Du'ers and Vaccines: a poll.

[lumberjack_jeff]

38. Count me in as a tone troll.

It demonstrably doesn't work - vaccines have now become a political quasi religious issue in which science and research are trumped by team spirit... and everyone thinks that only the other team sucks.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2015/02/05/383904342/5-things-the-vaccine-debacle-reveal-about-the-2016-presidential-field

http://www.npr.org/2015/02/04/383724467/the-psychology-behind-why-some-kids-go-unvaccinated

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]NPR morning edition 2/4/15[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]You know, David, there is a small warehouse backed with research studies that find that our beliefs on all manner of issues are shaped by our pre-existing views. You know, that doesn't we're completely deaf to the evidence, it just means that we filter how we interpret the evidence through our pre-existing beliefs and our loyalties to various groups and tribes. And we see this in all manner of settings, not just in public health settings. The people who believe President Obama was born in Kenya, for example, were overwhelmingly likely to be people who didn't like President Barack Obama. If you looked at the recent football scandal over deflated footballs, people in New England were far more likely than people anywhere else in the country to believe that quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick didn't know what was going on. So vaccines and the concerns about vaccines are an example of this much larger phenomenon, which is once you believe in something, it's very hard to debunk that belief. And when someone comes along and tries to debunk that belief, they get seen as being part of the conspiracy theory


Besides that, DU'ers beating their chests about how pure and righteous we are is noise in signal-to-noise ratio. It is boring, it is stupid, and as the poll shows we're preaching to the choir - with baseball bats.

The ultimate proof that your style of shaming works will be when you're the only one who can stand your own company.

Making this a political issue is a huge disservice to public health. It guarantees that 28% of the public will refuse vaccination.