Genuine question for anti-vaxxers

I remember during this time that celebrity had a lot to do with it too - I was living in New York at the time and Jenny McCarthy was all over Oprah and the press being called a mommy ‘warrior’ for talking about the supposed autism connection. Social media has put this effect on steroids.

But your children are at risk of developing shingles later, as a result of having had chicken pox rather than the vaccine.

Yet even on this thread we have posters shocked that the ‘greater good’ is truly a part of the reason to vaccinate. I’ve found it eye opening to have to say that, yes, that is a valid part of the reason I vaccinate and to be questioned about my sincerity. And I don’t think of myself as even a particularly good person!

Spot on.

Anti-vaxxers, eh? At best culpably ignorant, at worst cynical riders on the coattails of those who have their children vaccinated.

There was no access at all to antibiotics between 1900 and 1925, seeing as they were discovered in 1928, but not synthesised until the 1940s, and only available to the general public after WWII.

Even if they were available, they might have helped with scarlet fever (caused by a bacterium — though an effective vaccine was actually developed for scarlet fever before antibiotics were successfully used against it). But antibiotics would not have been much use against measles, chickenpox, rubella, influenza, whooping cough or mumps, all caused by viruses.

Those viruses did (and still do) kill, and cause physical and cognitive disabilities and deformities just from the damage the virus itself does to the brain, eyes, hearing, and so on. These effects might be worsened by poverty, but they were not limited to the poor, and you couldn’t protect against them by being rich and well fed.

But you do understand of course that the chances of contracting measles weren’t low at all before vaccination?

Your argument relies entirely on the idea that herd immunity already exists! You’re starting from a false premise by assuming the chances of contracting measles are the same in a largely vaccinated population; and a non-vaccinated population.

Before vaccination, the reason that these diseases were known as routine childhood illnesses was because a very large percentage of the population got them — and not just one, but most of them — which made the numbers of children experiencing serious side effects very high. Much, much greater numbers than the small risk of vaccine injury in a herd immunity population. Measles routinely caused blindness, deafness, encephalitis with all sorts of results like learning and cognitive disabilities afterwards. (You would not have seen those children afterwards in your school or community, because physically or cognitively disabled children did not generally remain in mainstream education before the 1990s — they ended up at home or in special schools.)

The conjecture that the effects of measles would be less on a modern population because of better nutrition remains just an untested conjecture of yours, and one with plenty of suggestive factors against it, too. Measles is incredibly contagious — it can be caught by just being in a room where someone else with the virus has been in there beforehand for 10-15 minutes. In pre-vaccinated generations physical mobility was much less and children were less often in crowded, big, hot social and transport spaces: now one person with measles on a plane, train, supermarket, cafe or restaurant could potentially infect a much greater number of children than before (and faster). Ditto our use of touchscreens and propensity to spend more time in heated rooms. We also have many more children in the population who have been premature, or who live with health conditions that were less survivable 50 or 70 years ago.

The truth is, we have no idea if improved nutrition would change the rates of serious side effects of these diseases in the present day. There could even be confounding factors which could produce the reverse — and we would have no idea at all unless we had a totally non-vaccination cohort; and nobody sensible would want to go back to that just to see what would happen for the lolz.

To return to your initial point: if we didn’t have vaccination the chance of your child contacting measles would not be low, but high. It’s only low if you are in the small percentage of non-vaccinators who are relying on everyone else’s herd immunity from vaccination. If everyone did as you suggest, the risks vs benefits calculation would change. The whole mechanism of vaccination rests on the paradox that you can’t have both the statistical benefits of herd immunity, and also a large proportion of the population not vaccinate.

The key thing about vaccination is that it offers both an individual benefit but also a wider social one that helps others in lots of ways. Now, generally, the threshold for herd immunity is slightly lower than the entire population, so there is room for those for whom vaccination would be dangerous to remain unvaccinated, but still benefit from everyone else’s vaccination. But the whole idea of this is reserved for the small number who can’t for whatever reason have the vaccine (which no medical professional has ever denied exist).

By relying on everyone else’s herd immunity you are effectively “stealing” that statistical margin from those who are not able to have the vaccine at all. (And it only even works for you if not too many other people are doing it too.)

But even when Wakefield’s work was first published, it was always obvious to anyone who had even done so much as a science A-level, that it was a preliminary piece based on a tiny sample size, with plenty of methodological problems, and as such highly likely to not replicate.

