Opinion: why vaccine denialism is so annoying
I’m writing this opinion piece not for those who vaccinate themselves or their children, because they accept the science either because they reviewed it and accepted it, or they know it works. It’s not written for the antivaccinationists, because they don’t listen to logic anyways. It’s written for those who may be on the fence to understand that the argument isn’t balanced between two sides of equal veracity. It’s not a balanced argument at all.
Anti-vaxxers are lazy
Vaccine denialists think that a few hours, or a few days researching on google, or reading other vaccine denialists on a internet page, or trolling around an antivaccine Facebook page is sufficient to understand immunology, virology, bacteriology, vaccines, and epidemiology. They are now experts. They make claims that vaccines cause Type 1 diabetes. They make claims that vaccines shed the disease to others. They make claims that vaccines cause autism. None of these are true, not even close.
Science is hard work. It take years to become a researcher or world-class physician. Scientists spend hundreds of hours in laboratories and in classrooms. They attend conferences where their work is criticized and questioned. They focus on thousands of hours of writing and reading other’s works. Science takes dedication, and not part-time surfing of the internet; it takes all of your heart and time. It is not easy.
And these anti-vaccinationists think they can understand complex biochemistry and immunology in a few hours. And they accept data from the weakest sources, because they are too lazy, too intellectually bereft of critical thinking skills to take the time to actually understand real science and to critique bad science. They do not want to spend the time to become world-class researchers because they lack the skills, they lack the intellect, they lack the time, or they lack the motivation to do so. It doesn’t matter why they failed to do so, but too many others have invested the effort to become scientists and physicians, and their efforts should be respected and trusted.
Instead of real science, the antivaccinationists rely upon various logical fallacies because they have no real evidence to support their position. For example, they default to the Big Pharma ad hominem claiming that these vaccines are just thrown into the market for money, without understanding that the several hundred researchers, who develop those vaccines, probably have accumulated 10,000 years of scientific research, have published tens of thousands of articles in peer-reviewed high impact journals, and have dedicated their lives to understanding the basics of immunology, virology, biochemistry and many other subspecialties of biomedical sciences. These individuals have given their working lives to alleviate human suffering. And these vaccines represent that hard work, not a few hours of surfing the internet for conspiracy theories.
In the NEJM article by Gregory A. Poland, M.D., and Robert M. Jacobson, M.D., The Age-Old Struggle against the Antivaccinationists, the scientific problem of the anti-vaccination crowd is clearly stated: “…the reality that none of the antivaccinationists’ claims of widespread injury from vaccines have withstood the tests of time and science. We believe that antivaccinationists have done significant harm to the public health. Ultimately, society must recognize that science is not a democracy in which the side with the most votes or the loudest voices gets to decide what is right.“ All we get from the anti-vaxxers is yelling and screaming, without anything serious.
Anti-vaxxers do not deserve respect
Vaccine denialists whine about not getting respect from the so called pro-vaccine people. (As an aside, I do not consider myself “pro-vaccine”, I just consider myself pro-science and pro-children, and vaccines are both scientific and save children’s lives.) They claim that they are presenting science.
Why should I respect a group of people who cannot provide one single peer-reviewed paper published in a real journal that shows a significant issue with vaccines? They tend to mine news or research for anything that slightly supports their beliefs, while ignoring everything else that does not. They never present new research that’s supported by other researchers, that’s repeated by a wide variety of research groups, and then added into meta-reviews by respected groups such as the Cochrane Reviews. They over rely upon personal anecdotes that have no basis in reality and can’t be proven. They make claims like “my child had vaccines and had XYZ happen.” How do we know? And certainly, how do we know that there’s a causal relationship?
It’s impossible to respect a group that brings nothing to the discussion. It’s still amusing that the anti-vaxxers still bring up Mr. Andy Wakefield’s debunked and retracted study as their “proof” that vaccines cause autism.
But the most important reason why I shouldn’t respect your opinion is that children’s lives are at risk. Your vaccine denialism can harm children, and that’s why you should be ignored and disrespected.
Anti-vaxxers are arrogant
There is nothing as arrogant as how the antivaccinationist believe that their opinion is somehow more important than the vast weight of 99.999% of physicians, healthcare workers, researchers, scientists, public health officers, and just about anyone with a vested interested in the health of community. In essence, they exhibit a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. They are utterly incapable of recognizing their own mistakes and misinterpretations of science. Again, like I mentioned before, they believe that their quick research on the internet somehow exceeds years of hard work studying the various fields of science, enduring criticism, finding new ideas, and supporting them with massive research. The arrogance is so overwhelming.
