Yes and no. Vaccine hesitant parents are often really nice people, just scared by antivax misinformation. Hard core antivaxers, the "thought leaders" of the antivax movement, are almost without exception shitty people, entitled and dismissive of any public good.https://twitter.com/SOlsonMichel/status/1180220661995687936 …
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Replying to @gorskon
I haven't resigned myself to believing they're unreachable. Perhaps that makes me too optimistic, but in my experience, people change. We can definitely help the hesitant by discrediting influential anti-vaxxers, and we can focus on that. But I choose not to write them off.
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Replying to @SOlsonMichel @gorskon
I’ve been promoting compassion & empathy re vaccine refusal nearly a decade, incl in my TED talk. Vax hesitant & vax refusers can be reachable. Anti-vaxxers—vocal advocates persuading others not to vaccinate—are not. Why waste time on them when you can talk to refusers instead?
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Replying to @tarahaelle @gorskon
Obviously someone who is an extremist with a large platform from which they preach anti-vaxx mentality may be unreachable/not worth the time, but the line between anti-vaxx and vaccine hesitant is rarely that clearly defined in your average refuser population.
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Replying to @SOlsonMichel @tarahaelle
True, but those of us who've studied this a while can usually tell. I have a few simple questions that are a pretty reliable screen to identify who's definitely not reachable at least.
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Replying to @gorskon @tarahaelle
I haven't heard of this before but it sounds really interesting. Would you be interested in sharing or DM'ing me those questions? Would like to learn more about your approach
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Replying to @SOlsonMichel @gorskon
I’m curious about Gorski’s questions too. I wonder how much crossover there is with my approach (though usually my first approach is google and searching social media to see what they’ve already said).
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Replying to @tarahaelle
I might have to write a blog post about it, as Twitter isn't the greatest medium to explain...
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One question is rather obvious: What evidence would it take to change your mind about vaccines? If the answer is that no evidence could do it or they need an impossible level of evidence (eg, proof of absolute safety + 100% efficacy), then they're almost certainly not reachable.
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Replying to @gorskon @tarahaelle
Agreed. In clinic, I like the motivational interviewing approach of asking on a scale of 1-10 (1 being never) how willing are you to accept a vaccine for yourself or your child? When they say zero, I give up. If they say anything higher than a 1, we discuss their concerns.
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