What can you do about parents who won't vaccinate

[mirandatempest]

I've discovered that three of my friends have not vaccinated their children. I am normally very live and let live but this has really upset and bothered me. I've challenged them all but very gently as I
am useless at confrontation but can these friendships survive? I feel so angry.

@june2007

Then you are very misled1FootInTheRave, Dr Andrew wakefield is very intelligent thats why he became a doctor.

Intelligent people get to STAY practicing medicine.

Harold Shipman was also a doctor

would you feel differently about this situation: parents who had vaccinated their child and due to a severe (and admittedly extremely rare) reaction, chose not to vaccinate their subsequent children?

This is why I was cautious with my second but was persuaded because it was ‘Paranoid’ to think it could happen again. And then it happened again. So that was the last time I vaccinated my kids and I don’t give a shit if people don’t like it. If you chose to not be my friend because of it, then that’s your choice to make. I do what I know to be best for my kids.

In France, your kid doesn't get a place at nursery, day care or school without proof of vaccinations. You're free to be a fucking lunatic, but you have to home school.

It’s the assumptions that make me roll my eyes. I’m not an anti-vaxer, I’m not selfish, I’m not stupid, I don’t believe vaccines caused my children’s autism, I understand that vaccines serve a purpose and why people give them.

If I give my child a vaccine and he or she then has a reaction which causes damage, that is my fault: it happened because of something that I did.

If I don't give my child a vaccine and he or she then has a disease which causes damage, that is not my fault: it didn't happen because of something that I did.

You see, I would think completely the opposite

@OwlBeThere

It’s the assumptions that make me roll my eyes. I’m not an anti-vaxer, I’m not selfish, I’m not stupid, I don’t believe vaccines caused my children’s autism, I understand that vaccines serve a purpose and why people give them.

What was the medical advice on further vaccinations for your children? I'd say that your situation sounds like non-vaccination for medical reasons.

I think most of these anti-vaxxers have forgotten/are ignorant of just how nasty these illnesses are because they've been successfully repressed by our vaccination regime for so long. No government would fork out (via NHS) on immunisations if the effects of those illnesses weren't severe.

I couldnt be friends with them. Not at all.

I am incredibly pro vaccination having witnessed some terrible things while working in Intensive care that were the result of vaccine preventable illnesses. MIL is an anti Vaxxer but is yet to cite any reliable sources (largely YouTube videos, Mr Wakefield and dubious anecdotal evidence from online). If you make a choice that is genuinely informed by an excellent peer reviewed evidence base then we can talk. If you want to get into a debate with your friends make it evidence based and factual but you can’t change people and we are all entitled to choice and bodily autonomy. I did put it to the MIL that she wasn’t so much anti vaccination but pro vaccine preventable illness and she was not very happy about that! FIL was fortunately entirely sensible and insisted DP and siblings had their jabs!

Are they anti-vaxxers or ex-vaxxers? There's a difference. If they're otherwise sane and rational people, there's probably a) a reasoned argument for their decision and b) anyway it's not your business. You don't have to agree with everything your friends do to be friends with them, just don't discuss that topic if it makes you so angry.

I read something once about how being an anti vaxxer is one of the biggest examples of white privilege and it really stuck with me.

Nothing. It's nothing to do with you how they choose to raise their children

IMO it should be mandatory to vaccinate your child if they attend school or nursery (exceptions for genuine medical reasons). It’s simply not right to risk the health of other children.

It’s going to be interesting to see what the uptake is p when the Covid vaccine is widely available.

Aridane
"If I give my child a vaccine and he or she then has a reaction which causes damage, that is my fault: it happened because of something that I did.
"If I don't give my child a vaccine and he or she then has a disease which causes damage, that is not my fault: it didn't happen because of something that I did."

You see, I would think completely the opposite

Oh, me too, but I am unsure we mean the same thing by "the opposite".