Anti-vaxxers are selfish
Clearly, the antivaccinationists care only about their cause. Because if they didn’t, they would actually read what the real experts say, and then vaccinate their children today. They have a belief that these childhood diseases are not that serious, but as we have said over and over again, kids die of these diseases. These children don’t die because they are weaker or somehow different than the kids who are not vaccinated, they die because the diseases are dangerous. I personally cannot understand why these parents choose to risk their kids lives, but the cause seems to matter more than anything. How can we trust people who make that choice?
And to answer the strawman fallacy that is often made by the antivaccinationists that “vaccines are dangerous”, once again, the evidence does not support them. None. The evidence says that vaccines are safe and efficacious, and that is supported by the most brilliant minds in science and medicine, people who have dedicated their lives to studying it.
Anti-vaxxers are manipulative
Just read any news article about vaccines, whether positive or negative. The comments will be blasted by anti-vaxxers with their anecdotes, false claims, mined research, quote mining, and other junk science. The >90% of people who vaccinate their children either don’t care, or don’t comment, since they just vaccinate because they already have decided it is the right thing to do, and there is no debate. They don’t care. So you have a tiny minority of individuals who make it make it appear that there is a real debate, when there isn’t one. This is a time-honored method of the global warming and evolution denialists, who create a debate, when there is nothing but scientific support for the theories.
Scientists, being thoughtful and nuanced in their discussions, often try not to be emotional or provocative in their points. They rely upon well-researched science in discussing vaccines. They trot out complex graphs that don’t have two sentences that are easy to digest by those whose science education was done on the university of google. So, the anti-vaxxers pull out a very badly done study on a vaccine causing XYZ saying “this proves that vaccines cause XYZ”, when it shows nothing at all. But their manipulative argument is so much easier to read than a complex scientific deconstruction of the poorly done paper, published in a fourth rate journal.
Conclusion: Vaccines save lives
If you’re examining the “debate” between vaccines and the vaccine deniers, it’s not a matter of putting the evidence on one side or another. The quality of evidence for vaccines is solid gold, solid platinum. It is published in the most prestigious medical and science journals in the world. They are reviewed and critiqued over and over again. The scientists and physicians stand in front of their peers and accept careful discussion and debate. They revise their hypothesis and repeat over and over again. They do not sit in front of their laptops trying to find the one article to support their data, but they actually talk to patients, gather data from thousands of data points, review it, analyze it, and publish it. This is very hard work.
The evidence for the anti-vaxxers is almost nothing. They rely upon what they observe in a narrow world around them. They hear about a story on the internet and accept it as a fact. They take a poorly written article that has little data supporting it, and use it as their support. They don’t have any science whatsoever, yet make claims as if they are.
Think of it this way. If you have heart disease, there are a number of options on how to treat it. It can be anything from medicine to reduce blood pressure and cholesterol to interventional cardiology to bypass surgery. To make that decision on which path to take requires a pile of diagnostic tools, but in the end it requires the learned opinion of a cardiologist. That cardiologist has 4 years of college, usually in a science program. It is followed by 4 years of medical school, which requires a combination of both classwork and intense clinical work. That is followed by 3-4 years of residency, where the physician receives progressively more intense training in cardiology. This is followed by another 2-3 years of focused, intensive training in one sub-field of cardiology. Would you trust your heart to someone who studied surgery on the internet for a few hours? Why would you trust your child to someone who studied vaccines for a few hours on the internet? What are they going to know? Nothing.
I was kind of hoping for more evidence on pro-vaccinations, rather than he said she said article. Although I can understand the frustrations created over these types of debate, I would advocate against these types of articles, sensible people are capable of looking past these baseless scare tactics.
[...] because the denialists base their arguments on a very limited amount of education or background. As I’ve said before, at least with respect to vaccine denialism, they have spent no more than a few hours of research [...]
Great post.
Re the misconception below about LAV we must remember no virus “sheds” like a wild virus. LAV products are in fact safe for immunocompromised and indeed HIV positive subjects. Google “Vaccine Shedding: time up for another vaccine myth” to knock a few similar schemes on the head and access great studies.
Once again the Raptor has ruled. Awesome.
Great post.
Re the misconception below about LAV we must remember no virus "sheds" like a wild virus. LAV products are in fact safe for immunocompromised and indeed HIV positive subjects. Google "Vaccine Shedding: time up for another vaccine myth" to knock a few similar schemes on the head and access great studies.
