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Study Finds Vaccine Science Outreach Only Reinforced Myths (arstechnica.com)
Ars Technica reports on a study suggesting that "Striking at a myth with facts may only shore it up." Applehu Akbar writes:
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied public attitudes toward vaccination in a group whose opinions on the subject were polled before and after being shown three different kinds of explanatory material that used settled scientific facts about vaccines to explain the pro-vaccination side of the debate. Not only was the anti-vax cohort not convinced by any of the three campaigns, but their attitudes hardened when another poll was taken a week later.
What seems to have happened was that the pro-vax campaign was taken by anti-vaxers as just another attempt to lie to them, and as reinforcement for their already made-up minds on the subject. A previous study at Dartmouth College in 2014 used similar methodology and except for the 'hardening' effect elicited similar results. What's really scary about this is that while the Dartmouth subjects were taken from a large general population, the Edinburgh subjects were college students.
"The researchers speculate that the mere repetition of a myth during the process of debunking may be enough to entrench the myth in a believer's mind," writes Ars Technica, with one of the study's authors attributing this to the "illusory truth" effect.
"People tend to mistake repetition for truth."
What seems to have happened was that the pro-vax campaign was taken by anti-vaxers as just another attempt to lie to them, and as reinforcement for their already made-up minds on the subject. A previous study at Dartmouth College in 2014 used similar methodology and except for the 'hardening' effect elicited similar results. What's really scary about this is that while the Dartmouth subjects were taken from a large general population, the Edinburgh subjects were college students.
"The researchers speculate that the mere repetition of a myth during the process of debunking may be enough to entrench the myth in a believer's mind," writes Ars Technica, with one of the study's authors attributing this to the "illusory truth" effect.
"People tend to mistake repetition for truth."
Sad
It's always important to ask, "What evidence would change your mind?"
If the answer is, "Nothing." Then there is a big problem with the ideology.
Yes, it's annoying when your kids question you all the time, and I feel for teachers who have to deal with everyone else's kids... but maybe we ought to stop with the Santa and Tooth Fairy and all the other 'cute and harmless' lies we tell kids.
Instead, we ought to be asking them what they think, and why, and then show them where they've made errors... so when they come up against something new, they have a fighting chance of figuring it out without someone holding their hand the whole time.
The best experience I ever had in school was a teacher mocking me for being afraid to be wrong, which is really the fork in the road where you either try to figure something out or just shut down and stick with your initial belief. We need more of that for our kids.
The modern anti-vaccination movement is one manifestation of public loss of trust in institutions and credentialed "professionals". The thing is.. most anti-vaccination types do not doubt the existence of infectious diseases or that some vaccines are very useful and effective. It comes down to other issues such as their inability to trust obviously greedy "professionals" who recommend vaccines against 15-20 diseases (some of which are uncommon). At that stage, more than a few people start wondering if it is more about profit and domination of others than helping people. Also, a lot of the popular ideas pushed by medical profession for decades such as "fat makes you fat", "jogging is good exercise- regardless of age" etc plus promising to treat diseases with newer and expensive drugs which have little to no effect on most disease endpoints (mild to moderate Depression, Type 2 Diabetes etc) do not help their cause- to put it mildly. https://dissention.wordpress.c...
The problem with any complex science is that understanding the mechanism behind it is complex and requires a significant amount of time and learning. It's easier to dismiss the science in these cases, particularly where someone is protected by herd immunity or the global changes in climate are just beginning to be noticeable at a broad level.
So the vaccine and climate science deniers take the easy path. Until the 10 years of record temperatures (each year sets the record for highest temperature) or a Measles outbreak kills someone they love.
The problem becomes when that person's denial directly threatens the lives of others. Unlike climate science, Vaccines and herd immunity provide protection for that 3-4% of people who cannot be vaccinated due to severe allergies. When that parent doesn't get their kid vaccinated and their kid is part of a pandemic that takes lives they should be prosecuted for negligent homicide. And yes I absolutely mean it, the people who's family members died in the Disneyland outbreak should be suing every single person that got the virus and wasn't vaccinated. They should take them for every dime they've got. Only when there are real penalties for those who choose to risk everyone else's lives by failing to get vaccines will people take vaccines seriously as a public health initiative.
You don't want to vaccinate? Go live somewhere where vaccines aren't given. Discover the panacea of living where you can die any time from completely preventable disease.
If 100 of the vaccinated died because of an outbreak of something they were supposed to be vaccinated against -- does this really support your argument that vaccination protects?
Sure: not providing 100% protection doesn't mean not providing protection at all. Claiming the opposite would be ridiculous and we all don't apply such a standard in other cases, so why applying it to vaccines?
As example, using seat belts definitely do *not* save 100% of those who have a car accident, but we consider them an effective protection still.
No, the DNC and Hillary Clinton are responsible for the election of Donald Trump.
Sounds like a typical Trump and Trump supporter response - blame someone else. :-)
Actually, OP is right. DNC and Hillary Clinton did not marshal an effective campaign. Just like with Bush-Gore, another example where the electoral college overcame the popular vote, the DNC simply didn't do their job. W. should have taught them that simple-talk to simple people can win.
Trump supporters do indeed do that thing you say... "blame someone else," but in this case it's true. Against a guy like Trump, it was the DNC's race to lose, and they lost, not just to Trump but also a lot of House and Senate seats. They need to completely re-think their game - blaming the Russians, flat-earthers, crusty white males, or whomever is not going to get them out of this hole.
Just as 1 in every 10,000 Toyotas, Mercedes Benzes or Teslas is going to be a lemon, 1 in 10,000 vaccinations can "go wrong". This is just the nature of such things.
That said, it really sucks if YOU buy that specific Toyota, Mercedes Benz or Tesla. And more so if YOUR kid is that ONE in 10,000. You can dump the car lemon, you have the child until they die. I personally know of one such extremely tragic case, so the pro-vaxxers should just shut up and admit to the reality of the stats.
Yes, the reality is every once in a while a child has a really bad reaction from a vaccine but the reality of the flip side is A LOT worse. I don't know how accurate your 1 in 10000 number is but that sounds like REALLY good odds to me. Before vaccines, 1 in 3 kids didn't make it to adulthood. Which odds would you rather have for your kid? A 1 in 10000 chance of dying from a vaccine or a 1 in 3 chance of dying from not getting a vaccine? Sure, because most people are vaccinated today, your odds are a little better than 1 in 3 even if you don't get a vaccine but it's still not as good as with getting the vaccine. When the odds of complications exceed the odds of catching the disease, that's when we discontinue the vaccine. That's why no one gets vaccinated for smallpox anymore except for a few soldiers going to a few high risk areas.
As a data person, the one thing I wish that the pro-vaccine people would start doing is listing the odds of complications of the vaccine right next to the estimated odds of catching the disease. I think some antivaxers might respond to that if you said "odds of bad reaction 1/10000, current odds of catching disease 1/1000, historical odds of catching the disease 1/100, odds of dying if you catch the disease 1/3"