LOL! This story tells you exactly how to break an anti-vax parent. It was posted in response to this question posed on r/AskReddit, the place to ask and answer thought-provoking questions: “Doctors of Reddit, what are some of your anti-vax parent stories?”
(via: Imgur)
Ahh; the “If you can’t beat ’em, co-opt ’em” approach.
Terry Pratchett wrote a similar trick into the Discworld books, where the young witch Tiffany Aching is being educated in the profession by her superiors. When she protests that they lied to the people involved, the training witch (Esme Weatherwax herself) says the equivalent of “If you’d told ’em the truth, they wouldn’t have understood it – much less believed it and acted upon it. But with this lie, they’ll do the right thing AND pat us both on the back for our occult wisdom. Don’t let pride and truth get in the way of just results.”
I applaud this doctor for having learned the trick, and having sufficient interest in results over professional pride to get the job done by deception when doing it by truth proved impossible. It’s the results that matter; and a person lost in the world of conspircy theories is never going to even listen to the truth, much less believe it and act upon it. So the lie that triggers their conspiracy-driven minds into co-operation with something that will likely save their kids’ lives… makes a damn fine tool in the circumstances.