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??

that info is in the book i linked
also comparison on here

Great information, bruffin. Thanks

Bruffin
That info you linked to has at the end:

Sources of funding: Work on the manuscript was supported by funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Immunization Program, through Cooperative Agreement U66/CCU719217-01 to the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Foundation. Dr. Kimmel is a member of the speaker's bureau (immunizations) for GlaxoSmithKline and serves on the Adult Vaccine Advisory Board for Merck & Co., Inc.

So, basically, the author was funded by the national immunization program, and was being paid by GSK to give talks about (i.e. market) their vaccines (from what I can gather). It's not exactly impartial information.

I should add that reactions to medicines are vastly underreported. In the UK we have a yellow card system. I reported a severe toxic reaction to an antibiotic and was asked for my gp's details. He was sent forms to fill in to corroborate the details of the reaction. Every few months I was contacted by Bayer asking if I could get my gp to fill in the forms. I asked him multiple times and he said he was a typically busy gp and would get around to it at some point. He never did, so my report was not included in their numbers of adverse reactions. This is common.

I'm not an anti vaxxer but I am pro valid and impartial data.

mimi there is also evidence that vaccine reactions are over reported, ie by lawyers trying to create cases for litigation.

The IOM link i gave above is impartial, the other link i gave was from the aap which i suspect is a lot more sound than most antifax websites and is included in the list of respected websites for information on Immusation published by WHO

I'm not anti vaccination, but I waited until my kids were 14 before they hadr their MMR,. Vaccines can and do sometimes damage.

How can lawyers report vaccine reactions? Wouldn't they also need corroboration from a medical professional, as anyone else would? And if they do get corroboration from a medical professional, doesn't that just confirm a genuine case, rather than be over reporting?

Lucky for your kids that everybody doesn't do that though, skerry - they'd have had far more chance of catching measles or mumps when they were tiny if other kids hadn't had the jab at 1!

Anyone can report a reaction to vaers, it doesnt have to have medical corroboration. Although the andrew wakefield case is a lawyer and gp corroborating to make a case for litigation

GoesDownLikeACupOfColdSick I delayed on advice from my GP. My son suffered damage from the pertussis jab he had as a baby which took years of treatment to resolve.
Our GP wanted to protect him from further damage and advised I delay his sister's jabs too.

I see - so you had a very good reason. And it is precisely because of children like yours that others shouldn't be making the decision not to vaccinate or to delay vaccination because of something they read on google!

"My son suffered damage from the pertussis jab he had as a baby which took years of treatment to resolve."
"I see - so you had a very good reason"

Are only people whose children have already suffered vaccine damage correct to see that it is a possibility and avoid non-essential vaccines, then?

I'm not anti-vax - DC have had most vaccines available. I'm anti vacines they can live without, or are offered for the good of society, not for their own essential benefit. And that because I am aware that vaccines carry a small and sometimes unpredictable risk, as I learn from the bitter experiences of skerry and others, without having to live through it myself.

Interestingly my GP chooses to vaccinate none of her 5 children.

I think you can't really 'debate' with anybody if your starting point is 'you are wrong and I am going to make you see sense'. If you as a pro vaxxer thinks anti vaxxers are all stupid gullible conspiracy theorists and the anti vaxxer thinks you are 'sheeple', incapable of independent thought then you are not going to give any thought or weight to each other's argument. You will never find any common ground. I have a friend who is strongly anti vax and I have given my kids all the vaccines going. We never ever discuss it. She is confident and convinced of her viewpoint and I am the same. We would never ever convince each other otherwise.

My starting point would be: show me something that stacks up against the weight of evidence from the NHS, WHO, CDC etc. If one person who is anti-vax could show me that, then I would read it with interest. Someone on the initial fb thread is now spouting bloke in the states as if he is god, but he's actually an investigative freelance journalist who writes books on the topic. But it's the CDC that's out to make money out of parents...........!

Surprised that a GP would disclose her own kids' private medical records like that, but OK. Presumably she is also happy to vaccinate other people's kids

Cote - how do you decide what is an essential vaccine, though? Do you base it on the harm that the disease can do, for example? eg measles is essential, but chicken pox is not?

