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??

Where is your evidence that people use google to reach their conclusions op?

Some people read the original research.

Get off your high horse

Yes yes well done Lottie. Having people in your family who were vulnerable/immune compromised and being concerned about them and others in the same positioning if more and more people choose not to vaccinate IS just being a busybody. You've totally got this one 🤦‍♂️

Yes, everyone who is not a medical professional has access to all the most up to date data and studies and understand all the terminology and stats... course they do.

Psssst. Those aren't conclusions. Those are guesses.

You're talking rubbish. But nobody is going to be able to convince you of that.

no Lottie. I'm not. But you carry on telling people that you know more than the professionals because you've read a few "original studies" and I'll just carry on hoping that anyone who could be affected by that sort of thinking stays safe!

I'm gobsmacked by the number of people on here who wouldn't take NHS advice and reckon they know better about medicine than all those doctors who spent several years learning it and several more years practising it, and all those scientists who equally have been specialising for most of their adult lives. Are you this distrustful about everything in your lives? When you buy a new car, do you take it apart and put it back together again because you've done some research, and you care more about your family's lives when you travel in that car than those profit-obsessed manufacturers? When you buy shampoo or toothpaste, do you personally test it because you've done your research and you don't trust the people who developed and manufactured it to have done that job properly? Are you sure you should be putting any faith in the people who produce your family's food? As for getting on planes ...

Absolutely Megatherium. For some reason saying you have done your own research into vaccination seems to make people feel smug.

Where I live it tends to be the hippy earth mother type parents who don't vaccinate. But they treat everything else the WHO says re children eg breastfeeding for an extended period as gospel.

Guess what people! WHO also say you should vaccinate your children!

What annoys me is the fact that I know two people who think they have researched vaccinations properly because they both happen to have read this book by a 'real' Dr who says that vaccinations are bad and don't even work anyway etc etc. I can't remember what the book is called.

Anyway, it pisses me off because reading a book by a doctor is not the same as researching a subject properly and understanding it. I don't pretend to know enough to be able to research the efficacy of vaccinations by myself because I didn't spend years studying medicine and working in a health related field.

If people want to challenge conventional wisdom, fair enough, but it strikes me that a lot of anti vaxxers aren't as informed as they think they are. I'd almost have more respect if they could just be honest and say that they are basing it all on their opinions, because that's what it is at the end of the day.

You are showing your lack of research OP. The outbreaks in whooping cough are not thought to be due to people not vaccinating (whooping cough vaccination rates are high). There are several competing theories as to why whooping cough is on the rise (in Australia waning immunity esp for the aP vaccination seemed to be the accepted wisdom, following suggestions strains evolved - although this paper suggests it might be may complicated than that rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/283/1822/20152309 ). In any case the response to an increase in rates -vaccinating pregnant women - (and you'll see from a previous paper linked to on here that the safety assessment of that is ongoing) - is because it was recognised that for pertussis cocooning (vaccinating those around you) doesn't work.

The parents have clearly been through hell - but the unvaccinated are not the issue for pertussis.

And here's an easy read from the CDC stating very clearly that the unvaccinated are not the driving force behind the whooping cough outbreaks. A 2 minute google will givw you repeated sources saying the same thing. www.cdc.gov/pertussis/about/faqs.html

Interesting that they're saying pertussis vaccination gives good protection for 2 years. See how you're on a hiding to nothing re herd immunity if it really is that short lasting.

Also interesting that they say natural immunity wanes. When my son was exposed as a baby my immunity developed over 20 years before must have protected him??? (He has a large exposure - I wouldn't have thought he'd avoided picking it up. Who knows I guess).

And you are misunderstanding me OP. I don't go around telling people to google (or anything else). If they ask my advice i suggest things to look at orvpwople to talk to if I can think of anything relevant and then maybe tell them it's their decision (because it is).

Can you please answer something OP. If something goes wrong (either via contracting a disease or a vaccine injury) who do you think deals with that? If someone came to you with a disabled child (for whatever reason) where would you tell them to go to get support? How much support do you think that families receive for severely disabled children & adults (severely disabled children don't grow up & leave home)?

Did none of the medical professionals tell you about the issues with whooping cough vaccination OP?

The fact that the unvaccinated are not driving the pertussis outbreaks has actually been repeatedly in the mainstream press over the last few years. Here's a random example from the top of google but I have seen reports in U.K. newspapers as well.
www.google.co.uk/amp/www.latimes.com/health/la-me-whooping-cough-20160205-story,amp.html?client=safari

Mega - I have quizzed my son's consultants (not GP's) about lots of issues over the years. An extremely common response has been 'I don't know'. (And the more senior & experienced the doctor the more likely that response is- personally I appreciate the honesty). When issues are complex the answers to questions are often not known.

