I recently had a troubling encounter with an old friend who, it turns out, is an anti-vaxxer. He lives in Germany, where anti-vaxxers are quite numerous. It brought home to me the desperate need for us to check the facts we are bombarded with on a daily basis, from our usual news media and especially from social media.
I don't know this friend all that well and have not been in touch with him for years. But when I saw him endorse the views on Facebook of a former professor and medical researcher at the University of Mainz, Dr. Sucharit Bhakti, now discredited by that institution, I wrote the friend to push him for evidence of his claim. What he came back with was a mere repetition of the doctor's assertions, no attempt to counter the counter-evidence I presented, and no apparent awareness that the counter-evidence was worthy of serious attention.
I made the effort to explain what anybody with a basic understanding of argumentation knows - that one can counter the internal coherence of an argument or one can question the authority of the person making the argument - but one cannot - as my friend was doing - judge an argument on the strength of one's prior convictions or by looking the source in the eyes and believing they are sincere.
When, after another couple of times going back and forth, I realized I was dealing with somebody who lacked this basic education (he is a university graduate, so this came as a surprise), I shut down the exchange.
This personal encounter jolted me and brought home the difficulty in countering the very real presence of a large amount of misinformation out there on Covid. I have no trouble understanding that politicians like Florida's governor DeSantis, or Texas's governor, Greg Abbott or its Attorney General, Ken Paxton are untrustworthy sources of information and not above making decisions harmful to the public if it serves their own interest. But when a doctor with academic credentials speaks out, I want to listen much more carefully. I believe they should be given a full hearing and one should make every effort to be sure one is on the right track when listening to arguments, both pro and con.
My friend Bill just forwarded me an article from Indiana about an anti-vaxxer doctor there making his case before a school board that it should disregard the guidelines of the CDC which advise quarantining, masking and social distancing and vaccinations. The doctor's name is Dan Stock. He identifies himself as a resident of McCordsville, Indiana (about six miles from the schoolboard meeting in Fortville) and is a family medicine specialist in Noblesville, all suburbs of Indianapolis.
One site claimed he was affiliated with Community Hospital South, in the south of the city. Another claims he has no hospital affiliation. A search for his name in the list of of the hospital's staff comes up empty and I have no information about his standing or reputation within the hospital or among his peer group, but I did find a posting by a Dr. Edward Nirenberg that trashes Dan Stock totally. Nirenberg sounds powerfully convincing to my layman's ears. On further investigation, however, it turns out that he is a blogger, not an official voice, so that brings us back to square one. More fog. More reflection on the relative importance of "an argument's internal logic" vs. "peer-group, or institutional authority" as a source of authenticity.
Here, if you are interested, is the position and approach of the CDC in their own words. I did find a video of Dr. Stock making the case for following the advice of one's family doctor and being suspicious of bureaucratic healthcare institutions and insurance carriers. He is a striking figure, both as a person and as a medical professional.
What brought me up short is the impression (I haven't gone through his arguments with a fine-tooth comb) that he is making virtually the same case that Dr. Bhakti, the German doctor is making, namely that vaccinations not only are not effective, but can actually trigger the immune system into furthering the disease. It's sobering to have this claim come at me from two different directions. And while it's easy to dismiss anything a Rand Paul or a Ted Cruz or a Rick DeSantis has to say, it's another thing to get up close on the medical front and hear from the horses' mouths the claims these politicians are basing their decisions on.
The article, which is put out by Indianapolis TV Station WTHR, provides an effort to check the facts of Dr. Stock's claims. It does so, and provides a refutation by another doctor, Dr. Gabriel T. Bosslet, who charges that Dr. Stock's claims are either misleading, lacking in context, or, in some cases, downright false. Here are Dr. Bosslet's credentials. Here, at least, we have what I take to be some serious credibility.
And here is the article, if you'd like to follow up on this news item. It's causing quite a stir.
I just listened to the entire hour and seventeen minute long school board meeting. It was packed with parents infuriated with the board's policy of contract tracing and quarantining, a policy the doctor on the board claimed was constricted by legal concerns. My impression was that the meeting illustrated the limitations of a democracy in a nutshell. Parents claimed, with considerable forcefulness, no doubt encouraged by the assertions of Dr. Stock, that the panel needed to "listen to parents" and not to the CDC and the (federal and local) institutes of health. The chief criticism of the CDC was that its recommendations were "all over the place," the implication being that inconsistency equals unreliability. Nobody brought up the obvious counterargument that the Covid pandemic is new and that agencies must of necessity make the best assessments of the situation at any given time, and that those assessments will change each time new information comes in. Much the same as science is the sum total of truth at any given point, and changes each time new information comes in to add to or correct what was once assumed to be true but plainly no longer is.
A moment's reflection leads me to the conviction that, while institutions like this school board are obligated to listen to the views of the community, particularly the views of the parents of the children they school, they must also not be swayed by passion masquerading as knowledge. Again - speaking of nutshells - this is knowledge in the era of social media and a culture of rights-over-responsibility and a lowering of critical thinking standards in favor of feel-good boosting of one another's self-confidence. Some of the parents' complaints would seem to have substance - the fact that home study materials are inadequate, for example, and the possibility that the quarantining policy may be overly cautious. But it is also very likely that these are policies that need adjusting, rather than rejection. More light is called for. More factual information.
It's tempting to just label anti-vaxxers as wackos. I'm naturally inclined to do that because the sources I follow (Anthony Fauci, who I came to trust and respect during the AIDS Crisis nearly forty years ago now comes first to mind) lead me in that direction. So that's my starting bias. But a bias should not be an impediment to investigation. It should be an impetus to commit to objectivity, reason, and sincerity - to overcome that bias, if called for.
I think there is no shortcut. We simply have to doggedly insist on fact-checking, insist on evidence, and question all sides broadly.
There are two viruses abroad in the land. No, not just "in the land" but globally. One is called Covid-19. The other could be labelled Misinformation and Gullibility. Both appear to be wide-spread and very dangerous indeed.
Fact-check. Fact-check. Fact-check.
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