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 would assume so. But it could explain why many people are testing positive with little to no symptoms as well.

OP this thread right here tells you everything you need to know about why trying to reason with your mother is futile. Just extraordinary. (My mother is also a covid denier/anti vaxxer and I have just had to stop talking about it as it makes me so angry.) Anyone who has any interest in the science will read up on it nd educate themselves, those that don’t will propagate utter stupidity. And so the world continues to turn.

Anyone who has any interest in the science will read up on it nd educate themselves, those that don’t will propagate utter stupidity. And so the world continues to turn.

o80808 the above quote is the reason why I won't describe my 'conversion' process further in this forum. When you are denounced as stupid even before you have spoken, then there's no point in speaking.

Actually my above post is incorrect, since I HAVE read up on the science which is the reason for my stance. But I still won't say more, since it is assumed that doing so will make you rush off to get a vaccine, which isn't the case with me. People assume too much.

@1dayatatime

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.

What did you make of the information from the Oxford group about how they used the MERS vaccine progress to guide the covid vaccine development?

Given how strong your opinions are, you’ll have read if all very much more thoroughly than me.

What did you think of the scientific basis for both vaccines?

@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. It's the mother who's hounding.

@Grannycurls

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.

RTFT.

It's the mother who won't leave the OP alone.

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.

I was thinking along these lines. She's dug such a hole for herself she now can't get out.

@KatherineJaneway

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.

I was thinking along these lines. She's dug such a hole for herself she now can't get out.

a) Please don't label people who don't want THIS vaxccne anti-vaxers. b) I was thinking along these lines. She's dug such a hole for herself she now can't get out. Doesn't this work both ways? It's very hard to admit that there just MIGHT be side-effects down the line, and I find people are reluctant to admit that.

It's the mother who won't leave the OP alone.

The OP is trying to talk her out of her opinion. She should just stop it.
I have read the thread, thank you.

Nhs advice is don’t. Encourage everyone else but don’t engage with the anti vax group.

@m0therofdragons

Nhs advice is don’t. Encourage everyone else but don’t engage with the anti vax group.

Stop it. There is no "anti-vax" group as related to the Covid vaccine. There are just people who won't rush into it.

@Grannycurls

It's the mother who won't leave the OP alone.

The OP is trying to talk her out of her opinion. She should just stop it.
I have read the thread, thank you.

You clearly haven’t read the whole thread as I said in numerous subsequent posts that I’ve accepted that my mother won’t be getting the vaccine and don’t want to discuss it further with her. She relentlessly brings it up (along with loads of other wild conspiracy shit about covid eg that this “pandemic” has been hugely exaggerated by the government/media) every time I talk to her and it ends in a row I don’t want to have.

Clearly you’re just looking to have a go when I was just asking for advice on how not to fall out with my mum, who I haven’t seen in person for months.

Thank you for this. Appreciated.

It’s hugely irritating when people don’t bother to read whole threads and just pile on to shovel their own rhetoric down people’s necks.

Much like anti-vaxxers and covid deniers .....

You’re woefully naive. There has been a huge anti vax movement in recent years, hence the return of measles which was previously almost non existent. This group has absolutely jumped on covid as a perfect way to scare people and whip up fervour for their own anti-establishment views.

Not sure why the quote function not working. The thank you was for @echt and others who have pointed out I wasn’t hounding my mother

Hermionekipper, you have accepted it outwardly but you haven't accepted it in your mind. Neither has your mother accepted YOUR opinion in her mind.

You still think she's an idiot, and she feels that, which is why she keeps trying to argue with you. Nobody wants to be thought of as an idiot by their own daughter.

You should try accepting her view as "as valid as yours". There are two sides to this matter, and the one opposing yours is not necessarily idiocy.

But @Grannycurls the mothers view on this particular matter actually is idiocy. So if OPs mum doesn’t want to feel like her daughter thinks she is an idiot on this topic there is a simple solution to that. And it’s not that OP has to pretend her mum’s view is valid. Because it is not.

@Grannycurls and my mum thinks that I’m a sheep who mindlessly believes everything the government and mainstream media says. And according to a video she sent me the other day, am also about to be injected with experimental nanobytes which are also used by the military.

She needs to accept that I will be having the vaccine and don’t wish to discuss conspiracy theories with her any further.

I know that this is a hugely divisive issue but I accept some people have the choice to believe in God etc when I don’t and I can get along with them perfectly well without discussing it in detail constantly. I don’t understand why the anti vax/conspiracy lot are obsessively trying to ram this stuff down everyone’s throats

@fruitandflowers

But *@Grannycurls* the mothers view on this particular matter actually is idiocy. So if OPs mum doesn’t want to feel like her daughter thinks she is an idiot on this topic there is a simple solution to that. And it’s not that OP has to pretend her mum’s view is valid. Because it is not.

Are you aware that Dr Mike Yeadon, the former vice-president and chief scientific adviser of Pfizer, a man who spent over 30 years leading new research in some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, is one of the main advocates for caution in rolling out this vaccine? Along with Dr Wolfgang Wodang, the former head of the public health department? Are they also idiots?

@HermioneKipper Yes, I agree that that is an extremist view and pretty ridiculous. What you could do to find peace with your mum which I'm sure you both want is to find a middle ground. Listen to opposing arguments that are not crazy conspiracy theories and try to understand why some people are mistrustful of a substance whose long-term results are untested. Surely you can see that they MIGHT have a point?

Maybe if you meet her halfway, you both can agree on something, and she can climb down from her extravagant theories?

In an emotional argument like this, it helps to at least try and understand that opposing viewpoint from a more rational perspective. Saying that there is NOTHING rational in a more cautious approach doesn't help.

o80808 the above quote is the reason why I won't describe my 'conversion' process further in this forum. When you are denounced as stupid even before you have spoken, then there's no point in speaking
I hear you Grannycurls!
I do also understand why people feel strongly about this issue, and why they feel the need to speak out against people who express doubts about the vaccine
There is no way out of this situation without sacrificing something or some people, the elderly in care homes have been sacrificed to distract from government mismanagement of the NHS.
The government will be quite happy to sacrifice the long-term health of some people if it means they can get the economy open and start making money for the wealthy people who back them

Just agree with her. Pacify her.
Then get your own vaccine when allowed.
Life’s too short.
If she gets it, then so be it.

@Grannycurls does dr Mike yeadon suggest we are all being injected with microchips as part of a plot to have us all controlled by government? No? Thought not.

Honestly, there is no debating with a lunatic like that.

[quote fruitandflowers]@Grannycurls does dr Mike yeadon suggest we are all being injected with microchips as part of a plot to have us all controlled by government? No? Thought not.

Honestly, there is no debating with a lunatic like that.[/quote]
Fruit I think you've identified the problem here....
Namely that the more extreme conspiracy theorist types are being lumped in with people who have reservations about this particular vaccine, whilst they do have something in common there are good reasons to consider them as separate...imo

I mean Dr Mike Yeadon also claimed that the first lockdown didn’t cause the fall in covid deaths as we all had immunity by the time it was imposed in March, and that the pandemic was “over” by June and that what is driving the current wave is solely false positives from PCR tests, which he claims are the result of a criminal and corrupt enterprise plotting to sell lots of PCR tests. So I wouldn’t give much weight to his view on a vaccine but ofc happy to review any evidence.