A memetic hazard is a memetic structure that can be reasonably expected to cause some form of personal or societal harm.

“Anti-Vaccination” is a description for one particular memetic complex containing a number of beliefs which, in the aggregate, have the potential to cause personal, familial, and societal harm.

The Anti-Vaccination complex has these core beliefs:

First, that there are valid reasons to object to vaccinating one’s children in the absence of specifically diagnosed medical objections such as egg allergies or being immunocompromised, as by HIV or leukemia.

Second, that there is no real harm in refusing vaccination for a child and that there may in fact be a benefit from this activity.

There are a number of adjunct beliefs associated with the Anti-Vaccination complex, some of which are inherited from the Alternative Medicine complex.

One of the primary adjunct constructs that reinforces the Anti-Vaccination complex is that of Distrust of Establishment. The presence of this particular adjunct construct is nearly universal; nearly every host for the Anti-Vaccination complex expresses a severe distrust for conventional medicine’s vaccination recommendation. Different rationales are given for the acceptance of this construct over conventional thought, but the construct itself is universal. Note that this particular implementation of the Distrust of Establishment construct may overlap heavily with Conspiracy Theory complexes of varying severity. This construct works to prevent the influence of arguments cited as “rational” on the central complex through immediately considering any such arguments as false, much like a reverse Appeal to Authority fallacy.

A second primary adjunct construct is that of False Standard of Proof. With the False Standard of Proof construct, the host for the Anti-Vaccination complex rationalizes their beliefs through discounting any and all “conventional” explanations for medical phenomenae. It supports the Distrust of Establishment construct, being used primarily to “find evidence” to support the assertion that the establishment does not have the best interests of the patient as their primary concern. Further, it allows the host to make use of the False Compromise construct.

The hazardous memetic construct “MMR causes Autism” was once in wide circulation, supported by a study (which has since been extremely discredited) by a Dr. Andrew Wakefield which allegedly showed a link; most hosts for the Anti-Vaccination complex subscribe to this particular construct as an adjunct to the core beliefs. It is held to be valid mostly because of the Distrust of Establishment construct, in that if the Establishment says it’s not valid, it must be valid.

The False Compromise construct is a semihazardous adjunct replication-oriented memetic construct; it is generally a statement by the host of the complex that they will be happy to accept some form of compromise (whether in the expression of their beliefs or in accepting some portion of others’ beliefs as correct) should “sufficient proof” be shown. Due to a close association of this construct with the False Standard of Proof construct, however, no actual proofs asserting evidence contrary to the core beliefs will be accepted. Further, due to the reasonable-sounding nature of this particular construct, the host may gain sympathy from other potential hosts, thus opening them to memetic infestation by this complex through lowering of skepticism.

The Parental Authority construct is a semihazardous adjunct reinforcement and reproduction construct for this complex, and is generally found in those hosts who are parents or primary caregivers for children who have either had some manner of bad reaction to a vaccine or who have autism. Potential hosts are encouraged to lend credence to the words of the complex host due to the host’s status as a parent or primary caregiver; this is an example of an argument from authority. This particular construct takes advantage of the tendency of humans to respect the words of those in authoritative roles as being inherently authoritative; it is somewhat hazardous in that it can bypass normal skeptical responses, thus providing a vector for memetic transmission.

The host of an Anti-Vaccination memetic complex will frequently also be the host of a number of other “Alternative Medicine” memetic complexes; these may relate to “Curable Autism,” “Evil Gluten,” “Vitamin Curative,” “Detox,” or other similar memetic constructs and complexes.

Excising this particular construct from the host will tend to be extremely difficult due to the very strong action of the False Standard of Proof and the Distrust of Authority constructs. Additionally, the vast majority of hosts for the Anti-Vaccination construct are parents who will regard any attempts to dissuade them from their belief to be a threat to their child’s well-being; care is especially indicated should the host demand to know if a questioner is themselves a parent, as any subsequent input from a questioner will be automatically filtered via False Standard of Proof should the questioner be known to not be a parent–the usual response is that, not being a parent, the questioner lacks access to certain emotional responses critical for understanding the situation.

Some success may be garnered by invoking fear/protective responses in the host alongside proof of harm to their child; materials depicting the suffering of children infected with measles or other preventable diseases may have some effect. The key is to disrupt the normal reinforcement procedures for this complex, which regard any factual “scientific” evidence to be further evidence for Distrust of Establishment; shock and strong emotional response may provide sufficient opportunity to bypass some of the adjunct memetic constructs. If a questioner can claim status as a parent and thus bypass the Parental Authority construct, so much the better.

If a proper standard of proof can be inculcated into the host to replace the False Standard of Proof, this too may prove helpful.

This particular memetic complex is extremely hazardous to personal, familial, and societal health; by refusing vaccination, the host is not only compromising their own and their family’s health, but by providing a breeding ground for preventable biological illness is compromising the herd immunity that immunocompromised individuals rely upon for their own health, as well as potentially providing the opportunity for mutated organisms capable of bypassing existing vaccines to arise.

The Anti-Vaccination complex is -extremely hazardous- and should thus be removed from any hosts found harboring it with extreme prejudice. It is worth noting that none of the claims made by hosts for this complex are able to stand up to any sort of scrutiny, but they are superficially attractive enough to infect uninformed hosts very quickly, especially if those hosts are subject to a False Standard of Proof.

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