Vaxxer/Anti-Vaxxer is the Wrong Conversation [View all]

[daredtowork]

Nothing is accomplished by continuously polarizing a potential public health crisis into a war between Vaxxers and Anti-Vaxxers. All that does is make each side take its toys and go home, feeling self-righteous and smug about how it "knows better". The Vaxxers will sneer that Anti-Vaxxers are conspiracy nuts who "know nothing about science". The Anti-Vaxxers will sneer the Vaxxers are sheeple who "know nothing about REAL science".

Note the underlying theme there is the lack of consensus on what constitutes real science. So the first patch America needs to place in this leaky boat is at the level of basic public education: if we want a consensus on science we should subsidize nearly universal education. No more cowboy-riding-dinosaur alternative textbooks. No more debating whether climate change exists in Congress. We need to agree on the education process that Settles These Matters.

Secondly, this is a public health crisis because of the convergence of several frakked up ways we have been doing things in the US. There is the lack of universal health care, which has left people with no medical care or seeking various alternative forms of care. There are industrial and environmental factors spawned widespread illness that were legally suppressed, putting wide swathes of people in a conspiratorial frame of mind about their declining health. There is the convoluted bureaucracy involved in access to State services that encourages parents to label their children's disorders, and thus spawns vast "origin stories" of where these disorders come from. From the poverty point of view, I have this to say: America wouldn't have half these problems if people could just simply get help when they needed it, and keep their dignity intact while doing so.

Anyway, while I'm not an anti-Vaxxer, I think the Vaxxers need to get off their high horse and put their 'tudes away. If they really want to protect their children now, they will take a breath and look at some of the issues that caused this problem in the first place. The people who hold "conspiracy theories" about Big Science aren't just some New Age Hipsters with half-baked theories trying to sell their self-help books. A huge groundswell of the American populace has some distrust of either Corporate Science, Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, Government Science, or All of the Above. Many of them are college-educated. Don't talk down to them. Appreciate that policy and experience has encouraged their beliefs, and then negotiate the problem from there.

UPDATE: For those continuing to make war in the comments I have one more thing to say. Look who is in charge of NASA now. Think about it, and then think about what you want more: for the vaccination problem to be fixed, or for you to keep saying "I'm right" into the wind.