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Impossible expectations: We should not accept anything that is less than 100% effective
Epistemic relativism, or “the subjectivity of how knowledge is determined”, is a philosophical view that social conventions determine scientific facts. In this viewpoint, facts are subjective and based on historical context, social and cultural norms, and individual standards. From this perspective, there is no objective knowledge. Several forms of epistemic relativism have been linked with vaccine opposition.
For some people, relativism implies that scientific evidence and subjective experiences are equally valuable in generating knowledge, or that personal experiences outweigh evidence. Common expressions of extreme relativism include:
This theme includes fallacies like:
Arguments claim that isolated observations are good evidence or ways to attain good evidence.
It is normal to have questions and doubts about medical treatments and how they might affect us. Everyone would like medical treatments to be effective for all people and under all conditions. Vaccines, like any other medical product, cannot be guaranteed to be 100% safe and effective. Sometimes uncertainty is difficult to deal with, and fear or aversion is perfectly understandable.
Dialogue between patients and healthcare professionals is most productive if it is guided by empathy, and an opportunity for the patient to affirm the reasons underlying their attitudes and to express understanding for that. That’s why it is important to understand the attitude roots behind people’s overt opinions. To affirm a person’s underlying attitude root does not mean we need to agree with the specifics of their argument. For example, we can acknowledge that:
It is normal to have questions and doubts about medical treatments and how they might affect us. Everyone would like medical treatments to be effective for all people and under all conditions. Vaccines, like any other medical product, cannot be guaranteed to be 100% safe and effective. Sometimes uncertainty is difficult to deal with, and fear or aversion is perfectly understandable.
If we wait until we have 100% proof that something is safe, we will never do anything in life. Imagine if we refused to get in a car unless the driver could prove 100% that we would not have an accident.
Although vaccines are not 100% effective, their benefits still far outweigh their potential adverse effects. Similarly, many other treatments we take for granted are also not 100% effective (e.g., when we take Ibuprofen for a headache), but we have a good enough belief that it will help.
Almost nothing in this life is 100% certain and the fear of severe side effects can lead to seeing connections, such as between vaccinations and extremely rare events, that do not exist. However, public health organ and independent researchers have very reliable monitoring systems to track all potential side effects of vaccinations, using very powerful statistics and taking into account many potential causes.
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