Is my Dad being brainwashed by alt-right anti vaxxers?

[AbitSceptical]

I'm not sure if this is really an AIBU but I don't know where else to post and maybe IABU for being worried about this...

My Dad, in his 70s, lives alone, has always been free-market right (socially he's more liberal).

He subscribes to e-news sites and gets update emails from right wing media sources, which are all anti-lockdown, anti-vax, anti-woke. He often sends us (his children, sometimes his siblings) long ranty emails, forwarding 'The Truth' about 'Covid lies'.

He uses terms like 'face nappy' for mask, 'sheeple' for anyone who doesn't agree with him, and talks about 'that commie on sage' - not sure if he means Whitty or Valence or someone else.

He is convinced that his grandchildren are in grave danger of hospitalisation if we have them vaccinated.

He doesn't listen to reason - I've tried telling him that no-one has offered to vaccinate my children yet, that all his children and their spouses are double vacc'ed (we did think long and hard about accepting the vaccine, we're not idiots, and we are all fine.)

He went through a similar phase around the time of Brexit - he was an ardent Leaver.

What can I (we - my siblings have the same problem) do? I don't have the energy to engage with his nonsense. We've already told him not to send on these emails, but he sent 3 just last night. If you argue back he gets very aggressive.

I'm worried about his mental health. Has anyone experienced anything similar / got any ideas about what to do to help him?

FYI so as not to drip feed - 2 of his 4 kids live abroad, myself and one other in the UK, we have our own families / jobs / school aged kids and live 2-3 hours drive from him, so are not in a position to check up on him in person on a frequent basis.

Worldgonecrazy

Susan Mitchie is a Professor at UCL and would not be a member of SAGE were she not a scientist whose expertise in behavioural science is respected.

I assume you are commenting from the perspective of the tribal values that OP s father has been brainwashed by, that there should be “no science without discussion” as seen on the stage of Saturday’s protests, presumably with the sort of people like the struck off nurse Kate whatshername who stood in front of it and spouted absolute nonsense with no scientific evidence.

Science is the result of discussion via debate and peer review to achieve consensus amongst experts. The only scientists who have put forward evidence that would support OPs fathers views are outliers who have provided no convincing data to support their theories and in most cases do not have relevant expertise and are doing rather well out of funding from right wing groups in the US.

So it isn’t a matter of OP and her father having seen the evidence from both sides and drawn different conclusions because the evidence on one side is evidenced and the result of scientific consensus and the evidence of the other side is not, and moreover is ringed with conspiracy theories that are proven to be entirely false.

OP wants advice on where she goes in her relationship with her father, and the options include ignoring rubbish, refusing to have it thrust at her, distracting him into other activities or engaging in evidenced argument to undermine his beliefs (and they are beliefs) with the help of the many sources of accurate information and help with ways exposing the false basis of the standard arguments. However going along with the brainwashing on the basis it is rooted in fact when it isn’t? No

@Aquamarine1029

Tell your dad it's fine to believe whatever it is he wants to believe, but it is not acceptable for him to harass you about it all. Tell him if he sends one more email you will block him, and if he does, then do it.

This sums it up really

Science is the result of discussion via debate and peer review to achieve consensus amongst experts. The only scientists who have put forward evidence that would support OPs fathers views are outliers who have provided no convincing data to support their theories and in most cases do not have relevant expertise and are doing rather well out of funding from right wing groups in the US

Unfortunately the experts keep getting it wrong. Groupthink is real and no one wants to rock the boat. Masking and lockdowns are pseudo-science and have never been demonstrated to work.

However OP’s father has a problem with engagement, he cannot respect other’s opinions sadly

What are you more concerned about? His views or how he expresses them? Is it really that astonishing that he doesn’t believe lockdowns work and he’s concerned by the vaccine? Is it more the way he is expressing it? I know many many people who feel the same, especially concerning the vaccine and I am not concerned about their mental health in the slightest, freedom of choice etc 🤷‍♀️

@Worldgonecrazy

The “commie” who sits on SAGE is Professor Susan Michie, who is a member of the communist party and a behavioural scientist.

Your father is probably equally worried about you so perhaps you should allow each other the respect of consideration and that you have both seen evidence for both sides and drawn different conclusions?

Absolutely

Leave him be. Just don't engage in political squabbles. Not worth it.

