[Cretaceous Bob]

I have talked with someone who was wary of giving their baby a Vitamin K shot after birth because they had concerns. Literally no child ever dies from it, and not giving it creates a mountain of dead babies. On the one hand, nothing serious ever, on the other hand, tons of babies just suddenly die. There are websites and alternative medicine people that will tell you lies about the Vitamin K shot and then sell you bogus nonsense.

Anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-medicine people intentionally spread enough misinformation, lies, and propaganda to make the issue appear contentious, and then they get to say, "But we just have these concerns? What is so wrong with addressing these concerns?"

The people against vaccines have nothing. Assumptions that government is bad, assumptions that money is bad, assumptions that people with money are evil, assumptions that "chemicals" are bad, distortions and misinterpretations of legitimate published material, and flat out lies.

Anyone reading this thread should be aware that "concern" is the goal of the people who profit from anti-vaccine positions. Since their position has zero evidence, it is impossible to present a sound and convincing argument for it. The best they can achieve is promote "concern". All they have to do find the limit of a person's knowledge of science or medicine, and then tell them a lie one level beyond your understanding, and anyone who knows the truth who talks to that same person later has to spend a hundred times the effort to give all the requisite information for the victim to understand why what they were told is a lie.

Some concern is legitimate, but the majority of it is stoked by scam artists and charlatans and quacks who are willing to lie and watch children die just to sell a few books, or sell overpriced sugar pills, or sell a bogus cancer cure.

Remember, when someone implies malevolence rather than proves it to you, that's likely because the malevolence can't be proven, and one reason why something can't be proven is because it isn't true. Remember that you could view a lobbyist or CEO for a pharmaceutical company as someone who built a career out of defending or running a company that saves the lives of thousands of people. Is it convincing to just imply that these people are malevolent or without conscience?

Consider that this person, who said there are LOTS of reasons to distrust the evidence of the safety and efficacy of vaccines, said the following:

Originally Posted by astrokahn

--Personal experience after vaccination (kid gets sick, has a really bad reaction etc) that caused a parent to not vaccinate that kid again or remaining kids. There are troves of personal accounts of negative reactions to vaccines you can find on YouTube. These are scary and turn people away from vaccination.

These kinds of reactions are meticulously documented, known about, and published for public knowledge. Any assumption that these incidences are beyond known rates of occurance requires a conspiracy theory.

Originally Posted by astrokahn

--Distrust of big pharma (I would consider distrust of big pharma pretty fn valid but that's my personal shit, and I would not consider that in and of itself conspiracy, but that could very easily turn into conspiracy depending on what one believes the endgame to be if they think bp has some weird agenda, I don't know)

They admitted that this is conspiracy theory fodder.

Originally Posted by astrokahn

--Ingredients that may cause harm; i.e.: heavy metals (falls more under distrust of big pharma)

Vaccines are proven safe and effective. The ingredients are tested and proven safe. Assumptions otherwise require a belief in a conspiracy theory to explain the evidence of safety away.

So 3 out of the first 5 points are about or are common talking points of conspiracy theories. And then what follows is the majority of the post, and it is largely jusitifying conspiracy theories, ending with:

Originally Posted by astrokahn

I don't buy the conspiracy stuff because I can't see an endgame that makes sense if it was some big plan to ...? (No idea.) But I see how distrust roots because of the wrongdoing of many in positions of power, and how that can grow in to conspiracies because people want reasons that go beyond money and power.

Literally all this person sees wrong with believing in a conspiracy theory is the end of the story they are sold, not the lack of evidence.

None of what I say here is meant personally or is targeted in any way, but there are children in the real world who live or die based on what is said about vaccines by people on the internet. With that knowledge, I can't let anything doubtful of them pass by without me giving the corresponding counterpoints.