Losing faith in science: the rhetoric of denialism in
the autism/vaccines debate
Controversy status
In the anti-vaccine community, the level of sheer belief that vaccines
are directly linked to ASD is enormous. Some groups go even beyond
that, tying the global ubiquity of vaccines to some grand One World
Government/mind control/GPS tracking conspiracy theories. Certainly,
these are incredibly far-fetched, but they have gained enough mindshare
in those online venues where such discussion takes place that continued
belief in them is likely to survive as long as such conspiracy
theorists still exist.
This controversy shows no signs of
being capable of being resolved at any point in the next
half-century. Both sides remain completely and utterly convinced
of their correctness and infallibility, and no amount of argument,
discussion, or evidence one way or the other is going to change
this. In other words, for better or for worse, the debate over
vaccine safety and its possible link to ASD is going to continue for
the foreseeable future.
Predictions for the future
In the future, it is likely
that whatever is currently responsible for the very real increase in
ASD will continue. Until such time as the genuine cause is
actually discovered, anti-vaccine groups will continue to believe that
vaccinations are the root cause, and even then, it might take some
convincing.
In the future, parents of
children with ASD will continue to look for answers as to why this is
happening to their family. As parents do, they will do their best
to look out for the well-being of their children, with most cases of
witholding vaccinations coming from a place of genuine concern and
precaution.
In the future, vaccine
proponents will realize that they need to take one last try at
convincing the more reasonable members of current anti-vaccine
groups. In an attempt to do this, they will commission a
verifiably independent research study that examines every imaginable
aspect of current vaccine usage: how common vaccines react in
combination with one another, an in-depth look at the safety of the
chemicals involved, and other such focused components. It will
not change the minds of the anti-vaccine groups.
In the future, new evidence
will emerge regarding previous ostensibly-scientific studies that
claimed to prove the lack of safety surrounding vaccines. Results
will have been tampered with, medical professionals will prove to have
acted inappropriately in obtaining/recording the results of their
research, or something else might happen entirely. It will not
change the minds of the anti-vaccine groups.
In the future, a small but
significant number of children will continue to be denied early
vaccinations by their family members. These children will go on
to live a life with a greater risk of contracting any number of
increasingly-rare diseases, and their quality of life will suffer for
it.
In the future, the status of
this debate will likely continue to be the same as it is in the year
2010. Considering the level of entrenchment on the part of both
sides, it would take a truly shocking event to shift the debate one way
or the other. Obviously, there is no way of knowing if or when
such an event might happen, but based on the events of the last twelve
years, such a shift seems rather unlikely.
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"Getting rid of swine flu", by Stéfan
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