- In that culture of my friends,
it was certainly seen as don't vaccinate your kids,
it's dangerous to do so.
- Wow.
(Marley chuckling)
(Mary laughing)
- [Mary] I know, right?
- Yeah. (Mary laughing)
(gentle music)
- [Mary] I'm Mary Christa Smith and I'm a lifelong Utahn,
and a mom of two wonderful people.
Marley, who's here with me today, and Griffin,
Marley's younger brother.
- I am 19 years old and currently attending the University
of Utah, double majoring in psychology and gender studies.
So I guess we're here to talk about misinformation
and its real-world consequences.
Mom, I know that you read some stuff about vaccines
that turned out not to be true and that led you
to vaccinate me later than was expected.
So I'm just wondering, what went into that?
- I was so excited to be pregnant with you and nervous
and wanted to do the right thing.
And was really committed and dedicated to trying
to do the right thing and the best thing for you.
I also was surrounded by other moms who were very convinced
that vaccines were dangerous.
There had been an article that came out in The Lancet.
It was a article by, I think his name is Andrew Wakefield
about the potential that the MMR vaccine could cause autism
in babies.
- So in the 1990s, Andrew Wakefield was a physician
who enrolled about 12 children
into a study where he made a link between the MMR vaccine
and childhood autism.
Since then, that study has been debunked
by numerous sources.
And the article itself was retracted
and Wakefield himself has faced censure as a physician,
both in the United Kingdom and in the United States.
- What necessarily helped you come
to terms with getting me vaccinated?
Because I know I'm vaccinated now,
but what necessarily helped that process?
- Your grandparents were really concerned about the fact
that you weren't vaccinated.
They grew up in a time where their friends had polio
and the miraculous polio vaccine really changed everything
for my parents' generation.
So your grandparents were highly, highly concerned
that I was not vaccinating you.
Both arguments seemed fear based to vaccinate you out
of fear that you would get measles, felt fear based,
and to not vaccinate you out of fear
that there was something wrong with a vaccine.
- Fear of what exactly?
- Fear that you might get sick, that you might get autism.
I was afraid that if I gave you the vaccine.
Fear of, at the root of it, being a good mom and fear
of not being a good mom or making the wrong choice
or doing something that out of ignorance or lack
of experience was going to end up being harmful to you.
- What do you think makes people more susceptible
to this kind of misinformation?
- I would say that my desire to want to do the right thing
and to be a really good mom to you
and to make sure that you are healthy,
certainly was driving a lot of my questioning
and concern and a certain amount of cynicism.
I think that there's mistrust
that breeds people's susceptibility.
And I would also say, within the culture
of my friend group, to bring up a contrary opinion,
you know, this was my support system.
These were the moms who were my friends.
It felt like you could be cast out of the group.
It felt like you could lose support of your friends.
- It really helps as a provider to ask the parents,
what are you worried about today?
How can I help you understand this process?
Or how can we connect a little bit more deeply
on this rather than me just bombarding you
with scientific information?
And what it boils down to sometimes is just saying,
"Hey, I'm a parent just like you're a parent.
We both have the same objective here,
which is to protect our children
and guarantee they've got a great future in front of them.
I vaccinate my children and I would never advise you
to do something that I don't do for my own children."
- I mean, if you could go back and talk
to younger you when I was a baby,
would you have any specific advice for her
or just what would you say?
- I'm proud of the way I worked through it, honestly.
I'm actually really proud of myself
and grateful that I listened to my intuition
and that I made those decisions based on facts
and made those decisions based on science,
but also on what I could live with as a mom personally.
- I mean, that being said, I do have to ask,
how do you feel with the current pandemic?
- Personally, as soon as I could get my COVID vaccine,
I got signed up and when I went and got it,
I was surprised at the emotions
that I felt when I got my first vaccine.
I cried, I was just like, the relief, the relief I felt
and the relief I felt when you and your brother
and your grandparents in particular got the vaccine.
- It's really crazy to think just the amount
of effort that you had to go through,
the amount of thought that you put into vaccinating me.
And I do wanna say that I am just so grateful
that you did.
I'm safe, I'm healthy.
I haven't had the chickenpox.
That's awesome.
And just looking back, I understand
that it was probably extremely hard to go
against your friends
and against your other feelings about it.
But I just wanna say thank you
and I'm very happy that you did.
- Thanks for saying that, Mar.
I'm glad you feel that way.
- Yeah.
- I'm glad you're not like, "How dare you vaccinate me?"
(Mary laughing)
(gentle music)