Anti-vaccination debate – A way forward
The anti-vaccination debate
I have friends and family who believe that vaccination is more dangerous than non vaccination. This has exposed me to many of the posts and counter posts on the internet and, quite frankly, the anti-vaccination debate isn’t getting anywhere.
The are quite a few reasons for this;
- It takes a long time to determine if something is true.
- People are scared.
- Scientific methods and language are esoteric.
- People don’t trust corporations.
- People don’t trust the government.
Because of this there is claim and counter claim. Outbreaks are being blamed on parents who haven’t vaccinated, governments are starting to ban children from school who haven’t been vaccinated and in some cases make vaccination mandatory.
That isn’t helpful at all. Trying to force people to vaccinate won’t work. It places people in opposition to the government, decreases trust in the health sector and science.
Imagine being forced to go to a doctor to inject your child 20 times by age 11. Now, imagine having to take your child to a priest to be injected 20 times with god elixir when you’re an atheist who thinks the injection is poison. It simply isn’t going to work.
A way forward
I propose that we listen to people and help them find their own way forward. This isn’t that hard to do and requires far less setup than mandatory vaccination. In doing so I hope we can change the anti-vaccination debate from something negative to something positive.
There are thousands of anti vaccination people in New Zealand alone and far more around the world. If they each put $10 in a crowdfund then they would have the power to create scientific papers on the same scale as the larger pharmaceutical companies. These studies could then critique the other studies using the scientific method under control and paid for by the anti vaccination community.
This would give power to the people concerned, instead of forcibly taking it away. It would introduce them to and inform them of the science. They could see the results of their efforts. They wouldn’t have to trust a corporation or a government. Maybe they could have a little less fear.
And who knows, maybe the papers will show up errors in the science of the day. Science is always right. It doesn’t matter if it is done by people worried about vaccination or big pharma as long as it is repeatable.
