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Natural and holistic approaches, mainly those based on body’s natural immunity, are better
Some people will reject vaccinations based on unwarranted beliefs. For example, the claim that the body has a ‘natural healing potential’ or that ‘natural’ is always better. This may lead people to believe that suffering a ‘natural’ disease in order to achieve subsequent immunity is preferable to being vaccinated, which is the exact opposite of the actual risks.
Many adherents of ‘alternative medicine’ hold unwarranted beliefs and are sceptical of vaccinations.
Research has shown that these unwarranted beliefs are particularly shaped by ‘cognitive variables’, a psychological term which describes the ways in which people process information.
It is these cognitive variables that separate unwarranted beliefs from conspiracist beliefs, which is primarily influenced by perceived threat and emotional variables.
These cognitive variables include:
This theme advocates for the superiority of a natural/holistic approach to disease treatment and prevention and rejects vaccines on the basis that they or the immunity they produce are ‘unnatural’ or ‘poison’ that harms the body or interferes with natural immunity.
“Alternative” treatments that are being advocated include acquiring natural immunity against the disease, boosting one’s immune system and innate healing through healthy and organic lifestyles or CAM practices. Arguments often appeal to pseudo- or quasi-scientific terms such as ‘true molecular imprint’, ‘nosodes’, and ‘morphogenetics’ or alternative lifestyle values such as ‘organic’, ‘detox’, and ‘natural’.
Modern medicine would not be the same without natural remedies. The use of willow bark as a painkiller, for example, goes back some 3,500 years. It was precisely this bark that formed the basis for some of the most prescribed painkillers today. It would be downright foolish to ignore natural remedies when developing treatments. Many effective treatments in use today draw on nature in one way or another.
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:
Modern medicine would not be the same without natural remedies. The use of willow bark as a painkiller, for example, goes back some 3,500 years. It was precisely this bark that formed the basis for some of the most prescribed painkillers today. It would be downright foolish to ignore natural remedies when developing treatments. Many effective treatments in use today draw on nature in one way or another.
Vaccines have a longstanding record of effectiveness in boosting the body’s natural immune response, especially when it comes to dangerous diseases that our immune systems struggle with. Boosting our natural immune system is key to preventing severe illness and death.
For example, COVID-19 vaccinations have saved nearly half a million lives in less than a year through generating natural immune protection without suffering the full, and potentially very severe, symptoms of the disease. Vaccinations are thus our first line of defence for these diseases. Or to put it another way: vaccinations are nature at its best.
Additional information:
Academic references:
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