How is it that Boing Boing of all places is home to anti-science Luddites? Next they’ll be singing the praises of homeopathy and preaching creationism.
Which is why I’m always mystified at the tremendous outpouring of rage
that accompanies this particular issue, as opposed to something like
cigarette labeling policy, or government dietary recommendations.
I have previously done public health policy work on the very issue of alcohol related harm, which has a similar global burden of morbidity to tobacco. Trust me, I can work up a pretty fierce head of steam on both tobacco and alcohol policies…
You infer anger should be more focused on those issues than vaccination. I think you are wholly wrong and misunderstand the motivation of people who are angry with the anti-vaxers.
If you take a down the line, evidence driven cost-benefit comparison, a focus to defend vaccination is entirely rational.
Of course the harms from tobacco, poor diet and alcohol are immense, but the ‘solutions’ to these problems are complicated, often expensive and uncertain in outcome. If people distrust the governments stance on tobacco control it does not really matter very much - it has very few consequences unless they become a serious voting block.
The campaign against vaccination matters because it has the potential to kill or maim millions of people even if it never changes the mind of legislators or doctors.
The outpouring of rage as you describe it is because an anti-science, irrational and deluded campaign (inspired by Fraud in the case of MMR) is undermining public buy in to vaccination at huge risk to public health.
If it was not for an anti-science, irrational and deluded campaign, Polio would have been eradicated from the earth by now. I do get annoyed with people who peddle the nonsense that keeps Polio spreading, but we should avoid rage - better to rely on reason, rational argument and evidence.
Regards to all
R
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Anti-vaccine propagandists make people angry because they are proudly anti-science. When teenagers start to smoke they do so because teenagers make bad decisions about the future. Why am I mad at adults who are anti-science and not at teenagers who make bad decisions? Probably because I have the mistaken idea that adults should know better. But even though I shouldn’t expect adults to know better, realizing that just makes me more angry (since anger is a way to avoid feeling depressed).
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