to think it's not terribly helpful to keep referring to parents who haven't MMR'd as "whack jobs"...

[MsGillis]

..or morons, or unfit parents, or up there with people who drink and drive?

I appreciate that people have very strong feelings around the subject, but I think that we need to understand that there are a significant number of parents who didn't/haven't vaccinated, not because they are crystal waving nutjobs, but because they are actually scared shitless and paralysed into indecision?

Surely there are ways and means to communicate information, and arrogantly shouting about how one person is right and anyone who disagrees is all kinds of nobhead is not going to be conducive in opening up reasonable dialogue?

And it's important to remember that the OP linked to a silly spoof website, and when asked to come up with samples of the same sort of language from somewhere sensible, couldn't.

seeker - the way I read it was that the OP knew it was a spoof website. She linked to it because there are people that refer to people who don't vaccinate as 'whack jobs' etc

There are also people on this thread who are not sympathetic to those who may have a good reason to vaccinate but those posts have been deleted. I am not saying you are one of those.

a good reason NOT to vaccinate*

But anyone who says that a person whose child has a medical reason for not being vaccinated should vaccinate is most definitley a "whack job"! I don't judge you by the standards of my friend who thinks that her children don't need vaccines because homeopathy is so much more effective- so why judge the overwhelming majority of "pro vaxxers" by the whack-job few?

But somehow that's how people are reading the words that are actually being written. Very odd.

Perhaps there's one or two posters who haven't thought about how their words might be taken? The other possibility is that some of us who haven't been able to give a full program of vaccinations have been hassled/bullied/dismissed a crazy so many times that we're a little sensitive. On the internet we can only see what is written, not tone or the caveats running trough a poster's head.

Here are the comment in question, the this as the beginning was where I had agreed with a comment about empathy (nothing about being anti vax at all)

This! When you've watched your child go from perfectly healthy to fighting for their life as a direct result of a vaccine (allergic reaction in DD's case), you think very carefully about your next steps

"You ever seen Measles in action? Thought not......

You are hiding behind the assumption that the herd immunity will protect you, but it's only patchy in the UK now."

The response was imo, at best, dismissive (and could even be taken by some as implying that I ought to have completed the vaccination program in spite of her reaction).

'so why judge the overwhelming majority of "pro vaxxers" by the whack-job few?'

Hopefully I haven't done this - it was certainly not my intention.

"seeker - the way I read it was that the OP knew it was a spoof website. She linked to it because there are people that refer to people who don't vaccinate as 'whack jobs' etc"

Lottie - yes, you are spot on. Seeker, obviously mainstream newspapers don't use language like that (except for perhaps the Star and the Mail, which don't count for anything!) but as I said several times upthread this is indicative of actual real life opinions held by people, which this thread has gone on to demonstrate.

I'm not anti vaccination, but as some people on this thread have said it isn't a black and white, all or nothing situation. My initial point was that to tar everyone who as yet hasn't signed up with the same "whackjob" brush is short-sighted and unhelpful.

"I don't see why derogatory terms for the mentally ill are acceptable, TBH."

Apologies if I've got the context wrong here, but that read to me like if you don't vaccinate you are mentally ill. And there are many posts here which make blanket statements, whereas I think that a lot of people who haven't vaccinated could probably be convinced to do so if they weren't patronised and insulted. Which has to be beneficial to society in general, surely?

"Perhaps there's one or two posters who haven't thought about how their words might be taken? The other possibility is that some of us who haven't been able to give a full program of vaccinations have been hassled/bullied/dismissed a crazy so many times that we're a little sensitive. On the internet we can only see what is written, not tone or the caveats running trough a poster's head."

^^This

I heard some parents on R5 Live yesterday trying to defend the discredited Wakefield.

I agree that derogatory insults are unhelpful. I've heard other parents talking in those terms about parents who refuse the vaccine, but I haven't seen anything like that in the media. I do think it's about time people understood that getting the MMR vaccine is the right choice, and that is the way the DoH is encouraging the media to report the current epidemic.

Like these advertisement features.

I only hope this epidemic can be contained, for all our sakes. Measles is a horrible illness which could have been almost eliminated in this country, as in the US, had it not been for the irresponsible media treatment of Wakefield's bogus theories.

The message I am taking from this thread is that some posters would be content for me to die because they have a right to make their own witless decisions.

I am on chemo and in last 6 months my neutrophil levels have dropped to dangerously low levels 3 times.

If you want to live in mainstream society, taking advantage of publicly funded schools, roads, hospitals then you vaccinate your children against life threatening diseases.

If you chose not to, would you kindly fuck off to a remote island or gated community and not let your children anywhere near me, particularly if you have no understanding of infection or incubation periods.

