Yeah, awesome. "Get your shots or you'll get sick!" If only someone had thought to tell them that! Thanks, Stranger!

Since its founding has The Stranger ever changed anybody's mind about anything? It's great that you guys are such experts at finding a pre-existing demographic with a set of pre-existing opinions that you can exploit and focus in one direction, like helping elect Kshama Sawant or something. But reaching out and persuading the opposing camp? About anything? Ever? That's not what you guys do. Remember when there was a petition against gay marriage? The Stranger didn't bring them around. The Stranger went to work doxxing them. Before doxxing was a thing, this was the paper that made it its mission in life to threaten the other side with public harassment. Which serves mainly to make them feel more threatened, and less willing to listen.

It would be nice to hear from someone who actually has done that, though. But not only do you guys not hang out with anti-vaxxers, you don't hang out with anybody who could credibly bring anti-vaxxers around. It's all bubble, all time over there in the two block radius.

I'm hanging out with a whole raft of anti-vax loons just today. It's making me very unhappy.

Once you're a few generations beyond hospital wards of people in iron lungs, people forget about the widespread diseases that vaccines have tamped down.

How about people who refuse vaccination must first be strapped into some really junky crutches for a week to remind them what polio can do?

@1 I'd hang out with some anti-vaxxers but I don't want to get sick. It's called self preservation

I think we should be trying to convince the anti-vaxxers to all move to one of those Libertarian/Ayn Rand island/boat/sci-fi artificial island communities. Kills several birds with one stone.

thank you, Sean. I grew up with captain kangaroo, mr. moose, mr. bunny rabbit, mr. green jeans and the dancing bear. When Bob Keeshan came to Borders in the late '90s to sign his autobiography, I got to have my picture taken with him and I almost peed my pants I was so excited.

Any clip with Mr. Moose that doesn't end in a torrent of ping-pong balls is unsatisfying.

Antivaxxers can't be convinced; actual evidence will only solidify their confidence in their current position. The only way to change this revolting behavior is to remove social status and attach a stigma to it (these are mostly high status people who are used to being validated). Disneyland saying "your kind isn't welcome here" is a step in the right direction.

Here's the thing. The reason anti-vaxxers are so bad is that if they don't stop what they're doing, more kids will die. The more of them that can be convinced to stop, the less kids will die.

So if you're plum out of ideas, too bad. But sitting here smugly proud that you'll never get one of them to change their minds? Wallowing in your hate and actually hardening their resolve with your sneering? That right there leads to more kids dying.

Why not try to warm up to the less committed ones on the fringes? Rather than piss them off and push them away and into the arms of the hard core incorrigibles?

That's actually making it worse. How are you better than them if both you and them are complicit in letting kids die by your stubbornness?

@13 This is something I've been saying for years. Unlike starvation or a broken arm, vaccine-preventable diseases are contagious.

Scary @7, Hah! Me too! I never met the man in person, so I'm jealous. But I grew up on a steady diet of Captain Kangaroo. I hadn't thought of him in ages. This video was very nostalgic.

Oh, and anti-vaxxers are insane nutjobs endangering the lives of children. They should be put in irons, and their children put up for adoption by more responsible people.

@13

You say, "I think people who abuse and neglect their children are horrible, irredeemable assholes."

This is because you, German Sausage, are a highly unique thinker, with radical ideas. Please German Sausage, tell us more of your strange and enlightening beliefs.

I hate the term anti-vaxxer. It just doesn't convey the proper sense of outrage at their carelessness and scientific illiteracy. We need a new term. How about pro-contagionite? Or death spreader (that would be a good metal song--shit it's already taken)? Maybe pestulite (or pestulitarian for conservatives)?

@12: You are under the delusion that these hardened sociopaths can be convinced to save the weak and immune-deficient. The proper reaction is not to appeal to any sense of shared morality (pace Ronald Reagan and the apartheid South African regime) but to clearly emphasize their horrid craziness to prevent others from joining their cause.

If this anti-vax fad gets worse, the solution will not be to persuade anti-vaxers. You can't reason someone out of a belief they weren't reasoned into.

No. The solution will be the democratically legitimized coercive power of the state.

@17 "Child abuser" is the term you're looking for.

