Dr. Steven Novella

So, first of all, there is just this stated goal, as you probably know, to absolutely minimize human exposure to mercury.

That's like the EPA, the FDA, everyone agrees, yes, there's no safe exposure limit of mercury, not literally true, but...

It's never going to be low enough, so let's just make it as low as possible.

So their justification was out of an abundance of caution.

That was the literal term they used, out of an abundance of caution.

We'll just take it out of the routine vaccine schedule, and then also we'll sort of put, I think where it was naive, where they thought it was going to put the debate to bed.

We knew it wasn't.

But it's like, yeah, but do it, and then we'll have great ammunition for public communication on this topic, which we do.

Again, it's a great thing to refer to.

So remember, there's three groups of people, though, or four, really.

So obviously there's people, experts.

You usually don't have to convince other experts.

There are people who don't know, don't care.

Then there's sort of the people on the fence, maybe the hesitant, or they heard concerning things, but they don't really have a lot of information.

Then there are the dedicated anti-vaxxers.

we're not really trying to convert the dedicated anti-vaxxers because it does nothing, you know, even on your debate, that woman who said, nothing you say can convince me.

That's like the classic phrase, really nothing.

You're just admitting to being immune to evidence and logic.

Okay, whatever.

I mean, not that no one ever comes over from that group, but that's banging your head against the wall.