Struggling with MIL belief

[CosyStork]

I really like my MIL but I’m starting to struggle with some of her beliefs. She believes paracetamol causes autism and says there is medical evidence. She is a strong supporter and member of Reform. She is very suspicious towards anyone of a different race to herself. This is all quite recent (last few months)

I am not a very politically minded person, I’ll be honest. I understand people are able to have and express their own views and opinions. I just find myself increasingly concerned and annoyed by her views. For the record - I don’t believe paracetamol causes autism, I don’t support Reform and although I am against illegal immigration, I am not against all immigration and certainly don’t believe anyone with a different race to myself is ‘bad’. I have relatives and friends from different backgrounds and ethnicities and the thought she could look negatively on them just because of the melanin in their skin or where they were born is crazy to me.

I don’t want this to get turned into a political debate I purely want advice on how to cope with someone close with different opinions that alarm you. Tbh as an adult I could probably ignore it but we have children who I don’t really want her opinion being pushed on.

This would be what I’d do too. Something has changed over the last couple of months and my worry would be that she has had cognitive changes which have affected her reasoning skills.

These types of threads have been done to death.
You won't change the mindset of someone that holds those types of beliefs unfortunately.

Agree with this.

No one is entitled to be a racist and no one should be spreading potentially harmful falsehoods about medicines.

My brother in law is a huge conspiracy theorist- believes Trump is the second coming, thinks Hilary Clinton is a lizard, says Biden died years ago and was replaced by an actor, vapor trails in the sky are poison being sprayed on us....

He is coming round to a family do this weekend and he is under instruction not to start on any of it. We will see....

Everyone has their own beliefs, we don’t all have to agree.
Your beliefs arent less valid than hers, you are both equal.
Just respect differences as you do similarities and you’ll be fine.

Respectfully, I disagree. It's not a valid "belief" that all brown people are <insert whatever here>. It's not a valid "belief" that paracetamol causes autism, it's pure fear-mongering lies.

If someone wants to hold a contentious belief, which they are entitled to, then I am entitled to challenge them on it. I agree she sounds unwell. But then, I can honestly hold no truck with some people who are clearly easily led and possibly delusional but not unwell.

She's allowed to hold her beliefs, as we all ae, but you don't have to listen to them being expressed in your home or around your children. If she's a decent person, she'll agree with you, if she isn't...well, then you'll know where you stand.