The work was discussed in the media and scientific media in depth at the time and thought extremely likely not to be true because of its limitations, even when it wasn’t known that he had falsified some data. It was also contradicted at the time by lots of other research. I did a case study for an A-level biology class on this at the time, and the evidence against Wakefield’s paper was overwhelming even then. There were no “eminent scientists” that accepted his work; rather the reverse: there was great consternation in the medical community at the time that the broadcast media like the BBC, This Morning etc. was effectively suggesting that it was much more reputable than it actually was, by giving the impression that the scientific community were equally divided o the issue, as opposed to the real situation, which was that Wakefield’s work was thought to be invalid by about 99% of people in the field.

You didn’t even have to have access to medical research to know this — there were plenty of scientific magazines for the educated layperson at the time (like New Scientist), and broadsheet media like the FT which provided detailed analyses of his work. Since the millennium it’s been more and more evident for 25 years that Wakefield’s piece was wrong.

There are plenty of medical papers and conjectural case-studies and pieces of scientific research (even published in the Lancet!), which don’t end up replicating. That’s just a basic aspect of scientific research.

Wow! That's interesting. I have a friend in her forties who has type II diabetes. She was put on Mounjaro when it first became available for diabetics, and subsequently had to have a cholecystectomy. Prior to this, she had no history of gallstones. I said right from the start that I think her problems were caused by the Mounjaro, but her diabetic nurse still insists she keeps taking it.

I don’t know what you mean by “corporate press and media” (the Daily Mail? WebMD? NHS online info?) but no medical or health professional ever pretends there are no rare serious side effects to or no side effects at all. The vast majority of side effects are minor, and are well known. When you take a child for vaccination, just as when you yourself have one, you are given that information and a vaccine information sheet with potential risks and side facts listed.

You can find out what vaccination you are being offered beforehand, and research the product leaflets and side effects online. There are many websites and media available which will inform you of the statistical risks vs benefits and rates of side effects per million. If you make an appointment with your vaccine nurse or GP beforehand to discuss the vaccines and have them explained to you, they will be happy to do it, most particularly for babies and children.

The problem here is not “corporate media” or anything of the sort. It is poor scientific and mathematical literacy. The vast majority of people who refuse vaccines simply do not either read the information available, or know how to understand it; nor do they ask a medical professional to explain it (which they may not be able to understand anyway).

There are many vaccines for which the benefits vs risks are more evenly balanced (flu vaccination, different types of COVID vaccination, and so on). There are others, like many of the childhood vaccinations, where the mathematics is stark and where the risks of serious complications per million are statistically much lower than the risks of serious complications of the disease. Nobody pretends the risk of vaccination is zero; but if it is (for example) ten or twenty times less than comparable risks of the disease, then vaccination is a no-brainer.

This balance of risks, population-wide, was much better understood in the past, when the memory of those diseases was fresh. I had severe whooping cough at three, from which I nearly died; and measles very badly at five, which doctors were worried would damage my eyesight (thankfully it didn’t). This was only just a couple of years before the MMR and pertussis vaccinations became available in the early 1980s. It was something routinely understood then that there were side-effects and risks of serious vaccine injury, but that these were smaller than the risks of the diseases themselves. This is made very clear in every vaccine information and leaflet, so if you think it isn’t, then you haven’t been reading or understanding the information. (Do you read the leaflets and inform yourself about other medications you may need to take?)

We are still finding out things about these diseases. It’s only recently been understood, for example, that measles can wipe out the immune system’s natural antibodies to prior infections for up to two years afterwards. In that case, not vaccinating against measles can have an impact on even a healthy immune system, with ramifications for even a robust child — making them more likely, not less, to contract other serious childhood diseases. (This doesn’t, of course, happen with vaccination.) People considering vaccination now tend to think about each disease in isolation. But a world without herd immunity was not a world in which you were weighing up the likelihood of getting complications from just one childhood disease — you were likely to get several; and they could have a compounding effect. People who experienced their children getting disease after disease during childhood — measles and rubella and mumps and chickenpox and whooping cough — were well aware that once you multiply all those diseases the risk of poor health, or some kind of damage or disability as a result, was not negligible. But even if you give your child every vaccine offered the risk of serious injury still remains a small and stable one.

My aunt had polio as a child and had to wear calipers on both legs. She subsequently died prematurely in her fifties. Apparently it was because her heart was weak and walking with calipers put too much strain on it.

I have a friend who is 81 and never learned to swim. She says that was because when she was young her DM would never let her go to the local swimming pool in the summer as that is when most children contracted polio.

Your DH can believe what he wants, but trust me, these diseases were very real.

