To think that anti-vaxers may actually being onto something?

[viiz]

I don't have children myself yet but I don't know what I would chose when the time comes. Most of pro vax/anti vax threads turns nasty with people not even willing to try and look at things with others side perspective. Not willing to even consider points of view different than their own and that's a very silly approach. People believed a lot of things that turned out to be false over the years and centuries. Why not to doubt a little?

I was born in early '80s and not in UK. Myself, my siblings and friends were all vaccinated at the time. I don't even remember what I was vaccinated against but had to be pretty basic. Just a few jabs throughout my whole childhood/teen years and nothing 3in1 or 10in1 or whatever they'll bring next.

Now to the point. Reading through hundreds of threads it jumps at me how many children have neurological, behavioural or emotional disorders. No one else sees it really?? I don't know even one person from my childhood including friends, extended family , neighbours etc who would have ADS or ADHD or any other issues like that. I see their children to have it though.

AIBU to consider there could be a link here??

Please be gentle. I hope to have a discussion here. I don't disrespect anyone's views and I only ask to try and ask yourself 'what if'.

www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/01/27/roald-dahls-shutdown-anti-vaxxers-even-relevant-today-30-years-ago/?fbclid=IwAR3SQyLBJJlWUl7q_xSV5OvHwd5EBtLeeRHOvwDMCVxwCKn5YFlwmU0ivlQ

No drug is 100% safe and without side effects.
As for adhd and behavioural disorders - they has been around for years it is just well defined now. It has other causes such as premature birth and in some cases fetal alcohol syndrome (see how many accidental pregnancies there are and people drinking before realising.
Likewise many people take prescriptions meds before realising they are pregnant. I think the next big pharmaceutical company scandal will be the lack of serious warnings to pregnant women taking drugs. No one is testing these effects credibly because you cannot.

One question for the Anti Vac people is when you or your child get ill. Do you reach out for other modern medicines, antibiotics, etc? Or do you avoid as maybe they cause ADHD, Autisim and brain damage too.

Ok I was the thicko in the class, who hated class reading, and almost stuttered over every word.

Well actually I'm was the undiagnosed dyslexic, confirmed in my 30s.

I'm fairly sure my 7yo is also dyslexic although school are suggesting ADHD.

Class rooms are busier than they were even in the '80s. Silly things bright red desks instead of boring wooden.
He didn't do his sums one day so they were send home. My first glance at the page 'why does it start at 2, not 1' the first set of sums were held by the arms of a robot. Honestly so easy to miss.
The book is lovely and colourful not like the black and white of my era. But is that a good thing?

I recall a girl arrive at school about aged 9 having been expelled from elsewhere. She lasted 3 days before expelled again. Tantrums, kicking the DH, maybe those tantrums were actually a Autistic meltdown?

Tons of things have changed in recent years, more additives in food, food is probably poorer quality than days of old. All day kids TV, what happened to waiting for Rainbow? Hand held screens, brighter books, food additives etc

Dad was working at a site where an unmarked plague burial site was unearthed. The assumption was that it was a smallpox pit. Many many bodies - men women and children (and this was just one pit outside a tiny village) interred around the same time. Now tell me vaccination is a bad idea.

When I was young “autism” meant someone with very low functioning, probably nonverbal, visibly different, they would be at a special school.

Now it’s been recognised that those children are at the end of a spectrum but many more children are affected but it’s not so immediately obvious. I often think I would probably have an ASD diagnosis if I was a child now.

Vaccines don’t cause ASDor ADHD, any medical link has been extensively disproven. And even if they did, would you rather a child with additional needs or a dead child because they caught a preventable disease that you actively chose not to prevent?

There are children who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons. So by not vaccinating their healthy children, anti vaxxers are also putting other children at risk: but they refuse to see it and don’t care.

There is no link. Diagnosis has gone up, not incidence. Also if there was any link the NHS wouldn’t vaccinate, all these arguments about vaccinations being made by ‘big pharma’ to hurt them doesn’t wash in the UK as why would the NHS make people ill to then have to treat them. Same goes for causing illnesses it would have to treat. There isn’t any scientific publication showing a link. It’s scary that people would rather believe what they read on Facebook than medical professionals.

The increase in Fetal Alcohol Syndromes and the ability to recognise these over the last 20 years will definitely have impacted on the increase of children who have additional needs and co morbid conditions.

trulybadlydeeply
My child had special needs because of choices I made - the choice to have a child. No one could have told me that the genetic mutation would occur, but anyone who choses to have a child has to accept that there is a "risk" that the child may have some sort of congenital disability or disorder.

