Are you trying to prove to your friend that there is not even a molecule of the active substance in homeopathic balls? Fighting with your mom who spent all her money on magic crystals? We will help…
Deadly Vaccines and Other Myths: How to Treat Alternative Medicine
Are you trying to prove to your friend that there is not even a molecule of the active substance in homeopathic balls? Fighting with your mom who spent all her money on magic crystals? We will help to convince those who do not vaccinate their children, are afraid to eat GM foods and live according to the precepts of Gennady Malakhov.
Do I need to convince an adherent of alternative medicine
Is it ethical to impose on people your point of view on medicine and the structure of the world in general? On the one hand, how to deal with your health is a personal matter for everyone. The same as the choice of clothes, music and political views. On the other hand, the refusal to vaccinate leads to the death of children who did not have time to be vaccinated. And buying a miracle device for osteochondrosis, insomnia and atherosclerosis can eventually cost savings.
Video instruction "How not to talk to a person of anti-scientific views"
“Trying to convince, you can deprive a person of a very important thing for him,” says pediatrician Anna Sonkina, a member of the European Association for Health Communication. “He's on a drug that by definition can't work, and he's got a great placebo effect. Without this dummy, a person can get sick longer and harder.” In other words, you need to think several times before you seriously take on the task of persuading a person whose main argument is “it helps me.”
There are other circumstances in which persistent advice to abandon alternative medicine is undesirable. “I know in what situation I will never dissuade,” says Anna Sonkina. – When ineffective herbs are treated incurable patients who do not argue with the fact that they are incurable. They say: "We will drink this weed, because, well, all of a sudden." Another situation is when it is necessary to convince them: our heroes not only drink weed, but also put great hope into this self-treatment. And then it’s not the weed itself that causes harm, but the fact that they are less able to prepare for the future. ”
The “safe” category includes situations when a person understands everything, but cannot do anything, then there is no point in arguing with him either, if the chosen treatment is not harmful. For example, kerosene, fly agaric, starvation can worsen a person’s condition, then you need to refer a person to a doctor, whose direct duty is to explain how not to harm himself.
When do you need to persuade? When a person refuses effective treatment in favor of an alternative and thereby harms himself, the child or others.Sonkina recommends in this case to find a good doctor, since he has more chances to find the right words. “But even for doctors, who are by definition experts in the field of medicine, it is very difficult to convince some people, to explain to them that vaccinations help, and homeopathy is ineffective.”
How to convince
You show graphs that prove the benefits of vaccines, refer to a large study in which homeopathy has not proven its effectiveness in any way, but a person still goes to the pharmacy for Oscillococcinum at the first sign of a cold and does not vaccinate his child. How to act? Doctors and psychologists advise starting conversations about a scientific approach to various things even before a person began to firmly believe in the power of bioresonance therapy and refuse pasteurized milk. It has been established that when deciding to vaccinate their child, almost all parents are very attentive to the opinions of others. In other words, friends and family play an important role in whether a child gets vaccinated. Parents listen to the opinion of the pediatrician less often.
How to talk to doubters
Most people do not take radical positions on health issues, so they doubt. It is difficult for an unprepared person to separate scientific information from pseudoscientific information. “Anyone can fall under aggressive propaganda,” says Sonkina. For example, the anti-vaccine movement. I specifically went to a lecture by Galina Chervonskaya (an Orthodox virologist without a scientific degree, advocates a complete rejection of vaccinations, including diphtheria and typhoid fever, publishes books in the style of “Vaccination of Death”, is popular on the forums of dumbfounded expectant mothers, earns from seminars. – Approx. ed.). The signs of propaganda were obvious: the facts were rigged, much was left unsaid, there was a play on sore points (anti-Western sentiments in the country? excellent, it's time to say that the West wants to poison us with its vaccines). I know a lot of doctors who swallowed it."
How to talk to those who drink energized water and eat homeopathic garlic:
“People are most often sincerely mistaken,” explains Anna Sonkina. “They really worry about their child, they don’t want him to have autism (the site “What vaccinations lead to autism” gives a detailed answer to this question). To convince a person, you need to understand what exactly he is afraid of. Sometimes it is even possible to get to the bottom of the main reasons. “That nonsense again” and any similar phrases are not the best way to start a conversation. “I have thoughts on this. If you want, let's talk, ”is a much better option. “You need to start from the picture of the world of the person you are trying to convince. Any other way creates a confrontation in which all arguments fly past, ”explains Sonkina.
Connect emotions and tell about your experience
"It is very important to deal with a conversation in the emotional vein," says the pediatrician, director of the educational center of the Vaccitone Education of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (USA) Paul Ofphit. – I usually tell parents who abandoned vaccination: "Do not put me in a position when I accompany your child from the office to a more dangerous world than could. I know how risk his life is exposed, and I can't take care of him as I have to. "
Be theoretically savings
Usually talk about homeopathy, vaccinations, GMOs and "any chemistry" template. All arguments, counterarguments and counterparts, by and large, are known. Therefore, before the appropriate conversation, it is better to refresh my knowledge and read the works of famous popularizers of science and in general news on the topic. For example, not so long ago, homeopaths were caught on the fact that they put antibiotics in their drugs and do not prevent anyone (and the penicillin can, by the way, a serious allergic reaction).
