To ask you to help me argue with an anti-vaxxer on fb

[GoesDownLikeACupOfColdSick]

I know, I know. But it's Saturday night, DP is out and I am just home whilst our (fully vaccinated!) DD is asleep.

What do I say to someone who is convinced that we should all do our own research, that vaccines are only about big pharma making big bucks, and that the govt hushes up vaccine damage??

Goes down - my mum was very ill with measles. Months in hospital, nearly died, left deaf in one ear.

She still believes my younger ones should not have been vaccinated. Her life is a million miles away from ds1 - despite her near brush with death & lasting effects of measles.

I had measles with no particularly bad effects although I felt ill enough for it to be an early childhood memory.

It's daft to say that you can't scare anyone who had those diseases. what you really mean is, you're more willing to dismiss them because you were lucky!

You can say the exact same about vaccinations. People who've had them and given them to their kids and experienced no ill effects are more willing to dismiss the idea that they could possibly cause damage, because they were lucky.

Vaccination programmes are imo not only to reduce complications of diseases but also to prevent children having time off school and parents having time off work - both disruptive.

If vaccination was all about protecting the vulnerable in society or preventing people from dying from the complications then surely we would all get free flu vaccines to protect those with compromised immune systems.

Devilish - DS was a baby (under 10 months) when he had Rubella. I would have taken care to keep him away from people but the symptoms were so mild over several days (just a bit of redness behind the ears)that I didn't know he had a viral infection. I thought he scratched behind his ears. He showed no discomfort whatsoever.

It's only when he broke out in a pinprick rash all over that I Googled symptoms and came up with Rubella. His temperature at the time of the rash was 37.5 C, which is no fever at all.

They should forget about Rubella vaccination, check girls' immunity in adolescence, and offer the vaccine at that point if necessary.

Do you think that Andrew Wakefield and the vaccines cause autism but gluten free diets cure it brigade have made it harder for people who are genuinely vaccine damaged (assuming that's what happened to your DS1, apologies if I have misunderstood?) to receive recognition? He has a lot to answer for but even more so if that is the case.

Well, not the exact thing, but I'm sure you get my point.

Natural measles immunity lasts for about a year plus. Which is why MMR used to be given later. If you give it when there are maternal antibodies circulating you get a poor response. Now so many mothers have vaccination immunity it needs to be given earlier.

However, notice I said newborn. Studies have shown that many babies born to vaccinated mothers have no immunity to measles. So if a newborn is exposed to measles the first question the medics are meant to ask is whether the mother had measles herself.

Fwiw my middle son was exposed to chickenpox age 8 months. We were seeing ds1's paed at the time And he said he'd probably still have immunity from me (didn't get it).

See also the need for whooping cough vaccination when pregnant now.

Should say 'often' have no immunity

Mimi, I don't think anyone vaccinates blindly. It IS nerve racking. But I think all you can is to choose someone who is a medical expert and trust them. And understand that there are reasons why it's generally considered to be for the best. Statistically the risks are much smaller than the harm the diseases can do.

I did read somewhere that humans are more prone to choose what we perceive as passive harm - so a 1 in 1000 chance of damage from a disease is seen as better than a 1 in 10000000 chance from a vaccine because the latter involves actively taking a step. The former relies on thinking ah, they'll never get it anyway/be fine if they do.

GoesDown, so you're blaming it on the child next door who turned down a vaccine rather than all the other unvaccinated children she was in contact with - of her own age and older - who were unvaccinated because the MMR wasn't available?

"Vaccination programmes are imo not only to reduce complications of diseases but also to prevent children having time off school and parents having time off work - both disruptive."

Of course. A parent's decision process and the government's are not the same - parent prioritizes the well-being of her child (and gets called "cuntish" for it ) whereas government weighs up the economic cost of a few damaged children vs Dr visits, medicines & work days lost as 1parent/family leaves work for 2 weeks/disease/child.

There are quite a few Game Theory papers written on the subject of vaccination, some talking about this very clash of interests.

Yes bumbley. It was too coincidental otherwise.

They weren't tested scientifically, so maybe it wasn't that child, but the timing certainly convinced her parents who told me about it!