Once again the Raptor has ruled. Awesome.
Guess what? Live-attenuated virus vaccines CAN shed and spread the vaccine-strain illness to others…especially those who have compromised immune systems (due to cancer “treatment” or any other immune-suppressing drugs like drugs for arthritis, etc). I could go on, but I have better things to do than to educate you. It would be nice if you had your “extraordinary evidence” straight.
Please provide peer-reviewed evidence for such a claim. The only way a LAV can “shed” would be for it to recombine with another LAV that has different mutation points, which is impossible. So, I’ll await real science, which I’ll assume will be mined and probably show a large amount of confirmation bias to avoid any research that doesn’t support your point of view.
And please, while doing this, where did you get your Ph.D. in virology? And where did you do your postdoctoral studies? And where is your current faculty position? And please post your c.v. with all of your publications? Because you seem to arrogantly imply that you know more than scientists.
It also would be nice if YOU had your “extraordinary evidence” straight. SO, lets play along here. We’ll pretend for a moment that live vaccines shed. So are you saying you are ok with getting vaccines that do not contain live viruses? Because it seems you should be ok with those since there is no “shedding”. Which by the way,is a very miniscule risk. So miniscule that even though my son is immunosuppressed due to a heart transplant, his cardiologist told us it is definitely a good idea for his sister to get the CP booster so that she can protect him through herd immunity. So, please, like Michael said, show us your peer reviewed article from a scientific journal. I wait with baited breath
Michele, there isn’t a single competent microbiologist who would come close to even suggesting that. As asked before, what is your peer-reviewed evidence?
Greg, in my vast experience with the anti-vaxxers, when you ask for peer-reviewed evidence, they call you names, or they run away complaining to their friends that we treat them badly. I don’t expect to see any peer-reviewed evidence, since, as you know, there isn’t any. Unless, we call Joe Mercola, “peer-reviewed.”
Luis any of the quackery mercola recommends monitored by the FDA? Nope. Not one little bit. In fact, the FDA has told him many times to stop making false claims that he can cure a trig with his watered down cured. Yet he persists. You say you are not av. Just an informed consumer. Then you talk about drug companies pushing vaccines. I am very confused by the different responses. But either way, the drug companies would make a Ron more money if vaccines were not around. Think aout the tons of money they could make on a cure fr measles in an outbreak. Or a cure for polio in an outbreak. It would be more. Their interest, money Wise, to not deal with preventing these diseases.
But they don’t have to wait, they’re making money now!!!
and we don’t even know how effective this stuff is if an outbreak occurs, (so I guess their doing ok?) I’ve seen a lot of gimmicks involved in vaccinations, like the pnuematic injectors that all the kids loved because in had NO NEEDLES! (YEA!!) then it turned out that they could transfer blood from one person to the next, and spread Hepititus and HIV, and that was back before HIV was understood very well. Vaccinations have had lots of problems, and buyers should beware. If you do get Vaccinations, get the from a trusted Doctor. Government sponsered Vaccinations, well, that term just doesn’t instill me with confidence!
Wow, so you have no other response than “spoken like a drug rep”? Just goes to show, when you can’t refute it using science, try for just insults. Nice
” It’s not written for the antivaccinationists, because they don’t listen to logic anyways.”
He started his article with a derogatory, negative comment directed toward people involved in this debate that he has no respect for. He then continued to address the people that haven’t bought the vaccine yet, so yes, he sounds like a Drug-Rep!
OR, could be that he actually just understands science. Unlike the AVers who so arrogantly act like a few hundred hours at university google qualifies them for their PhD or MD. Which, guess what, it does not! Googling stuff does not make you more knowledgeable than doctors that spend 12+ years learning everything related to medicine. And, most AVers really don’t listen to logic at all. You can say the same thing over and over and they still won’t believe it. You can show them the same research peer reviewed and replicated by many others and they will still say they are part of the conspiracy. And guess what, I have NO part in anything medically related. I just am able to critically evaluate articles and understand which ones are actual science and which ones are full of woo!
I’m well aware that most anti-vaxxers do not listen to real science. That’s why they are science denialists, no different that evolution denialists or global warming denialists. Sorry John, but your continued personal attacks only indicate your level of understanding of real science of vaccines.
It’s not the science I’m denying, it’s the mass-produced money-making drug companies pushing this stuff, and how well is this stuff monitored? The FDA? Please! There’s no telling what the let get through. Should we vaccinate? Hell Yes! Should it be safe, Hell Yes! Is it? ,,,,, well?