In the scientific journal Pediatrics, a study was published in which parents, in different ways relating to the vaccinations, were told about vaccination with four ways. The first group gave the text that the risk is sick, rubella and a lead after the appropriate vaccination decreases. The second group was told by the awesome history of a woman whose son was infected with measles, slightly with a temperature of 41 ° C and almost died. The third group showed photos of children sick cruise. The fourth – they talked about significant scientific evidence, refuting the connection of vaccination and autism. As a result, nothing has affected the parents who are negatively related to vaccination. Moreover, the second and third approaches strengthened their anti-recreational moods.
It is not necessary to put the facts and grind the shortcomings of the scientific approach. How, for example, talk about the risk of side effects from vaccines? "I always start with the fact that there are always risks," says Anna Sonykina. "That would be a way to wave a magic wand and say:" Your child never sick with polio, "it would be great. But we have no such ways, we can only say: the probability of getting sick after vaccination, and before that there was such something. "
Why do people believe in homeopathy and dietary supplements? First, it is normal – to remember the hit and forget the misses. Secondly, placebo effect is very strong. Thirdly, completely different factors could affect the recovery: a cold, as it should be, was held in a week itself; The medicine with proven effectiveness was taken in parallel. If a person truly believes in conspiracy theories, it is very difficult to convince him. It has been established that people who think this way can believe in contradictory allegations. There is no logic.
Photo: Getty Images / Fotobank
How to talk to people who do not doubt
Paul Offit is very pessimistic about the persuasion of ardent supporters of anti-science theories: “I think I will not be able to convince 85 percent of those who are strongly against vaccines. They just think you're part of a drug conspiracy. In this case, I give up."
If a person is convinced of something, then he feels these views as part of his personality and in the future notices only confirmation of his innocence. Moreover, a person's point of view is sharpened if he has to defend it. Therefore, Brendan Nyan, professor of political science at Dartmouth College (USA), advises in a dispute to put forward theses that do not contradict the opponent's theses. For example, when advocating pasteurization of milk, emphasize that pasteurized milk has been protecting children from diseases for a hundred years.
Some things are very difficult to accept just psychologically. Are genetically modified foods safe? No, it can’t be, they even have a frightening name, and it’s better not to think about the production method at all. Scientific arguments are usually powerless here.
Karen Ernst, leader of the American parent movement Voices for Vaccines, has been in contact with parents who were staunch anti-vaxxers and now pro-vaccination. “According to these mothers,” says Karen, “they changed their views largely due to the fact that there were people around who cared for them, who regularly talked about the importance of vaccination.” A pediatrician can also be such an interlocutor, so you need to help your loved one immediately find a competent and patient doctor. In addition, judging by the stories of these women, not only conversations played a significant role, but also the books of the “correct” authors who turned out to be at hand in time.
How to communicate with the older generation, grandparents, who are convinced that mustard plasters and jars will save a child from a cold, and arthritis can be cured with urine therapy? “It is much more difficult to convince grandparents than younger people,” says Anna Sonkina. “People of the older generation remember the time when medicine was a craft, partly an art, where everything depended on the personality of the doctor, his experience. Now medicine is evidence-based, everything rests on research. This is a completely new, unfamiliar concept for them. There are many doctors who still do not understand what evidence-based medicine is. And it is even more difficult for an ordinary person.”
What should doctors do
How should doctors communicate with patients who are prone to anti-scientific views? It is important to be gentle and not judge. The doctor needs to know what herbs, dietary supplements a person takes for their own purposes: they can seriously affect the effectiveness of drugs prescribed by a doctor. Patients are usually afraid to speak, because they know that the doctor will be sharply opposed, so it is important to be more loyal and, if alternative medicine does not interfere with the real one, then reconcile.
It is also known that parents want to hear from the pediatrician a story about his own experience: “I vaccinate my children because I know that this way they are protected from serious illnesses.” It is useful to start a phrase with the words "Proven to work best …" Science still sometimes carries weight in the eyes of patients. The popularity of anti-science movements in Russia is largely due to the fact that their supporters sound much “louder” than people who advocate vaccines, GMOs, evidence-based medicine and common sense. Therefore, doctors are advised to encourage parents who approve of vaccination to be more active on the forums. Doctors themselves should also engage in education as much as possible, provide links to sites where there is reliable information, and recommend good popular science books.
One of the tactics used by some doctors is to deny admission to those who do not want to be vaccinated. The approach is, of course, controversial. On the one hand, this closes all the ways for dialogue, on the other hand, one of the parents may still change their mind, and other children sitting in line with the same pediatrician do not risk getting sick, for example, with measles.
What should journalists do
“If Congressional Republicans say the Earth is flat, the headline in The New York Times the next day will be: “Democrats and Republicans Cannot Agree on the Shape of the Earth,” these words of American screenwriter Aaron Sorkin well explain what is wrong with coverage of topics in which people with anti-scientific views are active.
“The mantra for journalists is balance,” says Paul Offit. But sometimes it is false. In philosophy, in politics, there can be two points of view. When we talk about science, it is either proven or not. It has been proven that vaccinations do not cause autism, so the equal mention of the position of a competent pediatrician and Wakefield is incorrect. Even 15 years ago, this story had two sides. Not today".
Nevertheless, journalists attract as experts not only scientists, but also activists without a medical education. For example, Jenny McCarthy, a reality TV star known for her anti-vaccination views, has stated that she graduated from Google University. However, this does not prevent anyone from asking her questions about vaccination.
One study found that false balance stories were even more dangerous than completely anti-scientific stories. This effect arises from the fact that it seems that the experts are really divided in their opinion. That is why journalists should be more careful in choosing the people they give the floor to. In short – just do not talk with Galina Chervonskaya, Irina Ermakova and other preachers of alternative medicine.