The outbreak of measles in Ukraine is bad news, writes Viktor Tregubov in the column on "Peter and Mazeppa".

Flash (anti) vaccine discourse in hysterical tones - perhaps even worse. With measles, we have had problems before in history. They can be solved by vaccination. But what to do with the unwillingness or unwillingness to vaccinate children is a more difficult question.

Let's separate the seeds from the chaff. And let's look at the objective and subjective part of our problems with vaccinations.

OBJECTIVE The author of these lines would like to write that all vaccination problems in Ukraine are associated exclusively with complexes and chimeras in the minds of people. That the state simply can and should somehow push these complexes of their own and force them to vaccinate themselves and vaccinate their children - not by washing or by rolling. But it would be untrue: problems with vaccinations in Ukraine objectively exist. And before stigmatizing irrational "anti-vaccination", one should mention them.

In general, there are two approaches to the issue of vaccination.

Let's say that we decided that this is a private matter for everyone, and neither the state nor the society has the right not to press, not to stimulate. But this brings a dangerous resemblance to the Ukrainian elections in the formation of collective immunity. Behind this pluralism risks the resurgence of diseases in Ukraine that our parents did not remember.

Well, let's start from the other side. Let's say that we decided that the collective immunity of citizens is a matter of national security. And, as in all matters of national security, the state can take away some of the people's personal freedom from people, somehow insisting on vaccinations.

But this is a double-edged sword: requiring the citizens to follow the vaccination calendar, the state, in turn, must guarantee three things:.

availability of vaccines;.

reliability of vaccines;.

correctness of their application - correct examinations and medical procedures.

Thus, in order to require a citizen to be vaccinated, the state must give him something to eat and answer for his head with his head.

Can our state now give such guarantees?.

The last few years - could not. We receive vaccines through UNICEF and UNDP, but so far this scheme has been built - there have been delays in the supply of vaccines for several years in a row. As well as there were questions to quality - with centralized deliveries not to a wide choice in the domestic market. And questions about medical care in our country from the agenda and did not go away.

Thus, even if we recognize that the state as a whole has the right to demand from citizens to be vaccinated, we will also have to admit that before such a demand, Ukraine must prove to its own citizens that it can arrange it.

While there are no such guarantees, until a system of trust in the state is built on this issue, we can not deny that among the opponents of vaccinations there are people guided by rational considerations. Although it is hardly worthwhile to deceive ourselves by the fact that they constitute the majority there.

SUBJECTIVE Of course, there are people who do not get vaccinated because they do not want to, but because they are not sure of the quality of vaccines available. For which it is not about "doing" or "not doing", but about how to do it optimally.

But what is said below applies to those who choose not to do. And either uses arguments from the list above as an excuse, or even talks about "vaccinations that cause autism". These people are very interesting to the author of these lines - from the scientific point of view. Almost like some Russian citizens, you know: it would be good to study them, but it's better from another planet.

The fact is that in anti-vaccination hysteria the list of phobias and cognitive distortions inherent in our century. On her one you can study the question "why a modern person - practically regardless of experience, status and education - is deeply irrational". If it were not, it would be worth it to model.

Let's count.

Why are people afraid to vaccinate their own children?.

The key mental experiment that will enable us to understand this is the problem of the trolley. Usually it is formulated as follows:.

Different ethical systems give different answers to what needs to be done in this situation. The so-called utilitarian ethic dictates: it is necessary to save the greatest number of lives, hence, the arrow must be switched. The so-called deontological ethics asserts that by switching, you will be a murderer, but if you get rid of it, then there is no blood on your hands.

We reformulate the conditions:.

From the point of view of utilitarian ethics, it is clear that one must instill. It's rational. You increase the child's chances of survival. What is illogical?.

I have bad news for you. Studies related to the problem of the trolley show that a significant proportion of people choose the deontological approach. In the case of a trolley, it's better to move five, but my hands will be as clean as possible. In the case of vaccination - the fear that you kill your own child with your own hands, eclipses any pragmatic risk assessments.

Yes, it's him, darling - fear of responsibility. One of the most powerful fears, especially in our age of overwhelming infantilism.

I have more bad news. This choice is often instinctive, prejudiced. Reason is connected at the stage of explanation of the decision, and not at the stage of its adoption. There are reasons to believe that many of the people who in the "paper" situation would have decided to pull the arrow, in reality could not do it.

Here is this cry, "Do you have children?", Which is thrown at you in all these pogruvyvvivochnyh disputes - is a symptom. This is an attempt to cause you - through empathy - the same fear that in these people overpowered all rational considerations.

It is this - the root error of the whole anti-vaccination hysteria, all of its semblance essence. But on it miraculously dozens of others.

