Talking to Your Familiar Anti-Vaxxer

“The knotted Tourniquet,” digital print, 20 x 20 inches [48 x 27 cm], 2021. Edition of 5.

I just had an unintended but ultimately decent conversation with a friend who’s an anti-vaxxer. The conversation ended with his interest in potentially receiving a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. We’ll see.

I know a few anti-vaxxers; my mother has increasingly become anti-vax, and spends a lot of time reading, listening and buying things from “Dr.” Mercola. To some degree, I’ve given up trying to persuade her, but I haven’t stopped thinking and wondering about her mentality, train of thoughts, conspiracy theories in general, and her disposition has sparked my invention of clever, but ultimately unsuccessful arguments, about, against, and in light of conspiracy thinking. Here are few arguments that should have but didn’t persuade her:

1. Her argument against vaccines is based on her appeal to some scientific ideas and methods. For example, she’ll reference articles, experiments and data that shows vaccines are dangerous. Yet, if she has a belief in science, why doesn’t she also believe the science supporting vaccines? Conspiracy theories are partially about facts and data, but not fully, or, to a lesser extent than “better scientific theories.”
2. She aided me in getting my vaccines as a child, what’s changed in her life? Medical knowledge, biotech and vaccines have evolved, they should only be better. Conspiracy theories include power and responsibility.
3. If the scientists had the knowledge to develop SARS-CoV-2 in a lab in Wuhan, and the pandemic is a conspiracy by the biomedical industry for us to buy their vaccines, then isn’t the technology to vaccinate equally plausible to be created in a lab, and doesn’t the cynical view of financial motivation work only if the products are effective in mitigating mortality? Conspiracy theories are legion. (And yes, her conspiracies run deep.)

A few weeks later I was in a conversation with a friend about the pandemic and he raised his suspicion about the vaccines and I wasn’t really prepared. I hadn’t done much research, I hadn’t memorized the definitions of how each vaccine worked, but I had a general idea that you had to get two shots, and that the Pfizer and Moderna were somehow novel vaccinations, involving messenger RNA. I don’t actually know much about RNA, only that’s not DNA. I’m a scientist. But I was ready to be hospitable to the idea that there was some degree of uncertainty in all of the vaccines, and pretty much let my friend express his apprehension. The conversation ended.

A week later, NYC opened up the eligibility of vaccines to include me and first I thought, “meh, do I need to do that? “ I had had, what I believe to be SARS-COV-2 in March, 2020, and don’t have any comorbidities. I’m 38. Healthy, and just coming down from two decades of feeling invincible. But I realized that some of the skepticism that my friend had shared had found its way into my thinking.

Look, I’m not an anti-vaxxer: I get flu vaccines, I get shots for traveling to exotic places, but there were a number of things that made me pause in pursuing the SARS-COV-2 vaccine.

1. Locating a place with available time slots was challenging. There were almost too many options in vaccine sites, but too few time slots at sites near me. (Surprise, I live in the most densely populated city in North America.) Someone put Amazon in charge of this, and have a one-click button to get your vaccine.
2. Planning for the first shot was challenging, but the second shot was exponentially more daunting. Wait, I have to know my schedule in a month? Oh yeah, and “don’t get the first if you can’t get the second.” Makes sense, but spring is here, and I’m hoping to travel. (I know, there’s a pandemic going on, but have you seen plane ticket prices?)
3. Signing up on the NYC website was not easy. Slots opened and closed as users took slots. How about giving each user a 30 second countdown to choose a slot? Someone put Eventbrite in charge of vaccine sign up.
4. The design of NYC websites reflects 1990s web design. It kills morale. I’m sure Apple could design an app that works better, looks better, and has an element of status about the whole thing.
5. Again, I don’t harbor an urgency to get vaccinated. I’m enjoying working remotely.

Why did I ultimately sign up to get vaccinated this Friday?

Well, the next conversation with my friend followed a talk with my mother, who expressed less suspicion about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which gave me some insight into my friend’s perspective. The key phrase for her, and him, was ‘gene therapy.’ (Ironically both my mother and my friend practice some amount of over-the-counter gene therapy.) For me, the single shot was much easier to fit into my schedule, even though the efficacy was 30% lower. Yes, I realize I conceded a 30% greater chance of dying in a pandemic because my calendar rules my life.

I learned the J&J was being administered regularly in Syracuse, at the New York State Fairgrounds. I contacted my friend and posed the idea: drive up there together. We began conspiring to drive 4 hours north to Syracuse to get the Johnson & Johnson and then drive back. There were a few appeals here.

1. It was somehow easier for two people to plan an 8-hour drive on a Sunday, out of the city, than two people to sign up for two separate 2-hour commitments of going somewhere in the city, getting a shot, going home.
2. We were doing it together. Misery loves company.
3. We were making a “trip” of it.

