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.

Oh ffs I am very pro vaccine and read peer reviewed literature but I am not closed minded enough to not be friends with anti vaxxers.
Lets not forget that publication bias exists ( articles with results that may be damaging to a certain organisation/ product etc may not get published in journals) . I say keep an open mind but do what you think best.

@Letmegetthisrightasawoman, the same as after the first that it wasn’t likely to happen again. It was a fluke etc. Essentially they don’t know why they reacted, so they decided it was just bad luck. I wasn’t willing to test that theory and spend another week in the Picu. 🤷🏼‍♀️

@AskingforaBaskin (love the name btw!) can you expand on that? I ask because I’m not white.

So you get your vaccine certificate, but then your marriage breaks up nd you move, and you move again and you have to rtack down the certificate or reorder ect. Or the child goes into care. It,s not always that simple. Perhaps they missed a vaccine due to moves rather then choices? Perhaps because of a language barrier?
Perhaps because they are from another country?

@tootiredtothinkofanewname

I would happily cut ties with them and tell them why. I have a friend with a DC with a medical reason to not vaccinate. Selfish twats not vaccinating because of uneducated idiocy are risking lives. Not their own lives, other people's lives. Manslaughter through negligence really.

This sums it up well.

They are freeloading off everyone else's precautions.

[quote OwlBeThere]@AskingforaBaskin (love the name btw!) can you expand on that? I ask because I’m not white.[/quote]
I can't remember it all.

But basically anti vaxxers only exist in predominantly white counties.

3rd world countries don't get to be anti vax. They're kids just die of rampant preventable diseases.

It was really eloquent and thought provoking. I've just butchered it.

@june2007

So you get your vaccine certificate, but then your marriage breaks up nd you move, and you move again and you have to rtack down the certificate or reorder ect. Or the child goes into care. It,s not always that simple. Perhaps they missed a vaccine due to moves rather then choices? Perhaps because of a language barrier? Perhaps because they are from another country?

None of that is societies problem.

So you get your vaccine certificate, but then your marriage breaks up nd you move, and you move again and you have to rtack down the certificate or reorder ect. Or the child goes into care. It,s not always that simple. Perhaps they missed a vaccine due to moves rather then choices? Perhaps because of a language barrier? Perhaps because they are from another country?

Get a copy of your GP records or, failing that, get reimmunised.

@AmICrazyorWhat2

It’s interesting that some ppl consider anti-vaaxers stupid. My friend has a Ph.D so she’s more educated then I am and her conversation is well-informed in many subjects...but not this one. Which makes her attitude even more mystifying to me!

A PhD in what, though?

And what is her reasoning?

I would start declining social things with them. If they ask I would explain. Covid makes the explanation easier in some ways - look at how the world came to a standstill over 1 virus we can't (yet) vaccinate for, and how many people lost their lives.

BertieBotts - our youngest's Kita made us show the original Impfpass (i took it in on the Friday and they didn't give it back until the Tuesday IIRC ) and eldest's secondary had been planning to do it the same way until they (presumably after some phone calls from pissed-off parents) reconsidered. Middle one's (different) secondary is being much more relaxed and pragmatic - we have to send a copy in at some point in the next couple of months (must remember to actually). AFAIK the legal deadline is July next year.

I'm not actually sure whether there are any consequences beyond no school/daycare.

june2007 in many countries everyone has an immunisation pass. If it's lost a simple bloodtest can determine which diseases a person is immune to. I had to have the bloodtests when I moved from the UK to another country and started working in a setting requiring evidence of immunisation. Most people just show their immunisation record, but if you don't have one you do a bloodtest.

dementedma it is a decision which impacts the entire community, not just the children of the antivaxers.

It's exactly the same argument as antimaskers use, and based on a complete inability to understand the bigger picture.

I remember when wearing seatbelts in the back of cars first became a legal requirement and my mother would sit behind my husband in the back of the car refusing to put her seatbelt on because it was her right not to and it was uncomfortable and prevented her leaning right into the front of the car to better join in conversations with my dad and husband who were in the front due to being far taller She completely refused to acknowledge that she was likely to kill the person in front of her if she flew forward in a collision, and thought I should mind my own business and not insist she put her seatbelt on. Same mentality as those who think it's nobody else's business whether they wear masks and vaccinate against preventable contagious diseases.

