That’s exactly the problem. Vaccines have worked so well that people have forgotten the horrors of the diseases they prevent.
I read an article a while back about a mother who’s little girl caught whooping cough. She hadn’t vaccinated her, but said that watching her daughter struggling to breathe was the worst thing she’d experienced and wished she had listened and given her the vaccine.
People realize very quickly why vaccines are important, but it’s usually by experiencing it firsthand, and unfortunately it’s too late by then.
I’m that guy regarding polio. My Silent Gen mom would go on about how thankful they were for the polio vaccine and how as kids they lived in fear.
“Polio? Wasn’t that some medieval disease?”
I couldn’t begin to relate.
Got much the same talk asking about her smallpox scar. I’m not sure we were inoculated in the early 70s, the disease was extinct. (Mostly stopped in '72, looks like I barely dodged it.)
I have a smallpox scar on the back of my arm and I didn’t even know it was there.
We got the shots in school and I have faint memories of the Jet Injector. Most scars of people my age are on the side of the arm up near the shoulder. I didn’t have one so for years I assumed I didn’t get the vaccine or my memory of it was wrong.
Then one day in the shower my girlfriend pointed it out. It’s around the backside of the arm and hard to see in a mirror - but it’s there.
I feel kind of special having it as it isn’t that common these days.
IT job before last was weird. Small, family-owned, very much Boomer, conservative, Southern Baptists. Sound like hell? Best job I’ve ever had.
Even being the only IT person, I got a seat at the management table. Tech was expected to run smoothly, but I didn’t catch shit if something went sideways. We’d simply discuss what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future. Whole culture revolved around that sort of management.
That isn’t why antivaxxers exist. Antivaxxers exist because they believe the vaccines themselves are poisonous or harmful as a core belief. Whether they believe the diseases are severe or even exist is moot because that’s not what they have a problem with.
Many antivaxxers’ children do get severe disease and they do not change their stance because they genuinely believe the vaccines themselves are so harmful.
It’s not that life is so good they are afraid, (doesn’t even make sense) but rather life is so bad and such a distrust in our medical system that they feel like they can’t risk what they see as a bad product. To address that, we’d have to increase education and increase medical access at minimum.
Misunderstanding these people may make the problem simpler and may make you feel good about yourself, but it doesn’t do much to address their actual beliefs.
Misunderstanding these people may make the problem simpler and may make you feel good about yourself, but it doesn’t do much to address their actual beliefs.
very well said, I see a lot of arguments on lemmy devolving into this (probably because our communities are pretty much all left leaning) but it’d be nice if we could actually try to understand these people.
That’s exactly the problem. Vaccines have worked so well that people have forgotten the horrors of the diseases they prevent.
I read an article a while back about a mother who’s little girl caught whooping cough. She hadn’t vaccinated her, but said that watching her daughter struggling to breathe was the worst thing she’d experienced and wished she had listened and given her the vaccine.
People realize very quickly why vaccines are important, but it’s usually by experiencing it firsthand, and unfortunately it’s too late by then.
I’m that guy regarding polio. My Silent Gen mom would go on about how thankful they were for the polio vaccine and how as kids they lived in fear.
“Polio? Wasn’t that some medieval disease?”
I couldn’t begin to relate.
Got much the same talk asking about her smallpox scar. I’m not sure we were inoculated in the early 70s, the disease was extinct. (Mostly stopped in '72, looks like I barely dodged it.)
I have a smallpox scar on the back of my arm and I didn’t even know it was there.
We got the shots in school and I have faint memories of the Jet Injector. Most scars of people my age are on the side of the arm up near the shoulder. I didn’t have one so for years I assumed I didn’t get the vaccine or my memory of it was wrong.
Then one day in the shower my girlfriend pointed it out. It’s around the backside of the arm and hard to see in a mirror - but it’s there.
I feel kind of special having it as it isn’t that common these days.
The IT paradox :
You are right that vaccines worked so well because mostly everyone had them, and mostly everyone has to take them for them to work.
Village idiots got a support system and crossed the threshold where the herd immunity has diminished enough for outbreaks in communities.
IT job before last was weird. Small, family-owned, very much Boomer, conservative, Southern Baptists. Sound like hell? Best job I’ve ever had.
Even being the only IT person, I got a seat at the management table. Tech was expected to run smoothly, but I didn’t catch shit if something went sideways. We’d simply discuss what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future. Whole culture revolved around that sort of management.
I had autonomy, mastery and purpose. I’ll flog this short talk everywhere I can. RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
That isn’t why antivaxxers exist. Antivaxxers exist because they believe the vaccines themselves are poisonous or harmful as a core belief. Whether they believe the diseases are severe or even exist is moot because that’s not what they have a problem with.
Many antivaxxers’ children do get severe disease and they do not change their stance because they genuinely believe the vaccines themselves are so harmful.
It’s not that life is so good they are afraid, (doesn’t even make sense) but rather life is so bad and such a distrust in our medical system that they feel like they can’t risk what they see as a bad product. To address that, we’d have to increase education and increase medical access at minimum.
Misunderstanding these people may make the problem simpler and may make you feel good about yourself, but it doesn’t do much to address their actual beliefs.
Imma go with both opinions.
very well said, I see a lot of arguments on lemmy devolving into this (probably because our communities are pretty much all left leaning) but it’d be nice if we could actually try to understand these people.