For example, the same logical error that generates stories about how a person healed homeopathy. It has been known since the time of Ancient Rome, where it was called "post hoc, ergo propter hoc". In Russian sounds clumsily - "after - hence, because of".

In fact - does not mean. The fact that after you quarreled with Marvanova, you fell and broke your leg, does not mean that Marvanna is a witch and you have jinxed. This means that you need to look under your feet. The fact that after you ate a tomato, you have a runny nose, does not mean that the cold is caused by a tomato. The fact that your cold has gone after you drank water does not mean that you were cured by water. Even if the water was properly packaged and signed in Latin words. Or charged by Alan Chumak.

The phrase "I do not care what statistics say there!" A personal example is important! "Is the second evidence that you are communicating with a person at the wrong end. I mean, he answers it with your mouth, but it's inspired by a very different place. His rationality is not inferior to stupidity, but to fear.

But why are there so many of them? And not only here, but also in more prosperous countries? Why are these not some freaks, but whole communities, large enough to become a threat to collective immunity?.

Why do viruses become more dangerous than viruses?.

And this, my friends, features of information exchange at the beginning of the 21st century.

Let's start with the fact that mass information is focused on sensationalism. How do you headline "Mass vaccinations significantly reduced child mortality - WHO"? Coming? And let's compare it with the news "BOY DESTROYED AFTER WHUTS BETWEEN BCG!" Let's think together, which information has more chances for mass success?.

We will analyze an example of a separate myslevirus: the statements "vaccinations cause autism".

In 1998, the medical journal The Lancet published an article by British author Andrew Wakefield on the relationship between the vaccination of the MMR vaccine (complex, against measles, mumps and rubella) and autism. The article evokes a wide response, but it soon turns out that the research was, consciously or not, carried out so carelessly that it can not be considered relevant. Moreover, there are justifiable suspicions of the bias of Wakefield himself, who patented his own measles vaccine. The article is withdrawn from the "Lancet". Wakefield denied license.

But the thoughtboy already walks.

I would like to emphasize an interesting detail: Wakefield was not an anti-vaccine. He insisted on the harm of one particular complex vaccine, suggesting instead use monovaccines - including one of his own development.

But already do not care.

This thought-virus of British origin merged in ecstasy with another, American, originated independently of him a little earlier - that autism in children arises from vaccinations with vaccines containing as a preservative thimerosal. With the Wakefield case, this does not overlap at all - it was about quite different vaccines, and there were not even questionable clinical confirmations. It ended up in the vaccines for children simply replaced thimerosal with other preservatives - they say, the very case when it is easier to replace than to argue.

Did not help. The most powerful ligament was formed: Inoculations. Cause. Autism. It does not matter even what vaccinations. Phobias do not need rational justification.

- But ... - someone will say. - But I have a friend of my acquaintance who had a child vaccinated and found an autism ... And then we return to "after - does not mean due to". It is even more probable that this child, prior to diagnosing autism, was drinking milk - but that does not mean that milk was the cause. Just myslevirus "milk causes autism" does not exist, but the thought-virus "vaccinations cause autism" successfully skipped the planet. None of the serious studies with any large sample did not record a relationship of autism in children with vaccinations. Which in no way sweeps aside the fact that there are autists who were once vaccinated.

As well as autistics, to whom they have never been made.

Finally, there is a third factor.

The author of these lines is always very, very funny when he hears the phrase "In the twenty-first century ..." in the meaning "in our advanced modernity, among the triumph of rational thinking, when spaceships plow the Bolshoi Theater". Because just in this our modernity irrational ideas are technically simpler to spread than before. Because their supporters can get into a pack.

The Internet is a great thing that allows even socialists of the Flat Earth Society to socialize. Which allows to unite around any, even the most absurd theories. To maintain one's own convictions, one needs a society of like-minded people - and if there were problems with that before, now we have social networks. In which you can go out and make sure that you are not the only one such city madman.

One cognitive distortion overlaps the other, one phobia strengthens the other, and technological progress allows everyone to create their own club of anonymous anti-vaccination. However, why anonymous - proud, open, carrying their banner and fighting for their rights.

REAL This is bad, yes. But we live with this.

Specifically, our country - to decide the issue of providing quality vaccines. To build a system of "availability-quality-correctness". Restore confidence in the health system, if only for those who approach the issue rationally. And to do this at a very accelerated pace - this trust we need literally "for yesterday".

The whole world - to think out what to do with those who approach the question irrationally. Running the opposite mysleviruses? To make people afraid of inaction more than actions? Discriminate? Stimulate?.

I'm afraid these questions will not be answered for a long time.

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