8 FTW.

the government should not be able to force or deny medical and surgical procedures on its citizens. its a pretty simple concept really.

For the "why not trying being nice and persuading with evidence" crowd: See the Pediatrics study last year. The nut:

"The paper tested the effectiveness of four separate pro-vaccine messages, three of which were based very closely on how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) itself talks about vaccines. The results can only be called grim: Not a single one of the messages was successful when it came to increasing parents' professed intent to vaccinate their children. And in several cases the messages actually backfired, either increasing the ill-founded belief that vaccines cause autism or even, in one case, apparently reducing parents' intent to vaccinate."

more here:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2…

They've chosen different knowledge authorities. There might have been a time where antivaxxers were teachable, but once they're committed that's pretty much over, except for the occasional, unpredictable outlier. The only plausible way forward is to raise the social costs for choosing that particular set of knowledge authorities as action-guiding. Humans don't pick which authorities to believe solely based on who they find to have the best evidence, they do it as part of a strategy to manage their identity. We manage our identity based in large part on the social consequences of different identity presentations. The present ant-vaxxers are unreachable, but if future possible anti-vaxxers know they'll be far greater social consequences--that they can't enjoy the kind of social status they expect to enjoy--if they choose that path, they'll be less likely to choose it. We can't win by getting "the message" just right, we can only win by raising the costs for choosing the wrong one.

Did anyone send this video to Bill Maher? He's a well known anti-vaxxer and has specifically attacked the MMR shot for kids before and on several occasions.

@18

If you're that much of a nihilist why do you care about kids getting killed by measles? You've obviously given up on the world, so shut up already.

I own my child, and I have the right for my kid to give your kid measles! Because--Freedom!

@25 - Yup, he's been trying pretty hard to walk that back since about 2010, but he is too stubborn to just admit he got caught up in the loon bin on this issue. Of course, he's also a board member of PETA, so... yeah. These days he is pretty careful to limit his skepticism to flu shots. The other day he was clammoring on about how only 23% of people who get a flu shot are prevented from catching a flu. I was kind of amazed how it never occurred to him how good of a thing that is. If ONLY 1 million people got one (and many times more than that do) that would be 230,000 people not getting the flu and consequently not spreading it. So much breathtaking stupidity surrounding this issue.

so should we mandate the flu shot? flu is more deadly than measles. how about the HIV vaccine? mandated.

its strange that people on this site who are usually the first to distrust the corptocracy and massive corp influence in our govt and policies and spread conspiracy theories are so so harsh on people who they disagree with on a pretty minor issue.

and is there any concern at all with vaccines? what about the gulf war syndrome and vaccine/chemical exposure in the first gulf war? lots of health issues in vets with 'no cause'

people should have the right to refuse a medical procedure or a drug. and yes, parents are responsible for their kids first and foremost. would you want to live in a state where the state govt tells you that you should vaccinate your kids' minds against the health risks of the gay lifestyle? its not a big leap of logic at all to that point.

i have vaccinations for several things , especially related to international travel. for me the reward is much greater than the risk. i also had measles as a kid. survived just fine as did most healthy people. my kids are vaccinated, but i have no problem with other people not vaccinating theirs.

@29 well then you're a fucking moron.

@29

1. Health care professionals consider the flu shot optional because it's one of the less effective ones, has to be administered yearly, and has some drawbacks like potentially nasty side-effects. Mandating the MMR and polio vaccines would not entail mandating the flu vaccine.

2. There is no established HIV vaccine yet. When there is (it looks like it's on its way), it will almost certainly be considered optional too, for obvious reasons (adults are most at risk and can make the decision to get vaccinated for themselves; there are other effective methods of HIV prevention).

3. "people should have the right to refuse a medical procedure or a drug. and yes, parents are responsible for their kids first and foremost." I don't think parents have the right to refuse life-saving (or very safe and potentially life-saving) treatment on behalf of their kids. Parents do not own their children and there are legal limits on parental rights. They also don't have a right to put other people's children at risk, which is exactly what they're doing by refusing to vaccinate their own.

4. "would you want to live in a state where the state govt tells you that you should vaccinate your kids' minds against the health risks of the gay lifestyle?" ...Well, no. But homophobia is so much more harmful than vaccines that there's no comparison. People literally die, get beaten, commit suicide and suffer social rejection because of homophobia. Obviously I don't want to live in a society where the government forces things on us that have very negative effects. Vaccines, on the other hand, are extremely effective at reducing illness and death.