The urge not to be to blame for anything that goes wrong (and that words "what did I do to deserve this?") is strong in many. I didn't say it was sensible to assume that not having a child vaccinated when there was no medical reason not to was doing the best for it; I said it might have a specific cause.

or to quote my own post:
That is completely nonsensical when you actually stop and look at it, but it is the gut feeling some people are certainly going to have. Better to do nothing and run a risk, than do something and run a far lesser risk; it's a very standard human reaction, that one, better the devil you know. It is why people go on living on the slopes of volcanoes: it may not happen, and if it does, well, it isn't their fault.

I intended to write "not to be to blame/have to blame oneself", rather than just "not to blame", above.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime It's clear what you're saying. And I absolutely agree with your point.

Thank you, Mittens. I sometimes worry that I may have managed to say the opposite of what I meant to, so it is kind of you to reassure me!

We went to a Club Med ski hotel in France in the spring. Luckily we had read the requirement that all children participating in any of the kids’ clubs must produce their vaccination certificates.

On taking our DGS to the nursery on the first day, his DPs encountered some Russian parents, desperately trying to get hold of someone who could find and email their child's certificate. Otherwise no skiing, no games.

We were told that proof of vaccination is a government requirement in order to access education or group activities

Pity ours does not enforce it in schools here.

If I don't give my child a vaccine and he or she then has a disease which causes damage, that is not my fault: it didn't happen because of something that I did.

Yeah see, I find that a failure to protect the child from harm and is your fault. A car crashing in to you may not be something you directly did either, but you wear a seatbelt to protect you and your children. The vaccine is just that.

And to those saying anti vaxxers don’t hurt anyone but themselves, tell that to the 12 babies at our group who needed to be rushed to hospital to have emergency immuno-boosters. And the other 14 who had not had their second booster and needed to have extra shots ASAP to cover them.

Babies under 1 are at particular harm from anti vaxxers. I wouldn’t go near one if I knew.

In the US, some states allow personal or religious exemptions to vaccination. It's a terrible system that has led to serious measles outbreaks in Amish, Orthodox Jewish, and Steiner school communities. It would be wiser and safer to allow exceptions only for severe medical reaction as determined by two doctors. Herd immunity relies on everyone vaccinating.
Yes, I have Aspergers. Having weird relatives and a peculiar childhood caused that, not the MMR.

I'm of the opinion that vaccination certificates should be seen before children are allowed to register at school.

So this has recently become law in Germany. We are as of the start of this term (some parents I know had it last term) asked to provide vaccination records to show our children are vaccinated against Measles, otherwise a doctor's note explaining the child is exempt. There's been some hoo ha about it because some of the schools are requesting the original copy of the "Immunisation passport", ferried by the kids (!) but anyway, most people have managed to provide proof. I don't personally know anyone who doesn't have this.

It's illegal to home school in Germany. You MUST send your child to school from the age of 7 otherwise children's services get involved and you can be fined a lot of money. (Currently there is no requirement to actually attend school, but you still have to do the school work, it's not allowed to home educate). School refusing teenagers considered too old for parents to force/persuade them to go to school get a police escort to school (I think this is brilliant BTW! I'm sure parents all over the world would love that!)

So I don't know what people who object to vaccination are currently doing/thinking. There was some bloke on our local expat FB group asking for recommendations for a paediatrician so he could get his kids the measles jab - it struck me as odd that it hadn't been done before, but maybe they just lacked proof rather than not having actually done it, because this does seem to be the case - if they can't work out what you've had they just give you them all again. Or possibly they had refused when the children were younger and now it's law had reconsidered and decided it was better to do it rather than deal with whatever the consequences are.

"If I don't give my child a vaccine and he or she then has a disease which causes damage, that is not my fault: it didn't happen because of something that I did."

Yeah see, I find that a failure to protect the child from harm and is your fault.

Yes, and so do I: but the mindset of wishing to avoid blame or self-blame for having done something, as opposed to not having done anything, is what I was talking about. It exists and explains what would otherwise be a very strange failure to try to protect one's own child from foul and potentially fatal diseases.

(And that is not getting into discussing the potential harm you may be deliberately doing to babies too young to have had their immunisations yet, or babies still being being carried by women who get rubella from your unvaccinated child.)

I'm of the opinion that vaccination certificates should be seen before children are allowed to register at school.

I agree with this. It's about public health, not a parent's right to choose.