[sofon]

There's been a breakdown in trust.

People who accept vaccination as good, do so because they trust the scientific and political institutions which have developed and tested those vaccinations. A relatively small number of people have actually done the scientific work to prove the effectiveness of vaccination themselves.

People who do not believe that vaccinations are effective/an overall good do not have trust in this scientific and political institutions. Perhaps because the system has failed them economically, educationally or otherwise.

[nhaehnle]

We have all been part of a massive real world experiment that shows a pretty obvious correlation between the introduction of vaccines and the reduction (and even elimination) of associated diseases.

Saying that a relatively small number of people have done the work to prove the effectiveness of vaccination is really disingenuous.

(Also, there's a pretty big difference between doubting an n=50 sociological study and deciding not to believe the very public historical record of global disease patterns.)

[sofon]

Do you trust the statistics that show how effective vaccines are and that the downsides are small?

Great! Me too! I wasn't involved directly in that work, but I trust that it hasn't been manipulated.

This is what I mean, I still trust these institutions (in part because I'm part of the technical/scientific community, and understand how it works). Many people appear to have lost trust in these institutions.