It just makes me wonder about the logic (or rather lack of) of some of these people they seem incapable of critical thinking and understanding factual information which provides insight into anything other than their own way of thinking in my experience they start with anti vaxing and very soon they are onto every single conspiracy theory going. Interestingly every one of they seem to loose their ability to understand that information always can have another explanation and what is presented can always have another meaning. I cant help wondering if it's some kind if need to belong type mentality. By following you belong to a special group with 'superior' knowledge.
I personally consider us to be rather lucky in that a simple tetanus vaccination can save us and our children from the agonising pain and death of 'lockjaw' for example. I pointed this put to an anti Vaxer I know she was clueless and astonished after all, vaccines are apparently bad

This:

@june2007 you can have blood tests to check you’re immune to measles, mumps, rubella etc. So proof of immunity could be a certificate of vaccination or a blood test result.

Vaccination is a public health issue, and people do of course have choices in this country. But, if you don’t vaccinate I think you should have to home school. In terms of things like vaccination I wouldn’t be against society becoming awkward about the access unvaccinated folk have to services to reduce spread to vulnerable. So it becomes routine that unvaccinated can’t join swimming clubs or groups etc. Why should medically vulnerable suffer?

Our private nursery didn’t admit unvaccinated kids, felt very reassuring.

@echt yes that nails it doesn't it

It's generally cheaper and faster and not very risky at all to just repeat a potentially missed vaccination than it is to have a test, wait for results, etc. At least that was how it was explained to me. I would rather have a test because I have a fear of needles but tend to find blood tests easier to cope with than IM injections.

For the people who are for compulsory vaccination/proof of vaccination, do you think this ought to include chicken pox and flu, or do you feel differently about those?

@1FootInTheRave

Harold Shipman was also a doctor

And Dr Crippen.

BertieBotts it's cheaper and easier to repeat one missed/ unprovable vaccination but not all of them, especially the ones which are a course of 3 at least a month apart! You can't have all of them at the same time either, so it would take a good 4-6 months and 4-6 trips to the doctor/ clinic to repeat all the childhood vaccinations. Paying privately for vaccinations is also pretty expensive. In many cases only tetanus is the only one done free without proof it's needed.

If you've no records at all a blood test is quicker and cheaper.

Can you have one blood test for all of them at once then?

Where tetanus is concerned, when I've had an injury that's needed stitches, I've been asked whether I've had the jab. (I'm probably out of date with this now, thinking about it). If the person doesn't know, I imagine it will be offered.

So it isn't a massive issue, as without a nasty cut (typically a rusty nail), tetanus isn't something you're likely to catch in the normal course of events.

It's a similar thing with rabies, in countries where that's a problem. You can go for an injection after being bitten by an animal suspected of having it. (Although I understand it's an unpleasant experience.)

If you had never had any vaccinations and were, for example, over 10 years old you wouldn’t be given every single vaccine you had missed, you would be given what you needed for your age.
If you Google ‘uncertain or incomplete immunisation status’ you will see what vaccinations are needed at what age.

@BertieBotts

Can you have one blood test for all of them at once then?

I don't see why not. The doctor would order the list of tests required and then the nurse/phlebotomist would draw the necessary phials of blood for the lab to run those tests (they have different coloured bottle tops depending on what test they are destined for, and may contain different anticoagulants)

It's just the one needle into your arm, as they can fill all the necessary phials one after the other.

BertieBotts yes - I had that done yesterday in fact. I also had it done 3 years ago. I had all my vaccinations as a child but because the UK doesn't provide immunisation records I have to have the blood test every 3 years for my (healthcare) employer (not UK). I also have a vaccination pass with a record of my vaccinations since I've lived in my current country, and the bloodtest I had also checks my (work related, not universal) hepatitis vaccinations are still providing immunity. I ticked consent to be tested for immunity to pretty much all the standard vaccinatable diseases for my location and job - all with one blood test.