Usedupusername

Ah yes the Ferguson said there would be 500k deaths and there weren’t stream of argument

Ferguson said there would be 500k deaths if we did not implement an effective public health strategy including effective test trace and isolate and lockdown. We didn’t do the first, hence 130k deaths, but we did do the latter limiting the possibility of transmission, hence not a much greater death toll.

However I am not going to go over the same tired arguments. There are any number of sound sources of reputable help and information for OP if she does choose to actually engage with this dangerous nonsense.

Quite scary that those who don't toe the line and agree blindly with the status quo are treated as if there's something wrong with them

Ferguson said there would be 500k deaths if we did not implement an effective public health strategy including effective test trace and isolate and lockdown. We didn’t do the first, hence 130k deaths, but we did do the latter limiting the possibility of transmission, hence not a much greater death toll

I won’t debate you here but let’s just say the experts have failed us badly. I think all sides can at least agree upon that.

UsedUpUsername
Masking and lockdowns are pseudo-science and have never been demonstrated to work.

And that, children, is why nurses and surgeons wear masks during surgery; because they don't work.

Masking and lockdowns are pseudo-science and have never been demonstrated to work

Lockdowns clearly reduce transmission

You really just need to accept that you have your views and he’s had his.
You think he has been taken in by certain views and he thinks you have.

Just talk anything’s that don’t involve this virus.

I won’t debate you here but let’s just say the experts have failed us badly. I think all sides can at least agree upon that.

Good grief, and people with no scientific expertise, like the lonely man next door who sits at his kitchen table in a ketchup stained t shirt leaning over his computer or the deranged attention seeking ex nurse who scared her 11 year old son witless with tales of genocide that never materialised would have served us better? Or indeed Heneghen, Gupta, the Fat Emperor etc who have never published any data to back up their theories (and have suspicious finding links to Trump supporting organisations in the US). Far more sinister than membership of a now irrelevant (in spite of the ridiculous right wing Hoover type US rhetoric you get on these websites) U.K. Communist Party.

The Scientists have responded to a novel virus to try to fill the knowledge gap from the start. From the Wuhan doctors who risked their livelihood and lives to get the information they had gathered in the virus’s DNA, infectiousness and death rates to the rest of the world including publishing then in the Lancet in mid January when Xi had not yet owned up. Right to the people who delivered vaccines in record time, not because they cut corners, or were acting for Bill Gates to implant us with chips or change our DNA but because they had the funding to implement the existing vaccine science. (I didn’t get this from a website I spoke to a vaccine expert back in May 2020 about the amazing progress being made.

I have a family member who has spent two hours each end of long days commuting in London to make their contribution, starting to deliver testing to London hospitals in March 2020 when Dido’s operation was still a complete shambles, catching Covid and giving it to me in the process. They have made amazing leaps in research into treatments and understanding of the disease compressed into such a short time, and in some countries where political ideology did not trump science they kept case and death rates low.

They did not understand the true nature and origins of SARS for 10 years but countries who put those lessons into practise have done far better than countries who thought they were exceptional.

Look at the map of death rates - the experts are worldwide but the countries that have done worst are where right wing ideology and western exceptionalism were most prevalent. We have been failed by right wing populism and croneyism not the experts.

I'm not sure what you can do about it but try and connect in little ways like gardening or other things you know he likes.

It is scary how many people have been sucked into conspiracy theories over the last year and a bit, you can see evidence of that even on mumsnet. There isn't really any point in arguing back though, they become so entrenched in it. I have a friend who speaks of nothing else these days, it's very tiring to be around but I just smile and nod now because I know that nothing I say will make any difference.

I honestly don't know how you overcome this problem. I have discussed this topic with a few friends who live in the US. It's a huge problem over there and many people are very worried and believe it poses a real threat. It seems it's gaining ground here. My sister refuses to have the vaccine for the same reasons and I've given up trying to reason with her as we'd end up not talking at all. Her partner's very ill and has no immunity but she's still resistant. Like all extremists, left or right, they get aggressive when you disagree with them. Many are victims of social media and not thinking for themselves, preaching other people's words and are glued to their laptops. The pandemic has compounded the anger felt from the Brexit divide and leaves most of us feeling helpless.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

UsedUpUsername Masking and lockdowns are pseudo-science and have never been demonstrated to work.

And that, children, is why nurses and surgeons wear masks during surgery; because they don't work.

