How to discuss rationally with anti vaxxers

[HermioneKipper]

I’m having serious trouble staying calm when taking to my mother who during this latest lockdown seems to have become caught up with various conspiracies and anti vaxxer sentiment. She’s decided she won’t be getting the vaccine, that the mainstream media isn’t reporting all the side effects and evidence/videos are removed from websites/YouTube etc before people can read them.

I’m genuinely concerned for her health and am very pro vaccine myself.

We seem to end up in an argument every time we talk and when I ask her to back up her claims or cite trusted sources she is obviously unable to do this. I need help staying calm and to try and discuss it all more rationally, with the hope that she’ll take the vaccine and protect hers and others health.

Her general views:

• Believes covid is “just” the flu
• Thinks she won’t be affected by covid if she gets it despite being in her late 60s and overweight
• Thinks there will be significant health ramifications if she takes the vaccine
• The government/media are complicit in a huge coverup

I'm not sure why vaccine refusal is given some sort of divine right status on here to be honest. You'd be rightly concerned if a family member was doing anything else to damage their health (drinking too much, chain smoking, unprotected sex etc).

@Moneyfornothingkerbsforfree

’Im also worried she’ll catch it and get seriously ill or die”

How much would you be hounding her to change her opinion if she were to smoke or be overweight?

She’s probably worried about your views and plans on how to go fourth atm too. But you’re more important right?

The OP is NOT hounding her. She has said she is willing to not discuss it with her mother who is the one constantly bringing it up. The op is allowed to be worried, that is bit the same as hounding her mother

Op, the fact that you are worried probably does effect your ability to deal calmly with your DM when she goes on about it. I would practice a technique that people with abusive family member sometimes use called ' grey rock'. Think of a statement. ( Something like. ' I won't discuss the vaccine, what else can we talk about?' or similar and just repeat it every time she mentions the vaccine . Keep calm and say the same thing repeatedly until she gets the message . I'd she keeps on., an option is to calmly remove yourself saying you will come back when shee is willing to discuss a different topic of conversation.

Keep repeating as nauseum

sorry 'ad nauseum'

I would just say 'OK it's your choice', but make sure she's aware that you will also make your choices in response to her unvaccinated status

Not trusting a new vaccine that has been quite rushed does not make someone an anti vaxxer. The fact she has you immunised as a child proves that she is not an anti vaxxer. Its not that lockdown has changed her, it's the fact that there are genuine reasons to be slightly worried about this vaccine.

If you have no concerns and blindly trust that all is safe and well in regards to it, then I find that more worrying.

That is by no means me saying that people should not take it. Im all for people choosing to take it after weighing up their level of risk etc. I want my dad to take it. Though I would prefer for him to wait a little bit.

But it is getting slightly irritating that people can not voice their genuine concern over this vaccine without being classed as some kind of selfish arsehole who is an antivax conspiracy theorist.

I'm not anti-vax but I am still considering continuing to isolate for another year to see how it all pans out🤔
I know The vaccines have been extensively tested but they have not been tested over a period of time yet

@o8O8O8o

I'm not anti-vax but I am still considering continuing to isolate for another year to see how it all pans out🤔 I know The vaccines have been extensively tested but they have not been tested over a period of time yet

I think a lot of people are doing this, you can't blame them really. There are millions ready to have it asap and if it's true that it stops transmission then it doesn't matter that everyone doesn't have the vaccine.

I'd just repeat Ok, you choose your path, I'll choose mine.

If she harps on i'd say Why are you banging on about this? I've already told you, you choose your own path!

Keeps on? OFFS Mother STFU!

Still rambles on? Stop ringing her and tell her won't until she STFU

you can't blame them really
I know in a way it's cheating or free riding, one can only use the 'wait and see' strategy if enough other people are willing to jump in straight away

I posted this on another thread that although am generally pro vaccine I must admit that it does worry me that a vaccine for the closest known virus to Covid, namely SARS was scrapped after it was shown that it caused that it caused immunopathologic-type lung disease in the test animals. And to date there is no vaccine to SARS

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3335060/#!po=5.42169

This is despite SARS being much more deadly than Covid, having a mortality rate of 10%. So in theory a vaccine for SARS should be a very high priority.

Equally there has been no vaccine developed for MERS which is the next closest relative of Covid despite being first identified in n 2012. And also being much more deadly than Covid.

This all sits rather uneasily with me.

So in theory a vaccine for SARS should be a very high priority
I see what you're saying but (afaik) SARS just went so was never a big enough problem to spur vaccine development?
Also it's not just the mortality rate that determines the threat caused by a disease, it's also the difficulty in identifying & containing, etc
I didnt know that about immunopathologic-type lung disease tho....will have a read...

