My friend has insisted that he has great conversation through this community, so I am going to jump right in to poke the bear. Honestly, social media is a collection of ‘yes men’, where you dogpile on the person that disagrees until the conversation goes too far, and for that reason, I am skeptical of posting.
Today I reflected on my dislike of a debate that is a not actually debated. The topic I was focused on was the vaccines. Yep. Dare to keep reading? I have been involved in the vaccine debate for years now because I had to make a choice. I stopped just believing what a doctor had to say about an issue because personal experience of them making poor choices. I believe this is because they only have a small peek into my life; thus, I am not angry at the doctors. What I came to learn the hard way was that they work off generalizations and probability. My job is to say why I disagree based on research.
This includes vaccines. People were so vicious on each side of the debate, that I have to say it took a lot of time to research. Then I earnestly try to interject in conversation with devil advocate's approach, because I agree with both side. That’s right. This conversation is setup as an ‘us versus them’ topic when it really should not be.
By pitting adults (non-parents and parents have an opinion on this) against each other, actual intellectual discussion on the topic has ceased. The people leading the arguments use fear tactics and sad facts to try to strong arm the other side. More importantly, valid concerns are brushed aside in favor of fallacious arguments that are very weak.
One is example I recently saw:
“...I am still deeply disturbed that these people are more afraid of people with disabilities than they are fatal, painful, and endemic diseases. If cognitive disabilities are more threatening to you than children never getting to grow up because polio makes a comeback, you have priorities to reevaluate my friend. Shame on you for brainwashing mothers and families into believing that autism is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a person.”
Here I had to stop myself from ranting on the disconnect I see in this argument so I can stay focused on the topic at hand: bombastic things tossed from each side. Terms like “these people” then to follow that with “my friend” and continue with “Shame on you”. This is exactly my issue with the current conversation. I am pro-education and understanding why each side takes the stance it does on a topic. That means people will fall on each side, but that should not be a surprise. It’s important to continue talking.
A couple things I just had to mention about the above argument that I found absurd. Hundreds …. No millions of people have lived through Polio and many didn’t even experience it until they were adults. So if you’re going to shame parents, let’s get your facts straight.
1 - The vaccine they accuse of causing Autism is the MMR.
2 - The MMR does not vaccinate against Polio
3 - We can agree that disabilities should not be used to cause fear.
I am not going to jump into every this or that argument, I just felt this was a fresh example of my frustration with the conversation. Rather, I would like to see an open back and forth about concerns. Why have I not seen any pro-vaccine people help the anti-vaccine people address the concerning barriers between the Pharma companies and the people? I mean seriously.
People will say “Big Pharma is just trying to sell cures that do not cure for the most part”. They do not trust the drugs being advertised on TV, but inherently trust these same companies to provide good vaccines. They brush off the batches that have gone out bad and were recalled. These are the SAME companies. The ones who tried to make and HPV vaccine that is involved in a lawsuit last I checked.
Worse, these companies have more protections against being held accountable than anything else out there aside from the government itself. The more I dug into how vaccines were held accountable, the more I felt concern. Just as importantly, I heard both side sharing concern about the Big Pharma being untouchable, and saw no unified action. No open conversation about accountability or anything of the sort.
If I could contribute anything to the conversation, it would be to say you are actually trying to accomplish the same thing. Both sides want people to be able to live healthy lives, both seem to distrust Big Pharma, but you disagree on what healthy is. This is to be expected. Not everyone will jump on the pro-vaccine boat, but I believe that boat would be more filled if some concerns were actually addressed.
Some topics to consider:
-When should public health take precedence over personal choice? The decision on this line WILL affect other topics outside of vaccines.
-What can be done to make drug manufacturers more accountable with what ingredients they use? Prescription drug abuse and bad batches of shots are legitimate concerns held by many.
-Why, with all our science options, are no alternatives ever being offered? We have generic prescription drugs but absolutely no choice in who gives us “life saving” vaccines. I believe this may be directly tied to intellectual property rights, but worth a discussion.
-Why have the pharmaceutical companies been found guilty in other countries? I do not think American courts should be the end-all of this discussion