Deciding to opt out of childhood vaccination mandates.

[ema-adama]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

RESULTS: Two predominant themes emerged in our data: a desire to collect information on vaccines and trust issues with the medical community. Evidence of sophisticated data collection and information processing was a repeated theme in the interview data. Simultaneously, while participants placed a high value on scientific knowledge, they also expressed high levels of distrust of the medical community.

Oh dear, how can we educate a public who use sophisticated data collection and information processing and yet come to the 'wrong' conclusion?

CONCLUSIONS: The challenge for public health is to balance scientific data with popular epidemiology and to maintain legitimacy.

Well, how about that? Why not maintain legitimacy with some clear studies?

[Scattershoot]

This is my favorite part:

Understanding the differences in lay versus expert knowledge has implications for crafting health messages.

As if the "expert knowledge" is derived from some magical source of information us "lay" people don't have access to or certainly cannot understand if we do.

Maybe many people do not trust them due to the incessant patronizing and their unbearable desire to save us from our own ignorance that we never, ever hear the end of as long as we don't do exactly what they tell us to do.

It's too bad they are spending so much time, money and effort to figure how to get us to do what they want. That time would be much better spent figuring out how all those children are magically becoming horribly ill and autistic immediately following vaccination.

[ema-adama]

Originally Posted by Scattershoot

As if the "expert knowledge" is derived from some magical source of information us "lay" people don't have access to or certainly cannot understand if we do.

Yeah, we have access to the same information, we are just missing the belief in vaccines

[horseofcourse]

Originally Posted by ema-adama

Yeah, we have access to the same information, we are just missing the belief in vaccines

I saw a medical *professional* once who kept quoting a certain book as his source of knowledge. I finally asked him for the title and author of the book and said I'd like to read it myself in order to develop my own interpretation of the information.

His answer? It's too technical; you wouldn't understand it.

Needless to say, he lost all credibility with me at that very moment.

[ema-adama]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

Some parents were quite critical of those who did not vaccinate healthy children, and urged them to do so on grounds of social responsibility. Our findings suggest that social scientists with an interest in vaccination practice should attend carefully to lay understandings of herd immunity as a public good and views about obligations to others in society. Policy makers, too, might consider giving more emphasis to herd immunity in vaccination promotional material, although attention should be paid to the ways in which parents distinguish between healthy and vulnerable children.

What?
I wonder what they mean by lay understanding of herd immunity as opposed to expert understanding of herd immunity. Are they seeing the lay understanding as erroneous, but wanting to use that erroneous understanding to push vaccinations?
Or is the lay understanding in line with expert understanding?

It seems that parental understanding of the issues is dismissed if you as a parent choose not to vaccinate. And used, even if it is incorrect, to support vaccination. That is just a tad hypocritical.

As a disclaimer, this article is not directly related to the one in the OP, and I am sure there are medical professionals who respect parents. I have not had personal experience of them, but I hope they are out there.

[Marnica]

What about the experts who disagree with the mainstream view of vaccines, herd immunity etc??? Folks like Dr. Tenpenny, Dr. Blaylock, Dr. Moulden, Dr. Wakefield and many many more. Surely their understanding is not a "lay" understanding of these issues....they are medical doctors and medical professionals after all.

As soon as their opnion differs from the masses they all of sudden have lost the ability to deciper all this information that would be too "techincal" for us average folk?

[PlayaMama]

Originally Posted by ema-adama

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum


What?
I wonder what they mean by lay understanding of herd immunity as opposed to expert understanding of herd immunity. Are they seeing the lay understanding as erroneous, but wanting to use that erroneous understanding to push vaccinations?
Or is the lay understanding in line with expert understanding?

It seems that parental understanding of the issues is dismissed if you as a parent choose not to vaccinate. And used, even if it is incorrect, to support vaccination. That is just a tad hypocritical.

As a disclaimer, this article is not directly related to the one in the OP, and I am sure there are medical professionals who respect parents. I have not had personal experience of them, but I hope they are out there.

did you see that they collected their info from an archived message board? what i see as concerning is that they want to figure out ways to convince you to vax rather than bother to address any of the actual reasons folks don't want to vax.

[ema-adama]

Originally Posted by PlayaMama

did you see that they collected their info from an archived message board? what i see as concerning is that they want to figure out ways to convince you to vax rather than bother to address any of the actual reasons folks don't want to vax.

I know :

At first I wondered if it was MDC, but the study was in the UK, and I am pretty sure it was a UK message board - besides we don't have discussions in MDC where mama's pressurise other mothers to vaccinate for the good of society, at least none that I have seen.

But yeah, that is the just of it. I would prefer studies addressing the reasons why I choose not to vaccinate rather than trying to figure out how better to manipulate me into vaccinating my child.

This is totally OT - but when I was living in the UK over 10 years ago I saw an advert on TV for vaccines. A baby was left on a high cliff in the middle of a storm and was left in an African field with prowling lions. The take away message was that you wouldn't choose to leave your child in such danger - vaccinate today and keep your child safe. I was quite horrified by the manipulation - and this was many years before I even realised there was a vaccine debate. Talk about avoiding facts while trying to convince parents to vax.