Parent "prioritises" by saying fuck everyone else, they should have immunised themselves by catching it and I don't care about the possible ramifications if they didn't" isn't QUITE the same thing though, is it?!

"I think all you can is to choose someone who is a medical expert and trust them."

So you would rather outsource your critical faculties? Where does that leave you if experts disagree on the best course of action?

Gardasil (HPV vaccine) is offered to 11-year-olds around here, so that is what you would consider the gospel as revealed by "medical experts". However, both my gynecologist & DD's paediatrician said that it's better to delay it to a later age, when possible side effects are much rarer. And that is what we are doing. Again, if your 11-year-old is interested in boys, you might follow a different strategy.

And understand that there are reasons why it's generally considered to be for the best. Statistically the risks are much smaller than the harm the diseases can do.

In the 70s we all had everything that was going round...mumps, measles...you name it! The majority survived unscathed.

Measles deaths in the UK 1970-80: 258. Yes, that's a very small proportion of the number of measles cases, but I suspect the families involved don't think it's insignificant. Then you have to factor in the people who were left with long term after-effects and disability. It's silly to risk that when it's preventable.

I find it a bit strange that you are so angry with someone who turned down the MMR when it had just been introduced and the majority of children would not have been vaccinated with it. Would you be as angry if it was a child in her class that she caught it from?

OP - you are not coming across well. Swearing, PAs and being rude don't make for very convincing arguments.

Tell him unless he's performed an independent literature review, and is able to interpret all the studies and critically analyse them, then he's probably wasting his time.

This is it in a nutshell.

Interesting reading these responses. There's definitely an overall 'good of society' standpoint, greatest benefit to the greatest number. Thing is that is not going to suit every individual family.

You have to consider both the chance of catching a disease and the chance of damage from that disease in order to compare it with the chance of damage from a vaccine. Vaccine damage tends to be allergic or toxic. If it's a toxic reaction there's no cure and there's no help (and largely no acceptance or admittance, treatment or care) given by the medical profession. However, damage from the disease itself (other than death, obviously) will get medical care.

Um lots of evidence that gluten free diets help some autisms now. In fact ds1's neurologist recommend we try it if we hadn't already. I think the most damage is done by repeatedly ignoring the obvious fact that there is no such thing as autism - it is autisms and many different conditions. It's nonsense to treat a child ending up in ICU after the MMR following seizures & then a severe loss of skills as exactly the same as someone who has problems with social interaction.

No i don't think Wakefield was an actual problem or has anything to answer for (not if you read/listen to what he actually said/wrote/did - very different from what he has been reported as saying & doing).

Here's some info on measles & maternal antibodies from the hpa. Note that vaccination also affects natural immunity (by removing the booster effect of natural circulating disease) www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/327787/Post_exposure_prophylaxis_for_measles__May_2009.pdf

Omg!
How about respecting her right to an opinion!!
They are not 100% safe.
My kids have had mmr before anybody leaps on me but geez nothing wrong with doubt, caution, research.
The haste to demonise so-called "anti-vaxxers" is really lazy.

I don't understand why people think that you must automatically respect people's right to an opinion when that opinion is contrary to all credible evidence. If someone told you that in their opinion everyone should worship the Giant Cookie Monster, you wouldn't say you had to respect that opinion, would you?

I think the problem is people make choices based on the information they have. A section of people don't trust the information for various reasons - ranging from pharma co conspiracies to current scientific thinking being wrong or biased. To me it's much simpler. Do I want my child to get multiple diseases? No. So I have them vaccinated.

I was looking at the chickenpox vaccination the other day for my little one (oldest caught it when a toddler). Apparently the reason for not vaccinating in the uk on the NHS is that this would leave the unvaccinated children vulnerable to catching it as adults, or whilst pregnant, and that shingles cases would increase. Catching it as adults is considered riskier for secondary infections. So the risk to children getting seriously ill is offset against the risk to adults getting it because they don't have natural immunity.

The anti/pro-disease argument summed up in one image.

Unfortunately some people will never be persuaded by facts because we instinctively value anecdotes over empirical data.