Why would someone say this about vaccines? Is it odd?

[PuzzlingPanda]

Was in a health food shop today and mentioned an ongoing issue I'm having with one of my do.

The man mentioned he thought the biggest thing going wrong with our children was all the vaccines they receive. He said they full of nasties, designed to make people ill.

It could be put down to a man having a pointless rant but why would he say this? Is there any sort of truth in it?

Not the first time I've heard negative things about vaccines.

Now I'm worried about it.

Panda apologies, just found PuzzlingPanda Thu 10-Mar-16 12:53:36

Hope you have decided to go ahead with herpes z. As it becomes less common, and you can blame vaccinators for that, it will become a much bigger problem. It can cause encephalitis in children but much more likely to do so if you catch it for the first time later in life.

Thanks for starting thread, it is an old chestnut but well worth keeping in the light.

Everyone has an opinion im curious as to why you believe his is true?
If i told you i was a leprechaun who grants wishes and lives on a rainbow would you believe me, you know since you heard it before?

Thanks katarina - that was my thinking too!

No more screening for rua during pregnancy from 1st April Here

Rubella*

I'm kind of ok about the rubella screening ending. Tbh if you had it in pregnancy what could you do anyhow? I suppose terminate depending on how far along you are, if severe abnormalities show up on ultrasound - in which case you'd be referred for a TORCH which would check for rubella anyway

I think the ownership of responsibility for rubella immunity can rest morally with women themselves. You can either trust your MMR (if you had it) or get another one prior to trying to conceive, or pay privately to have your titres screened

I'm not sure what good knowing your rubella status when already pregnant ever was? Rubella is so rare these days and can be mild enough to not know you've had it - so probably some incredibly stressful pregnancies have been had worrying they might catch it - but there's zero really anyone could do about preventing it other than quarantine themselves as even if you only mixed with friends and family who had the MMR, what about on the bus? In the supermarket? Someone's MMR not taking?

On the other hand id like to see them swap the rubella screening for CMV screening in pregnancy and give information on how to avoid catching that since it is actually preventable (often) possibly treatable (ish) in utero and now more common and causes for more disability than rubella - yet there's no rush to find a vaccine for it, or in this country screen pregnant women

Super relevant point pigeonpoo re docs getting what is in effect a bonus in line with amount of vaccinations. I wasn't sure of the situ in the UK but where I live it's a known fact as my dc's peadiatrician candidly told me. It's a separate payment in their wage packet.

"Is that not one of the problems with the rubella vaccine? We generally had the virus as kids and remain immune."

Yes, this is/was a potential risk of vaccinating against Rubella. In past generations people generally caught it as children, when it is usually very mild, and then carried immunity through to their child-bearing years. The problem was that there were always a small number who didn't catch it as children, and got it when pregnant when it can be very damaging. A vaccination programme was put in place to protect those at risk, and teenage girls were vaccinated against rubella. The trouble is the vaccine, as all vaccines do, left about 2% (iirc) of vaccinated girls unprotected, and there were still some cases of CRS (although fewer than before vaccination).

The decision was taken to try to eliminate Rubella through herd immunity and thus all children were vaccinated (children being considered the main source of infection in this case). This does however basically eliminate the 'opportunity' if you want to put it that way to gain (probably) longer lasting immunity naturally, as the chances of catching in it childhood are greatly reduced, and so anyone who is susceptible and exposed later in life is more at risk. (Susceptible people would include those who were vaccinated but have since lost the immunity, or those for whom the vaccine never worked in the first place as well as the unvaccinated.)

Any kind of population level intervention like this, where the age of likely infection is pushed up by vaccination, is a gamble that you can eliminate the disease before waning vaccine mediated immunity becomes an issue. In the case of Rubella it has largely paid off, and CRS cases are extremely rare now. In other cases, like Mumps, the benefit has been more questionable.

"I am retired. I got an MMR jab in my 50's. I worked on paediatric wards (often with immune suppressed). When my Hep B immunity was tested I asked if anything else to test, very sensible Occy Health, and my mate in infectious diseases, used the spare serum to test for as many as possible and my Rubella titre was borderline, immediate vaccination and MMR was available so had that rather than a single vaccine"

Oh yeah, I'm not denying that for some people it's not effective or the effectiveness wanes, was just saying that for me I am still immune to rubella from my school-age rubella jab, so have no need for revaccination. Due to pregnancy rubella screening it's one of those where most women who've had children recently would know their immune status, no? (ditto varicella)

Also as YouCannot points out, even if you're not immune rubella is one of the diseases you're less likely to catch in the community any more thanks to mass vaccination. Thanks, btw, for the excellent explanation of the tradeoffs/decision-making used when switching from just vaccinating teenage girls (which was the case when I got the vaccination) to vaccinating everyone as children.

Roonerspism I can live with your offence, which is more than can be said for the unvaccinated DCs who are unlucky enough to catch near eradicated diseases.

The parents of the unvaccinated little boy who died recently of diphtheria blamed the internet for his death. Apparently they were given wrong information - at no point did it occur to them to consult a doctor or apply some logic to the cartloads of drivel on line. The Spanish government offered its condolences instead of prosecuting them for neglect!

There are numerous studies attempting to understand the reasons behind parents' choices not to vaccinate, inevitably the result is that parents believe incoherent, idiotic, woo-woo rubbish. Waste of research money.

Personally I am doing my bit by being part of a group of doctors and academics pushing for compulsory vaccination, it's the only solution.

"There are numerous studies attempting to understand the reasons behind parents' choices not to vaccinate, inevitably the result is that parents believe incoherent, idiotic, woo-woo rubbish. Waste of research money."

