mandryka
pfm Member
It's fascinating to observe how they casually discount the mainstream scientific evidence, but swallow wholesale any anti-vax propaganda, however dubious or discredited the source. It's the Michael Gove 'We've heard enough from experts' thing taken to its logical extreme; why trust someone who's been researching disease spread and containment for decades, when there's some snake-oil salesman with bizarre ideas he's just pulled out of thin air telling you 'it's all a con'?
Medics, scientists, may have lost the trust of some large groups. They may believe that the establishment scientific community is not necessarily working for their best interests, they’re working for the best interests of industry and government - which functions to oppress them rather than help them to flourish. This is the tone of many of the Anti vax videos I’ve seen, which try to use the historical record to support this distrust of science (for example Robert F Kennedy Jnr.’s film Medical Racism: The New Apartheid.)
Medical Racism: The New Apartheid - Medical Racism (childrenshealthdefense.org)
Add to this the fact that the pandemic has shown everyone how difficult it is to know which medics to trust, to separate the good guys from the less good - think Didier Raoult, the signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration.
And a third thing - I wouldn’t underestimate the influence of religion in some groups - who may trust traditional therapists more than scientists because of their faith in talismans, incantations and prayers, herbs and rituals.