not to challenge this antivaxxer mum at playgroup?

[CaptainWarbeck]

Chatting to a nice mum this morning about child health nurses, she says she's really struggled to find a 'good' one because they've made the decision not to vaccinate their youngest child.

Cue a bit of a monologue from her about how their oldest suffered a 'vaccine injury' (not sure what this was, he seems a regular kid) and it's really much better to vaccinate later, if at all, and her doctor has been very pushy and they've annoyingly had to switch practices because of it.

Argh. I diplomatically made sympathetic noises and did say we were big vaccination fans but each to their own and you've got to do what you think is right for your child yada yada.

Now I'm feeling like I maybe should have challenged her a bit more, rather than just being supportive of what I perfectly honestly think is mad anti-vaxxer nonsense. AIBU?

I think one issue is that we get told "vaccines are safe". Well yes they are in that they are a lot safer than no one being vaccinated and children dying of scarlet fever and measles all the time.

But safe doesn't mean 100% safe - it just means comparatively very safe. Like driving around in a modern car with airbags is comparatively very safe and a sensible option, it doesn't mean nothing can go wrong.

I can understand some people being concerned, if they're anxious, if their child seems to deal badly with medical stuff / has allergies etc. They don't have to be clueless conspiracy theorist to have valid concerns.

Science isn't "facts", it's an ongoing learning and adjustment process where we try to get things as right as possible. Just because something is scientifically supported/proven doesn't make it 100% right or perfect.

refuse to do a vaccinated vs non-vaccinated study

Yes...because it would be utterly unethical to carry out such a study.

Right.

*you challenging her, when not even her doctor could do so successfully, won't make a difference. Oops

If some idiot shoved this in my face, I would tell them that they are putting immunocompromised people like me at risk of death.
If I overheard it, I would ignore. Can't guarantee I wouldn't give them an evil stare, though.

Some vaccinations carry risks that are established, some carry risks that are less established, some carry no known risk. We each weigh up the evidence and choose the best for their child, and that's fair enough.

Thing is it's her who is bringing you this information, so while I wouldn't challenge their choice for their own child, I would feel free to politely disagree if you feel a judgment is being passed on you for vaccinating your child.

It's difficult because you'd hope if the older child was genuinely vaccine damaged the GP would have been patient with her in discussing risks and options for the younger child. So it makes you wonder if the vaccine damage claim wasn't genuine...

However some (many?) GPS are not above the 'can't argue with stupid' line and don't bother to enter into proper discussions on it. So her child may have seriously suffered but it was minimised by the GP.

Ultimately, she and her children now pose an increased risk to pregnant women and newborns at playgroup. I would feel uncomfortable knowing that, and possibly feel I should pass it on to the organisers so they can warn other attendees.

The trouble with fit healthy children being unvaccinated (unlike an immune compromised child) is that they are perfectly capable of incubating a serious disease without symptoms until a later date. So they pose a much higher risk as a vector of disease than children not vaccinated because of health problems such as being immune compromised - who will generally succumb to something pretty quickly and not be in much position to spread it round.

I'll be honest. I'd probably have made a tactless remark without really thinking about it about how lethal measles can be and pissed her off so she didn't want to speak to me.

"If some idiot shoved this in my face, I would tell them that they are putting immunocompromised people like me at risk of death."

They should probably ignore you as rather entitled if you do. There is a clear boundary there.

Nobody should ever feel obliged to have anything done to their body for the benefit of a third party, not ever. Nobody is entitled to have someone else's (or their child's) skin broken, blood drawn, hair removed, organ harvested or anything else without complete and total willing consent of them (or in the case of a child/SN person the responsible adult) and if that person chooses to do so, it is purely kindness on their part not something to be expected.

Well I was like you OP, convinced that immunisations were a god send and that anti vax people were maybe a bit stupid or naive.ni mean I actually sought out sone vaccines that the dcs didn't need!
I would probably also have done the same than you. Stated that I thought vaccines were great etc...

That was until my last DC reacted badly to an immunisations. You wouldnt know looking at him. He looks like a regular child now. But you haven't seen the 'small issues' when we ended up dealing with at home.
So nowdays, I listen carefully and I never ever judge if a child has or hasn't beenreacting to a certain immunisations.
I've also read a lot around the subject and my views are much more nuanced than they were.

And finally, worth noting that this woman never said she was AGAINST immunisations. But that she was against them done so young.

I understand what you mean op but you were right not to say anything, it's her decision and not your business.

Myself I'm very pro vaccination, I think if half of the people who chose not to vaccinate their children had a time machine trip back to the 1850's they might just change their minds.

Re vaccines damage, very little is actually reported by GP or hospitals.
Because most of the time, those 'side effects' are treated as if they could have happened with something else (which they usually do, unless the child has died or is suffering from very clear neurological issues)

The biais in reporting is huge (and has been proven to be too)

"Entitled " ?