Could you link to these studies? I've never actually met anyone in real life who thinks this way. I do know plenty of people (including Drs and academics) who have legitimate concerns about some aspect of the schedule, as has been described in detail in this thread.

I've often wondered if it would have been more/just as effective to vaccinate all non-immune teenagers against rubella...

Compulsory vaccination is a terrible idea. I certainly wouldn't support it.

The sensible people in this thread might enjoy this group: www.facebook.com/Things-anti-vaxers-say-656716804343725/

I've never heard a reasoned argument from an anti-vaxer. Ever.

"I've often wondered if it would have been more/just as effective to vaccinate all non-immune teenagers against rubella..."

Well, as You explained upthread, that's exactly what they used to do (or rather, all teenage girls) and it didn't reduce cases of CRS enough because it's not 100% effective and some of those teenagers hit their childbearing years still susceptible to infection from, eg, small germy children. Hence the decision to try and remove the wild virus from the community as much as possible via vaccinating everybody in childhood. And, as she said, it basically worked, as it reduced the incidence of CRS.

scarednoob this is not about that specific paper, but just an example how anti-vax papers misrepresent information, even if they do cite actua studies and not random web page articles. Quite interesting.
www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/deconstructing-200-evidence-based-reasons-not-to-vaccinate/

booboos once again, your arrogance is astounding.

Please link to these studies.

I disagree with lots of choices people make. For example, I think people who choose to smoke are fairly idiotic. Does that mean it should be banned? Absolutely not.

We must be able to question without fear of reprisal.

Are you denying vaccine damage exists? Presumably you are not yet you advocate that taking in these risks is compulsory? That is unethical to say the least

I know quite a few cautious vaccinaters like me. Some are GPs! They are well informed, intelligent and well read individuals.

You sound sneering, arrogant and unpleasant in your absolutism.

The parents of the unvaccinated little boy who died recently of diphtheria blamed the internet for his death. Apparently they were given wrong information - at no point did it occur to them to consult a doctor or apply some logic to the cartloads of drivel on line. The Spanish government offered its condolences instead of prosecuting them for neglect!

Or perhaps at a time they were questioning vaccines they had a dr like mine who pushed them into being even more defensive of a dangerous choice? Perhaps calm reasoned acknowledgment of concerns would have been more effective? IIRC there was actually research that said telling parents who don't vax they're wrong or something similar wasn't effective at all in persuading them whereas taking concerns seriously was.

What an awful attitude to bereaved parents - who will be living with the guilt and consequences of their decision forevermore. Unless of course they simply couldn't be arsed to vax - but since it's free and requires far more fighting and energy NOT to vaccinate - I doubt that was the case

Why the hell do people "enjoy" anti-vax comments?

FFS. If it puts children at risk - what's to enjoy about it?

I tested non immune to rubella during pregnancy, this wouldn't have been a problem, except I had a partner due to serve overseas where rubella was active. Without testing DP for his immunity I can't fault the Army who said "we will limit it, best we can" poor DP had a arm full of injections the next day they gave him everything including then anthrax and hep B

I'm strongly against compulsory vaccination, just as I am strongly against any compulsory medical procedure. I'm opposed to the principle that the state can take ownership of my (or my DC's) body and force a medical procedure on me for the greater good.

It's an ethical minefield for many reasons. The risks of vaccination aren't properly acknowledged by the public or the medical profession, and as rooner says long-term risks are practically impossible to assess. Plus, because the schedule is a mixture of protection to the individual (usually a child) and the population as a whole, some of the things on there aren't for the benefit of the person getting them. Should a child (often very young) be forced to take the risk of the vaccine to benefit pregnant women (like with Rubella) or older people (like with the live flu vaccine for toddlers)? I would say most definitely not.

Calm, rational, acknowledgement of any concerns is the better way forward. As pigeon says, it's human nature to push back against someone who comes at you aggressively, and it doesn't get much more aggressive than a forced medical procedure. We generally have good vaccination coverage rates in this country (better than many countries with some level of compulsory vaccination actually) and we shouldn't risk breaking something that on the whole works well.

I would seriously make a complaint if it was an employee who said this to you. Dangerous nonsense

leedy, yes, I know the reasoning behind it. I'm just wondering what the effect would have been if they vaccinated both teenage boys and girls who weren't immune - rather than just teenage girls. Would they still have seen a decrease in the incidence of CRS... Just musing really. We'll never know.

"Would they still have seen a decrease in the incidence of CRS."

I suspect not, as I presume the greatest source of infection to non-immune girls/women (and general reservoir of disease) would have been small children rather than teenage boys/men, given that it was a relatively common childhood disease at the time.

There you go

vaccine safety concern pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/4/718.short

don't trust government, vaccines don't work and vaccine preventable diseases are not serious archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=486011

vaccine safety archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=485738&resultclick=1

I could go on but I need to go wash my brain now.

I find the assumption that it's all about autism maddening as well. I'm not particularly afraid of autism, and the debunking of that particular link has been highly publicised. I do wish people involved in the vaccine debate would actually learn what the other side is saying, it makes them much more credible.

Something which was really quite convincing to me, which I'd be interested in sources debunking, is the anti-vax idea that prevalence of these diseases was reducing naturally anyway and that the rates haven't declined in relation to vaccination but would have continued on that path anyway.

Sources like this (which is pro vaccine) seem to back that up - only Polio and Measles have a clear divide before and after vaccination, the others are far more ambiguous. (The graphs aren't brilliant anyway - lots of changing scales and some of them don't even reference the vaccine introduction date.)

Can anyone explain it to me?

graphics.wsj.com/infectious-diseases-and-vaccines/