Ultimately, the plan died because all of the availability filled up. See above obstacles of signing up for the vaccine. But I was still checking the http://InformationSuperHighwayOfNYC.net, 1995 website for vaccines and the J&J came up as being available in the Bronx, where I live. So I signed, happy to not have to spend a Sunday doing it, and I could get the shot prior to any travel plans. Thank you Bill deBlasio, Andrew Cuomo and Joe Biden.

I got an appointment and then called my friend, who was still hesitant, having read statnews. It should be noted that STATnews is a rigorously scientific medical journalism site; this isn’t a conspiracy theory or off-the-cuff editorial. I think of these authors as essentially scientists who know how to write for plebians. However, this is to say that through my friend’s scope of skepticism, even mainstream medical journalism can coax fears. The author, Helen Branswell, explains the different vaccine technologies in the Pfizer, Moderna and J&J vaccines. But in the conversation with my friend, it boiled down to one target paragraph.

The J&J vaccine uses a different approach to instruct human cells to make the SARS-2 spike protein, which then triggers an immune response. It is what’s known as a viral vectored vaccine. A harmless adenovirus — from a large family of viruses, some of which cause common colds — has been engineered to carry the genetic code for the SARS-2 spike protein. Once the adenovirus enters cells, they use that code to make spike proteins. J&J employed this same approach to make an Ebola vaccine that has been authorized for use by the European Medicines Agency.

Specifically questionable to my friend was “instruct human cells to make the SARS-2 spike protein.” I read this as, “your immune system learns to identify and respond to SARS-COV-2,” in the same way the flu vaccine functions. Admittedly, I don’t fully understand vaccinology; I’m aware of antibodies. My understanding of immunology is limited to allergies and AIDS. This sentence by Branswell didn’t give me pause.

But for my friend “instruct” equated to a different method of gene therapy. I’m not sure if he’s correct or not, but he didn’t like the verb “instruct.” However, what ultimately confronted this verbiage was the closing sentence, “J&J employed this same approach to make an Ebola vaccine that has been authorized for use by the European Medicines Agency,” which I’ll get to in a moment.

The arc of our conversation, which motivated me to write this, was essentially commiserating about the uncertainty of what the target paragraph meant and/or implied, which gave us both a moment to express our lack of expertise on this topic. Then my friend started talking about his skepticism in general. And I think this is when many pro-vaxxers go on the attack. Instead, I joined him in expressing my skepticism in an unrelated topic: environmental pollution, specifically the absence of pharmacological filters in the wastewater treatment plants in New York City, which is a topic that I have above-average knowledge on, even though I’m an amateur environmentalist. But the environment and its degradation is a topic for which we share passion. I bombarded him with the number of wastewater treatment plants, the stages of processing, the Egg processors in Greenpoint, the fallacy of dilution is the solution to pollution, and the conflict of interest that our elected officials have in portraying US drink water as ‘safe,’ ‘sufficient’ or even ‘clean.’ In hindsight, I imagine what my friend heard is, ‘yes, politicians are not always honest.” (I was conflicted about including ‘always’ in the previous sentence next to ‘honest,’ as together the phrase lands somewhere between oxymoronic and redundant in the company of ‘politicians.’)

I knowingly introduced the idea of a cost-benefit analysis of not/getting the jab, specifically the likelihood of social and commercial segregation, beyond the political separation on the topic of anti-/vaccines. My point was the impending stigma of not getting a CoV-vaccine, and I expect the efficacy of this argument may whither outside of areas where majorities are pro-vaxxers. But my statement, which I believe to be true, “The amount of capital going into this vaccination campaign, as well as the high-probability that Covid will be seasonal, means this vaccination infrastructure will be permanent, and you won’t be able to travel, or even go to concerts, without having one of these vaccine passports,” seemed to give him pause.

I followed the point with this thought experiment:

“If you’re waiting to see the side effects of these novel vaccines, you have to ask yourself, when is the threshold by which you’ve completed your test? A year? Five years? Because while you’re conducting your citizen science, you’re going to be moving further into a segregated class.”

And this is when the J&J clicked for him, specifically the last sentence of the target paragraph, “J&J employed this same approach to make an Ebola vaccine,” to which he said, “Well, I guess the Ebola thing was five years ago, and no one is melting from that vaccine.” (It was actually seven years ago.) So his citizen science was already conducted for him.

Ok, the moral of the story, and I hope this has been useful for you in talking to your loved ones about the SARS-COV-2 vaccines.

1. You can’t hit someone over the head and persuade them to get vaccinated. If that worked, a vaccine would be administered by a bat, not a needle.
2. Don’t try to persuade your loved ones through a single conversation. They’re likely reading about vaccines, and reinforcing their ideas, on a regular basis.
3. Talk to parallel anti-vaxxers and get ideas from them about terminology to use. Speak their language.
4. Try getting vaccinated together. Make it a fun event.
5. Recognize that everyone has skepticism, lean into your own skepticism, and become an ally. (If you think you don’t have skepticism, please send me an email and I’ll point yours out for you.)
6. It’s ok, even beneficial, to say, “Yeah, I don’t know,” because that allows your interlocutors to say the same.