That sounds awful, I’d like to think that people don’t believe that there aren’t any side effects to vaccines. There are side effects to every medication, and some catastrophic ones. There were some terrible reactions to a bad batch of polio vaccinations early on. Nothing is risk-free, and I certainly wouldn’t belittle the impact to those who have been on the receiving end of bad side effects. But I am glad that in the most part, that those who can be vaccinated, are - given the side effects to the diseases that they prevent. I think that that might be changing however, which would be scary even without the current situation we’re in with the NHS.

I imagine too, that it is preferable to you that other people continue to get vaccinated for those diseases?

Well, as someone who's been through hell living with an iatrogenic neurological movement disorder from an off label antipsychotic, I can say with certainty that it is sodding hell and difficult to live with a medication induced injury.

I literally lost control over my body movements when the antipsychotic gave me permanent brain damage. My tongue moving on its own, alongside various other bizarre and utterly pointless movements are just the icing on the cake which is alongside all the emotional turmoil and impact the devastating injury has had on my life.

To minimise the way these things that are affecting the minority who are harmed by drugs and vaccines is unfair. We're not all anti-vax or anti-medicatiom per se, but it is important to remember how much we are trying to get across our side of the trauma without sounding like we hate ALL drugs.

Both. When having the natural moment of wondering if we’ll be the unlucky ones with vaccine side effects I thought about how the risks of side effects from the diseases themselves are worse and how, because we don’t have any other reason not to, it’s better for everyone that we do. It’s another reason in favour of doing it. That just seems normal to me?

Now, of course, if I had a reason, like an allergy or being immunocompromised, that made me think I had a higher risk of a side effect of the vaccine, then I wouldn’t do it. Again, another reason why those who can, should.

Of course I consider others but my priority is the impact on myself and my loved ones. If there is a benefit to the greater good then that's even better. But no, I do not prioritise the greater good over myself or my family when it comes to decisions like that.

Would you really get vaccinated predominantly for the greater good? Or do you, like most of us, believe vaccines are generally a good thing for you and you family and yea, you can also have the feel good of contributing to the greater good as a side effect of your decision?

It’s definitely a consideration - part of the whole decision. It’s interesting that you think that it isn’t? Do you genuinely not consider other people, outside of your own loved ones, when you’re making decisions?

As I said in my OP, I understand people fear adverse side effects from vaccination. What I still I don’t understand is why anyone worries about that risk but seems unconcerned about diseases returning and exposing everyone to far greater harm.

Just because they ARE worried about vax side effects, doesn't mean they're automatically NOT worried about diseases returning. Of course they are!
I'd just take it to mean these parents consider their child 'low risk' for catching 'x, y and z' actual disease (based on lifestyle, diet, weight etc) while, for them, the vaccine carries a somewhat 'unknown' higher risk - it's not a risk they're actively willing to take on their child, so refuse the jab.

I really don't think too many people decide to get vaccinated for the greater good. That is more a side effect of their decision to get vaccinated.

Yes, often while only thinking about themselves.

In general, people have lost their bearing of severity of illness. So many conditions are so easily treatable that ill enough to be in bed for a week+ is considered severe in modern day-to-day life.

Id consider 'almost dying' as illnesses that result in an ICU admission, or at the very least, hospital stays of weeks/months with hefty interventions. A drip and antibiotics is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Your responses on here don't suggest a willingness to understand. It seems to me that you're simply looking for proof that your preconceived ideas about anti-vaxers are true.

As I said in my OP, I understand people fear adverse side effects from vaccination. What I still I don’t understand is why anyone worries about that risk but seems unconcerned about diseases returning and exposing everyone to far greater harm.

This is a result of the way that the fear is induced by the antivax accounts.

They use overly emotional accounts generally of families who have children who are severely disabled with autism or with rare genetic conditions or with conditions which medicine can't explain, or children who are medically delicate with auto-immune conditions, or children who die of SIDS or sepsis or complications from an illness. They exploit the fact that families are often grieving, either their child who has died or the life they feel an able-bodied child would have and of course the fact that it is incredibly hard to care for a severely disabled child. Many of those families will look for more concrete answers because "We don't know why this happens, it just happens sometimes" isn't very satisfying or reassuring. The reality is science can't explain everything, and there is often not enough resources, time or support for families of disabled children.

Alternative health providers do have time and they can offer boatloads of emotional support since they can't provide much in the way of actual treatments. This can be very reassuring to someone who feels they have been sidelined or dismissed or ignored by mainstream medicine. Finally someone understands, cares, listens. They can also give you a confident, concrete, neat, tied up answer for what "happened to" your child and who to blame for it. Some people find this much easier to swallow than "random genetic mutations happen and we can't prevent it". Unfortunately these families become cash cows for the antivaxxer or alternative health practitioner - they are used to "spread the word" and of course because they genuinely believe that vaccines were the cause of their child's disability they are often happy to do this, to warn other parents away, to "save" other children.

