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 was a child pre MMR. Most of us got measles. We felt pretty crap for a few weeks and then were back to normal. For most people it was not that big a deal. There were, unfortunately, a small number for whom it was a very big deal.

I've done some stints of healthcare work in India and 3 different African countries.

I have seen diseases kill that we vaccinate against here. Things such as polio, measles etc. Absolutely destroy families and small village communities.

Equivalent of "A&E" in a rural hospital literally sitting with a mother holding her dying child in her arms outside the hospital because it was so full at the time they wouldn't let her in. The child died, he was 5, it was a preventable disease that we don't have here with thanks to vaccinations.

I have zero doubt in my mind that vaccinations safe lives. If we didn't mass vaccinate here you wouldn't get the "herd immunity".

I have absolutely no clue why people would risk their children's lives by not vaccinating. Yes we don't have Polio here. But if no one vaccinated we might.

Horrific and unnecessary.

I believe it's ableist to be anti vax
There's a "survival of the fittest" element to believing we should all just live alongside these illnesses and healthy people will be able to fight them off and survive. (Which isn't necessarily true but that's the belief.)
The same mentality was very prevalent during the pandemic and disabled/chronically ill people felt it deeply.

But the same thing is to be said for vaccines? For the most, it’s no big deal, and for a few it is a big deal.

Yes. And people make the decision as to which risk they want to take.

How does one define ‘almost died’ - serious question. I had a hangover last weekend and felt close to death, but in reality, I was probably far from it.

I understand that. I just don’t understand why vaccines feel like such a prevalent risk but deadly diseases outbreaking seems to be of no concern at all.

I suppose I have to concede after reading all the replies here, I perhaps just don’t understand the mentality of anti-vaxx.

To be honest, you sound as extreme as some anti-vaxers. You have your point of view and you're not willing or able to understand an opposing viewpoint. 🤷‍♀️

Haven’t had my MMR as was allergic to eggs and can’t have it now due to health conditions so I need the herd immunity
the medications I inject make vaccines seem like a walk in the park TBH and the list of side effects on one of them is horrifying (black box in America and must have an EpiPen prescription with it)

You keep saying that measles is low risk for well-nourished kids but that’s just not true. And spreading that idea over and over is really dangerous. Measles is extremely contagious and can cause serious complications no matter how healthy or well-fed a child is. Things like pneumonia, brain inflammation, hearing loss, and yes, vision damage are all real risks.

I’m speaking from experience too (not of statistical value). Both my brother and I had measles when we were kids. We were both well-nourished and otherwise healthy. I recovered fine but my brother had serious issues with his eyes and needed multiple surgeries. So no, nutrition isn’t some magical protection.

And just to be clear, reading papers on Google Scholar isn’t the same as doing research. That’s just doing a literature review. Actual research means generating new data, running experiments, collecting evidence, and contributing something new to the field. Reading existing papers is not the same thing. That’s not what we (scientists) mean when say “we do research”.

Misusing scientific terms and mocking people doesn’t make your argument stronger. It just shows you’re not really engaging honestly.

Firstly, I didn't say it's low risk. It's lower risk.

Secondly, there are multiple types of research. I stated I do not do primary research in the area of immunology but am capable of researching the topic. Secondary research is an extremely valuable type of research. If everyone just did their own primary research and nobody bothered to do a meta analysis of the state of play, we would have no idea what the big picture looked like.

And no, research does not require experiments. Much of the research I do is qualitative. It is just as valid as the quantitative research that those of you in the sciences do. That said, I am quite partial to a mixed methods approach, using both qualitative and quantitative. It helps to understand the why as well as the what.

So I was always told that 8 of my my grandfathers 13 siblings had died either as babies or in very early childhood due to childhood illnesses e.g. measles - this was between 1900 and 1925, actually that wasn't the case, not one of them died of measles or scarlet fever etc - it was basically poverty, less of an emphasis on hygiene, no NHS meant that seeing a doctor was something that was left as a last resort by which point it was too late and no easy access to antibiotics.

