I've been tweeting about vaccines for a while now. Next 6 months are crucial in misinformation war so here are a few things I have learned 1/n
1) Vaccine hesitancy is widespread, and a lot of it is soft. Many folk just need simple concerns addressed 2/n
2) People have a complex set of concerns. You need to understand them. Some can be addressed, some not. Keep an eye on what they are as they change 3/n
3) The "anti-vaxx" voices are changing and though they are numerically small they have a big audience. Beautifully proven in this study. By comparison those of us trying to counter misinformation are less widely shared. Some thoughts on why 4/n nature.com/articles/s4158…
First- when you are not constrained by facts/truths, you can change your message to fit audience. You can also use more emotive and explosive language. Doing this from a position of promoting the science and being rationale is tough to pull off 5/n
.... basically "we" ie pro-science are more boring! May as well admit it and embrace it. In the end my guess is it is less important but I might be wrong... 6/n
Secondly- many people are mistrustful of authority esp Govt. You need a mix of diverse independent people involved. You also probably need to be honest about who you are and your biases 7/n
4) Direct confrontation is almost pointless. When you are not constrained by any rules on truth it is pretty easy to constantly pivot away from whatever is in front of you. 8/n
5) People put to much weight on personal experience. A good example is- how many people do you know who have died of COVID-19? I bet there ends up being a pretty solid relationship to vaccine uptake. Accept this and lean into it. 9/n
6) Get outside your bubble. Harder to do than say. We gravitate to people we like/people like us. I now need an expert to tell us how we do this! Anybody out there in my bubble can help please pitch in!
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Next vaccine thingy to address. Getting asked mostly about long term vaccine effects. Important to be straight/honest. Nobody knows yet. Best way to understand the future is to look at past so... 1/n
... if you look at every vaccine ever developed, you see a clear pattern. Side effects are overwhelmingly short term. It is built into how vaccines work. 1-2 doses promote short term immune response that primes us for later. 2/n
You probably don't even think twice about this when you get your flu jab. Let's be honest, who has read the evidence for flu jabs (I haven't). It is such a non-event I roll up and get one, feel a bit rough for 2 days, moan to my wife then get on with life. 3/n
More on vaccines. I'm going to get boring and geeky on this (no apologies) on the 10 year thing. Vaccines "normally take 10 years". This is being use as a reason to be fearful (ie rushed job). I'm a clinical trials doc. I can tell you most of that time is spent doing...1/n
.... nothing. It's spent submitting funding requests, then resubmitting them, then waiting, then submitting them somewhere else, then getting the money but the company changes it's mind or focus, then renegotiating then submitting ethics, then waiting for regulators...2/n
...then having problems with recruitment and having to open other sites, then dealing with more regulatory issues, then finally when you eventually get to the end of all of this you might have a therapy...3/n
On vaccine safety. 13 million vaccinated people studied. Mortality rates much lower than background population. Not a comment on causation (though seems bloody obvious), only safety sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
With this in mind I present 5 things a vaccine is safer than 1/n
Based on above and NO REPORTED DEATHS in the 1000s of patients so far enrolled in vaccine studies, here are 5 things more dangerous than a COVID vaccine
Number 1 (close to my heart after Scotland heroics)