5. Yes, you survived measles. Many people don't. Your anecdotal experience doesn't prove anything.

@29

Word salad much? I think you are long past using a pencil to reel in that very loopy cassette tape you have there.

@32: rekt

@29: If an HIV vaccine existed, it would probably save tens, if not eventually hundreds of millions of lives.

I'm amazed at people thinking they can say "Personal Freedom!" and justify any position they happen to hold.

If "your personal freedom ends where my nose begins", then vaccinate your kids before I inhale their disease. We live in a society together, be responsible.

@17 - Coming up with better terms than "anti-vaxxer": How about those pro-sick people, or sick-spreaders. The second one has nice alliteration.

@6 - Wins the thread so far, although @32 smashed Mr. Cassette tape fan to bits.

@29 - Speaking of whom: When the collective costs to a group of a particular "personal freedom" are too high, the Yes an action can be mandated or proscribed. This is why we have laws about burglary, seat belts, and why we don't have lead in gasoline any more.

"The sky is blue, vaccines work."

Don't be a sick-spreader.

Oh, and the BBC posted a story about Sen. Tillis and the hand washing "market freedom" idiocy.
Now the world KNOWS that America is sliding into a cesspool of stupidity, not just crass, ego-centric violence. Idiocy and Pestilence. Coming soon, Famine!

Don't be a sick-spreader... like Sen. Thom Tillis, who doesn't wash his hands after he goes poo.

@29: From UNICEF:

As a result, vaccine-preventable diseases are estimated to cause more than 2 million deaths every year. These include 1.4 million deaths of children under five, and of these, the 395,000 who currently die from measles, the 290,000 who fall to pertussis (whooping cough) and the 257,000 who perish as a result of neonatal tetanus (2).

A further 1.1 million young children die from infections of pneumococcus and rotavirus, for which vaccines will soon be available. It is expected that improvements and cost reductions in the current vaccines will make them available in the near future to all children who need them.

Did you read that, 2 million kids are saved PER YEAR. 395,000 PER YEAR don't survive measles like you did. Vaccines work. They are one of the greatest scientific achievements in history. Stop fucking with the program.

Perhaps we need to treat the anti-vaccination meme from a contagious disease standpoint. Similar to a rabies bite, or a zombie-infection, exposure to online moms groups can lead to a delusional and inflexible beliefs and dangerous behavior towards loved ones. How do we cut off transmission, and provide primary, secondary and tertiary prevention for this malady?

The trick it to not make it look like a conspiracy, or it all backfires on you.

I should add that the victims should be sympathized with and cared for, not vilified and mocked. That only worsens the symptoms and pushes the disease further into the shadows.

@40
I have more sympathy for the victimized people who have taken the 95% effective vaccines and get sick because of the anti-vaxxers mucking up herd immunity.

i also had measles as a kid. survived just fine as did most healthy people.

Of course. For diseases for which "most healthy people survive," vaccines are a completely unnecessary. Brilliant. Airtight. Flawless.

@41 who deserves more sympathy is irrelevant. I'm talking about figuring out what works to get these people's kids vaccinated.

@42: Let's be fair. If @Cassette tape fan didn't survive measles and died horrifically, I'm sure we would be getting the same post here on Slog.

Here's some useful perspectives, especially when talking to a parent who is expressing doubts about vaccines. Don't let them join the sick-spreader ranks, tell them the truth!

An Evidence-Based Guide for Convincing Parents to Vaccinate

We need better science education in this country. That will slowly but surely remove anti-vaxxers, young earthers, creationists, climate-change deniers and, yes, hysterically anti-gmo people from the population.

#11: "And the anti-vaxers should get the letter "S" tatooed [sic] on their forehead"

Ooh, I have a better idea. Let's make them all wear armbands! That worked really well for the Jews in Nazi Germany.

Seriously, the contempt I see displayed in these comments is sickening and heartbreaking. So much for "liberal tolerance." You really think you're going to win any hearts and minds by insulting and demeaning people?

#4: " I'd hang out with some anti-vaxxers but I don't want to get sick. It's called self preservation"

If you're vaccinated, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.