P.S. Just so you know, I’m not an anti-vaxxer, I like to think I’m an informed consumer, vaccines have had an impact on humanity only God could have imagined, and men like Salk and Sabin should be remembered before any US president.
Ah the Big Pharma Shill Gambit. An ad hominem. Do you have any evidence? Or is this the same logic used by the birther crowd? Or that Chemtrails are being dropped on us by the government. The vaccines we’re using now are much more advanced than the ones from the 60′s. Maybe you ought to check on that.
Spoken like a drug-rep!
Spoken like someone who lacks any scientific evidence, so resorts to ad hominem attacks and strawman arguments. Logical fallacies are for the intellectually weak. But thank you for proving my point.
I’ve seen classmates with problems related to mercury poisoning because drug-manufacters pushed out crappy vaccines to fill government contracts, (southern Mississippi, 1972-74) I stood in line to get the “swine -flu” vaccine in the late ’70s after we had that huge swine flu epidemic. (sarcastically rendered) and I’ve been a guinea-pig for the US Army for years, and am the proud owner of HALF a battery of the Anthrax vaccine, because the other half just wasn’t that important after we arrived in Iraq.
I know there are good people doing good work out there, but if you don’t know who is making the money, your a fool.
Mercury? Please, go have a tuna fish sandwich. There’s some Mercury for you. Now you’ve moved into more unsubstantiated anecdotes based on absolutely no scientific information whatsoever. Provide peer reviewed published information. Then we can talk.
The fool is the person who thinks that 2 hours of surfing the internet is equivalent to a Ph.D. and 20 years of research. Oh, that’s also arrogance too.
And it’s “you’re a fool.”
So, who would you rather have make the money? Because it seems to me that all of you AVers are a-ok with Mercola and quacks like him making millions and millions of dollars on nothing but water. But, vaccines which actually save lives, no way are they allowed to make money on those! It doesn’t make sense at all why the quacks should be allowed to make tons of money. And honestly, the vaccine makers do not make all that much money. Especially if you really believe the conspiracy theories. According to the latest theories, they have a TON of people to pay off to make sure these vaccines get out there!
a he’s a grammar nazi too!
Oh look. An anecdote.
Learn the difference between an element and a compound John.
Another non-scientist who thinks he’s a microbiologist. *yawn* It does get old, let me tell you…
Guess what? Live-attenuated virus vaccines CAN shed and spread the vaccine-strain illness to others…especially those who have compromised immune systems (due to cancer "treatment" or any other immune-suppressing drugs like drugs for arthritis, etc). I could go on, but I have better things to do than to educate you. It would be nice if you had your "extraordinary evidence" straight.
Please provide peer-reviewed evidence for such a claim. The only way a LAV can "shed" would be for it to recombine with another LAV that has different mutation points, which is impossible. So, I'll await real science, which I'll assume will be mined and probably show a large amount of confirmation bias to avoid any research that doesn't support your point of view.
And please, while doing this, where did you get your Ph.D. in virology? And where did you do your postdoctoral studies? And where is your current faculty position? And please post your c.v. with all of your publications? Because you seem to arrogantly imply that you know more than scientists.
It also would be nice if YOU had your "extraordinary evidence" straight. SO, lets play along here. We'll pretend for a moment that live vaccines shed. So are you saying you are ok with getting vaccines that do not contain live viruses? Because it seems you should be ok with those since there is no "shedding". Which by the way,is a very miniscule risk. So miniscule that even though my son is immunosuppressed due to a heart transplant, his cardiologist told us it is definitely a good idea for his sister to get the CP booster so that she can protect him through herd immunity. So, please, like Michael said, show us your peer reviewed article from a scientific journal. I wait with baited breath
Michele, there isn’t a single competent microbiologist who would come close to even suggesting that. As asked before, what is your peer-reviewed evidence?
Greg, in my vast experience with the anti-vaxxers, when you ask for peer-reviewed evidence, they call you names, or they run away complaining to their friends that we treat them badly. I don't expect to see any peer-reviewed evidence, since, as you know, there isn't any. Unless, we call Joe Mercola, "peer-reviewed."
Luis any of the quackery mercola recommends monitored by the FDA? Nope. Not one little bit. In fact, the FDA has told him many times to stop making false claims that he can cure a trig with his watered down cured. Yet he persists. You say you are not av. Just an informed consumer. Then you talk about drug companies pushing vaccines. I am very confused by the different responses. But either way, the drug companies would make a Ron more money if vaccines were not around. Think aout the tons of money they could make on a cure fr measles in an outbreak. Or a cure for polio in an outbreak. It would be more. Their interest, money Wise, to not deal with preventing these diseases.
