To ask, if you are antivax (not just Covid) but use modern medicine, where is the line?

[LivingInABuildingSite]

Just found out an old friend is totally antivax (not just Covid although that’s how it came up in conversation).

I asked if she’d had her kids vaccinated with the usual baby ones, no, none of them. She said she believes in homeopathy (which I’m not averse to, just wouldn’t rely on). I’m quite shocked but messaged that we’d agree to disagree on this one, as don’t want to wreck the friendship.

So thought I’d ask on here.

Now I know she had c-sections for all of her DC so it got me thinking.

If you don’t agree with using the discoveries of modern medicine in the form of vaccinations to prevent unpleasant but entirely avoidable illnesses, why is it ok to accept similar discoveries such as anaesthesia (and not just in an emergency situation)?

Where is the tipping point of what’s ok to accept and what isn’t?

I’m really interested to hear antivaxxer views, as I’ve only come across those shouting at me outside the vaccine clinic (volunteer) who aren’t up for a conversation about it, and this friend, who I don’t want to push any further.

Taking it a step further, is it ok to trust in a more natural way of things, but wear makeup? Or eat processed food (I’m sure her kids don’t eat 100% vegan, organic, etc)? Or even use the internet?

Where is the line?

[quote FriedasCarLoad]@ElvisPresleyHadABaby

It's stem cells taken from viable embryos discarded by IVF clinics, not "aborted babies". Do you really think they fish them out of women and package them off to be used? Absolute bollocks.

The embryos would have otherwise been completely discarded FYI, as hundreds of thousands are each day...

Stem cells from those embryos are also used. I also disagree with the creation of 'spare' embryos.

Obviously I don't think it works in the way you describe it!

But lines are used from at least one aborted baby from the early or mid 1970s, I can't remember the exact year. A female baby who was aborted.[/quote]
You are right, I didn't know they came from a line of cells from an aborted fetus, but they're not actually from the fetus anymore, just from the line.

And those "spare embryos" are part of the process allowing women with fertility problems to conceive... I didn't realise IVF was something the anti-choice brigade disliked too, congratulations, your views are even more abhorrent than I first thought.

@LivingInABuildingSite

That’s what I think too Hamster - being antivax is a luxury only those who are surrounded by the vaccinated can choose.

I grew up abroad where people had limited access to medicine, they would think the antivax crowd insane. And I’m not talking about the covid jab particularly, but measles, meningitis, etc,.

I agree with this - where I come from people would give their left arm for the access to vaccines that we have here. It is very much a privileged position to be able to refuse them in the way anti Vaxxers do.

It's not just anti vaxxers that don't want the vaccine

I am pro vaccine but not on this occasion.

@Beachcomber

Your case is different though. You don't give your child vaccines because they appear to be allergic to them. They suffer if they have vaccinations, they could die if they have a vaccine. There are a minority of people like this.

Those minority rely on the rest of us having the vaccine to survive. The majority has a vaccine against say measles to prevent a measles outbreak, because people like your daughter who have compromised immune systems could die if they catch it.

Your daughter is actually being put in jeopardy even before covid because more people than ever before weren't getting their children vaccinated for mmr, meningitis, tetanus etc. This has caused a few outbreaks in measles in the uk, mainly down south. You should actually be annoyed at these people. They are risking your daughters life, based upon their limited knowledge and thinking they know better than qualified people.

We are talking about people who don't get vaccines for no reason other than they think reading one article in the daily mail or wherever they found it on Google means they know better. They don't know better. But they do risk the livelihood of those who have compromised immune systems and cannot get vaccines.

@SmokeyDevil

I understand your point but I don't agree with it.

I don't want anyone to have a vaccine in order to protect my daughter. I want people (especially children) to have vaccines if / because it is the right thing for them.

Beachcomber
100% agree.
Same situation in our family. I never want another baby or child to suffer a reaction and life long challenges. So each parent must make the decision to have vaacines because it is the right thing for them and the right thing for the child.

Off on another tangent...
Herd protection is great but people forgetting that vaacines do cause damage even if it statistically small is what pisses me off. Each statistic is a person and a family is behind that person.. and whilst the herd is in the millions and billions, that group damaged whilst smaller is still a significant group of people.

Yet those who are rudely pro vaacine always seem to minimise this and white wash it completely. Rudely Pro vaacine refers to those who disparage all who don't fully vaacinate. I'm not talking about those who disparage the tin hatters and 5g conspriralists.

[quote Beachcomber]@SmokeyDevil

I understand your point but I don't agree with it.

I don't want anyone to have a vaccine in order to protect my daughter. I want people (especially children) to have vaccines if / because it is the right thing for them.[/quote]
But that's the problem, more people aren't getting it. That is increasing the risk of your daughter getting sick.

But that's the problem, more people aren't getting it. That is increasing the risk of your daughter getting sick.

And yet she still only wants people to have vaccines because it is the right thing for them. How refreshing.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts, I do find all views interesting.

As one poster said, it used to be that lively discussion was a thing, thinking back to my uni days and late nights with lots of people with differing views and experiences.