And yes, I do think the fact that autism and physical/intellectual disability, and SIDS are concepts we are all familiar with, and to many people would be one of their worst fears, whereas the severe effects of vaccine preventable diseases are usually things we are unfamiliar with, is not a coincidence at all. It is easy to exploit this because of the way that we (humans generally) calculate/process/understand risk. It is difficult to feel very worried about something that you have no experience of at all, even second hand. It's always just a theoretical risk and it's quite hard for us to process that. OTOH something we can picture very vividly, that may affect somebody close to us, or someone we feel close to because we have heard such a personal and emotionally moving tale from them, that kind of risk feels much more real, present and frightening.

I don't think it's quite fair to say that people who are vaccine hesitant don't care about those diseases, they just have an incredibly skewed picture of the relative risk, and this is done deliberately via manipulation by the big players in the game. And I don't think it's quite fair to say they are relying on herd immunity, even though they are - a lot of the antivax propaganda, while they're bombarding you with how difficult and terrible and awful it is to live with a "vaccine injury" (most of their exampled of which are extremely unlikely to be), they are also telling you that "Big Pharma" makes up a lot of these concepts in order to control people through fear - so they often come to believe that herd immunity isn't really a thing, and that levels of these diseases went down naturally due to hygiene or other factors or that there is a big cover up about how vaccines cause other illnesses. So vaccine-hesitant families don't believe they are causing any harm by causing herd immunity levels to drop, because they have often swallowed the lie (usually using manipulated data) that vaccines aren't doing very much anyway.

The actual messages from antivax activists change their focus every so often but the key themes - those things the "mainstream media" want you to worry about are lies, vaccines and science and mainstream medicine are the real enemies, they're hiding the truth and we alone will say it - these stay the same.

There was an amazing but absolutely sickening Channel 4 Dispatches in about 2021 I think - called "The Anti-Vax Conspiracy". It isn't on their online catch up any more but it comes onto youtube every so often and then gets deleted - I think because it was sold to the BBC. If you can catch it, it's excellent but harrowing - there is a whole side aspect to this which gets extremely dark which is about controversial "treatments" for autism. But I think the biggest thing for me about this documentary was learning just how much of the antivax content online is traceable back to the same small group of people.

This goes into that a bit: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-health/dozen-misguided-influencers-spread-most-anti-vaccination-content-social-media

Also good is the episode of the podcast "You're Wrong About" called "The anti-vaccination movement". They interview Dan "Debunk the Funk" Wilson and he is incredibly patient, compassionate and thorough about what goes on.

So I was always told that 8 of my my grandfathers 13 siblings had died either as babies or in very early childhood due to childhood illnesses e.g. measles - this was between 1900 and 1925, actually that wasn't the case, not one of them died of measles or scarlet fever etc - it was basically poverty, less of an emphasis on hygiene, no NHS meant that seeing a doctor was something that was left as a last resort by which point it was too late and no easy access to antibiotics.

Firstly, I didn't say it's low risk. It's lower risk.

Secondly, there are multiple types of research. I stated I do not do primary research in the area of immunology but am capable of researching the topic. Secondary research is an extremely valuable type of research. If everyone just did their own primary research and nobody bothered to do a meta analysis of the state of play, we would have no idea what the big picture looked like.

And no, research does not require experiments. Much of the research I do is qualitative. It is just as valid as the quantitative research that those of you in the sciences do. That said, I am quite partial to a mixed methods approach, using both qualitative and quantitative. It helps to understand the why as well as the what.

You keep saying that measles is low risk for well-nourished kids but that’s just not true. And spreading that idea over and over is really dangerous. Measles is extremely contagious and can cause serious complications no matter how healthy or well-fed a child is. Things like pneumonia, brain inflammation, hearing loss, and yes, vision damage are all real risks.

I’m speaking from experience too (not of statistical value). Both my brother and I had measles when we were kids. We were both well-nourished and otherwise healthy. I recovered fine but my brother had serious issues with his eyes and needed multiple surgeries. So no, nutrition isn’t some magical protection.

And just to be clear, reading papers on Google Scholar isn’t the same as doing research. That’s just doing a literature review. Actual research means generating new data, running experiments, collecting evidence, and contributing something new to the field. Reading existing papers is not the same thing. That’s not what we (scientists) mean when say “we do research”.

Misusing scientific terms and mocking people doesn’t make your argument stronger. It just shows you’re not really engaging honestly.