Incidentally when dealing with ds1 you find that there are lots of alternatives to treatment. So for (a simple) example -when ds1 had a suspected broken ankle there was a discussion around how to treat it. (Suspected because we failed to get an x ray if the appropriate bit). The usual is of course to plaster it in some way. But no-one could work out how we'd get it off him. So the decision was left to us. It was explained it would 'probably' heal whatever we did, so we did nothing & left with the promise that we could come back at any time to have it plastered & he would jump the queue straight to the senior consultant in that day. It did heal with us doing nothing.

Now take that example and apply it to something more complex. I have found the same thing happens each & every time. The doctors set out what they know, tell us what they don't know - tell us the pros & cons of each decision - and then leave us to make the decision. Sometimes we ask for a review date to revisit the decision.

It has happened like that again and again. One you move away from average child with average problems you find there are often no accepted protocols - just a list of choices.

Being pro Vax doesn't mean pro ALL Vax. My kids have had all the normal ones... Slightly delayed and spread apart but they've had them. However they haven't had flu etc etc.

My husband's cousin, who is a bit of a scary type (carries a gun in his car, for starters) thinks vaccinations are a government conspiracy. This is my one and only reference point for non-vaccers.

I think mimi actually made an unwittingly good point when she likened "doing research" on vaccines to reading the contract when you buy a house. Does she (hypothetical she) read the contract and understand that she is buying 123 London Road for £100,000? Or does she look at each clause, so say for example s62 rights are excluded, does she go off, find the statute, look up what section 62 of the law of property act 1925 actually does, then look at the title to see if it matters, then look up cases on that section that have similar facts, then look at a textbook? Does she go off to get a copy of the standard terms and conditions of sale that will be incorporated without being repeated? Or does she read it and nod her head sagely and think, "yep that makes sense because I understand the words on this page"?

I can see why people think they have done their research; I just don't see why they think they are equipped to do so.

And no, devilish, I don't claim to know about whooping cough: THAT is why I relied on professionals. It was recommended for my baby, I checked that with 2 professionals and a friend who works in the field of immunology to see what they thought and so I took it.

And long may you live in a world where doctors never contradict each other, make a mistake, or say they don't know.

Sick - you linked to story saying 'some people think they know better than the doctors' - (your assumption presumably being that 'anti-vaccinators' are responsible for the rise in whooping cough & deaths of any babies from pertussis). A ten second google would have told you the rise in whooping cough cases is nothing to do with people not vaccinating. Maybe you need to stop blaming others without any research.

You haven't answered my question- who do you think steps in and helps when a child is left severely disabled (for whatever reason)? I am asking for a reason relevant to this thread.

if you think a "ten second google" is the answer then so be it, devilish. I maintain it is at best irresponsible to advise people to look things up themselves when they are not qualified.

You could say that about any area of life though. If someone is hit by a car crossing the road and suffers life changing head injuries, meaning they need 24 hour care, who steps in then? But does that mean nobody should ever cross a road? Or does it mean they should look carefully and rely on the pedestrian crossing as being the right place to cross, as statistically something awful could still happen, but it's far less likely?

I hear what you are saying, but it simply doesn't justify telling people that it's ok to ignore the doctors. It's ok to question the doctors. But ultimately they are the experts. Exceptions like you with your knowledge of what happens to your son are rare.

Cote - sure. But between the chances of the doctors making mistakes and the mum who thinks she's a genius because she once got a degree making her decisions based on which diseases she thinks are mild making mistakes - yeah, I think I know which chance I'll take, ta!

You still haven't answered my question. What care is out there for severely disabled children? Who cares for them?

But a ten second google from you (which must have been ten seconds as the easy read CDC stuff is top of the search results) is fine to start accusing people? (Erroneously as is happens).

Do you really honestly believe that doctors are the experts in people like my son . Oh how I wish that was the case.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I did look up every clause I didn't understand in the lease when I bought my house. My solicitor claimed my mortgage company wouldn't cover that type of lease so I googled the Mortgage Lender's Handbook, looked up the clause relating to crossover leases, saw that the mortgage lender did accept that type of lease, screenshotted it and sent it to my solicitor.
Professionals don't know everything. How can they? Every job has a learning curve. When recent vaccines were formulated, most gps were already qualified...so how and when would they have studied about them?

Devilish, I fully accept that you know a great deal about your child's condition and the ramifications of it. I also fully accept that in your family's circumstances vaccination isn't appropriate. However, that doesn't make you an expert on paediatric medicine and pharmacology for all children. How can it?

As for the fact that medical experts frequently tell you that they don't know the answers to specific questions about your child's condition, again that isn't surprising. No-one knows everything about every medical condition that exists, and self-evidently no-one claims that medical knowledge has reached a state of perfection. However, it makes sense to accept that people who have been studying and working in the subject for years knows more than the man in the street, no matter how much individual research that man may have done. The statistics of diseases like smallpox and polio demonstrate that vaccination is effective.

Mimi, it's standard practice for professionals, including doctors, to have continuing training. Medical education doesn't stop at the point when doctors qualify.