The problem though is that people do blindly just follow the crowd, and take on unnecessary hysteria.

yes, it's easy to think back to the days when measles was a deadly disease and to be thankful that that is no longer the case due to vaccination programmes. However from a counter POV you only need to look at the hysteria surrounding chicken pox now to realise that it's not all about saving lives and making a difference.

Chicken pox is a mild childhood illness which is best caught during childhood. Of course there are going to be some instances where serious complications arise, but those are minimal, and certainly not indicative of the fact that CP is a deadly disease which we should all rush to vaccinate against. In fact you could easily compare risks of chicken pox to risks of vaccinations, and yet the response is so different.

Tell someone you know someone whose child was damaged through vaccination and vaccine damage is a reality for some,) and the response will be "well, the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks. That was obviously only one case, look at all the millions who have their vaccinations without any effects," and yet if you sight a case of a child who was disabled or worse through chicken pox the response is "well, one is one too many, chicken pox has the potential to be a deadly illness, bring on the vaccination."

I'm not an anti vaccer. I do however believe that we over vaccinate against many things and I do believe that people who blindly follow what the government say are just as stupid as those who blindly refuse all vaccinations. It's possible to have middle ground.

"how do you decide what is an essential vaccine, though? Do you base it on the harm that the disease can do, for example? eg measles is essential, but chicken pox is not?"

I use my brain, as I'm sure we're supposed to do with these optional vaccines.

There is that. Most people don't do the chicken pox vaccine vaccine for that reason.

There is also the fact that Rubella vaccine, for example, is completely unnecessary at age 1 - only girls need immunity and that in their childbearing years. It is an incredibly mild and short-lived disease that many parents don't even realize their children have had. I'll have DD tested at age 17 or so and have her vaccinated at that point if found to be non-immune. I certainly hope that she will have had it by then and be immune for life.

Then there is also Hepatitis B vaccine which I refused +10 years ago because the paediatrician who proposed it said it has to be done as a baby, before the myelin sheath sets. Knowing 2 people with MS, I was worried about long term effects after researching this vaccine and it turns out that I was right.

Tell someone you know someone whose child was damaged through vaccination and vaccine damage is a reality for some,) and the response will be "well, the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks. That was obviously only one case, look at all the millions who have their vaccinations without any effects," and yet if you sight a case of a child who was disabled or worse through chicken pox the response is "well, one is one too many, chicken pox has the potential to be a deadly illness, bring on the vaccination."

Exactly this!

"only girls need immunity and that in their childbearing years. It is an incredibly mild and short-lived disease that many parents don't even realize their children have had"

The complications for a foetus aren't mild or short-lived. So that approach is fine - provided that your child doesn't go near anyone who is pregnant until you've had her tested and know she's immune, of course.

Tell her to come and live with me here in Africa for a while, that will soon show her why children need to be vaccinated. Had massive yellow fever outbreak here last year and so many little ones died. It's heartbreaking at times.

WannaBe. It's shit when you or your child is that one in a million. That's how risk works unfortunately. My first child was that one in a million and didn't survive long after birth due to unforseen/unlikely complications so I'm not being flippant here. All medical intervention has risk. As a parent/individual we have to weigh up risk and make a choice based on that.

If you are totally cynical you could think of it as the NHS going for the cheapest possible option. So they have not rolled out chickenpox vax as the cost of vax would be greater than the cost of treatment of complications. They have rolled out meningitis to the high risk group only as it is not cost effective to vax everyone.

In regard to the rubella at a young age I believe this is done to help protect women of child bearing age who are likely to be around young children.

A child died of measles every minute in Africa before the jab was made more available there. Many more were left blind or otherwise damaged. Imagine telling their parents that they could have a jab to take it all away and it would be for free.

How many of them would have said, "ooh no, I need to use my brain to look on the internet first!" ?? Not many I suspect. We have a luxurious position here in that most people have never seen a child suffering from any of these diseases.

X post about the rubella sick.

We have a luxurious position here in that most people have never seen a child suffering from any of these diseases.

I think this is a big part of the issue here.