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??

It isn't just about autism. Although there was a study which shows that the developing brain is susceptible to neurotoxins at an early age.

I knew of a child who went deaf after the MMR. I wish people would stop saying it's all about Andrew Wakefield.

Anecdotally, I know a family where three of 8 children are autistic, the oldest severely so. The mother was an alcoholic who drank moderately during pregnancy. They predate the MMR jabs, so that wasn't the cause. My theory would be that many substances taken by a parent prior to or during pregnancy (drugs/alcohol/medication), as well as many substances given to a child during/after birth and in early childhood could all (individually or together) lead to some level of brain damage/autism from very mild to very severe, and so a single culprit (MMR alone) is unlikely to ever stand out as "the cause of autism", as it may well just be one tiny contributing factor, if a factor at all. I would love to get my hands on a large longitudinal study covering data on parental and child health to test my theory. The problem is that where substance abuse or alcoholism is an issue, parents are unlikely to be particularly honest about it, so any link could easily be missed.

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

I agree with this ^^.

Also, just to say, I don't think the claim was that vaccines cause autism but rather that they may be a trigger in certain susceptible children. But yes, people do tend to think it's all about Wakefield when people question certain vaccines and quite often that isn't the case.

Autism is not one thing and genetics plays a key role. My daughter is severely autistic - unusually severe. Her father and I both have AS. There are numerous people in my family on the spectrum. I feel that the cause is mainly genetic.

It is now known that two HF parents can have a 'severe' child because of the way the genes are passed on.

Vaccine damage is a separate issue entirely. You can have various types of brain damage that are not necessarily ASCs.

I know two people who were born deaf (and one also has learning difficulties) because their mothers contracted rubella during pregnancy. One was my grandmother, the other is my second cousin.

I don't think the claim was that vaccines cause autism but rather that they may be a trigger in certain susceptible children.

You might well have drawn that conclusion, but all reputable medical sources don't agree. They say there's no link. What do you know that they don't, apart from what you reckon?

I wouldn't argue with someone on Facebook, you don't know what propaganda they have been reading, one side or the other. Once they drink the cool aid it's game over, they are lifetime members of the cult.

I work in clinical research and am also a physician, 90% of what's available in the public domain is either out of date, not robust enough to draw conclusions from (just theories that are being researched due to leading indicators) or biased - yes even the health authorities sadly - it is amazing what you can make the data say when you don't have the full data set to question!

Vaccinations- absolutely! Triple vaccinations prior to a babies immune system not being able to fully cope. Not for me, there is a risk, albeit a small one but large enough for me to warrant a private single vaccine regime whose risk is lower.

Combined vaccines look at the health economics and deem it the best option I.e cost vs risk to the population, that's why different countries have differing guidelines.

The research is not conclusive enough and the immunology community themselves are divided, so Joe blogs keyboard anti vax warrior has no chance of providing relevant advise when the KOLs can't even come to a consensus.

Vaccinate you kids please. The balance of risk for and against shows it's better to than not. Risk of damage, smaller than risk of damage due to infection. It's everyone's personal choice but it should be an informed one.

*dont get involved in fb discussions says she wading into this one

Dusty, I think you've misread. I'm not drawing any conclusions about whether or not they do trigger autism - I'm commenting on the wording being used. "Causes" vs "may trigger".

Delete Facebook. Problem solved.

Not just this problem, but hundreds of others complained about here.

MimiTheWonderGoat There is also another suggestion that the huge polio outbreak in the 50s was down to the liberal use of DDT at the time.

When I was a young girl, the youngest sister of a girl at my school was stone deaf and had to learn sign language to communicate. Her mother caught rubella (we knew it as German measles in those days) in the first trimester of pregnancy.

My husband's much older brother (now aged approx 62) has a bad limp; one leg appears slightly shorter than the other, my mum says he has a 'withered leg'. He caught polio as a child.

A close family member is a hippy and a 'doula' and she and her like-minded friends tell everyone they know not to vaccinate their children. She is very anti-vaccinations, yet another one who is against 'big pharma' and "I'm not having toxins put into my child". She does read up on all the stuff on the David Icke website (and seems to think what he is saying is 'the truth').

Ironically she puts toxins into her own body as she smokes roll-up cigarettes and the odd joint......

" that they may be a trigger in certain susceptible children"
You might well have drawn that conclusion, but all reputable medical sources don't agree. They say there's no link"

Population-wide, there doesn't seem to be a link. That is what you are talking about. However, there is some evidence that children with mitochondrial disease (a small number of "susceptible children") are at risk of autistic regression following vaccination.

"a 1 year old needs a rubella jab because a 1 year old can spread rubella and it can cause unbelievable harm to a developing foetus if that child sneezes or coughs near a pregnant lady"

You don't get it, do you?

It is the pregnant lady who needs the immunity, not the 1-year-old. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the lady in question to make sure she is immune, for her future baby's sake. It is not the responsibility of the 1-year-old, and the vaccine is not for the benefit of the 1-year-old, either.

I am not in the business of performing medical procedures on DC unless it is for their own good. It is ethically indefensible to make a baby take on vaccine risk (however small) for the benefit of some woman somewhere who should have thought about getting vaccinated herself.

there are risks ro child from rubella see inks above.

and also the risks from vaccines are from the fever they may cause. if the child are suceptable to a fever caused by a vaccine, then they ate just as likely or more to be damaged by a fever caused by the original disease, therefore need more protection at the least from herd immunity.

I work in big pharma and as pp have stated we're not interested in generic vaccines - no money it. We're too busy trying to cure cancer these days that we created in the first place so we could make a fortune curing but the dastardly clean eaters / aloe bots are foiling us with their alkaline bodies

"the risks from vaccines are from the fever they may cause. if the child are suceptable to a fever caused by a vaccine, then they ate just as likely or more to be damaged by a fever caused by the original disease"

You need to read up about Rubella. It causes the lowest "fever" known to man - about 37.5 C, barely above normal warmth of the human body.

As I said above: DS doesn't need rubella immunity and won't have the vaccine (although I'm pretty sure that he had it). DD hopefully got it from him in those days and if not, her best interests are served by actually getting Rubella and being immune for life. I'll have her tested towards her 18th birthday and have her vaccinated then if necessary, thereby making sure she is immune during her childbearing years when she needs that immunity. Not as a baby when she doesn't need it in the slightest, subject to waning in later years when she will actually need it.

i have read up and you obviously havent. Rubella causes encephylitis as per my link above 1 in 5/6000 i think.

May I put in a plug for the HPV jab... for boys and girls, ideally.
Do not go to the pub with a max-facial-oral surgeon.
Who might tell you a bit about his work.
How oral cancer used to be all found in smokers.
Now they see that cancer a lot in young people... non-smokers...who test positive for HPV. EEEK!!!

you will need to get your daughter tested privately Cote, testing for rubella immunity on the NHS has been stopped

What I do with an anti-vaxxer, big pharma conspiracy theorist?

Hit "hide" on the majority of his posts.

I'd unfriend him, but he's my stepdad He just has very different ideas. I don't engage him in conversation on those topics - nor politics.

I have one of those. She is a lovely mum and is entitled to her views so I just ignore her views. pees me off a little that her beautiful healthy children are protected because mine and other children provide hers with herd protection

Cote - nice try at justifying a horribly selfish attitude. Urgh, how can anyone think that way?!

Better hope she doesn't mess up your plans and get pregnant first, eh?!