^^this. I have wanted to write something similar so many times over the years on Mumsnet. All people need to consider disability when they have a child.

I'm just going ot pick up on one point in your op, that about higher rates of diagnosis.

My nephews ahve both been diagnosed with autism. Neither ar eparticularly 'bad' in that they are both coping in mainstream school without support.
20 years ago, even 10 years ago they would not have had a diagnosis, but would have struggled with school/life in various ways.

After their diagnosis, my SIL said, she realised, SHE was probably autistic, and as she and my dh talked, they realised that BOTH their parents showed definite signs of it. (I only knew FIL, and yes, he could easily ave been on the spectrum)

Then thinking about it, dh's father was one of 10. The family ar every traditional, from a traditional church background, and I had always put their quirks down to that, but as i though about the 10 brothers and sisters, I realised that most of the family quirks also fit the autism spectrum. I think about 7 out of the 10 would be diagnosed if they were school age today.

Also, modern schools emphasise bright colourful interactive environments. They emphasise working together and team work, they value empathy, kindness etc. Schools in 1950 were much more formal, classrooms were much less over stimulating, the school day was more regimented and the emphasis was on facts and learning information. That difference means many many children who suited one style have now fallen foul of the other style.

So, no, I don;t think any of that has anything to do with vaccination!

I think some of the issues children have now are down to be micromanaged by society. They are constantly being given things to do, all under the watchful eyes of adults who intervene as soon as they have problems.

Children used to be left to take risks, sort out their own social interactions etc. While I think we’ve moved on from sending them to work down the mines or leaving them to run free all day we may have moved too far in the other direction right now.

Vaccinations and chemicals etc may play a part too but probably not in isolation to other things.

There is not a rise in children with disorders

Like the relationships forum, people only tend to post when there is something wrong or of note to say. All the millions of us in happy relationships with normal men do not post daily that everything is great.

All the millions out there with NT children don't post every day saying 'I have a neurotypical child, just wanted you all to know everythings fine cheers bye'

Forums provide anecdotes, not data or evidence. trust the actual peer reviewed studies out there not your own impression from online forums.

YABVU. Anti-vaxxers are selfish, irresponsible and dangerous.

No antivaxxer I've ever engaged with have given reasoned, sensible or evidence based explanations for their decisions.

I've said this before, but there seems to be a link between anti-vaxxers and MLMers. Perhaps they're just gullible? Not such a big deal with MLM (Its just expensive shite products), but not vaccinating could potentially kill their children. That's unforgivable.

I ended a friendship with an antivaxxer (also MLMer) because of her crazy conspiracy theories and her disregard for the health and safety of the vulnerable.

The worst part is that the children are the ones to suffer. Its like a cult.

You need to work on your critical thinking, OP. This is a classic anti-vaxxer farrago of scaremongering, “what if’, and inability to understand scientific evidencing. And seriously, the only person who now thinks Andrew Wakefield is credible is some former Playboy model with more teeth than IQ points.

@viiz you wrote "Researchers claim that autism does not occur in non vaccinated communities and use Amish as an example".
That is simply not true. Thousands of research papers have compared the level of autism in vaccinated vs unvaccinated people and found no difference. No difference at all.

You should know that there was an article in Guardian in August detailing the attacks that Russia has instigated to destabilise the Western countries. Besides their interference in the Brexit election and the American presidential election it was also mentioned that they had spread the antivax lie. The homepages they made look professional and like they come from legitimate sources, so don't feel bad for falling for it.
www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/23/russian-trolls-spread-vaccine-misinformation-on-twitter
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45294192

@BestBeforeYesterday

Why do you think the rise in the conditions you mentioned is due to vaccines and not other things like pesticides, food additives (remember the oh-so-safe BPA, found in all babies' bottles?), ultrasounds during pregnancy, radiation from mobile phones?
Why pick out vaccines? Genuine question. I always ask this and never get an answer.

I wouldn't dismiss any of it. I came across that interview online and found it interesting. I thought of my own childhood, family and people I know and just started wondering if maybe there is something to it.

Pleas anti-vaccine people read this link. You are risking the health of your children and others who are not yet old enough to be vaccinated because of a report written by a Dr with really poor evidence into the subject just to get himself forward in his career. There is NO substantive evidence to prove his theory.

https://www.upworthy.com/16-years-ago-a-doctor-published-a-study-it-was-completely-made-up-and-it-made-us-all-sicker?g=4&c=ufb10&fbclid=IwAR1MpilVpW9TrLF5PBP3i8xRLQw0JIKJUaJqDSlxdhwXziHjCqF__-lCb6w

Autism (and ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and so on) is not caused by vaccines, screens, mobile phones, poor nutrition, bad parenting, lack of exercise, lack of discipline, or little green men from Mars. It is a neurodevelopment disorders where the growth and development of the brain and/or CNS have marked differences to those of a neurotypical brain/CNS.

