It is a scam that will live on for decades, and convincing them with facts is impossible since their minds function like 9/11 Truthers; anyone who says vaccines are safe hasn't "educated themselves" or is part of the conspiracy.
Oh, I do have some idea about those "Freepers"--I encounter them all the time. Every time I do, I endeavor to post a rebuttal to their nonsense. I have found that they are incredibly resistant to any logic, and reject anything resembling factual material.
I remember one exchange with an anti-vax kook, in which I tried to explain to her how to fact-check--how to take the references she finds on anti-vax sites and look them up in PubMed so that she could read what they really say instead of what anti-vaxxers claim they say. She almost became hysterical. Somehow, by attempting to educate her on how to do simple fact-checking, I was proving that I'm part of the conspiracy.
I do not understand the thought processes that go on in the heads of people (anti-vaxxers and others) who latch onto "woo" while vehemently rejecting evidence-based medicine. I believe that their brains are actually short-circuited. I highly suspect they have an innate incapability to understand mathematics.
...by attempting to educate her on how to do simple fact-checking, I was proving that I'm part of the conspiracy.
Anti-vaxers remind me very much of 9/11 Truthers. I remember conversations I had with seemingly normal people in the mid and late-2000s who were convinced that the government put bombs in the WTC.
No amount of evidence would convince them, and you would see the same talking points emerge from different people, all copied from obscure conspiracy blogs.
There are similar tactics here, as I had an exchange with an anti-vaxer earlier this week on a Christie/Paul thread that lasted for days, and his only source of information seemed to be the Age of Autism site, and he kept repeating easily debunked points, including the Italian court decisions and Wakefield's "vindication".
Never once did he admit that he was wrong, or ever admit that he had misread data, even when I cut and pasted it and explained his errors. The last resort to explain things would have been finger puppets, but I don't even think that would have worked.