Saturday, June 24, 2017

Fear of Vaccines

Why does the notion that vaccines cause autism continue to persist, despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary? In a recent essay, a science writer and father argues that it's all about one of our most basic emotions - fear. According to the author of the article, fear is just too strong an emotion to be overcome by logic or evidence.

If he's right, then continuing to try to convince anti-vaccine advocates with more scientific evidence just isn't going to work. Their fear will have to be acknowledged and addressed. How to do that is a question for which the author doesn't yet have an answer.

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