At the beginning of the pandemic I remember at one of the press conferences they told us that masks weren't necessary and the general public didn't need to wear them. Then the advice changed. Yet we should blindly believe every single thing they tell us and if we don't we're brainwashed conspiracy theorists. Righto

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

UsedUpUsername Masking and lockdowns are pseudo-science and have never been demonstrated to work.

And that, children, is why nurses and surgeons wear masks during surgery; because they don't work.

Omg do you actually think this?

It’s to prevent infecting their patient’s wounds with bacteria, which is magnitudes larger than viruses. Also to protect them from getting splashed with bodily fluids.

They don’t actually think it’s a barrier against viruses. You’d have to have at least a professionally fitted N95 or better.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Masking and lockdowns are pseudo-science and have never been demonstrated to work

Lockdowns clearly reduce transmission

You can achieve the same results with focussed protection (ie using a scalpel instead of a blunt hammer). You can compare various US states, and find that those with strict lockdowns don’t fare any better than those who didn’t.

It shouldn’t be a surprise. The WHO pandemic playbook pre-COVID never recommended lockdowns.

I think the real problem is an outbreak of an inability to understand context and perspective amongst non experts. Of course N95 correctly used is better protection, but with 65m people involved any barrier to aerosol transmission is going to reduced transmission. Infection control is a series of leaky sieves. If anything worked 100% then we would have done it and Covid would be history. But each thing that reduces transmission in 65m is less of us catching the bigger. There is certainly no evidence that wearing a “face nappy” causes you any harm. Ironically the rhetoric implies it is catching shit which is a decent metaphor.

They did not understand the true nature and origins of SARS for 10 years but countries who put those lessons into practise have done far better than countries who thought they were exceptional

You do know that most of East Asia did not use lockdowns. With the exception of China, of course.

Here’s where you might suggest masking worked, well, it sure didn’t work out too well in Europe despite strict mask mandates in most countries.

Look at the map of death rates - the experts are worldwide but the countries that have done worst are where right wing ideology and western exceptionalism were most prevalent

Can you really say that about South American countries like Peru, Argentina and Colombia, which have been hit very very hard?

Also, everyone hates on Sweden’s approach but it’s kind of ridiculous to call them a right-wing, populist regime.

You should really stop looking at this from a political lens.

We have been failed by right wing populism and croneyism not the experts

Yes, blame the little people for not masking harder or staying at home when their livelihoods were being destroyed (while their betters were comfortably working from home despite being in low risk categories).

Not the experts who flipflopped on everything from travel bans to masking to venting.

They dropped the ball by not admitting that the virus spreads via aerosols until far too late in the game.

The experts are wrong on pretty much everything COVID related and then whine when people don’t listen to them wrt vaccines. (As it happens, I think they are mostly right on vaccine)

Usedup thank you for illustrating my point about context and perspective. There is no single definition of lockdown, just a series of measures you can take to limit transmission. Taiwan for instance did not lockdown for the first 15 months of this pandemic, their economy thrived in a country with a densely populated capital the size of Manchester. However they responded to the signals coming outbid Wuhan in mid December and started screening plans coming out of Wuhan, then at the start of January they locked down their borders and restarted their SARS trace track and isolate. They have only messed up recently (and on nowhere the scale we have) because they did not increase the testing capacity to anticipate a more transmissible variant).

Your definition of lockdown, the extent to which we limited people’s activities, was only necessary because we let the case numbers rise. High cases equal not just high deaths (if that does not bother you), it is also maximum economic damage.

Cross posted but point made.

Is your dad piers corbyn, that famous right winger who has led marches.

Anyone trying to turn this into a right v left issue isn't as educated that they like to profess.

To get back to your dad Op just ignore everything he says that is contentious and respond to everything else. Do not enter into any discussion as that only fuels the fire. Let him believe anything he wants. But keep the door open. Send him pictures of your dc on days out/ your garden etc with cheerful messages. When you see an email that is fired up with nonsense just immediately delete. I have this in my family and l find the total not engaging is what works. I know straight away where message is heading so l just zap without reading. They enjoy the row so don't buy into it.

Unfortunately radicalisation on the net is a genuine and growing threat. I fear that many young, isolated men have been radicalised by QAnon etc and we are all in for a rough ride. Anti western countries have realised that turning susceptible western citizens in to sleeper agents is easier and more effective than wars and terror attacks.

The only thing you can try to do is help keep him otherwise occupied and drown out the destructive messages. Send him lots of forums, articles etc on gardening. Divert his attention to more positive things. Try and go and visit him as soon as you’re able. Get him out and about in the real world.