I hate anti-vaxxers

[An89]

How can anyone in this day and age be an anti-vaxxer? London and West mids currently suffering from a meassls outbreak. DS is under 1 so cannot yet have vaccine, I know of someone whose 10momth old contracted measels as they were too young for vaccine.
Ridiculous that reckless and tardy parents are putting all our children at risk. Actually terrible.

others medical choices are none of your concern

Nope
The idiocy impacts us all

I totally agree. Measles is a devastating illness.
Up until now anti immunisation people have been in the minority and so have been protected by others who have immunised. That is not happening now.
Many have very right wing political views also… hence Trump has courted them.

London is not an hotbed of anti-vaxers. It’s got a large itinerant and international population who bring their children with them from all over the globe. They are often not anti-vaxers so much as not settled into the British system yet. This is why the BCG is given to young children in London, but not elsewhere. It used to be given to 12-14 year olds.

I think the public health response to Covid has created a lot more vaccine sceptics.

You know you would interact daily with unvaxxed people

Literally the only place i see this hate for the unvaxxed is online, IRL, people dont give a shit

Im glad we all have a choice as to what we put in our bodies

Ever heard of herd immunity? If not, please research. Reckless parents not getting their children vaccinated is affecting us all.
Herd immunity is important because it defines when a whole community is protected. That includes people who haven't caught the disease, people who had the illness and recovered, and people who got a vaccine. It also includes people who can't get a vaccine, e.g. those under 1. So those parents who are antivaxxers, their children could pass diseases e.g. measels onto an infant population

Unless it's to do with medical issues or a severe phobia then it is bloody selfish not to get your kids vaccinated.

My only concern is me and my family honestly
I wont do stuff to my body or my kids body for anyone elses feelies

What’s the alternative though, forcing people to have vaccinations? I don’t think that’s a road we want to go down.

We just need to keep educating people about the consequences of not having them and being honest about the risks so that conspiracy theories have less chance of spreading. I think we need to have the ‘frightening’ adverts on tv and social media showing what not vaccinating can do but I also believe people should be able to choose.

Our kids are vaccinated for everything except for flu or Covid and I want to keep that right to choose.

I know some people who don’t vaccinate with right wing and left wing views so it’s not just a political thing.

Education and transparency are key.

So lobby government to require children moving to the U.K. to be vaccinated before they get here. The U.K. has very high vaccine uptake, but also has high levels of global mobility. This impacts herd immunity far more than the tiny percentage of anti-vaxers.

Absolutely this. Some countries don't allow unvaccinated children to attend school & nursery, unless they've got an exemption certificate. I think they're sensible.

Also, I keep hearing the Covid Cough out and about. I've managed to put a rapid distance between myself and the coughers so far, but am really fucked off that everyone's merrily going around 'living with it', spreading their spiky germs. I had my jab last winter, but it will have worn off by now and catching Covid's quite likely to kill me.

Vaccination rates are declining in recent years - it is concerning.

There's a lot of nonsense and conspiracy theorists on social media spouting misinformation and people are soaking it up.

We are starting to see a real impact on vaccination uptake and health outcomes as a direct result of this.

If you feel strongly about this, the best way to be proactive is support charities and organisations trying to prevent the spread of misinformation and get positive and correct health information out there to educate parents.

It's a matter of concern.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2024/09/parents-urged-to-get-children-mmr-jab-as-one-in-six-not-fully-vaccinated

It's not for someone else's "feelies".
It's to prevent outbreaks of dangerous diseases that we had eradicated in the UK until recently.

Vaccine uptake in the UK is declining year on year.

We are quickly going to lose our reputation for high vaccine uptake - hence the measles outbreak that OP is talking about. Numbers of anti-vaxxers, or at least people who have concerns are increasing (mostly due to nonsense on social media).

Society and people are changing and we can no longer flippantly say we have a high vaccine uptake so we're OK... People and society are changing.

As I said, there’s no evidence that what you might call political vaccine scepticism has much sway in real life in the U.K. It’s not America. The lowest vaccine uptake is in areas with high levels of immigration and low levels of fluency in English. The decline in uptake is associated with globalisation. The answer is to require people to be folly vaccinated before travelling here from countries that have low levels of vaccination.

Both have an impact and there's no reason why both shouldn't be addressed.

In 2023 around 70% of UK adults said that vaccinations were safe and effective, down from 90% in 2018 (Vaccine Confidence Project, run by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).)

A recent YouGov survey suggested 30% of people had concerns about vaccinations in 2024, up from 19% in 2019.

There is a growing trend of mistrust which clearly is going to impact uptake.

@Ineedcoffee2021 what if your child got measles, gave it to a newborn baby and that baby died?

When it comes to vaccines they’re everyone’s concern! Do you understand how herd immunity works??

Jesus the ignorance is terrifying 😩

Yup @Genevieva the data is startling obvious in what it shows but it's still a difficult conversation to have because people are scared those conversations might have undertones where they could be accused of racism. It's really frustrating.

It is a problem of their own making (UK Gov, NHS, manufacturers, SAGE etc).

Like it or not the approach taken during COVID had the effect of splitting society into two groups, the majority of people who "go along with it" and a significant minority who "don't like being told what to do". Each group have their various mythologies for why they are more noble. But I think it just comes down to different personalities/character and reaction to the pressure.
Therefore if the national approach to COVID had been different we would probably be better on vaccine uptake generally in 2025.

@HedwigIsMySpiritAnimal yes whilst I think the anti vaxxer 'thing' is a bit of a red herring in reality these threads do always confirm to me that these people fo exist and how extremely thick they always are - every time.

I'm in Australia and our measles outbreak was started by someone coming from overseas unvaccinated and contagious. It's spreading fast & especially in my city because we have a large population of migrants and refugees from developing countries bringing down the vaccination %.

I've never forgiven SIL for letting her young, unvaxxed DC near my newborn during an outbreak of whooping cough. I didn't know, she didn't care enough to tell me. What's worse is SIL vaxxed DC soon after to get into childcare (nursery) as you need vaccination to get the govt subsidy. Amazing how she changed her mind. Also had Covid vax immediately in 2020, to keep her job as a teacher. ...