It takes a lot of effort to convince people of things. For many things, it is worth spending the time to understand why people believe what they believe, and crafting arguments to try and sway them.
For the anti-vax crowd, it's simply not. We don't spend a bunch of time trying to figure out how to convince people it's not a good idea to fire off an AK-47 in their backyard when they have neighbors. A large majority of us decided rationally that such behavior causes way too much risk to the rest of us, and made it illegal.
The anti-vaccination crowd are on equally shaky ground. I'm not saying we should mandate the flu shot or a brand new vaccine, but for something as contagious as measles with a 60+ year track record of safety and efficacy, I don't have time or patience to reason with the last 3% of people that don't want to vaccinate their kids.
I've had some serious health problems in my life that were just luck of the draw in genetics. I'm now short one organ, and I'm incredibly thankful that I live in 2015 and I can live a healthy and happy life due to modern medicine. Still, I'm at risk for a lot of diseases because I'm weaker than I would otherwise be. It pisses me off that healthy people don't realize that their actions can kill other people. If my kid was the one with leukemia and his healthy classmates were not getting their vaccines because their parents are idiots, I would be spending all of my time fighting to keep those kids out of schools, doctors offices, public places, etc.
For the anti-vax crowd, it's simply not. We don't spend a bunch of time trying to figure out how to convince people it's not a good idea to fire off an AK-47 in their backyard when they have neighbors. A large majority of us decided rationally that such behavior causes way too much risk to the rest of us, and made it illegal.
The anti-vaccination crowd are on equally shaky ground. I'm not saying we should mandate the flu shot or a brand new vaccine, but for something as contagious as measles with a 60+ year track record of safety and efficacy, I don't have time or patience to reason with the last 3% of people that don't want to vaccinate their kids.
I've had some serious health problems in my life that were just luck of the draw in genetics. I'm now short one organ, and I'm incredibly thankful that I live in 2015 and I can live a healthy and happy life due to modern medicine. Still, I'm at risk for a lot of diseases because I'm weaker than I would otherwise be. It pisses me off that healthy people don't realize that their actions can kill other people. If my kid was the one with leukemia and his healthy classmates were not getting their vaccines because their parents are idiots, I would be spending all of my time fighting to keep those kids out of schools, doctors offices, public places, etc.