I hate anti-vaxxers

On the one hand, yes. On the other, just imagine the generational stupidity of children been home schooled by these morons. It already seems like evolution is being reversed, probably best not to speed it up.

Totally agree, there far too much misinformation and scaremongering online (often by people trying to sell a "natural" product 🙄) The level of paranoia and distrust of science is alarming.

I was very poorly with measles as a baby and have hearing loss as a result, vaccines really a victim of their own success in some ways

They are highly likely living off the net contributor tax payer, and expect others to "care about their feelies" when it comes to feeding and housing their children. There should be some social contract in play when it comes to protecting herd immunity.

There was a measles outbreak recently and a reporter went out to interview people on the street. She found a woman who hadn't vaccinated her children " How will you feel if your children catch measles?" "Oh I'm not worried, if they catch it I'll just get them vaccinated". The reporter just let that hang there for a moment or 2 as the woman's brain caught up with what she'd just said . The woman's face fell "Oh , um...." Yes its too late then isn't it.

As a child I was ill for weeks with measles and German measles, in primary school most of my class were off with chicken pox, a man in our street lived his whole adult life in an iron lung machine thanks to catching polio. If you don't vaccinate your DC you are an idiot, a selfish idiot

They're scared and they're wrong.

Well then they need to educate themselves.

It’s just so incredibly selfish.

I know a surprising number of people who haven’t vaccinated their children. None are immigrants or poorly educated. Off the top of my head:

• a lawyer who thought her kids immune system wasn’t developed enough at 8 weeks for vaccinations so the child at 5 hadn’t had any
• another lawyer whose wife was vehemently anti vax whose kid nearly died of measles
• a very prosperous celeb couple who hadn’t vaccinated any of their 3 children all of primary school age because they also thought 8 weeks was too young and then never got round to it
• a new age person who also would bath her children in tap water (really!) and used only bottled water. Her child was about 7

This is the thing; anti-vaxxers always say they've 'done their own research' (meaning they've watched some YouTube videos). They don't even have the concept of what research actually entails. Scientific and medical research is an academic field, it takes study and training and a level of intelligence, critical faculties and ability to question and analyse that anti-vaxxers don't possess in the first place. They don't even understand what they're claiming when they say they've done their research; they are ignorant of what it is. They're very impressed by charismatic influencers who sound like they know what they're talking about (if you don't know much yourself to start with).

But malicious and destabilising disinformation is on the rise and this kind of problem will get worse. Anti-vaxxers are very worried about the motives of our own government, without ever realising that there are real hostile foreign governments in whose interests it really is to harm us. Russian bots influenced Brexit, they've fuelled the rise of Trump and they leapt on the pandemic as a golden opportunity to spread misleading and dangerous propaganda. There really are dangerous and coordinated forces working to spread harm in the world, but anti-vaxxers are inadvertently the useful idiots assisting them rather than the enlightened truth-tellers they think they are.

Yes but they are stupid and shouldn't be listened to.

I'd be in favour of prosecuting parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated full stop. They are putting others in danger.

Do what you want with your own health but not vaccinating your kids is neglect and should be treated as such

I think not vaccinating your children for easily preventable diseases is affectively child abuse and parents should be punished accordingly.

Vaccines do not cause autism and their "belief" is unworthy of respect.

Even if they are correct ( unlikely) surely they’d prefer an autistic child than a dead one?

I think we should prosecute parents for child endangerment if their unvaccinated child has is damaged or dies from an illness preventable by vaccination.

That's not how vaccination works.

She has the right to not vaccinate her child. Some people believe vaccinations can cause autism and they're scared.

I'm not sure that the "hippy" anti vaxxers make up the majority of the unvaccinated population in Birmingham and London. Many of the unvaccinated are recent immigrants who aren't in the UK vaccine programme. There is also reluctance in some Muslims to have children vaccinated as they believe the MMR contains pork products.

It probably would be a good idea to promote vaccines to those groups, including a programme to target people entering the country.

How do you read the OP which explicitly states a 10mth old contacted measles and formulate this response?!

It’s not just a lack of critical thinking it’s a total lack of brain power.

DC had measles as a baby. It was not a simple childhood illness and I'm eternally grateful for the medicine and doctors that saved their life. And that's the thing I don't get. Anti-vaxxers choose not to protect their kids (and everyone else for that matter) but if their kids were one of the unfortunate ones who got really sick I'm pretty sure they'd be wanting 'big pharma' to step in and save them. If they don't, well fair enough but still mind blowing to me.

The selfishness of adults choosing not to vaccinate their children based on 'their research' astounds me but I guess some people are just selfish arses.

And I think my baby is more important than your feelies. 😒 Luckily I'm not an anti vaxxer and he's getting his jabs, but seeing a load of posters up in the hospital about a measles outbreak in the area when he was still a newborn and couldn't have the MMR yet made me worry.

I wonder what modern anti vaxers would have thought of Variolation rather then Vaccination. 1 in 10 chance of death, but for the 9 that survived they were immune to smallpox.

I think that we have a duty of care to protect our children. Why take the risk when there’s preventative measures in place to protect human life??

My babies were all vaccinated and so too were their babies.

Cases of tuberculosis in the UK had been noted to be on the increase as people arrive from other countries where vaccination programmes have not been made routinely available.

These diseases can kill or have a permanent impact on peoples health……..why would anyone put an infant at risk of brain damage, blindness, severe breathing difficulties etc.?

Does anyone remember the smallpox outbreak in the mid 60’s???? Although I was quite young the news articles terrified me, the rash was awful and left dreadful scars on patients that survived……many died as a result of contracting it. Through a rigorous vaccination programme Smallpox has all but been eradicated in the UK although I cannot comment on worldwide statistics.

Yes, let's face it, some people are just too stupid to be trusted with this sort of decision, especially on behalf of an innocent child.