Head Tale

Vaccination (and anti-vaxxing) is in the news lately after recent measles outbreaks in Disneyland and across North America.

Here’s a relevant article about how those who are anti-vax ultimately show they don’t trust a doctor’s education, experience and knowledge which is a *much* bigger issue in that relationship than just the question of whether a parent vaccinates a child or not.

I often wonder why a parent who believes vaccines are harmful would want to bring their children to a medical doctor at all. After all, for immunizations to be as malign as their detractors claim, my colleagues and I would have to be staggeringly incompetent, negligent or malicious to keep administering them.

A similar sentiment I saw was posted to Reddit: “Even if parents are anti-vax, they’re literally saying they’d prefer exposing their children to diseases that could kill them or others instead of a chance they might become autistic.”

Death by measles is rare but it does happen.  Author Roald Dahl wrote a poignant open letter to other parents after he lost his seven-year old daughter to the measles.

Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, posted an article that’s not directly about vaccination but tries to make the point that science is the root of the public’s distrust since it’s often given us contradictory information – “eating fat makes you fat”/”no, eating carbs makes you fat” – and so on.

I’d disagree with his argument though – I think we have to do a better job as a society with science education generally and also with specifics of the scientific method so people understand that everything science says could change tomorrow depending on the latest research as well as the need for a general skepticism in all areas of our lives.

Here’s a good quote from the comments on Adams’ article (in fact, read the comments for a lot better analysis of the issue than the article itself):

The problem with science is the same problem that people have with politics, economics, etc… The general public wants simple answers to complex questions. They want to be told “FOOD X is bad for you” and to know for a fact that no one, ever, should consume FOOD X. They should always consume FOOD Y to be healthy.

Add in the fact that the media often mis-represents or sensationalizes research in a way that’s not realistic (eg. how many “Cancer might be cured?” stories have I heard on the news in my life?) and it’s not science that’s at fault so much as people’s lack of critical thinking, education, gullibility and so on that even allows an anti-vax movement to exist in the first place.