Nobody should ever feel obliged to have anything done to their body for the benefit of a third party, not ever. Nobody is entitled to have someone else's (or their child's) skin broken, blood drawn, hair removed, organ harvested or anything else without complete and total willing consent of them (or in the case of a child/SN person the responsible adult) and if that person chooses to do so, it is purely kindness on their part not something to be expected

Definitely.

Nobody should feel the need to put their child's health at risk for the benefit of a 3rd party. Which is why imo the herd immunity argument will never be enough to convince somebody that firmly opposes vaccination.

I wouldn't challenge no. They're, erm, quite defensive shall we say.

Live and let live.

It's difficult because you'd hope if the older child was genuinely vaccine damaged the GP would have been patient with her in discussing risks and options for the younger child. So it makes you wonder if the vaccine damage claim wasn't genuine

Exactly. If the child had an actual documented vaccine damage, her dr would be aware of and accomodating of that fact. It's unlikely to be true.

Re vaccines damage, very little is actually reported by GP or hospitals

Yes, because very little is actually there to be reported.

I don't like paying taxes to give money and resources to people other than myself. But I do it because it's the right thing for society as a whole.

Nobody should ever feel obliged to have anything done to their body for the benefit of a third party, not ever

Fine. And then we shouldn't be obliged to have them in the public schools, not ever.
Works both ways. You can't just take and not give, society doesn't work like that.

Exactly. If the child had an actual documented vaccine damage, her dr would be aware of and accomodating of that fact. It's unlikely to be true.

But that isn't true. Some doctors are definitely not accomodating to people doubting anything they say/being concerned about some of the advice given.
Yes, even if DC1 has indeed vaccine damage.

the vaccine was NOT the less risky option for them

That's like saying it's a less risky option to not wear a seatbelt - until you crash.

The vaccine was still the less risky option because the options were 1 in 10 million vaccine damage to 1 in 10000 damage from measles.

Risk is a pre-occurrence calculation. After something has happened risk is at 100%.

Some doctors are definitely not accomodating to people doubting anything they say/being concerned about some of the advice given

Doubting WITHOUT reason. You can't claim to have a vaccine damage and then claim that doctors don't believe you have one. You can't just decide you have one on your own!

*Re vaccines damage, very little is actually reported by GP or hospitals

Yes, because very little is actually there to be reported.*

But that's bollocks. Loads of people who have side effects from all sorts of things never report it. For example, I went online to research the copper coil - loads of women on the internet saying they think it really messed with them. They don't report it via the "proper" channels, so officially, it's "very safe and hardly anyone has a reaction".

Even when people do report medical adverse events, it gets buried in some database and doesn't get published anywhere for the general public to read - you'd have to go out of your way to find info like that, and then get called a "conspiracy theorist".

Lastly, publication bias is a huge thing - any drug is much more likely to make it into a peer-reviewed journal if it works, rather than if it doesn't. No-one wants to read an article about how something doesn't work.

loads of women on the internet saying they think it really messed with them. They don't report it via the "proper" channels, so officially, it's "very safe and hardly anyone has a reaction"

Yes, because if they are so little bothered by their "reactions" that they can't even be arsed to report them, they are not enough reaction to be counted!

The thing is Walrus, some GPs are absolute wankers. And hugely arrogant. In fact, arrogance is really not a rare trait among doctors. See the birth control example above - another area where plenty of GPs refuse to even enter into a discussion about side effects.

So you can't know whether the child was genuinely vaccine damaged or not from the doctors reaction, sadly.

Yes, because if they are so little bothered by their "reactions" that they can't even be arsed to report them, they are not enough reaction to be counted!

That's rubbish and you know it. A lot of people don't know the proper channels to report side effects and where to find Adverse Event forms and who to report it to - the doctor? The drug company?

People think "oh, I'm just being stupid, it's something else" or sometimes don't put 2 and 2 together and only suspect the reaction was due to Drug X much later, by which point they feel it's pointless reporting it. Or if it's only a headache or a bit of weight gain or diarrhoea, they feel it's not a serious enough issue to report.

Or they're busy, don't have time, don't know it's a thing, spoke to GP and GP said it's unlikely to be that so they leave it.

Of course there's a massive bias in reporting adverse events. I work in clinical trials, please research it.

People think "oh, I'm just being stupid, it's something else" or sometimes don't put 2 and 2 together and only suspect the reaction was due to Drug X much later, by which point they feel it's pointless reporting it. Or if it's only a headache or a bit of weight gain or diarrhoea, they feel it's not a serious enough issue to report

Sometimes they are being stupid, and it is something else. Sometimes they put 2 and 2 together and make 5.

You CANNOT state that there are loads of reactions when the people who youj think had the reactions aren't saying so themselves.
LOGIC. Try some.

Exactly - the women online said the GP completely dismissed their concerns r.e. copper coil because "it's not hormonal", and refused to take it out. The women took it out themselves and miraculously all of their issues resolved. Not saying this is evidence, but this was a recurring story.