countering anti-vaxx madness: advice?

Hello All,
a dear friend, always vaxx-skeptic (reasons: personal/medical history), is now bordering on anti-vaxx batshit.
what with the pfizer documents under scrutiny, trudeau going too far, vaxx producers & advocacy coming over as maybe no-longer-so-lily-white (citation needed), and the misinformation clickbait peddlers becoming slowly more adept at couching pseudoscience & wilful misinterpretation as science, the anti-vaxx case SEEMS stronger than it previously was, and I don't have the time or energy to debunk everything that gets thrown my way.
most insidious of all is the "fact-checkers are paid by pfizer" line which is some "god put fossils there to test us" level insanity.
is there a one stop shop for debunking this nonsense? or how do I counter that desire for victimhood / crusade mentality ( is that what it is? )
any advice gratefully received.

As a person who does research and teaches in medical fields - my best advice is to not engage. As you've detailed there, the worldview of the anti-vaxxer is pinned to belief, and by definition they are not interested in evidence challenging that belief, for which they construct batshit arguments to discount credible sources while simultaneously believing any old shit which seems plausible to them. If you try to use evidence to show why that's wrong, that evidence is immediately discounted in its turn, reductio ad absurdum. Like arguing with a creationist, it is an inexhaustible well into which you can pour unlimited energy without making a change. In many ways adhering to the belief despite any and every possible piece of evidence is a badge of honour. Save yourself, strike it from the conversation list, and if you have to, get away for a while. That in itself is a far better argument for your views.

Tell them it's the RUSSIANS that want us unvaccinated so they can invade us covertly with their free money for the already rich, and were all too antivax and Brexit to care!

We're not were.

trudeau going too far

Can you explain what this means? What is he "going too far" with? How far is too far? I don't live in Canada and I know exactly jack shit about what's going on up there, so the more detail and context you can provide, the better.

It's basically the same nonsense spouted by Biden haters in the US, against vaccine mandates etc.

(I'll let the original poster provide detail and context if they please)

The pfizer documents are under scrutiny?

matthewk otm.

matthewk otm.

when your friend's belief has become so deeply seated that you perceive it as "madness", it's long odds whether that belief can even be dislodged by a direct encounter with harsh, immovable reality, let alone by your arguing them out of it.

one statement I read on this message board which I really liked was "don't try to reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into"

like, I apologize for the unhelpful reply, but these people are literally dying over this, despite the fact that we've all had our shot for over a year now and like...nothing has happened. I really do not understand how people can be like this when there have been literally billions of shots doled out already but I guess being a right wing galaxy brain must be a pretty good high

you cannot reason with unreasonable people

OK so whether Trudeau has gone "too far" or not ( invoking emergency measures, freezing bank accounts of anti vaxx protestors & those who donate to anti vaxx causes, swingeing vaxx mandates & fines, travel bans) is a matter of opinion. So I was wrong to state it as fact. It seems that criticism along these lines comes from right wingers. I'm way left, but from what little credible coverage I've seen of Trudeau's recent approach to vaxx resistance, it's arguably sub-optimal on a PR front and on "hearts & minds" persuasion.
i could be wrong.

It feels like the moment for this has kind of passed, with so many people vaccinated.

That might be why its hardened, it needs to be to avoid falling into irrelevancy. The direct countering acts as a reinforcer or validation though, a shrug of the shoulders is better. The enemy of conspiratorial thinking is irrelevance not opposition. As it matters less it will fight harder to stay relevant. There's a war on eh

I hadn't thought about vax stuff in ages, but recently someone I know told me their colleague was recommending a selection of herbs to undo the effects of the vaccine. "its not too late!"

Matthew otm, sad but true. There is certainly a line that gets crossed and unless you enjoy bashing your head against a brick wall ...

I mentioned on another thread about somebody I knew with similar issues, I no longer have contact with them. But can't remember whether I talked about this, the most disturbing part was his daughter missed out on her epilepsy medication due to his stupid anti-mask behaviour at the clinic. It's shit when other people suffer because of this.

xpost There's a shake for that
https://www.mrericsir.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/on-cinema-vaxx-block.jpg

"Proven to Work"

"what with the pfizer documents under scrutiny"

what now

the missing element here is scrutiny by whom?