Genuine question for anti-vaxxers

[Raisinmeup]

I see a lot online about anti-vaxxers and I’m trying to understand where they’re coming from, so this is a genuine question, not rage bait.

My understanding is that some parents choose not to vaccinate their children because they believe vaccines cause harmful side effects, or they just don’t trust the government and big pharma in general.

But what’s the alternative? If everyone stopped vaccinating, wouldn’t we start seeing diseases like polio coming back? That would mean more infant deaths and lifelong disabilities. It just doesn’t seem like a rational trade off?

From what I’ve seen, there seems to be a belief that immune systems can deal with these illnesses naturally, but I wonder if part of that belief comes from the fact that parents of today haven’t actually seen what a world without vaccines looks like. We’ve grown up in a time where infant death from preventable diseases is almost unheard of, so maybe it’s easy to forget how serious these infections really are.

And lastly, if you haven’t vaccinated your child and they then catch one of these illnesses, do you not end up turning to the same big pharma for the medicine or treatment anyway?

I'm 100% not an antivaxxer, vaccinate all my kids, go for flu jabs, volunteered for covid trials.

This has interested me in the past so I have obsessively read things. One thing someone said (I don't have a link, it's somewhere in the depths of the internet) is that if they choose to get their child vaccinated which leads to something bad then that is entirely on them, whereas if the child gets ill and something bad happens it is the universe.

I'm paraphrasing that but it was almost by doing nothing they can't be responsible for anything bad. It's a very flawed argument but it stuck with me.

Maybe the vaccine messaging has been too good, by being honest about rare side effects etc they have opened people's eyes to risk that they previously were oblivious to.

I think you are right that an entire generation hasn't seen those horrible illnesses because vaccines have made them incredibly rare. I remember children at school in calipers from polio. I was very ill as a child with measles and left partially deaf.

I think covid was the start of it for the majority of anti vaxxers, although of course it was there before. Also social media.
Lots of people had covid and weren't that ill, then the vaccine came out and unlike the vaccines for measles/ polio it didn't stop people getting covid so many people were at best disappointed. I was hospitalised with covid despite two doses of vaccine. I'm vulnerable though, so will take anything I'm offered on the off chance it will help.

If you ever see a SM post promoting a vaccine the replies are so depressing. I worry for vulnerable children who no longer have the benefit of herd immunity.

I am unvaccinated as are my children.

I come from a culture where probably 75% of people are unvaccinated. I did an awful lot of research and put a lot of consideration into my decision as I didn't want to blindly follow my culture when it came to medical choices. I looked into each individual vaccine and the ingredients it contained.

Ultimately I came to the decision not to vaccinate and my husband supported this (he was vaccinated as a child with everything except MMR).

I am very satisfied with my choice. And I'm not some moron who believes social media conspiracies which I know people will jump to, in fact I'm not even on social media at all.

You will get a range of responses from people, most of whom won’t actually identify as “antivaxxers”. Theres a whole spectrum ranging from people who claim to want to stagger the vaccine schedules up to the full fat “The government puts chips in our vaccines” people.

But to answer your question I think a lot of people have convinced themselves that because they “can’t trust government or doctors” that well established principles such as herd immunity are invalidated. They also won’t have any scientific education at all.

Essentially they don’t believe “experts”, so they don’t believe the arguments about herd immunity in the first place. Or any other scientific evidence.

I find it terrifying.

What do you know about the ingredients though? What do you know about the ingredients in the medicines your child would need if they contracted an illness? Following your logic I suppose you would refuse any medications for your ill child?

@isitmyturn is right also that people have forgotten what childhood infectious diseases are like. We are 2-3 generations away from a time when people routinely died of measles and people are complacent.

My vaccinated children are too old for me to have much skin in this game now, but I do have some sympathy with parents who worry about the effects of vaccine to the point that they refuse them. It’s not as if vaccine damage never happens. I assume these parents choose to take the risk that their child will contract one of the illnesses and that the NHS will do what it can to treat them if they do. Illnesses that killed children 100 years ago are likely to be treated much more successfully today, so its not a totally unreasonable position to take.

I don’t understand anti-vax mentality, these diseases have killed and damaged so many people, and it’s a chance to help eradicate these diseases.
my mum decided to not vaccinate me with whooping cough as a child so I got it when I was 4 and was really sick. I wasn’t vaccinated after because my mum said I was immune now … yet I ended up getting it again, and was sick for around 8 months in total. I’m now getting a whooping cough vaccine when I am able

I don't use the term 'anti vaxxer' as I think it is used as an insult by those who simply refuse to understand that people think differently to them. Some people have vaccine hesitancy which is that they are not sure about all vaccines, especially those that are new to the schedule.

Whilst vaccination is undeniably a public good that benefits society there are winners and losers in it. People very rarely want to talk about the small group who are damaged by vaccination. As to individuals it can be a more nuanced risk assessment - what is their personal risk, what is the possible cost - this is different for each person and not all information is known.

The video below is two American doctors talking about vaccination in a more open fashion and part of it discusses that the information and safety of older vaccines may need updating, but no one will research it. I agree with them that we need to actually be able to discuss this openly - vaccination is no different to any other medical procedure - consent should be informed and should not be assumed or coerced.

Sanitation and healthcare in modern times would affect outcomes from the vaccinated diseases. On the other hand our use of group childcare and UPF foods may increase negative health outcomes. There are lots more factors to consider - we have more premature and chronically ill or immune vulnerable children in our society than we did when these vaccinations began.

