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.

Not vaccinating your children because of what a random unqualified person said, would be like not putting your child in a car seat because you once heard a rumour about a family being trapped in their car when it fell into a lake.

Absolutely, lottielou7.

Watch this:

Then make up your fucking mind whether you want to protect your children or not.

Lots of people like to make an educated decision about wether or not to have them.

I am very pro educating people about good health.
Health food shops sell "alchemy" not well researched advise about what really constitutes a good diet and healthy lifestyle.
Anyone can say something is " healthy" as a means to promoting some rare berry or whatever that is grown in a remote island.
Health food shops are very wise to those easily seduced by their "health claims".
A good diet does not need lots of expensive supplements.
FWIT Holland and Barrett sell lots of non organic stuff for about 3X the normal cost of buying it a regular shop.
I'm so glad I'm not naïve enough to think I need to spend ££'s on " special tonics" to ensure I have a balanced diet.
As for vaccines, have 'em all; have them done separately and privately if funds permit.
I do think that there is always an element of risk with vaccines, but as someone who knows of several babies losing their lives to meningitis , I would not hesitate to get them immunised.

I fucking hate anti-vaxxers; they spread dangerous bullshit to gullible fools. They usually believe all kinds of weird conspiracy shite too.

Lots of people like to make an educated decision about wether or not to have them.

I would always encourage any parent considering whether or not to vaccinate to look carefully at the evidence and then make up their minds. Unfortunately there's a lot of terrible misinformation on the internet that can look credible to untrained eyes. Thankfully the vast majority of people are convinced by the medical evidence that vaccinations (while not totally risk free) are the best protection they can offer their children against some potentially life changing or fatal diseases.

One of the game changers that makes todays society is the legacy of the idea of "public health" - of which vaccination programmes are a perfect example. A miracle we hardly ever stop to consider.

Perhaps OP the idiot would care to meet my beautiful DS who contracted meningitis at 8 months who is now deafbind cerebral palsy epilepsy, his life is wrecked. If only a vaccine was available.

All I can say is walk a mile in my shoes.
I am a wreck. My Daisy was 17 months old and she went somewhere nicer.

I'm so sorry Sugar, your threads repeatedly bring tears to my eyes.

Holland and Barrett has always seemed a weird mix of reasonably healthy foods and absolute quackery.

My husband employs a lovely woman part time who also works part time in a shop selling supplements. She has many years retail experience but no medical knowledge. She regularly gets asked medical questions by customers as her job seems to suggest some training/ knowledge. She is very careful not to give specific advice but I can imagine these shops attract people with strong opinions and not much science behind them.

I know of one woman who swears her baby was normal until he had his jabs, but by the time he was 5 he was in a wheelchair and had learning difficulties. But that's just one woman. I'm not saying I believe it, all my 4 children had all their jabs, but she's convinced. Never gonna know anyway.

I love it how weirdos moan about Big Pharma, as if Holland and Barrett is a altruistic workers co-operative.

I suspect the sad truth is that the more successful vaccines are the less we appreciate them. My grandparents would have greatly feared the horrors of polio but for me the possibility would never cross my mind. When the polio vaccine first appeared I imagine many were desperate for their children to have it. It's easier to scaremonger about MMR when most people haven't seen children die of measles. Meningitis remains one of the few infectious diseases parents are still really scared of because children are still dying from it and the threat is very real in our minds.

Another Mner sent me this pic for Mothers day it was so thoughtful of her, make sure you don't get one

I come from a medical family. I was one of the last people to be inoculated against smallpox in Spain because my grandfather insisted. I grew up regarding Jenner (the creator of the first vaccine) and Fleming (who discovered antibiotics) as heroes of humanity who prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths.

The IDIOCY of anti-vaxxers infuriates me so much because they are literally undoing the heroic (yes, heroic) work of medicine over the centuries. Bring back the Middle Ages, why the fuck not?

My sister had (note the past tense) a friend who refused to have her children vaccinated and took them off to live in a commune in Majorca, where they are being homeschooled. However, this doesn't prevent this woman from taking her children to parks or walking with them in public, I imagine. Thus endangering children who are to little to have been inoculated, elderly people, and of course, her children.

