The anti vax conspiracy

[PlanetOfTheApesLives]

Channel 4 tonight.

Watching it? What is behind the ones that spread rubbish, what is the aim? What makes people more likely to believe in conspiracy theories 🤔

WATCHING it
Yes yabu doesn't interest me at all
No YANBU yes want to see why people spread anti vax conspiracy theories

@Moretimetobefullyvaccinated

wasthataburp

It affects everyone though not just you if people don't get vaccinated, matters massively.

The elderly and vulnerable have been vaccinated now though. It's over

@wasthataburp Not all elderly and vulnerable people have been vaccinated. Besides, there are plenty of younger people (in the age groups not yet vaccinated) who have caught covid and survived but are suffering from the seriously debilitating side effects of long covid.

The more of us who take up the offer of being vaccinated, the fewer people unable to be vaccinated or too young to be offered the vaccine yet, will catch covid and risk suffering those side effects.

I can't fathom why anyone would think the inconvenience of taking a bit of time out of their day and having a quick jab in the arm would outweigh the benefit to themselves and to everyone with whom they come into contact.

Plenty of people have only had one jab.

I thought it was really interesting. I'd have like to have seen more about present day and the role that Russia has a hand in driving anti vacc propaganda. But the links between Wakefield and covid vaccines was informative.

From my point of view I could certainly see more now how some of my friends have fallen for the anti covid vaccine line.

@cariadlet - the irony is that the anti vax movement sets itself against the pharmaceutical companies. What they have in common though is that they're highly organised, well funded and ruthless. Now I've watched all of it and the part at the end where they talk about going after a segment of the population - those feeling marginalised and the largest group among them, BAME, and feeding them misinformation because it's a market opportunity is shocking. When the narrator talks about the anti vax movement riding the wave of populism where people can choose their own facts and that it's become political, preaching a new world order, an outright rejection of science experts and established authority, it all starts to sound horribly familiar.

@Coatandhat I've been listening to some pretty depressing podcasts recently about online radicalisation by both Islamist extremists and far right/neo nazi/ white supremacist groups. They have a lot in common with the anti-vaxxer, anti-science brigade.

The frustrating thing is that if people at the top of social media organisations had taken the threat of these groups seriously when they first began to recruit online and had done something to tackle them, then they wouldn't have been able to grow such a huge online presence and wouldn't have had the malign real world influence which they now have.

That really is depressing Cariad. We are literally becoming a binary world. Time for someone to switch off the Internet (but leave Mumsnet) 😁

[quote cariadlet]@Coatandhat I've been listening to some pretty depressing podcasts recently about online radicalisation by both Islamist extremists and far right/neo nazi/ white supremacist groups. They have a lot in common with the anti-vaxxer, anti-science brigade.

The frustrating thing is that if people at the top of social media organisations had taken the threat of these groups seriously when they first began to recruit online and had done something to tackle them, then they wouldn't have been able to grow such a huge online presence and wouldn't have had the malign real world influence which they now have. [/quote]
Another issue is history itself, that has proven some previously regarded , as conspiracy theories to be true.

Sounds like it was a fat lot of propaganda. I know several “anti vaxxers”. They don’t follow cults or believe in conspiracy theories and aren’t out to make money. They have, sadly, lost children or have severely disabled children due to vaccine damage.

@SnuffleSnaffle You clearly haven't watched the programme so can't really comment.

It's only the people at the top who are criticised for being out to make money - people like Andrew Wakefield, Alex Jones and Jim Humble (the truly awful man who sells what is essentially bleach which he promotes as a cure for autism).

People like that are criticised for taking advantage of people like your friends who have genuine worries.

The programme is far from propaganda; it's a thoughtful analysis of the growth of the antivax movement. It's available on All-4 for 28 days and I really recommend watching it. Even if you end up disagreeing with some of the conclusions, at least you'll know what you're disagreeing with.

I’m not anti vax I’m anti push it on people and tell them they can’t do xyz if they don’t take it. My friend lost her baby after getting a vaccine, I know lots who had perfectly healthy babies that were hitting their milestones that regressed to babyhood again after getting vaccinated. Both mine were vaccinated but if I had it again I wouldn’t vaccinate them. I don’t care who takes what jab but calling people conspiracy theorists because they have different views than you makes you sound crazy. I believe we should all live in harmony and respect others views.

@kittie01 I'm really sorry for your friend. Losing a baby is terrible. I can't imagine the pain that she must have gone through.

You have anecdotes about friends whose children have appeared to regress. I could counter with all the children I know who have been vaccinated and who have continued to hit their milestones and have grown into healthy young people but annecdotes aren't evidence.

Similarly, correlation isn't causation. There are conditions such as autism where the symptoms begin to manifest at the same time as children are given their vaccinations. That doesn't mean that vaccinations cause those conditions.

I agree with you that we should all try and live in harmony. To a certain extent, I agree that we should respect each others views. The problem is that sometimes the actions that we take impact not just ourselves and our loved ones but the rest of society.

Vaccination is a public health issue. If the number of people being vaccinated against a disease drops below a certain point, then you don't have herd immunity and there are likely to be outbreaks of that disease. People who have chosen not to be vaccinated against that disease are at risk. Children whose parents have chosen not to vaccinate them are at risk. People whose severe health conditions prevent them from being vaccinated themselves are left without the protection that they would have been given in a vaccinated society. This is what has happened with measles since Wakefield. There have been many outbreaks of the disease including the US where it had been eliminated. Thousands of children have been hospitalised because of complications due to catching measles.