How interesting that you know more than the scientists and medical professionals who recommend these vaccines.

Which ingredients are you specifically concerned about?

You did an awful lot of research. Seriously? Are you a trained immunologist or pharmacologist?

It is highly irresponsible to not vaccinate your children unless there is a medical reason why they should not have that vaccine. If you had any understanding of history you would know why vaccines are crucial.

Hi! Thank you for your reply, but you haven’t answered either of my questions. How did you weight the risk of the vaccine ingredients vs the risk of these illnesses? If your child caught an illness, would you refuse treatment on the same principle of potential risks and side effects?

Will you still be happy with your choices if your children or grand children catch some of the really awful childhood diseases? At present many people are relying on the fact that other people get their children vaccinated and the herd immunity then protects their children from epidemics, but the balance is changing with many measles cases recently. I'm another who had measles badly as a young child, before the vaccine was available, I was really ill for weeks and could easily have died you wouldn't wish that on your children.

We live in an individualistic society and generally we have medical procedures for our own good, not for the benefit of others.

This makes the concept of herd immunity difficult, because it is a communal good, which will come at a price to some individuals.

I do not agree with putting one group at risk (male teenagers) if there is little benefit to their own health and a higher risk to them(covid vaccine) in order to benefit a different group in society (older people).

Posting on social media saying that you're not on social media. How much of the rest of your post is lies?

I'm not anti-vax per se,,especially for ny children.

But I am scared of the side effects making my movement disorder symptoms worse. I was permanently harmed and injured by an off label antipsychotic prescribed for severe insomnia and anxiety after a head injury and post concussion syndrome, and it gave me a neurological movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia.

So, I am a bit biased i guess, and probably slightly cynical of Big Pharma, hence me being overly cautious of medication and things like vaccinations.

I'm also pretty much a bit unique in my views but as they have been tarnished by my experience, I don't care if others don't agree with me.

How about protecting babies by vaccinating older children with well tried and tested vaccines? And now people at lesser risk are not vaccinated against covid also partly because recent variants are less dangerous.

MN is social media.
Social media is any online form of social interaction.

If a child is in the developed world and has access to sanitation and good nutrition, their risk of complications from something like measles is very low.

If their risk of vaccine damage is 0, and their risk of complications from measles very low, then vaccinating decreases the risk from measles very minimally, whilst raising the risk of vaccine damage by a significant amount, from 0 to anything more than zero.

Protecting babies - the best option has been immunising their mothers, which has worked well for whooping cough. They are adults who can make the choice for themselves and their baby - again an individual decision.

There are lots of people on this thread being very rude to @ThejoyofNC If you actually want people to explain why they have not vaccinated their children, it would be good if you listened to them. Instead there is hectoring and insults being thrown - respect other people's choices.

People who have never had adverse effects that damage their health from medication don't (or won't) understand why others are cautious. I find it a bit narrow minded in some ways.

Unless you've experienced it, it's easy to be dismissive. You often hear people saying it won't ever happen to them, and then it does.

It's extremely flawed! If their child gets ill it's likely because they chose not to vaccinate. So still just as much of a choice as the alternative.

I have a friend who is antivax. It started when she had two very successful home births and then progressed to three further home births with no midwife present. I think this somehow led her to conclude not that she was a very lucky woman who had easy uncomplicated labours, but that no Western medicine of any kind has any value whatsoever. But I alsoremember her saying blithely at the end of a long rant about the evils of Western medicine, "and they'll be fine anyway because of herd immunity" which still stands out as an incredibly selfish and stupid thing to say from someone who in all other respects of their life is the absolute opposite of stupid and selfish. She also told me that because bones knit themselves it's not actually necessary to go to a doctor to set them, and shrugged when I asked if she'd seen whilst on her many travels in less wealthy countries the limps and deformities that can result from a badly or non-set fracture.

Interestingly, when one of her kids got very severe tonsillitis and needed a tonsillectomy, she was at A&E signing consent forms like a shot, just as any other parent would be. Finished the antibiotics right up, too.

I think part of the problem is that the debate is so black and white. There is no willingness to allow people to discuss the grey areas. You either get full vaccinations or you are an idiot endangering your child and that makes people more obstinate.

My first child had a bad reaction to his first set of immunisations. My GP said it was just a coincidence but referred us to an immunologist anyway. He was brilliant and said " of course it's not a coincidence!" He did blood tests on my child and me and found exactly what the problem was. My child's vaccines were then administered much more slowly and individually with lots of checks between. The dr then predicted that the same problems would occur with our 2nd child and arranged to take care of him and his vaccination schedule which was great because it did happen snd more severely. We were able to be seen by a paediatrician more easily etc.

If our GP had stuck to her " ifs a coincidence: line and not referred then possibly we would have refused further vaccines.

Vaccine damage is a thing that noone wants to discuss.

I just think more open discussion of the issues would allay more people's fears resulting in more of an uptake.

I was in the western world and my mother was a nurse, our home was perfectly sanitary and we ate very well. I still got measles, it was an epidemic, and I nearly died. At the time many children died from measles or were permanently brain damaged, left hearing impaired, etc. It's a virus spread through sneezing and droplets and extremely contagious you cannot prevent it by hygiene or eating well, in a school it spreads like wildfire.