The link between vaccines and ASD has been thoroughly disproven.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367?np=y

@Buccanarab

I've no issue with antivaxers, as long as long as they refuse any other medical help throughout their, and their childrens, lives

If their happy to go to the doctors or hospital for any other issue then they're hypocritical bastards

I absolutely agree with you here. The hypocrisy is unbelievable.

The anti-vaxxers take their kids to be treated when they develop the vaccine-preventable diseases. WHY DO YOU TRUST THEM NOW WHEN YOU DIDN'T BEFORE?

I'm on a FB page called "Things Anti-vaxxers Say" - it's a real eye opener. Their beliefs are ridiculous and their advice is dangerous. They lie, a lot. The majority cannot spell correctly. I cringe when reading their posts.

Am I right in thinking that there is a high incidence of ASD in certain parts of California and those same areas have a low uptake of vaccination? Have to go out but will look later.

YANBU. It’s oretty obvious that the rise in nuerological/developmental disorders isn’t actually a rise. It’s purely down to more awareness and wider diagnositic criteria. When I was a child, in order for a child to be diagnosed there would be a period of several years of teachers branding him as naughty and severe developmental delays before parents worried enough to take him to a doctor. These days teachers are so on ball (not least of all due to extra funding opportunities) that children are coming out of schools with all kinds of anerture diagnosies despite not showing any majorly behavioural or developmental problems.

When I think back to when I was at school there were kids now who CLEARLY had what I’m sure would now be idientified as ADHD or ASD (for example) but were instead just labelled the naughty/angry/weird kids. Let down by the school system. My son has ASD I don’t know why but I am comfortable it isn’t vaccines and also glad we have the knowledge about it now so he can understand why he has these issues rather than just being labelled as odd

YABU. Have you looked into the huge numbers and ridiculous reasons so many people spent their lives in asylums for years ago? Nowadays we know these people had actual conditions outside of their control. These conditions and instances of ASD etc have always existed but been undiagnosed.

Increasingly there is a belief that illnesses like measles also lowers our immune system for a few years afterwards which makes us more susceptible to certain things and more likely again to die. Therefore, the vaccine is doubly effective as it protects against both measles and the temporary reduced immune system that occurs afterwards.

There is also a big rise in adults being diagnosed so it had always been around just not recognised

There aren't two sides worth considering. One side is the right and sensible thing to do and the other of conspiracy theory bullshit.

Unless you are medically unable you should vaccinate your children. Those that are immunocompromised rely on the herd immunity vaccinations offer.

I want to make right choices for that future child.

What’s crucial here, OP, is how you go about making the right choices for your child.

You need to assess the quality of the information you’re viewing and look - very crucially - at the people providing it. What are their credentials? Who is funding them?Do their peers support what they are saying?

If you do this you will very quickly see a broad picture emerge; there are no credible studies linking vaccines with autism which have the support of the scientific and medical community.

There are people making a lot of money out of trying to link vaccines with autism. They will use emotive language which preys on your natural anxiety about the wellbeing of your child to convince you to believe them. They will draw unsupportable conclusions by manipulating data, and then they will aggressively push for you to believe these conclusions by claiming you’re a bad parent if you don’t. This should make you angry - you should be furious that the life of your child is used to manipulate you into supporting the anti-vax industry.

You owe it to yourself and your child to move beyond vague statements like ‘how do we know this is true’ and to actually do your research. Don’t just accept something because it sounds plausible and the person writing it is persuasive. Look further than that. Who is the author? What are their credentials? Do other independent experts agree with them? What is their agenda? You owe it to yourself to be enquiring, you owe it to yourself not to be taken advantage of by people using manipulative tactics.

And if you want to see what life is like without vaccines, go to places like India, chad or Sri Lanka. Look at the people there with deformed limbs because of polio. Speak to the mothers and ask how many of them lost children to diseases that have been virtually eradicated in Europe and the US due to vaccines. 1.6 million people die of tuberculosis every year. It I s not a coincidence that the overwhelming majority of these occur in countries which don’t have vaccination programmes, just like it’s not a coincidence that measles, a disease that was virtually eradicated in the US, is now making a comeback because of the strength of the anti-vax movement there.

Be enquiring, OP. Abandon your pre-conceived ideas and do your research with a questioning mind. Look beyond emotion and manipulation and ask who is presenting this information, and where does their credibility come from?