Many of my posts are about Covid and the vaccine. Recently I wrote about my experience with receiving the Pfizer vaccine’s 2 doses. https://drjonsicu.com/my-covid-vaccine-experience-tgif-thank-god-its-florida/ Shortly after that I noticed a Facebook page someone had started called “Covid Vaccine Experiencers” and thought I would offer mine. I posted a link to the above article and offered no particular bias about whether someone should or shouldn’t get the vaccine. Well my post was INUNDATED with some of the most virulent (had to use that word), angry, insulting replies I’ve EVER seen. Anti-Trumpers weren’t even that crazed. At least 350 negative comments filled with conspiracy theories, made up statistics, allegiance to almost ANYONE who had posted a YouTube or Bitchute video that was anti-vaccine. They are relying on financial advisors, snake-oil salesman, and chiropractors who claim they can cure AIDS with an adjustment or Crohn’s Disease in children with warm compresses! SHEER LUNACY.
I became curious about those who are so adamantly anti-vaccine and did some research. Anti-vaccine or antivaxxers have been around a very long time including opposition to the smallpox vaccine in England and the United States in the mid to late 1800s, and the resulting anti-vaccination leagues. Some felt the vaccine was “anti-christian” because it came from an animal. Others simply distrusted the government and some felt that it couldn’t be effective since “smallpox came from decaying matter in the atmosphere”. The Vaccination Act of 1853 ordered mandatory vaccination for infants up to 3 months old, and the Act of 1867 extended this age requirement to 14 years. Anti-vaccination “leagues” were formed along with many anti-vaccine publications. In the mid 1970s, an international controversy over the safety of the DTP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) immunization erupted in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America alleging neurological damage from the vaccines. There was considerable debate even WITHIN the medical community. An outspoken physician and vaccine opponent, Gordon Stewart, published a series of case reports linking neurological disorders to DTP. Studies showed the risk was “very low”….granted, not particularly reassuring. In the U.S. there were similar claims but never any solid proof.
So what about the vaccine-autism claims? In 1998, British doctor Andrew Wakefield recommended further investigation of a possible relationship between bowel disease, autism, and the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine. The media latched onto the story and for several years there was a generalized fear of the vaccine’s danger. The Lancet, a very prominant medical journal in the U.K. had originally published Wakefield’s article and in 2008 formally retracted it since it was found that Wakefield had been paid by a law board to find out if there was evidence to support a litigation case by parents who believed that the vaccine had harmed their children. In 2011, the British Medical Journal published a series of reports by journalist Brian Deer outlining evidence that Wakefield had committed scientific fraud by falsifying data and also that Wakefield hoped to financially profit from his investigations in several ways. He even sold a “cure” for a disease he invented: autistic enterocolitis. Ultimately Wakefield was stripped of his license and could no longer practice. And yet his followers are still growing in number TODAY!
Next up…thimersol…a mercury containing preservative used in vaccines. After many studies that were inconclusive as to thimersol causing autism, attention deficit hypersensitivity disorder, and speech or language delay. Thimersol was ultimately removed or reduced. Again not particularly reassuring. So clearly there is a basis for large groups of the population being against vaccines in general or skeptical at best.
On to the current state of those vehemently anti-vaccine…..sometimes called antivaxxers. There have been many studies of their psychological profile long before Covid. But Covid has produced a bumper crop of the similar traits and belief systems seen with this group. A team of researchers at Texas Tech University found the following: vaccination skeptics tend to overestimate dangers associated with everything. Tyler Davis, an associate professor of experimental psychology at TTU, and Mark LaCour, a doctoral student in psychological sciences, recently published their findings in the journal Vaccine. Fascinating article! They looked at 158 participants and found that those hesitant toward vaccines are more often than not skeptical of any potential threat. For every million people that don’t get measles, if there is one who has an adverse reaction and dies (which does happen), skeptics exploit that case in order to market their beliefs. Davis wrote: “Here we saw an overestimation of rare events for things that don’t have anything to do with vaccination. This suggests that there are basic cognitive or affective variables that influence vaccine skepticism.” LaCour noted that skeptics appear to exhibit poor judgment in regards to probability. He states “They might be more easily swayed by anecdotal horror stories. For example, your child can have a seizure from getting vaccinated. It’s extremely rare, but it is within the realm of possibility. If you were so inclined, you could follow Facebook groups that publicize extremely rare events. These cognitive distortions of anecdotes into trends are probably exacerbated by decisions to subscribe to statistically non-representative information sources.“The full article is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X20302644?via=ihub Here is a summary of their findings:
- Vaccine skepticism is related to misjudgments of risk probabilities.