My mum has also decided to refuse the vaccine, she's not an anti vaxxer she's happy for everyone else to have it but has decided she doesn't want it herself I explained the benefits of her having it but still she refuses it's up to her it's a choice for each person to make for themselves.

Not sure if someone has said already, but apparently there is research that shows anti vaxxers become MORE entrenched in their beliefs, when confronted with detailed scientific evidence. So it’s not about that. Really interesting, but worrying. I don’t think there’s anything you can do other than refuse to discuss when she brings it up

Leave her alone.
You do know that even among scientists and doctors, it's not as clear-cut as you think? That even many doctors and nurses aren't getting the vaccine?

You aren't going to persuade your mother. Stop treating her as someone whose opinion and decision-making is worthless, because she is "old".

In my case, it was the other way around. I probably would have gone the easy way and got the vaccine (in my home country I'm not eligible yet so the question is moot, but still...) I too am in my 60's. But my three kids, daughter, son-in-law, and son, persuaded me otherwise. My son-in-law is a microbiologist with a PhD.

Make of that what you will. Now, I won't be getting any Covid vaccine, and it does not make me anti-vax. That's a label we can do without, thanks.

@bumbleymummy

Not calling people who don’t want this particular vaccine ‘anti-vaxx’ might be a good start.

Do you call people who decide not to take the flu vaccine every year ‘anti-vaxx’?

^ This 100%.

Problem is we dont know what the long term effects of any vaccine will be, and if there are any it will be easy for gvts to bury/cover up and distract from them.
Gvt wants to suppress the spread of the virus to get the economy running again, understandable but long term chronic health issues can be easily discredited, massaged away, swept under the carpet out of public view.
Gvt would view this as a price worth paying to get the economy open, maybe it is to people like them and there probably is no good way out of this, some people will go under the bus, they will look for the easiest victims

@1dayatatime, @o8O8O8o Well said. I agree completely.

@bumblingbovine49

sorry 'ad nauseum'

Try again.

"This is despite SARS being much more deadly than Covid, having a mortality rate of 10%. So in theory a vaccine for SARS should be a very high priority."

Interesting. How many people caught SARS and how many died in total?

When you compare your answers to COVID-19's numbers, you will understand why the whole world has been scrambling to make a vaccine for it.

are you willing to say more about how you arrived at your position Grannycurls?
I appreciate you may prefer not to!
Imo this is a very delicate topic, I completely understand the reaction against people who dont want to go for the vaccine straight away.
I feel able to wait and see b/c doing so will 'cost' me very little, I'm a lifelong dyed in the wool social distancer (aka 'very introvert')

@CoteDAzur

"This is despite SARS being much more deadly than Covid, having a mortality rate of 10%. So in theory a vaccine for SARS should be a very high priority."

Interesting. How many people caught SARS and how many died in total?

When you compare your answers to COVID-19's numbers, you will understand why the whole world has been scrambling to make a vaccine for it.

So there are seven types of corona virus, four cause the common cold and are highly contagious but with low mortality, SARS which is not very contagious (9k cases) but with high mortality (10%), MERS which is even less contagious amongst humans 2500 cases but even more deadly 34% mortality and Covid 19 which is extremely contagious 106 million confirmed cases but with a low mortality 0.25% to 1 %.

Given that the first four are highly contagious the risk when SARS appeared in 2002 was of a mutation or new virus that was as contagious as a common cold but with the mortality of SARS or MERS. Specific research was undertaken into this risk most notably by the Wuhan virus lab yet no viable vaccine was created in the last 18 years.

So I don't think it is conspiratorial or anti vaxxer to find this concerning.

1day - You are not answering the post you quoted.

So there are seven types of corona virus
presume you mean that out of the many corona viruses 7 are known to infect humans?

Covid was (likely)created in a lab to be especially transmissible to humans, that's why it's spread so fast
SARS/MERS are not well adapted to humans and much harder to catch, afaik there's little to no human to human transmission of MERS?
I have reservations about the vaccine but I dont think the lack of vaccines for SARS/MERS is anything to be suspicious of

So since the common cold is part of the coronavirus, does that mean that the tests could be picking up on people with just the common cold

@TheChip

So since the common cold is part of the coronavirus, does that mean that the tests could be picking up on people with just the common cold

Interesting point - I am assuming (with no evidence and maybe naively) that the Covid test is specifically designed to only test positive for Covid 19 and not any other corona viruses.

But still a very interesting question.