If I ever see her, I'll spit in her face. It's not a matter of "the best choice for my children". It's a matter of the ONLY sane choice for EVERYONE's children.

How many doctors do you actually know?

Lots!

I know several who will privately admit that the current vaccination regime has tilted far too far in the wrong direction, risk-benefit wise, but they say they would never say it in public as their career would be destroyed.

Seriously, I cannot imagine an NHS doctor saying this (unless their concerns were about cost). It just wouldn't even cross their minds. Nor would they be worried about their careers (the NHS isn't MI5). Which vaccinations have "tilted too far in the wrong direction"? Polio/Hib/pneumococcal/pertussis? Rotavirus? Men C and B? Tetanus? Which one of those would you imagine we should chuck out? The NHS is pretty conservative about the vaccine schedule, and I can't think of a single one which hasn't had a weight of data about population benefits to support it. There are plenty of vaccines available to older people, too, but somehow there doesn't seem to be much argument about whether, eg., elderly people should just suffer shingles, because the vaccination is too risky for them....or, perhaps let's not develop those Ebola vaccinations any further in case the poor people in Liberia overload their immune systems.

The truth is that yes, there are loads of nasties in vaccines (and in every other medicine we use) and we have no idea what effect they could have in the long run as quite simply, we have not done enough long range studies, but that we as a society have decided that probably on balance the benefit of reducing he burden from certain diseases is worth the unknown risk from those nasties.

There are plenty of long-range studies on vaccinated populations. Early forms of vaccination were imported to Europe from Turkey in the eighteenth century. It isn't like they were suddenly invented by Big Pharma in the last 30 years.

The lobbying from vaccine companies probably does have something to do with which diseases we decide that is the case for, and as such it varies from country to country.

The decision on which diseases to vaccinate against is done on medical evidence and forecasting of risks and benefits, as well as cost, public health messages and benefits, and practicalities, in the NHS. The idea that it's about lobbying from vaccine companies is laughable. Some countries, like the US, which has very reduced annual leave compared to the UK, count parents' time off looking after children with chickenpox as economically worth the while of vaccinating; whereas the NHS doesn't (amongst other reasons, including the history of the MMR scare; in fact the primary reason why we don't vaccinate against varicella is the fear that it will further dilute MMR uptake, not anything to do with vaccine companies).

We have become ridiculous about vaccines because most of us were not around when childhood illnesses used to regularly kill and maim. My grandfather still remembers people dying a slow, horrible death from smallpox and people being in iron lungs and crippled due to polio. One woman spent her whole life in one - from when she was 8 until her death in her 70s. How about that for a life? There was actually a national holiday when the polio vaccine was found to work and the man who invented it have it to the government for free - just because it was such a devastating disease he wanted it stopped. And it was...through vaccine.

Anyone who wonders whether or not to vaccinate their children needs to spend a day with my friend as a nurse in paediatric intensive care. She sees children die of measles and other largely preventable diseases because they have not been vaccinated. She had children die from
Chicken pox and in the UK we don't deem that vaccination worthy (stupidly).

You also have a duty to vaccinate your child to protect those children with serious illnesses who cannot be vaccinated.

This video on the Jimmy Kimmel show by doctors fed up of a risk vaxxers is worth a watch

m.youtube.com/watch?v=QgpfNScEd3M

Ignorant arsehole peddling non scientific bollocks and endangering lives by refusing to vaccinate

*risk vaxxers = anti vaxxers

I know quite a few doctors who haven't vaccinated. Its a very personal choice.

Haven't RTFT but short answer is that some vaccines are full of 'nasties' because a controlled first encounter with said 'nasties' confers future immunity to bigger threats.

Also don't forget the benefits of herd immunity.

A bunch of vaccinated 2-yr olds makes a much safer place for unvaccinated or not able to be vaccinated babies

Crack pot

Herd immunity people!!

If you (the royal you, not you specifically, OP) choose not to vaccinate your kids (those who aren't able to for medical reasons obv don't come under this banner) then you shouldn't be allowed to come to school or nursery. If you choose to gamble with your kids' lives, your prerogative. But you shouldn't be able to recklessly endanger the lives of others.