Use Some Restraint

Imagine that there was a group of people dedicated to eliminating the use of seat belts and infant car seats. Despite all the vast scientific evidence that these precautions save thousands of lives each year, this group of people promotes the idea that these life-saving restraints are actually dangerous, especially to children.

Imagine that these people launched an aggressive campaign against the use of seat belts and car seats. They create hundreds of websites explaining the dangers of these restraints, even creating bogus scientific journal articles and fake letters from doctors to make it look like they have some legitimate authority. They promote the idea that there is some kind of conspiracy by Big Auto and the Government to force everyone to wear seat belts and subject children to car seats, despite the grave dangers, just so Big Auto can make more money selling these devices, which are dangerous and don't really work anyway.

Imagine that any internet search for information about seat belts and car seats always showed this group's bogus information listed among legitimate results, so that people making life-saving decisions for themselves and their children were as likely to find bad information as good information. Imagine that this campaign spreads to the point that millions of people stop using seat belts and refuse to restrain their children and babies in car seats, to the point that celebrities can appear on hugely popular talk shows and tell the audience of millions not to use these restraints, without anyone disagreeing with them. It even gets to the point that people who have stopped using these restraints actively try to convince their family and friends to stop using them also.

This is essentially the same situation we have with vaccines. Despite all the vast scientific evidence that vaccines are safe and effective and that the diseases they protect us from are quite dangerous, there is a huge and growing campaign to stop the use of vaccines. They have created hundreds of websites that appear to be legitimate sources of information about vaccines, containing what appear to be scientific journal articles and letters from doctors, testimonials from parents, scary stories, and all kinds of misinformation to create the illusion that their crusade is legitimate, backed by science, advocated for by doctors, supported by millions of parents and simply the right thing to do for yourself and your family.

This campaign against vaccines has convinced millions of people not to vaccinate themselves or their children. It has also convinced them to become involved in this campaign to some extent, whether it is simply cautioning family and friends against the use of vaccines or spreading that message to a wider audience through their own websites and writing.

If it weren't for all the grave consequences of this campaign against vaccines, it would be easy to dismiss this group of people as a bunch of misinformed cranks and leave the issue alone. However, the diseases that vaccines protect us from really are quite dangerous and the vaccines really are quite effective and safe, so the less we use vaccines, the more widely these dangerous diseases are spreading. Thousands of people are actually getting extremely ill and dying because of this aggressive campaign to stop vaccination, and the lowering vaccination rate is setting us up for new epidemics of diseases that have long been under control.

Because this campaign against vaccines is so widespread and decentralized, there is no easy way to restrain it. All we can do is spread good information about vaccines and explain the serious dangers of not using vaccines. Since this campaign against vaccines spreads so much from one person to another, through family and friends talking about it, we can counter that by having discussions with our family and friends about the benefits and safety of vaccines and the dangers of the diseases they protect us from.

We can also talk with family and friends who, with good intentions, have joined this campaign against vaccinations and urge them to use some restraint. They may feel confident about their position, but are they willing to endanger the lives of so many other people, especially when the vast majority of the scientific community is telling them they are wrong? We can advise them to use some restraint and keep their strong opinions about this issue to themselves - it will save them a lot of guilt later when they eventually realize that they were spreading deadly advice to all their friends and family.