Why an anti-vax mom changed her mind
Editor’s Note: Meet Doh Driver. She grew up believing in a whole slew of pseudoscience, including the idea that vaccines were harmful. Through her journey, she began to think more critically of her beliefs until she finally shed them. Now, she talks to anti-vaxxers online to change their minds. This is her story.
I had the pleasure of meeting Doh on Facebook after I posted my last article about how I became a sceptic. When she shared her story, I was immediately intrigued and amazed at the journey she had gone through. I asked her to flesh it out and send it over so I could have the pleasure of sharing it with you. So here it is.
It takes a lot of courage and insight to break out of belief systems we have had since we were children. Especially in the case of vaccines, nutrition and medicine, these beliefs can be a matter of life and death – for ourselves and our loved ones.
If there’s one thing you take away from her story (other than the importance of falsifying your beliefs) it’s this: when you engage with someone on social media who believes that vaccines are harmful, GMOs are poison or that alternative medicine works, remember they may be on a similar journey. Speak to them with compassion, reason and rationality and you could crack their echo chamber just enough for them to see the light.
I was once adamantly anti-vaccination. I changed my mind. Here's how that happened.
My intent in sharing my story is to give science communicators and laypeople hope as they try to counter the anti-vaccine messages around us. Also, I want to offer insights into, not just the reasons why someone is against vaccines, but all the surrounding circumstances that lead them to this position. These are the foundations that might inform their current beliefs, even though the particulars will differ for each anti-vaxxer. The specific context and circumstances of my life mattered to me in ways that it would for each anti-vaxxer. Ignoring this and presuming a simplistic or superficial decision-making process based on, say, rumours that vaccines cause autism, is a mistake that many pro-vaccine arguers make. It's not news that if you treat your interlocutors as idiots, they will feel dehumanized, and dig in their heels. Unfortunately, I have done it myself.
My Early Life: The Foundation Of My Beliefs
I was born in 1970 when there were only a few vaccines available. I was raised in Christian Science, a religion (some would say a cult) which is notorious for its rejection of medicine. I did not grow up a believer, though. When I was 8 years old, I told Mom that I didn't believe in God or her religion. I had to keep attending church until I finally put my foot down at age 12. While I dabbled in "spirituality" over the years, looking back, it's clear to me now I was always an atheist and didn't have the vocabulary to call it that. This all may seem like a non-sequitur but bear with me.
Growing up, my family and I were healthy people. No one in my unvaccinated family died from a vaccine-preventable disease, so like many Americans alive today, I was not exposed to the ravages of those childhood illnesses. When I was around 8 or 9 years old, I got the measles from a fellow camper at the Christian Science summer camp I was sent to. After a week of discomfort and being kept out of the sun, I survived with no side effects and robust, all-natural immunity. What's more, I didn't pass it to my unvaccinated brother, cousin, or aunt with whom I spent the entirety of my measles episode. Other than that rather dull week, I never got sick, so I had (in my mind) pretty clear evidence that vaccines weren't necessary. I do recall saying on more than one occasion that "I never got vaccinated, and I'm fine!" I didn't take so much as an aspirin until I was 16. In fact, I never needed anything other than basic care from a doctor, and nothing that a little rest couldn't fix, until I was in my 40s. See? Being unvaccinated was healthy!
The Echo Chamber
As a young adult, I wasn't so much anti-vaccine as just blissfully ignorant. I didn't have much cause to think about them. I did well in school, being one of those kids who didn't have to try. I was told I was smart all along, so I also grew up believing I was bright and could understand scientific research reasonably well. Still, I was, in truth, as indifferent to science as I was to vaccines. I got a couple of vaccines to travel to developing countries in college since they "made sense" to me. My logic was that I didn't have a natural immunity to those since they didn't occur in the United States.
In other words, I was already one foot on the path of believing that nature was higher than science and that nature provided what we needed. Then I got pregnant.
Doh Driver and her son
It was 1998. I was living in Germany, single, and working as a waitress. I did like any "smart" person would: I did my research! I read articles, books and blogs that were "for" and against vaccines. I put "for" in quotes because I thought I was giving both sides a fair vetting. I didn't realize that I was already so biased that the Ask Jeeves results I clicked on (hey now, Google was born in 1998) merely perpetuated the bias. I read that kids are given a lot more vaccines now, and in several doses over time. Their immature immune systems surely couldn't handle the onslaught! Nowhere did I read that often the vaccines were covalent, and worked together to make the immune system stronger.
