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I often wonder how many people who are anti-flu vaccine are just afraid of needles. Actually, people are sometimes too firm in their beliefs, says Peter Kelly…

Once again, it’s flu season and while you should definitely try to convince everyone to get the vaccine, some people will never be convinced.

If I’m honest, I do find this a bit bemusing. The classic rebuttal of the flu vaccine seems to be “I had that once and I got flu” or “the only time I ever had flu was when I had the vaccine. It causes flu”.

On this one, I always try to explain there is a major difference in how many molecules of flu virus you need to be exposed to in order to get the flu and how many are exactly in the vaccine. Sometimes, it convinces people but sometimes people are too firm in their beliefs.

I often wonder how many people who are anti-flu vaccine are just afraid of needles. I think a fear of needles plays a part in some flu vaccine avoidance. You can see it when you are administering the flu vaccine.

Some people really tense up at the prospect. You can tell they are terrified. Some people jump and shudder when you jab them.

A capitalist system message is ‘you should believe in yourself’

Another issue which I think may play a part in vaccine avoidance is arrogance. One of the pillar principles or propaganda messages of a capitalist system is ‘you should believe in yourself’.

Having supreme confidence and unshakable believe in yourself can be very beneficial if you are a business leader. It can make you decisive and driven and charismatic.

Steve Jobs was famously like this. His ‘reality distortion field’ was his powerful ability to persuade, motivate and convince himself and others to believe that impossible tasks were possible, often through charm, persistence and a disregard for conventional limits.

Jobs would tell people to do something. They would tell him it could not be done and he would tell them it could and insisted they were going to do it in three months’ time. This kind of ‘way of thinking’ can achieve spectacular results in business.

This kind of unshakable belief that you know better than conventional wisdom helped him lead Apple to produce incredible products such as the iPhone, iPad and iPod. It also helped him set up Pixar but that same way of thinking may have led to his early demise.

When Jobs was first diagnosed with cancer, he turned down conventional treatment for nine months. Instead, he experimented with different juicing diets. He drank a lot of carrot juice and even hired a psychic.

His friends and family tried to convince him he was wrong and should pursue the treatments his doctor was offering. Jobs’ attitude was ‘people were always telling him he was wrong and he was always proving himself right’.

However, this time he was wrong and he eventually changed his mind and got the recommended treatment. He later told his biographer that he regretted his decision to delay treatment.

When someone is convinced of something, it can be hard to show them they are wrong. Conventional wisdom is always changing and some conventional wisdom will be proved wrong in the future but that does not mean all conventional wisdom is wrong.

I know patients with no medical qualifications or background who tell me the doctors treating their mother or father are useless and they have to tell them what they should be doing. This kind of self-belief often looks to me like pure arrogance.

Just because you are successful in one field, does not mean you know more than everyone else in other fields. Science and medicine is the accumulation of knowledge over time by the gathering of data.

It is not an exact science but the probabilities are more favourable when you go that route rather than just believing your own insight is superior without any evidence.

Now in business, self-belief can be essential for convincing investors to throw money at a business which is still not turning a profit.

Vladimir Putin, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and Bryan Johnson all believe some kind of immortality is possible and are pursuing it. I think they are wrong – immortality is not possible but I don’t think I would be able to convince them.

Putin would probably kill me if I told him he was wrong and the others are so much richer than me, they would have complete faith in their beliefs.

Elizabeth Holmes was convinced she could do full blood tests with a single drop of blood and even though everyone told her she was wrong, her belief raised hundreds of millions.

Believe in yourself but maybe not too much. And remember, if you are struggling to convince someone to get a flu jab, at least you are not the doctor who tried to convince Steve Jobs that drinking carrot juice was not going to cure his cancer.

Peter Kelly is a pharmacist based in London and a stand-up comedian.