I have given my dd the normal childhood vaccines plus extra travel vaccinations. As a mum, I feel that my main duty is to keep her safe. I can't protect her from everything in life but at least , by getting her vaccinated, I have protected her from disease.

cariadlet, “correlation isn't causation yet it’s the only evidence we have that vaccines work. How is it good enough evidence on the pro vax side but not enough evidence if many parents report that their child regresses immediately after a vaccine. I suffered a severe vaccine reaction. It was an immediate effect, You would dismiss it as correlarion diesn’t equal causation* because you don’t understand what correlation means in terms of statistical analysis. It isn’t based on one occurrence. It’s a statistical measure based on a large sample. High correlation gives good evidence of a relationship. Evidence for blood clots due to covid vax was based on temporal correlation and initially dismissed by the “correlation doesn’t mean causation” brigade.

@SnuffleSnaffle I've got a pretty good understanding of correlation and also understand that a high correlation can give a misleading impression of causation.

Have you heard that storks do bring babies after all? There is a surprising correlation between the number of babies born in a country and the number of storks (p = 0.008). Matthews

I believe we should all live in harmony and respect others views

plenty of people genuinely believe they are safe to drive after they have been drinking. Should we live in harmony and respect their views too @kittie01 ? If not, why not?

correlation isn't causation yet it’s the only evidence we have that vaccines work

@snufflesnaffle That's just not true. It might be all the evidence you understand but it is not all the evidence that there is.

Obviously drink driving is completely different as is using drugs and driving

@kittie01 drink driving isn't dissimilar from vaccine refusal because in both cases, the decisions made by an individual can have a devastating effect on others.

The former can lead to a drunk driver injuring or killing other road users or pedestrians.

The latter can cause unvaccinated people to catch a disease and then infect others, causing illness and (in the worst case scenario) killing them.

Obviously drink driving is completely different as is using drugs and driving

@kittie01 Why is it? What is it that makes it different?

I’m fully unvaccinated as are all of my siblings and a lot of our cousins. I’m entitled to my opinion as are you. The chances of killing someone whilst drunk driving are very high, unvaccinated is slim very slim

www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20201112/measles-killed-207k-people-in-2019-as-cases-hit-23year-high

This article shows the WHO statistics on death from measles. I can’t stand people who talk about vaccination as if it doesn’t have an impact on anyone else.

@kittie01

I’m fully unvaccinated as are all of my siblings and a lot of our cousins. I’m entitled to my opinion as are you. The chances of killing someone whilst drunk driving are very high, unvaccinated is slim very slim

I'm sure that the parents of the infected child who introduced measles to the US from Israel also thought that the chances of killing anyone were very slim. I don't think any children were killed in that outbreak but many were hospitalised. Those parents were responsible for a lot of unnecessary suffering.

The more people are unvaccinated, the more these outbreaks will happen.

You said that you and your siblings are unvaccinate. Why didn't your parents want to protect you from preventable diseases? Or what worries did they have that outweighed their worries about you becoming ill from those diseases?

I’m fully unvaccinated as are all of my siblings and a lot of our cousins. I’m entitled to my opinion as are you
Of course you are entitled to an opinion - as are the people who believe it's ok to drink and drive. You say people's opinions should be respected, which I assume means that people should be able to make these choices for themselves? So why is it OK for your opinions to be respected and yet you aren't supporting the idea that those who think its OK to drink and drive should be respected? Surely either both should be respected or neither? Or is it only your strongly held opinions that should be respected and not others' strongly held opinions.

The chances of killing someone whilst drunk driving are very high, unvaccinated is slim very slim
Actually this is factually untrue. Depending on which specific vaccination we are talking about, it can be very dangerous for other people.

And if it isn't as dangerous for other people (for you to be unvaccinated) that's only because other people have been vaccinated. The same is true with drink driving. If the roads are filled with drink drivers they are a more risky place to be for everyone than if there is just one drink driver.

[quote Coatandhat]**@cariadlet* - the irony is that the anti vax movement sets itself against* the pharmaceutical companies. What they have in common though is that they're highly organised, well funded and ruthless. Now I've watched all of it and the part at the end where they talk about going after a segment of the population - those feeling marginalised and the largest group among them, BAME, and feeding them misinformation because it's a market opportunity is shocking. When the narrator talks about the anti vax movement riding the wave of populism where people can choose their own facts and that it's become political, preaching a new world order, an outright rejection of science experts and established authority, it all starts to sound horribly familiar.[/quote]
Yes, the market opportunity bit is quite revealing. This is a con business, just like any other. It is concealed as a con by a screen of people who believe in the lies being trotted out, just like an MLM, or some religious cult, as was pointed out in the programme.
Someone, somewhere is raking in a lot of money out of this scam.

Surely the issue is that vaccine injury is real. For every approved vaccine there will be a tiny minority who have a bad reaction and suffer either death or irreversible effects. With covid we have had to confront this as we see healthy people dying after developing blood clots as a result of having the AZ vaccine.

For society it is better that we are all vaccinated against many diseases but for those individuals who suffer very rare but real vaccine injury, it would probably have been better not to have been vaccinated. Therein lies the dilemma. I've had the covid vaccination but it was AZ and I'm in my 40s. I could have been one of the unlucky ones and I do understand why some people don't want to take the risk. It doesn't help to pretend there is no risk, better to accept that these choices are difficult and complicated.