I wouldn’t say I’m unwilling, that is why I created this thread after all. But yes, I would say I am unable to understand the opposing viewpoint with the explanations provided, none of the arguments have been nearly strong enough to justify the position IMO. Although, they seem to be strong enough for plenty of others so hey, perhaps I am extreme!

As I said in my OP, I understand people fear adverse side effects from vaccination. What I still I don’t understand is why anyone worries about that risk but seems unconcerned about diseases returning and exposing everyone to far greater harm.

This is a result of the way that the fear is induced by the antivax accounts.

They use overly emotional accounts generally of families who have children who are severely disabled with autism or with rare genetic conditions or with conditions which medicine can't explain, or children who are medically delicate with auto-immune conditions, or children who die of SIDS or sepsis or complications from an illness. They exploit the fact that families are often grieving, either their child who has died or the life they feel an able-bodied child would have and of course the fact that it is incredibly hard to care for a severely disabled child. Many of those families will look for more concrete answers because "We don't know why this happens, it just happens sometimes" isn't very satisfying or reassuring. The reality is science can't explain everything, and there is often not enough resources, time or support for families of disabled children.

Alternative health providers do have time and they can offer boatloads of emotional support since they can't provide much in the way of actual treatments. This can be very reassuring to someone who feels they have been sidelined or dismissed or ignored by mainstream medicine. Finally someone understands, cares, listens. They can also give you a confident, concrete, neat, tied up answer for what "happened to" your child and who to blame for it. Some people find this much easier to swallow than "random genetic mutations happen and we can't prevent it". Unfortunately these families become cash cows for the antivaxxer or alternative health practitioner - they are used to "spread the word" and of course because they genuinely believe that vaccines were the cause of their child's disability they are often happy to do this, to warn other parents away, to "save" other children.

And yes, I do think the fact that autism and physical/intellectual disability, and SIDS are concepts we are all familiar with, and to many people would be one of their worst fears, whereas the severe effects of vaccine preventable diseases are usually things we are unfamiliar with, is not a coincidence at all. It is easy to exploit this because of the way that we (humans generally) calculate/process/understand risk. It is difficult to feel very worried about something that you have no experience of at all, even second hand. It's always just a theoretical risk and it's quite hard for us to process that. OTOH something we can picture very vividly, that may affect somebody close to us, or someone we feel close to because we have heard such a personal and emotionally moving tale from them, that kind of risk feels much more real, present and frightening.

I don't think it's quite fair to say that people who are vaccine hesitant don't care about those diseases, they just have an incredibly skewed picture of the relative risk, and this is done deliberately via manipulation by the big players in the game. And I don't think it's quite fair to say they are relying on herd immunity, even though they are - a lot of the antivax propaganda, while they're bombarding you with how difficult and terrible and awful it is to live with a "vaccine injury" (most of their exampled of which are extremely unlikely to be), they are also telling you that "Big Pharma" makes up a lot of these concepts in order to control people through fear - so they often come to believe that herd immunity isn't really a thing, and that levels of these diseases went down naturally due to hygiene or other factors or that there is a big cover up about how vaccines cause other illnesses. So vaccine-hesitant families don't believe they are causing any harm by causing herd immunity levels to drop, because they have often swallowed the lie (usually using manipulated data) that vaccines aren't doing very much anyway.

The actual messages from antivax activists change their focus every so often but the key themes - those things the "mainstream media" want you to worry about are lies, vaccines and science and mainstream medicine are the real enemies, they're hiding the truth and we alone will say it - these stay the same.

There was an amazing but absolutely sickening Channel 4 Dispatches in about 2021 I think - called "The Anti-Vax Conspiracy". It isn't on their online catch up any more but it comes onto youtube every so often and then gets deleted - I think because it was sold to the BBC. If you can catch it, it's excellent but harrowing - there is a whole side aspect to this which gets extremely dark which is about controversial "treatments" for autism. But I think the biggest thing for me about this documentary was learning just how much of the antivax content online is traceable back to the same small group of people.

