I have been having an on-again, off-again discussion with one of my readers about RFK, Jr. and his skepticism about the safety of vaccines.
They are, not without reason, worried that some people might take the lesson that all vaccines are inherently unsafe and that cases of preventable diseases will skyrocket. I, on the other hand, am skeptical that all vaccines are as safe and effective as claimed–with good reason, by now, obviously–and that rigorous studies should be made on safety, effectiveness, the number and pace at which vaccines are given, and the general messaging that any concerns are wholly unwarranted. After all, almost every case of polio is vaccine-induced.
We are both driven by caution about the consequences but have different evaluations of the risks faced by changing policies vs the status quo.
But the discussion made me wonder: with all the talk about Measles outbreaks in the United States and the spurious link to RFK Jr.’s opinions, what does the actual evidence about Measles outbreaks in similar countries show?
Hmm. Canada. A nice, liberal, English-speaking country with universal healthcare, lots of state propaganda pushing vaccines, and a population whose inclination towards polite compliance sets it apart from the United States. Surely they must do better than the United States at controlling communicable diseases, right?
Yeah, well, not so much. Quite the opposite, actually.
While the numbers are inherently unreliable to some extent, we can get a rough estimate of the relative risk of somebody getting Measles here vs in Canada. Both have advanced healthcare systems that collect a lot of data, and both have active media environments that love to focus on scary stuff like spreading diseases.
Want to know the relative risk? Americans contract Measles at a rate of 1.1 per million more or less, while Canadians have a rate of 12.2 per million.
Canadians are more than 11 times more likely to get the disease than people in the United States. And they don’t have any mean, nasty conspiracy theorists like RFK Jr. to spread conspiracy theories. The English, a similar society to both Canada and the United States, has a rate 5 1/2 times the US. France and Germany have rates similar to ours, if a tiny bit higher at the moment.
This brings up an obvious point: we all suffer from confirmation bias to some extent or another. When we are being told that there has been a huge uptick in some phenomenon and there is a plausible explanation for that uptick that appeals to our worldview, we assume that it must be so.
Our opinion is confirmed. But reality often doesn’t work that way. Just as many people assume that vaccine skeptics (or fluoride skeptics) are gap-toothed morons who worry about alien anal probes, the truth is that the most skeptical demographic is people with PhDs. Almost a quarter of people with doctorates express skepticism about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, which is a higher rate than people who don’t have even High School degrees.
People with Masters’s Degrees are the least skeptical–they see themselves as experts and trust them, while Ph.Ds have figured out how much their colleagues BS everybody.
As for myself? I get some vaccines, skip others, and get on with my life. You can bet your bottom dollar that I would examine the relative risk/reward for every vaccine I had put into a child and give a pass to many of them, at least at a young age. Vaccines for childhood diseases make sense when somebody is a child, while vaccines appropriate for adults are certainly not.
Every action has costs and benefits, and both should be weighed appropriately.
But the Narrative™ that Measles cases are skyrocketing because of RFK, Jr.? Ask Canadians whether that explains their utter failure to control the spread of the disease.
