Thread by @felixsalmon

Really interesting @gavinfranc piece on vax and anti-vaxx. A short thread of things that jumped out at me:
nybooks.com/articles/2019/…

@gavinfranc 1. Parents who haven’t vaccinated their kids are well aware of the opprobrium directed towards them. This gives them incentives to lie and to be reluctant to visit the ER. Making matters even worse.

2. Modern healthcare makes anti-vaxx more appealing as a practice. One parent is quoted: “with whooping cough, they can intubate you now.”

3. mothers who have chosen to delay childbearing generally have higher levels of education and are more likely to reject vaccination, considering themselves “experts on their own children”

4. Thomas Jefferson had his slaves vaccinated before taking the risk of vaccinating his family

5. In Japan in 1947, 20,000 children died from pertussis

6. Measles has caused 200 million deaths over the last 150 years.

7. If we’re serious about trying to approach skeptical parents effectively, and persuading them to vaccinate their kids, then we need to eradicate the culture of mother blaming. (Which itself is virulent on Twitter.)

8. "In discussions with parents in my own clinic, I portray vaccines as tutors that teach each child’s body how to respond to dangerous infections.” <- this is both smart and effective.

Final thought: antivaxx sentiment also flows from bad experiences that women have with medical professionals, as @KristinRix @taffyakner and others have pointed out. If treatment were improved so that women trusted doctors more in general, antivaxx would be much less widespread.