Why we need to fight misinformation about vaccines | Ethan Lindenberger

92,457 views ・ 2019-07-24

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:12
To start, I want to share with you guys something about my hometown
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of Norwalk, Ohio.
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Now, as this video stated, I am from Norwalk,
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which is an extremely small town, about 15,000 people.
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And really, in Norwalk, if you want to do something fun,
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you go to Walmart or drive half an hour to something more interesting.
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And for Norwalk, I've lived there for my entire life,
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I'm a senior at the local public high school,
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and you know, it's something to where I really enjoy my small town.
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And I'm just a normal kid, you know,
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I lead debate clubs, I volunteer at my church.
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And back in November of 2018,
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I made a small Reddit post asking for advice
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on an issue that I was encountering that I needed some clarification on.
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And this issue, as was stated in the introduction,
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was something towards vaccinations
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and how I was not immunized against various diseases,
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including polio and measles, as well as influenza, HPV, hepatitis --
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the standard vaccine someone my age would receive.
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01:06
Now, this question I asked was simple and pretty strange,
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because, you know, I wanted to get vaccinated.
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That's kind of weird, but it happened,
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and then this turned into a public story,
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because I wanted to get vaccinated.
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So that was kind of strange, and then it blew up more,
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and I was doing interviews and talking to more people,
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and again, I'm a normal kid, I'm not a scientist,
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I don't lead a non-profit, I am a pretty casual person,
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I'm wearing a hoodie.
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(Laughter)
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Because of this question and this story,
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because I wanted to get vaccinated
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and this interesting situation I was in,
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I saw that I quickly was in this public setting
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of an extremely important controversy and discussion taking place.
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Now, I saw that the stories and headlines were pretty accurate for most part,
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you know, "After defying anti-vax mom,
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Ohio teen expresses why he got vaccinated."
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Pretty accurate, pretty true.
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And, as stated, I testified in front of a Senate committee,
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so there, they said,
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"This teen who self-vaccinated
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just ripped his mom's anti-vaxer beliefs in front of Congress."
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OK, I didn't really do that, but that's fine.
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02:08
And certain news outlets took it a little further.
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"'God knows how I'm still alive':
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Teenager, 18, finally gets vaccinated and attacks his anti-vax parents."
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So I did not attack my parents, that's not accurate at all.
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And you know, really, my story was more about controversy.
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It was about how my mom was bad and I was good,
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and I was ripping her a new one.
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Not true.
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Not what was happening.
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I never was rude towards my mother,
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and even in public settings where I expressed
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how her beliefs were misinformed,
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I said that she was a loving mother, and that's important to understand.
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Because a lot of people, I think, in the scientific community
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that understand why vaccines are so important,
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can really be confused by someone who would not vaccinate.
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Really, we can compare it to someone not taking their child to the ER.
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That's a very dangerous situation to be in
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and it shows some lack of empathy towards your children in some regards.
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And really, I can understand that, I can.
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But my mom, she was misinformed and misled by sources that convinced her
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that if she was a loving parent, she wouldn't vaccinate.
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Now, when I encountered this and I talked to my mom,
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it didn't obviously go well at first,
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because I was wanting to do something
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that she thought would either cause autism or maim me for the rest of my life,
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and I said I wanted to do this -- didn't really fly,
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didn't really go well.
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But the thing that I found interesting
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was that when I had started to get into this circumstance,
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do these interviews,
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there was one question I proposed.
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Wasn't a positive one:
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What in the world have I gotten myself into?
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That's what I asked constantly,
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because, again, I am not an expert, I am a normal kid,
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and now I'm talking to CNN and Fox News about a scientific discussion
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that really, should I be facilitating, should I be commenting on?
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And a lot of people questioned that, and for good reason.
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But I never claimed things I didn't understand,
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I talked about my personal experiences.
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And even at the Senate hearing,
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I just talked about how misinformation is dangerous.
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My mom got a lot of her beliefs from social media, from Facebook
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and from organizations that were allowing their platforms to push lies
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that were very dangerous.
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Now, I also saw that as I was doing this --
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and I was doing this as respectfully as I could,
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as accurately as I could --
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I was getting a lot of criticism, a lot of very angry people.
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When I was in DC for that testimony I gave,
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I was looking around the office building
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and three ladies got in an elevator with me
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and said I'm the reason their children are being maimed and murdered
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and I'm basically Hitler.
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So that was fun.
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(Laughter)
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04:29
So really, for most circumstances, for most teenagers and most people,
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when they get criticized, it leads to doubt.
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04:36
And that doubt leads to questioning, and that questioning leads to quitting.
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Because, when you have a topic that you're interested in,
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or a movement that you want to be a part of,
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and you're taking a stance and saying what's true,
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good ideas don't avoid criticism.
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And for especially young people, they have a hard time dealing with that,
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04:53
and these important discussions that need young people to take a part in,
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it takes a lot of commitment.
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I'm not saying that I'm amazing, but here's what's important:
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through me joining this movement and this important scientific discussion,
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05:05
here's what happened.
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Facebook changed their platform.
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They were going to change how they approach anti-vax content.
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Amazon even removed misinformed books about autism and vaccines.
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And recently, GoFundMe took down anti-vax campaigns.
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We're talking about how movements like this are causing actual change,
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actually impacting the way this game is played
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and the misinformation that's lying to people
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and convincing them of very dangerous ideas.
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Now, before I leave, because I only have a short amount of time,
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I want to give you one important thing to keep in mind.
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One important takeaway from this all.
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What you can do and what I did.
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I didn't do amazing research and studies
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and take information and present it to people;
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I didn't have deep, intellectual, scientific debates with people.
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All I did was share my story.
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And that's enough for most people:
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to understand the anecdotal experiences, the real people behind the data.
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Because data doesn't resonate with people.
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People resonate with people.
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And you have to keep that in mind,
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because when you are talking about a topic,
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and you're sharing your story, and sharing what is important,
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you stay authentic.
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Stay authentic to the data, to the information,
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to the importance of this topic.
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If I was talking to an individual
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and they said, "Why are vaccines important?"
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I would say nothing alongside any other answer,
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I would not in any way fathomably give them answer outside of:
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people are dying, and that's important.
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And that children are dying, and that's important.
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And that we're having disease outbreaks that should not be here.
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And I believe, as John Boyle put it,
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these diseases should be in history books and not in our communities.
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So because of that, you need to make a personal decision to stand up for truth.
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You need to make a personal decision for yourself
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to say, "This is accurate, this is what's real,
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and these lies are not OK."
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Because it started with me doing that on a personal level.
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I wasn't going from small town to Senate in a day.
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It wasn't like, I go to bed, I wake up
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and there's Senator Isakson, asking me questions about vaccines.
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It was a slow progression and it started with me saying,
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"This is true,
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my mom doesn't believe it, but that's OK."
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Because that doesn't change the truth,
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doesn't change what's accurate and what's important.
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And honestly, the biggest thing,
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this whole idea of unbreakable: remain unbroken.
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When you stand up for what's true and you have that criticism,
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and you're trying to cause a movement, don't sway.
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Thank you.
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07:16
(Applause)
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