I would like to make it clear that my friend referred to herself as antivaxx, I didn’t label her that way. I do think it’s a valid descriptor for some people, nothing to do with Covid, but that maybe has been hijacked somewhat by Covid.

Mostly I do think it’s a position of privilege tbh.

And I do think it’s all of our responsibility to accept vaccines (with informed discussion with the relevant professionals if needed) to protect those that cannot get one for medical reasons. I am definitely in the ProVaxx camp if there is such a thing. I’d hope so given I’ve spent 8 months on my feet volunteering at the vaccine clinics!

@LoislovesStewie

The reason old people wanted the vaccine wasn't because they are closer to death, but because a lot of them remember the days before effective vaccines and antibiotics. They remember kids with leg calipers as they had caught polio, or kids in iron lungs for the same reason, they remember TB and watching people die as there was no effective treatment or vaccine. And don't start on syphilis and how many people died as a result of Third Stage Syphilis as, yet again, there were no effective treatments. If you haven't done so, look at photos of babies or children with congenital syphilis. That is shocking. Sorry, but I think a lot of this is, as another said, just first world problems. We, who live in the developed world, don't see many people with polio, or TB or syphilis, or Ebola, or leprosy or any of the other truly awful infections or diseases, so we think they don't exist. My oldest has Type 1 diabetes, I thank modern medicine for developing treatment for the illness, for insulin pumps, continual blood sugar monitors and all the other medical wonders of the day. BTW my mother caught measles as a baby, she had very poor eyesight for her whole life and that was attributed to having measles. And as for testing babies during labour, thank goodness the obstetrician got out the forceps for me! And, yes, we have all had all of our vaccines.

I think you're right @LoislovesStewie.

My mum was very pro-vaxx and, had she been alive late last year (she died in March 2020 at the age of 90 - not Covid related), she'd have been first in the queue for vaccination.

She had a sister who died, aged 10, in 1937 from Diphtheria. Almost unheard of now because of vaccination as children. But then it was still a big problem. Her sister got it from sharing food with a friend who, unknown to her or her family, was a carrier. Her friend never became ill. My aunt (as she would have been), developed a sore throat, the GP came and did a swab. My mum, who was 8 at the time, remembers the GP cycling like crazy down the road shouting 'Mrs x, get the children out of the house, it's diphtheria, get them out now!' as it was so contagious. My mum was sent next door with a bag of clothes and she stayed there for two weeks whilst her sister gradually lost the ability to swallow then died in agony (imagine your throat closing up). Because she'd seen it and lost someone with a disease that vaccinations now stop, she insisted we got vaccinated as soon as we were old enough for all the childhood illnesses.

I have a friend who caught German Measles. She is deaf in one ear and has SEN which can be traced back to GM. She got her DS vaccinated - she hadn't been and she didn't want him going through the same issues she had.

I think vaccination can, obviously, be based on belief but it can also be based on experience. If there's been a bad vaccination reaction or a bad illness because a vaccination wasn't available or not given, that must surely colour your own judgement.

[quote FriedasCarLoad]@ElvisPresleyHadABaby

It's stem cells taken from viable embryos discarded by IVF clinics, not "aborted babies". Do you really think they fish them out of women and package them off to be used? Absolute bollocks.

The embryos would have otherwise been completely discarded FYI, as hundreds of thousands are each day...

Stem cells from those embryos are also used. I also disagree with the creation of 'spare' embryos.

Obviously I don't think it works in the way you describe it!

But lines are used from at least one aborted baby from the early or mid 1970s, I can't remember the exact year. A female baby who was aborted.[/quote]
Interesting

Out of interest do you also avoid anything tested on the HeLa cell line?
It's ethically very problematic too.

@KidneyBeans
Out of interest do you also avoid anything tested on the HeLa cell line? It's ethically very problematic too

Totally agree that it's ethically bad. I have wondered whether her colour and sex meant the original researchers were less careful about ethics, although I might be completely wrong about that.

I haven't actually avoided any medication or vaccination yet, for ethical reasons, other than the morning after pill (after an assault).

I've only first learnt about the use of cell lines from this aborted baby in the last couple of years. And the benefits to my neighbours (in the broadest sense, so society) of vaccinations seemed to outweigh my concerns about the origins of the vaccinations.

I think it's something I'll be looking into more in the next few years. I imagine I'll be weighing up similar concerns if I need to knowingly use drugs tested on the HeLa cell lines. I don't think it's black and white when the harm in the past, but the present and future benefits may affect many other people. I suspect I'll end up asking some people who understand it better than I do.

@SupermanWithTheGreyHair

But that's the problem, more people aren't getting it. That is increasing the risk of your daughter getting sick.

And yet she still only wants people to have vaccines because it is the right thing for them. How refreshing.

Because she has been scared out of having them done because of what happened to her daughter, which isn't even something that happens often thankfully. It is a rare effect. By encouraging people to not have vaccines if they don't want to, she is putting her daughter at risk because more people aren't having them, so are more likely to catch one of the diseases that will not only harm them, but harm those who can't have vaccines.

I think it's selfish to not have vaccines when you can. It saves those who can't have them.