But they don't have to wait, they're making money now!!!
and we don't even know how effective this stuff is if an outbreak occurs, (so I guess their doing ok?) I've seen a lot of gimmicks involved in vaccinations, like the pnuematic injectors that all the kids loved because in had NO NEEDLES! (YEA!!) then it turned out that they could transfer blood from one person to the next, and spread Hepititus and HIV, and that was back before HIV was understood very well. Vaccinations have had lots of problems, and buyers should beware. If you do get Vaccinations, get the from a trusted Doctor. Government sponsered Vaccinations, well, that term just doesn't instill me with confidence!
Wow, so you have no other response than "spoken like a drug rep"? Just goes to show, when you can't refute it using science, try for just insults. Nice
" It’s not written for the antivaccinationists, because they don’t listen to logic anyways."
He started his article with a derogatory, negative comment directed toward people involved in this debate that he has no respect for. He then continued to address the people that haven't bought the vaccine yet, so yes, he sounds like a Drug-Rep!
OR, could be that he actually just understands science. Unlike the AVers who so arrogantly act like a few hundred hours at university google qualifies them for their PhD or MD. Which, guess what, it does not! Googling stuff does not make you more knowledgeable than doctors that spend 12+ years learning everything related to medicine. And, most AVers really don't listen to logic at all. You can say the same thing over and over and they still won't believe it. You can show them the same research peer reviewed and replicated by many others and they will still say they are part of the conspiracy. And guess what, I have NO part in anything medically related. I just am able to critically evaluate articles and understand which ones are actual science and which ones are full of woo!
I'm well aware that most anti-vaxxers do not listen to real science. That's why they are science denialists, no different that evolution denialists or global warming denialists. Sorry John, but your continued personal attacks only indicate your level of understanding of real science of vaccines.
It's not the science I'm denying, it's the mass-produced money-making drug companies pushing this stuff, and how well is this stuff monitored? The FDA? Please! There's no telling what the let get through. Should we vaccinate? Hell Yes! Should it be safe, Hell Yes! Is it? ,,,,, well?
P.S. Just so you know, I'm not an anti-vaxxer, I like to think I'm an informed consumer, vaccines have had an impact on humanity only God could have imagined, and men like Salk and Sabin should be remembered before any US president.
Ah the Big Pharma Shill Gambit. An ad hominem. Do you have any evidence? Or is this the same logic used by the birther crowd? Or that Chemtrails are being dropped on us by the government. The vaccines we're using now are much more advanced than the ones from the 60's. Maybe you ought to check on that.
Spoken like a drug-rep!
Spoken like someone who lacks any scientific evidence, so resorts to ad hominem attacks and strawman arguments. Logical fallacies are for the intellectually weak. But thank you for proving my point.
I've seen classmates with problems related to mercury poisoning because drug-manufacters pushed out crappy vaccines to fill government contracts, (southern Mississippi, 1972-74) I stood in line to get the "swine -flu" vaccine in the late '70s after we had that huge swine flu epidemic. (sarcastically rendered) and I've been a guinea-pig for the US Army for years, and am the proud owner of HALF a battery of the Anthrax vaccine, because the other half just wasn't that important after we arrived in Iraq.
I know there are good people doing good work out there, but if you don't know who is making the money, your a fool.
Mercury? Please, go have a tuna fish sandwich. There's some Mercury for you. Now you've moved into more unsubstantiated anecdotes based on absolutely no scientific information whatsoever. Provide peer reviewed published information. Then we can talk.
The fool is the person who thinks that 2 hours of surfing the internet is equivalent to a Ph.D. and 20 years of research. Oh, that's also arrogance too.
And it's "you're a fool."
So, who would you rather have make the money? Because it seems to me that all of you AVers are a-ok with Mercola and quacks like him making millions and millions of dollars on nothing but water. But, vaccines which actually save lives, no way are they allowed to make money on those! It doesn't make sense at all why the quacks should be allowed to make tons of money. And honestly, the vaccine makers do not make all that much money. Especially if you really believe the conspiracy theories. According to the latest theories, they have a TON of people to pay off to make sure these vaccines get out there!
a he's a grammar nazi too!
Oh look. An anecdote.
Learn the difference between an element and a compound John.
Another non-scientist who thinks he’s a microbiologist. *yawn* It does get old, let me tell you…