2:00 Dose of Vaccinology: Misinformation Kills People

2:00 Dose of Vaccinology: Misinformation Kills People

The reason I wanted to start today by setting parameters around what vaccines are vs. what they are not is that I knew I wanted to write this post.  This one is the important one.  The reason is that if parents choose do their own reading in order to make decisions for their children, they are frequently coming at it from a caring place.  They don't want bad things to happen to their children.  I have children, and I completely and utterly get that.  Here's the rub: not everyone cares about you children the way you do.  Some people care about their own agenda.  Some people care about being famous.  Some people care about selling you things.  Of course, some people genuinely believe they're disseminating helpful information, but do not necessarily have the expertise to parse all of the nonsense that the above three are hawking.  

I don't imagine I need to link all kinds of anti-vaccine sites spouting nonsense, or factually validated but snarky sites debunking said nonsense (though I can if anyone would like).  There are two overarching phenomena at play that I think would be far more helpful to bring up:

1.) When it comes to scary stuff that affects our kids, blind trust in people who may or may not patronize you while using terms you don't understand (and why should you?) is not always easy when there is a more relatable voice shouting very loudly.  The thing to consider is that factuality is not dependent on the messenger.  The risks of vaccines are what they are (and 'what they are' is trivial), even if the person saying them can't be bothered to explain how or why.  The risks of infectious diseases are what they are (and 'what they are' is substantial), even if the person telling you they are not is lovely and patient and kind.  I promise, Hib will give your child meningitis whether or not you believe it is a problem.  It is totally unprejudiced like that.

2.) The way search engines work highlights how evil (I do not use that word lightly) some of these groups are.  Their sites are filled with words that are likely to garner more hits from people they are likely to persuade, whereas "fact sheet" type sites are filled with different terms.  Think "shot" versus "immunization".  "Germ" vs. "bacteria".  Then there is the care that goes into naming the organization.  There is no more egregious example of the than the change of the group "Concerned PArents Against Vaccines" to "The National Vaccine Information Center".  Which sounds like experts work there?  Same group of (expletive) people.  Numerous peer-reviewed bioethics journal articles have broken down the digital data on this.  It is sickening (no pun intended).  Those who design their sites this way are some truly terrible people.   

Handing your baby over to be shot full of things that you've read may be dangerous and then watching them cry hysterically is gut-wrenching.  I get it.  There needs to be extreme trust there.  What is not immediately seen by parents is the far more insidious danger that unvaccinated children are in, because the extreme trust was given to the University of Google.  

Put your trust in the right place.