While herd immunity was great – and I cared about other people's children – I felt protecting my child from the side effects of vaccines was my primary job. After all, my child was healthy, so if he did get a vaccine-preventable illness, he could easily be cured in this day and age. I read a book from the author of "Mothering" magazine (very alternative-leaning) that purported to be a balanced look at vaccines. It was not overtly anti-vax but was definitely just biased enough to cast doubt. The main takeaways I got were:
If you don't vaccinate, your kid may never be exposed to the illness, but if you do, your kid will be exposed to the virus.
An injection is an unnatural way to introduce a virus, bypassing the protective elements of the immune system, the nose or skin barrier, and too direct of an assault on the immune system.
And in a nutshell: too many, too soon, with too many unnecessary ingredients, and not enough research.
The vaccine-preventable illness was not that serious anymore; western medicine was designed for treating these things.
I travelled further along this path of believing anything natural is better. I became a yoga instructor. When my thyroid went haywire after I gave birth, I "healed" myself from hyperthyroidism with nutrition, or so I imagined. An endocrinologist told me it would normalize on its own, and it did, but I took credit for it. I read a lot about natural cures for everything, and alternative medicine became my new cause. I started working at Whole Foods Market and worked my way up to Team Leader of the Whole Body department – the vitamins and supplements section. I went to naturopaths and chiropractors, tried modalities such as Applied Kinesiology and Homeopathy, and was whole-heartedly anti-GMO and pro-organic, to boot. Customers and yoga students would rave about my ability to help them with everything from Sick House Syndrome to muscle spasms! I started to see myself as something of an intuitive healer. Not that I was special: anyone who had done their research, as I had, could do the same!
Cracks Began To Appear
Confidently anti-vaccine at that point, I took my son to visit kids with chickenpox so he would gain "natural" immunity. It worked: he got a solid case of chickenpox. Only a few months later, I learned I had all but guaranteed he'll get shingles as an adult. Even when young, healthy kids were dying of the flu (maybe around 2012?) and a fellow non-vaccinating mom asked if that made me nervous, I confidently chirped "nope!" But that wasn't entirely true – I was starting to get worried. A super-healthy teen died. That got to me.
My faith was starting to crack; appeals to my intelligence were a big part of that. I'd been vegan since before I was anti-vax. Some pro-science vegans were beginning to make a noise about how infuriating it was that vegans were often so stubbornly anti-science and were equating veganism with woo. I didn't see myself as anti-science – after all, I believed in climate science! I had done my research, and there just wasn't enough research on some of these vaccines! I could justify my anti-vax beliefs as solid. But I was slowly being exposed to pro-science arguments. Wanting to stay on top of the news, I was also being exposed to the truth about childhood diseases and the dangers of the flu. At the same time, I was letting go of some of my identity as a crunchy mom. Little bits of news with little bits of science made their way across my computer.
The rise of the pro-vaccine movement helped because it made the research more accessible. Links to studies were often attached to articles and blogs, so I could see the research I previously didn't have access to. Facebook also helped! Friends I trusted would share pro-vaccine articles or news of children dying of the flu.
Breaking free
The big a-ha moment was when I realized that anti-vaxxers were as anti-science as climate change deniers. I was arguing (probably on Facebook) that climate scientists were the experts; we didn't have to know the science ourselves to believe them. And suddenly I made the connection.
I wanted to be seen as pro-science, in part so I could better advocate for veganism as having solid science behind it. Around the same time, I read a blog about anti-vaccine people and all the commenters on the blog were so angry at anti-vaxxers, and I wondered, "why are they so angry? We're not hurting anyone." It made me look deeper: are we hurting anyone? Am I?
From there, everything I'd believed began to crumble under the weight of evidence.
I got my son and myself fully vaccinated. I regret the damage I've done both to my son, and to anyone I hurt spreading my ignorance. Now I see it as my penance to engage with anti-vaxxers on the internet and promote scientific understanding of vaccines.
– Doh Driver