The Vaccine to the Anti-Vax Movement

Measles has made a comeback. According to the Washington Post, the number of measles cases in just the first three months of 2019 is the highest it’s been in 27 years.[1] So it’s no wonder that people are particularly outraged with Anti-Vaxxers as of late. The outrage directed at Anti-Vaxxers has grown so much that Facebook has vowed to eliminate anti-vaccine propaganda.[2]

I find it morbidly fascinating that the anti-vaccination movement has managed to grow so big that it’s opened the doors for deadly diseases like measles to make a comeback. Think about it in a vacuum. What could possibly turn someone anti-vaccine? It’s a ludicrous stance to have. Who would believe such a thing? Well, it’s been shown that the primary demographic of the anti-vax movement is composed of young mothers and fathers, people who received minimal or no college education, and the financially complacent.[3] It’s almost as if this anti-vaccination propaganda is a disease in of itself (a mental/moral one) that preys on overly-cautious individuals with anti-intellectual sensibilities and spreads like wild-fire throughout misinformed communities.

Given the inherently irrational nature of the anti-vaxxer movement, I don’t think it’s appropriate to just model this problem as some sort of social contagion. That would imply that the individuals who buy into the cause are choosing to do so. If I had to speculate, I’d wager that new parents are protective of their children and are much more vulnerable to fear-mongering than typical people. Uneducated people are less likely to question anti-vax propaganda when they’re exposed to it. Financially complacent parents have few real threats to protect their children from so they’re more likely to become protective over the wrong things, namely vaccines. Furthermore, if you’re not a member of one of these demographics, then you’d probably be able to better assess the issue in your head, and you’re probably more likely to consider outside sources if you aren’t sure.

This can be modeled by an adjusted version of the SIR epidemic model. We could say that the majority of Americans are susceptible to becoming anti-vaxxers, but still, only a minority of Americans have been infected by the anti-vax movement. Once an individual has been exposed to their propaganda, if they choose to move on with their life then they are removed. This makes sense because somebody who doesn’t respond to the propaganda is less likely to associate with the anti-vaxxers anyway, leading to the anti-vax communities becoming more insular overtime, perpetuating misinformation amongst each other.

Another way that the SIR model comes in handy is by modeling the types of relationships that lead to new infections. We can assign a p_v,w to any pair of people v and w where higher values of p_v,w correspond to a close relationship and more likely contagion, whereas lower values of p_v,w correspond to a shallow relationship and less likely contagion. From this we can gather that two close friends are more likely to share the same stance on vaccination than they would if they were just shallow acquaintances. Furthermore, someone is probably less likely to become friends with an anti-vaxxer if that person is decidedly not an anti-vaxxer.

This model shows us that the way to win the battle against anti-vaxxers is by removing as many nodes from the network as possible by exposing them to the virus (the anti-vax movement) in small doses. This way, individuals are only ever infected in a controlled environment where they can fight off the virus and become immune. It’s reasonable to assume that once someone has thought rationally about the anti-vax issue and seen the evidence that vaccines do not cause autism or anything else, that person will never be able to go back on their understanding.

So, what’s the vaccine for the anti-vaccination movement? Well, we need to expose people to the anti-vaccination movement before the anti-vaxxers get to them so that we can control the narrative. We need to teach people why the anti-vaxxers are wrong about vaccines early on so that they are immune to the propaganda. We can’t ignore the anti-vaxxers. We can’t just brush them off and pretend they’re irrelevant. We need to fight the movement like we would fight a disease: with a vaccine.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/03/08/is-shaping-up-be-worst-year-measles-since-cdc-data-show/?utm_term=.573fc5bed63e

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/07/facebook-says-it-will-take-action-against-anti-vax-content-heres-how-they-plan-do-it/?utm_term=.067c19b3abec

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28926775