There aren’t that many of us professional vaccine immunologists around out there, and we can’t talk to everyone in person. This book is the next best thing to a face-to-face conversation with the guy who understands vaccines so well that he actually helps to cook up the ones we already have, as well as working to develop new ones for the future.
Let’s start the conversation.
I hear this sort of generic statement a lot, quite often as a response when I tell people what I do for a living. Assuming I’m not immediately banished to social perjury before the conversation’s begun, I usually start by enquiring as to why someone doesn’t believe in vaccines.
What most people really mean when they say that they don’t believe in vaccines is that they don’t believe vaccines are necessary, or effective, or beneficial to health.
If that’s the case then we’re usually off and running by that stage, as I’m fairly certain I’m going to hear some variation of the arguments we’ll be exploring in the following chapters.
I’m not lucky enough to possess any kind of magic crystal ball for seeing the future, but having spent most of my adult life talking about vaccines in one way or another, I have a pretty good idea of what’s coming next when the issue arises. Those issues could be safety concerns, the autism scare or some other subject area where I can offer my expertise and hopefully some reliable reassurance that ultimately there’s really not that much to worry about.
However, I do occasionally come across an argument that’s far beyond my sphere of influence. When that happens, I’ve learned it’s time to beat a polite retreat because I already know there’s no chance of enjoying a discussion based on mutually recognised facts and values. It’s a bit like two people talking in different languages. For example, if it’s a purely religious objection then I’ve learned that it’s a really bad idea to discuss the issue of vaccines in theological terms … unless you’re a priest. In truth, I’ve got no idea what Jesus might’ve thought about vaccines, so I can’t really talk about the issue in theological language. In that kind of situation I know it’s time to admit defeat because those arguments are simply outside my area of competence.
Although it may be true that civility is society’s engine oil, I’ll admit that sometimes I can’t resist a parting shot like, ‘It’s okay not to believe in vaccines. After all, viruses don’t believe in you either.’
To be honest, I doubt if that kind of pithy comeback has ever persuaded any religious objector to look at the vaccine issue in a different way, but then it’s really more for my own amusement rather than to convince anyone of anything. I just find it funny because not believing in vaccines as such is similar to not believing in viruses or bacteria; indeed, some vaccines are actually types of viruses or bacteria.
Although mercifully rare, I have met some pretty colourful characters during the course of my career, and I tend to disengage as quickly as possible if I’m unlucky enough to get caught in their orbit. You know the kind of people I mean: the ones who genuinely believe that aliens were responsible for the JFK assassination and think that the 9/11 attacks were perpetuated by reptoids. If someone’s willing to dismiss any and all available evidence as just another fabrication by some all-powerful yet completely invisible and untraceable state apparatus, then they’re far too ‘smart’ to believe a single word I might have to say.
In this admittedly unusual situation, I know I’m not dealing with an entirely rational kind of mindset, so I immediately understand that I’m spinning my wheels and wasting my breath.
That’s when I make a strategic withdrawal to the bar or the cloakroom … or anywhere really, just to put a safe distance between us and to ensure that my secret government mind-warping device won’t jangle their tinfoil hat and give the game away.
While it’s sadly true that some folk just aren’t built for rational discussion, there’s one subject that’s pretty much guaranteed to make all of us into crazy people.
We’re all hardwired to be highly irrational when it comes to our children, and when you think about it, that’s probably necessary for survival. After all, a parent may be called upon to put themselves in danger to protect their offspring or, in the most extreme cases, sacrifice themselves to preserve their children.
I immediately know I’m walking blindfolded through a minefield whenever the subject of what’s best for somebody else’s child comes up. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not all that keen on tiptoeing my way through acres of explosives when I know I don’t have to.
Of course, when I’m discussing childhood vaccinations, it’s really the parent’s objections I’m addressing and not the child’s. Convincing a toddler to get a jab is as easy as offering the promise of a lollipop afterwards, as any doctor throughout the world will tell you.
Experience has taught me that first-time parents are the most anxious group when considering vaccinations for their children, despite the fact that they’re quite likely to have undergone those very same immunisations when they were kids. This is actually rather helpful because it’s far less emotive to talk about adults than infants in this kind of situation. If an adult’s already been vaccinated, then it’s much easier to highlight the enormous health benefits they’re enjoying at every minute of every day, and just remind them that their kids can also enjoy those same benefits at a minimal risk.
This fundamental rule holds true for all of the discussions that are to follow. If someone’s talking about kids, then I talk about adults. It’s the quickest and easiest way to take most of the heat out of the encounter and focus on the real issue at hand. Generally speaking, if an adult can be persuaded that vaccines are a good thing for them, they’ll automatically decide they’re a good thing for their kids as well.
This is something I hear sometimes, and it often comes as part of a package which can include the relative in his 90s who smokes twenty a day and the health freak who got hit by a bus. For some reason, a bus seems to be the most dangerous vehicle out there. Maybe someone should look into that.
This kind of unvaccinated and generally lucky person seems to believe that because nothing bad has happened to him in the past, he doesn’t need to take precautions against the future. In fact, he’s so confident in his good fortune that he sometimes wonders whether vaccines serve any useful purpose at all, other than to offer some kind of empty reassurance.
Johnny Goodluck’s entire ethos seems to revolve around the idea that precautions make very little difference if your number’s up. There’s almost an element of stoic fatalism in this kind of outlook, but it’s usually pretty superficial when tested in the real world.
Years of making very little progress in situations like this has taught me that it’s far better to discuss vaccination in terms of things that we can all relate to, rather than trying to explain with hard data, facts and figures.
I’m not really surprised that the average, reasonably healthy 40-something sees very little reason to go rushing off to the doctor because he missed a few injections when he was a toddler. Those missed appointments were many decades ago and, assuming he lives in the developed