Study: You Can't Change an Anti-Vaxxer's Mind

[LeftishBrit]

139. Fair points

In fact, some of the anti-MMR hysteria in the UK probably spread because there really had been a recent piece of financially-motivated government dishonesty over a health issue: the government of the time delayed admitting that eating the meat from cows with BSE (mad cow disease) could spread the disease to humans, because they didn't want to damage the agricultural industry. This does not validate or excuse the scaremongering of Andrew Wakefield or the Daily Mail, but it does explain why the ground was comparatively fertile for the growth of a health-related conspiracy theory, in a country that is not normally that susceptible to such theories.

However, I think that there is another issue, that is much harder to address. There are some anti-vaccers who are not merely distrustful of big Pharma, but are right-wingers generally opposed to any government involvement in healthcare. Indeed I think that these are the majority of the really strong anti-vaccers. There are two main variants of this: the religious right (of many religions), who think that government-sponsored - or perhaps any - vaccination is usurping the role of God; and the right-libertarians who think that government-sponsored health care is against economic freedom and 'personal responsibility'. Many an American anti-vaccination site seems to explicitly support Ron Paul.