I did not enjoy that trip down memory lane, but I was wrong. You can only fight dangerous opinions with empathy, and without empathy you can't ever understand where those opinions come from. I have learned in the intervening almost decade how to try to see the world from others' point of view. It is not always possible to do with clarity, but it is always possible to do at least a little bit. But it does take a certain willingness to challenge your own assumptions about the world. That's not something I was good at in my 20's. Mostly I had my nose stuck in a textbook 16 hours/day, which is not conducive to understanding of anything but the topic of study.
Yer a good man, Charlie Brown. For the record, the anti-vax crew in 2010 was bigger and less militant. Once California had mandatory vaccination most of them vaccinated their kids; it's one thing to say "I'm taking a stand against Big Pharma" and quite another to say "...and am willing to home-school my kids to do it." The tide had started to turn, principally because there was study after study after study indicating that vaccines are safe and because the medical establishment started to realize that answering questions was more effective than saying STFU. I, for one, much prefer having a $6k fridge full of $50k in vaccines in my wife's office to knowing she'll be out every fourth weekend to explain the delayed vaccine schedule to a bunch of scared yuppies.