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??

GoesDownLikeACupOfColdSick I can't be arsed reading your tripe and nastiness anymore. You do live up to your moniker!

And you live up to part of yours. Clue - it ain't the "wonder" part. But so long as you think twice about telling someone with no experience to look for their own "informed consent" online it has all been worth it.

TBH I don't think the OP is really in a position to make judgements about anyone on this thread. She really hasn't come across very well. I wouldn't be too bothered about her opinion.

Mrwriter - I have a science PhD.

It means I can read science papers without too much difficulty. Theoretical maths & astrophysics are beyond me - but stats and biology and medical papers are not really challenging.

I switched areas about twelve years or so ago to work in the autism field. Very, very very part time now due to the needs of my son.

But I can read papers & understand them. It's not rocket science. And I talk to researchers if I want clarification - that helps.

Not sure the snarky comments are needed.

In terms of research an alert flashed up this morning about a new autism and catatonia paper. I read it and discovered that some of the symptoms I see in my son that I thought were drug side effects are actually catatonia symptoms. He had previously had more severe symptoms of catatonia which were improved by the drug I thought responsible for his side effects.

Next time I am in a consultation about his catatonia or the drug I can take that paper, give it to his consultant (they probably won't have seen it) and have a discussion around it. If it saves the trauma of trying to remove the drug (which will be very hard and risk becoming an inpatient) only to have him freeze again then it'll be worth it.

The paper wasn't very difficult to understand and I read it on my phone lying in bed before I made myself my first cup of tea of the day.

When you have a complex child you educate yourself.

Should say - may actually be catatonia symptoms. Anyhow the point remains - if we fiddle with the drug we can do it with the most up to date understanding. We could even email the author and ask further questions.

Of course I could ignore all new research. I can pretty much guarantee his doctors do not read catatonia papers as they come out & we could have stumbled in unknowingly risked making things worse.

If you have spent 45 minutes after every car journey trying to get someone out of the car or ten minutes frozen at every doorway or hours trying to prompt someone to eat (or having to feed them) - then you have an interest in keeping up with the latest understanding of his highly complex condition.

So fucking shoot me.

That Penn and teller video is awesome

Oh and after reading the paper I clicked on Evernote and now I can find it again when I want to check it out again.

How clever is this thing called the internet.

Devilish - if it's not an insensitive question, given your scientific background, do you think you would have done the same amount of reading if you didn't have a son with complex needs? Unusually for this thread you actually do seem* qualified to do the research and understand it, hence the question

• qualified because it's only based on posts on here, no RL knowledge

The internet is only as clever as the person using it though!

Yep noname, the penn and teller video I did take over to the original fb debate. It didn't go down well there.....

You just go on about "informed consent"

No...I don't think I've mentioned informed consent anywhere on this thread, but feel free to quote the many times I've gone on about it.

But so long as you think twice about telling someone with no experience to look for their own "informed consent" online it has all been worth it.

I never have and I never would!

I don't even understand the question sick. I read research payers to answer specific questions - not to show off at parties or be a bit clever.

2 years ago I knew bugger all about epilepsy. Now I know rather a lot more than I did. I still have a lot of questions (to which the answers from the specialists do far has been they don't know). Given that epilepsy has made his life ever more complex and given that it is likely to shorten his lifespan I'd be bloody negligent to not find out about it. For starters his doctors have so far relied on me to request medication increases - they don't review him or check him out. I have to recognise temporal lobe seizures in someone non-verbal before it moves onto a tonic clonic.

The parents of complex kids educate themselves (whatever their academic background) because they have to. No-one else does it for you.

If you check out the mortality figures for people with LD's (a bloody outrage) you will see why.

The parents of complex kids educate themselves (whatever their academic background) because they have to. No-one else does it for you.

This!

I meant, if you didn't have those specific questions to answer, would you still research topics such as vaccinations or diet in the same level of detail? Or would you have done some reading or no reading?

Dedvilishpyjamas have you found anyone at all that is doing big scale independent research into vaccine damage?

Think that's politically impossible mimi.

No of course I wouldn't sick. My eldest son is vaccinated. I didn't know that much when he went along although I'd read the usual NHS stuff.

I started reading widely (not just about vaccination) to find out what the fuck had happened to him. Like most parents on this thread.

That's the problem right there, and the very thing that people like the OP can't/don't understand.

"People like the OP". See, mimi, this is why I think you talk pure garbage. You have only this thread to go on, but you've drawn a conclusion as to a "type" of person as well as my apparent understanding of the whole issue..... yet you want people to believe you're capable of looking at lots of sources and drawing a valid conclusion. you couldn't research what you wanted to drink in a pub!

That was my thinking behind the question, devilish, and why I said I hoped it wasn't too insensitive - if even someone as intelligent and well informed/qualified scientifically as you wouldn't have done the research in such depth before needing to, then who would? But they might still think they had done enough. And that's what I am getting at with my concerns about the "do your own research" brigade when they think their own reading trumps the experts.

Eh? I wish I had done more research (beyond the NHS leaflets). So I'm not sure you want to use me to prove a point.

I'm not using you to prove a point! Ain't nobody still reading this who's going to change their mind on anything.

I'm genuinely interested because you are pretty much the only "do your own research" poster who has made any sense. The rest are just bumbling white noise. And I've never said nobody should do their own research - for me the debate is about what that entails. So for me, for example, that was checking with 3 different doctors with different specialisms.

But knowing what you know and how much time and effort it takes to acquire that knowledge, when you say "do your research" to the average parent, esp without any statistical or medical knowledge, what would you think they should do?

Oh for goodness sake, are you for real??! The hypocrisy I see before me is hurting my brain.

Eh?

If I'd done my own research maybe I could have prevented my son's life being destroyed. Do you understand that? For whatever reason (& as I said above I didn't just look st vaccination) my son's entire life has been destroyed. His peers are heading off to university and he needs 24 hour 2:1 care. Do you have any idea what that feels like? He can't even have a bath by himself. I researched and researched to give his siblings the best chance of the same thing not happening to them.

It's hardly difficult. There are amateur sleuths giving more time to researching the mccann's over on that thread than it would take to read a few papers on vaccination.

And before you start rolling you eyes I'm not self indulgent enough to start weeping and wailing about needing something to blame.

My interest has always been in preventing history repeating itself in. Ds2 & ds3 and helping Ds1's condition improve in whatever way it can. His life tends to be better when he can use a talker than when he can't even ask for drink by passing me a cup. So when he loses skills I tend to research why that might be happening.

what brain would that be, mimi? Thought you weren't engaging with this any more anyway. Bye bye.

No, I can't imagine that, devilish. I have no idea how hard and heart breaking that must be. But I am surprised that you think the research is easy. Still, if you do, you do.