This goes into that a bit: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-health/dozen-misguided-influencers-spread-most-anti-vaccination-content-social-media

Also good is the episode of the podcast "You're Wrong About" called "The anti-vaccination movement". They interview Dan "Debunk the Funk" Wilson and he is incredibly patient, compassionate and thorough about what goes on.

Your responses on here don't suggest a willingness to understand. It seems to me that you're simply looking for proof that your preconceived ideas about anti-vaxers are true.

In general, people have lost their bearing of severity of illness. So many conditions are so easily treatable that ill enough to be in bed for a week+ is considered severe in modern day-to-day life.

Id consider 'almost dying' as illnesses that result in an ICU admission, or at the very least, hospital stays of weeks/months with hefty interventions. A drip and antibiotics is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Yes, often while only thinking about themselves.

I really don't think too many people decide to get vaccinated for the greater good. That is more a side effect of their decision to get vaccinated.

As I said in my OP, I understand people fear adverse side effects from vaccination. What I still I don’t understand is why anyone worries about that risk but seems unconcerned about diseases returning and exposing everyone to far greater harm.

Just because they ARE worried about vax side effects, doesn't mean they're automatically NOT worried about diseases returning. Of course they are!
I'd just take it to mean these parents consider their child 'low risk' for catching 'x, y and z' actual disease (based on lifestyle, diet, weight etc) while, for them, the vaccine carries a somewhat 'unknown' higher risk - it's not a risk they're actively willing to take on their child, so refuse the jab.

It’s definitely a consideration - part of the whole decision. It’s interesting that you think that it isn’t? Do you genuinely not consider other people, outside of your own loved ones, when you’re making decisions?

Of course I consider others but my priority is the impact on myself and my loved ones. If there is a benefit to the greater good then that's even better. But no, I do not prioritise the greater good over myself or my family when it comes to decisions like that.

Would you really get vaccinated predominantly for the greater good? Or do you, like most of us, believe vaccines are generally a good thing for you and you family and yea, you can also have the feel good of contributing to the greater good as a side effect of your decision?

Both. When having the natural moment of wondering if we’ll be the unlucky ones with vaccine side effects I thought about how the risks of side effects from the diseases themselves are worse and how, because we don’t have any other reason not to, it’s better for everyone that we do. It’s another reason in favour of doing it. That just seems normal to me?

Now, of course, if I had a reason, like an allergy or being immunocompromised, that made me think I had a higher risk of a side effect of the vaccine, then I wouldn’t do it. Again, another reason why those who can, should.

Well, as someone who's been through hell living with an iatrogenic neurological movement disorder from an off label antipsychotic, I can say with certainty that it is sodding hell and difficult to live with a medication induced injury.

I literally lost control over my body movements when the antipsychotic gave me permanent brain damage. My tongue moving on its own, alongside various other bizarre and utterly pointless movements are just the icing on the cake which is alongside all the emotional turmoil and impact the devastating injury has had on my life.

To minimise the way these things that are affecting the minority who are harmed by drugs and vaccines is unfair. We're not all anti-vax or anti-medicatiom per se, but it is important to remember how much we are trying to get across our side of the trauma without sounding like we hate ALL drugs.

That sounds awful, I’d like to think that people don’t believe that there aren’t any side effects to vaccines. There are side effects to every medication, and some catastrophic ones. There were some terrible reactions to a bad batch of polio vaccinations early on. Nothing is risk-free, and I certainly wouldn’t belittle the impact to those who have been on the receiving end of bad side effects. But I am glad that in the most part, that those who can be vaccinated, are - given the side effects to the diseases that they prevent. I think that that might be changing however, which would be scary even without the current situation we’re in with the NHS.

I imagine too, that it is preferable to you that other people continue to get vaccinated for those diseases?

My aunt had polio as a child and had to wear calipers on both legs. She subsequently died prematurely in her fifties. Apparently it was because her heart was weak and walking with calipers put too much strain on it.

I have a friend who is 81 and never learned to swim. She says that was because when she was young her DM would never let her go to the local swimming pool in the summer as that is when most children contracted polio.

Your DH can believe what he wants, but trust me, these diseases were very real.