition mentally.
Have you read any interviews with people who don’t like vaccines, or visited any of the websites/message boards where they explain their beliefs? Or do you think there’s a large population of these people who use other beliefs to hide their true beliefs, or don’t actually realize what their true beliefs are?
This seems like a lot of guesswork when, in my experience, people who don’t like vaccines are often quite vocal about their beliefs and reasoning.
No, I’m uninformed. I added in the OP “epistemic status: I don’t really know what I’m talking about” :)
I don’t know.
Thanks for the input
I realize it would have been more helpful to link to examples of people discussing their opposition. While I don’t have the time to look for first-person sources, this page seems like a helpful summary to start with!
Ray Taylor says:
https://www.facebook.com/mati.roy.09/posts/10158690001894579
Seth Nicholson says:
https://www.facebook.com/mati.roy.09/posts/10158690001894579
Matthew Barnett says:
https://www.facebook.com/mati.roy.09/posts/10158690001894579