'Whack jobs'is way too kind and gentle a phrase for me.

The article linked to by the OP says
"?But then there are the whack-jobs who would prefer to seek their medical protection and treatment from someone who runs a website selling sugar pills to poor African people.?"

If you haven't vaccinated because of medical issues and not because you prefer homeopathy or crystal healing or whatever, then why are you identifying with the people being slated in the article? It's clearly not about you.

The thing is the one person in RL who I would describe as a wack job actually believes she has a medical reason ( the wide spread conspiracy of the gov to harm everyone using vaccines that are made of poison and don't work as well as nettle tea just to make money).

She thinks she's a forward thinking intelligent woman.

My kids are all done firstly to protect themselves and secondly to protect people who have actual medical reasons like vaccine damage or allergy or more likely to become ill and genuinely unable to protect themselves.

As seeker says if everybody who CAN be is then its better for those who can't.

My 21 year old nephew is autistic. He was normal until he had the MMR. We have recordings of him playing and talking.

He is has never said I love you Mummy.
He had the MMR, terrible fever and was never the same again.

If you were me (I have two sons) what would you do....

On another thread the other day there was a poster saying that her child had a condition and that one of her doctors had said it would be ok to vaccinate and the other doctor said don't vaccnate. So even when you speak to HCPs you sometimes get a divided opinion.

It can therefore be a difficult decision to make as a parent when your child is in a grey area.

Like these advertisement features which says:

"In 1987, the year before the MMR vaccine was introduced, 86,000 children caught measles and 16 died in the UK."

Whereas Public Health England giving the stats from the Office for National Statistics for England and Wales shows the following:

1986 Notifications 82,054 Deaths 10
1987 Notifications 42,158 Deaths 6
1988 Notifications 86,001 Deaths 16

This refers to all notifications which includes adults as well as children.

So it looks like someone somewhere in The Guardian has got their countries mixed up and Scotland and NI had another 43842 cases producing another 10 deaths, which sounds a little on the high side but may be correct.

Or that they have got their years as well as its countries muddled up and the stats don't show the point they are trying to make, but show a marked increase in measles in the year the vaccine was introduced.

The data for the following year would make their point: 26,222 notifications with 3 deaths.

These figures were easy to find, and IMO points to one definite conclusion: you can't always trust what you read in the press.

LaVolcan Yes it's true, you can't always trust what you read in the press. It's thanks to the credulous media reporting of Wakefield's bogus research that we are in this situation today.

6 years ago, David Cameron was saying parents should be given the choice of single MMR - I wonder if he remembers that now?

Blanket. I have 5 kids with autism and I just booked for my 13 month olds jabs on the advice of docters involved with my older children's health care.

Yet olgaga Wakefield's research was published in The Lancet so at the time no-one had any cause to believe that there were doubts about the research. And he didn't say don't vaccinate against measles - at the time he suggested using the alternative of single vaccines which were freely available.

The Press now are going on an on about Wakefield but I bet a good majority would have forgotten all about him if it wasn't for them.

How do you kow Leo Blair had the MMR? I thought it was eventually discovered he had single vaccines.

ilove I'm really sorry about your nephew. I don't know how common regressive autism is (maybe a third? I honestly don't know). I would go ahead with vaccination if it was me.
It's possible the link between mmr and autism has been made because 13 months is around the time autism is first picked up.

I remember on a similar thread a poster said her son come down with a horrible fever and screamed for 3 hours straight the night he was due his mmr. The only thing was she forgot to take him for his jabs that day. If she had remembered she would have almost certainly linked the fever with the mmr jab.

I do agree that speaking to people angrily or using offensive terms is unlikely to make them change their behaviour as they may get defensive or dig their heels in further.

But frankly, what will work with some of these people? As the old saying goes, belief in homeopathy exceeds the boundaries of a rational mind.

Therefore, given that at least waynetta has unambiguously declared that people like me should die as illustrations of 'survival of the fittest' I will reserve the right to insult them in the most crude and offensive terms I can find because to put it mildly I think they are disgustingly selfish people who have abdicated their right to live in mainstream society or recieve any courtesy from people like me.

'It's possible the link between mmr and autism has been made because 13 months is around the time autism is first picked up.'

Actually, this is a bit of a myth. There are very few parents who manage to get a diagnosis at 13 months, and 2-3 years even in severe cases is the youngest it's generally picked up ime.

But electricblanket has a dilemma. Telling her she's a 'whack job' or selfish or whatever doesn't help her with her decision. Telling her that it's just a coincidence that her nephew has autism doesn't help her too much either. Some real informed information would help her, but where does she get that?