- Participants estimated fatality frequencies of rare and common fatality types.
- Estimation performance was negatively related to vaccine skepticism.
- This was not so when they estimated non-mortality related statistics.
- Exploratory analyses suggest vaccine skeptics use different estimation strategies.
Some other findings in psychological studies are that there is a predilection for believing in conspiracy theories……..ya think??? I’ve heard everything from Bill Gates, the Illuminati, the Rockefellers, the U.S. government, the New World Order, Big Pharma and more. There is a general distrust of the government and media. Professor Matthew Hornsey of the University of Queensland writes ““Some people think it is commonplace for groups of powerful elites to band together and conduct elaborate hoaxes on the public. Vaccinating the public involves cooperation between government and Big Pharma, two institutions that people find notoriously hard to trust. With that mistrust comes the conspiracy theories. People join the dots and presume a sinister motive.” Conspiratorial thinking has also been linked to illogical reasoning and cognitive bias — namely, the ‘conjunction fallacy’. It’s a common reasoning error in which we believe that two events happening in conjunction is more probable than one of those events happening alone. … These fallacies lead to bias — irrational behavior based on beliefs that are not always grounded in reality. An example of this would be when people rate a specific outcome (eg, it will rain tomorrow) as more probable than a general outcome (eg, it will be bad weather tomorrow) — even though the broadness of the second statement makes it more likely.
Let’s move on. Why do seemingly intelligent people ignore the evidence base supporting vaccines and label them unsafe, despite having little to no expertise on scientific methodology? Many of these people will tell you that because of all of their online ‘research’, they have a deeper knowledge of vaccines and their dangers than their children’s pediatrician. Some even claim to know more about vaccines than scientists. There is something known as the Dunning Kruger Effect……Ignorance of one’s own ignorance” David Dunning, psychology professor at the University of Michigan in 1999 said the effect is harmful, because people are often oblivious to its impact on their own thinking. A recent study done by University of Pennsylvania, Utah Valley University and Texas A&M University into the psychology of anti-vaxxers found evidence that the Dunning–Kruger effect plays a key role in widely held beliefs about vaccinations — specifically the false claim that MMR jabs cause autism. Testing 1300 people, they found that 62% of those that performed the worst on autism knowledge tests rated themselves as knowing ‘as much’ or ‘more’ than doctors about the causes of autism! Read more: http://hospitalhealth.com.au/content/clinical-services/news/the-psychology-of-anti-vaxxers-1104287281#ixzz6nyebWgHO
Clearly this is a difficult topic. There are very real problems when those who are anti-vaccine are incapable, it seems, of allowing any intrusion into their beliefs. Even when given quality, objective, unbiased, peer reviewed information they seem unable to consider it since it clashes with all they believe. Anyone providing that kind of information is “part of the conspiracy” or a victim of “brainwashing”……and worse. Much of the vaccine “skepticism” is warranted. Children probably ARE overwhelmed with the frequency and number of vaccines. There HAVE been quality control and research study issues in the past. But there is a difference between “vaccine hesitancy” and being a devout antivaxxer. Vaccines have saved millions and millions of people and eliminated scourges like small pox. Society will need to find a way to restore some semblance of confidence to this large group if in the future we want be able to deal with the NEXT inevitable pandemic. Stay well and thank you for reading!
