SCIENCE NO FRIEND OF ANTI-VAX MOVEMENT

ANTI-VAXXING is one of those issues that just never seems to go away.

The latest vaccine-sceptic to voice their concerns is celebrity chef and My Kitchen Rules host Pete Evans.

On Wednesday, Evans shared links on his Instagram account to the podcast of anti-vax parent and exercise coach Paul Chek as he interviewed a fellow antivaxxer, osteopath Sherri Tenpenny.

In the podcast, Dr Tenpenny, who is wellknown in the US for her views, shared provocative opinions about the intellectual superiority of unvaccinated children, and argued that all doctors are uneducated about vaccines.

Evans praised Tenpenny’s assessment of vaccination, calling the podcast “one of the most important” to listen to, and thanking her for “asking the questions that need to be asked”.

Of course Evans didn’t mention the DanishAmerican study of more than 650,000 children, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine earlier this month, that confirmed that the MMR vaccine has no link to autism.

Nor did he mention the scores of other studies published in recent years indicating that other sideeffects of vaccination are “extremely rare”.

So why is there still an active anti-vaxxing movement in our society?

The answer is manifest – the anti-vax movement is deeply suspicious of scientific rationality. In fact, vaccination is seen as a scientific and political conspiracy: coercive vaccination policies “take away parents’ rights”; they “promote the interests of big pharma”; and they do “serious damage” to our children.

Indeed, the more evidence you throw at anti-vaxxers, the more they respond with claims of conspiracy.

But I don’t believe we need to throw up our hands in despair. While bombarding anti-vaxxers with scientific data has its limitations, there are alternative ways of addressing resistance to vaccination.

One option – proposed by Jessica Kaufman and Margie Danchin from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute – is to be less combative and more empathetic in our conversations with parents who have reservations about vaccination.

We should try to hear people out, and respectfully address their concerns with a mix of evidence as well as personal narrative.

Essentially, we all have a role to play in nudging our neo-hippy friends to vaccinate their children.

It is also important to distinguish between those who provide some vaguely plausible objection to vaccination. Sometimes antivaxxers aren’t conspiracy theorists.

They object to vaccines because they were developed through animal testing, or with the use of foetal parts from aborted foetuses. This kind of anti-vaxxing constitutes a principled ethical objection, and we need to engage with it as such, rather than just dismissing it.

For example, a vegan who objects to vaccination on the grounds that the vaccines were tested on animals at least has yielded a reason for their objection and deserves a reasonable response. And those with genuine religious objection also should be given due consideration.

Denying the science, in contrast, is not a valid reason for objecting to vaccination. But it’s important we don’t just label people – we need to be patient and respectful when explaining the data.

Otherwise, we run the risk of appearing part of the conspiracy rather than someone who can be trusted.

Current vaccination levels in Australia are at 93.3 per cent of kids fully vaccinated.

Medical authorities would like us to reach 95 per cent.

We certainly could do without celebrities giving credence to conspiratorial claims about science and big pharma. Yet we also need a grassroots campaign to penetrate the communities that are undermining the achievement of herd immunity.

Xavier Symons is a research associate at the Institute for Ethics and Society, University of Notre Dame Australia