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?

The HPV vaccine also protects against some of the main strains of genital warts, as well as the risk of cervical cancer. I am so delighted for my daughter that this is available for her.

I have two friends, one male, one female, who both developed HPV-dependent head, neck and throat cancer as middle aged adults. That type of cancer is on the rise. If the vaccine had been available when they were teenagers, they would have been saved painful and permanently disfiguring chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy, plus the worry about surviving the cancer and the risk of it returning.

I simply do not get why you would want to say no to the HPV vaccine just because it’s a vaccination. You can’t control or detect which sexual partners may have HPV, and unless you expect your children to live like nuns all their lives, it’s a hugely positive advance in public health.

The problem with the HPV vaccine is that it’s only given to girls. As soon as your DD becomes sexually active she will be exposed to the virus. Not only does it cause cervical cancer but it can lead to oral cancer.
I hope you encourage her to attend cervical screening as soon as she is sexually active so any infection can be picked up early.

You are assuming I'm an anti-vaxer. I'm not. In fact, I got covid and flu vaccines just last week. My dc have had all their vaccinations too.

I just disagree with some of the exaggerated hyperbole that comes from the extremes on both sides of the debate. And yes, I do remember spending a couple of weeks in a darkened room. I also remember chocolate tasting like soap. But in the greater scheme of things, it was not a big deal for most of us. One of my dc had pretty much the same symptoms as I had as a child when he got the MMR so getting the vaccine didn't prevent him being extremely sick for a couple of weeks.

Boys are now offered it. My youngest has had it.

If the DD is vaccinated then it doesn’t matter if she is exposed to the virus because she is then protected. There are a few rare cases where cervical cancer can be caused by different factors - so it’s important still to attend screening for those, but as up to 98% of cervical cancers are caused by HPV, the incidence of cervical cancers will become much rarer.

Ideally both boys and girls would have it; but the idea is that if girls can’t transmit it, then it can’t reinfect other boys — it breaks the chain of transmission. This is evident in the immediate drop in cervical cancer rates in the early cohorts that have had the vaccine. (Gay men and boys can also receive it by request on the NHS.)

Edited because I realised you were talking about the OP’s DD who isn’t vaccinated — is that right?

My son had the HPV vaxx at school - we didn’t have to make any special requests.

That’s a complex argument. Pre vaccination most children would have been exposed to the childhood illnesses we now vaccinate against. They would either survive with lifelong immunity, survive with some form of life long damage but still have immunity or die.

Those who survived to adulthood would not succumb to the disease again despite exposure. So the comment about adult illness being less dangerous is not necessarily correct. If you were to do a deep dive into data the incidence of childhood illnesses presenting in adults would be small because most adults were probably immune. There are cases of adults dying of measles in the post vaccination era. Either because they didn’t have measles as a child or were not vaccinated or didn’t serum convert. Death from measles is higher than average in children under 5 and adults older than 20.

Even if a child who’s unvaccinated has a mild infection of measles later in life they can develop SSPE, a form of encephalitis that is generally fatal. Having the vaccination is the only way to prevent this.

Ah - a quick check suggests that the HPV vax has been given to both boys and girls since 2019 - great news!

My cousin had a very severe reaction to a vaccine and ended up profoundly disabled for the rest of her life. She died in her 40s, mentally never progressing beyond 2, the age when she was vaccinated. My aunt and uncle broke their backs caring for her.
But, I still chose to vaccinate my DC - as I didn't want to feel responsible for him getting one of the diseases had I chosen not to....and I figured I was only even considering not vaccinating because, as you say, I hadn't seen such severe illnesses in my lifetime. But I do have sympathy with the fears around side effects.

I was replying to the pp who stated that she wasn’t going to allow her DD to have HPV vaccine. We know that the vaccination program has made a massive difference but it hasn’t eliminated the virus. It is still very present in older generations who were not vaccinated. The flaw is the assumption that a 20 yr old man will only have sex with a 20 yr old woman.
My DSis has to go for regular cervical screening because she tested positive for HPV at 57. She’s not promiscuous but started dating after divorce.
The vaccine is given at 14 hopefully before girls become sexually active and has been available since 2008. So at best most women under 31 will be protected. Although most of us would be uncomfortable with a woman in their 30s having sex with our DS in their 20s it does happen. So cross infection is still a problem.
It’s great that vaccination is now available for both boys and girls. It would have been better if they had done the critical thinking earlier.

Yes — I agree.

But I don’t think it’s a case of the health service not doing the critical thinking. When the HPV vax was introduced in the U.K. they originally used Cevarix, and it only offered protection against a couple of strains. Many doctors bought Gardasil privately for their daughters, which offered protection against four strains, but it was much more expensive than Cevarix. In the meantime, Gardasil (then a new vaccine) accrued a lot more safety and efficacy data and now protects against many more strains, so the NHS switched to it in 2012 because the efficacy data is now so conclusive. There was a lot of debate on here around it at the time. It’s quite normal for the cost/benefit/safety profile of a particular vax to change over time as new data becomes available.

The NHS in general is wary of introducing new vaccines and usually goes softly-softly, precisely because of vaccine panic/hesitancy, and the susceptibility of our population to US anti-vax material. For example, varicella has been about to be added to the vaccine schedule on and off for a long time; but each time a vaccine panic pops up they pull back on it because it’s felt that adding a new vax causes a dip in takeup for the existing ones — not good if measles is making a recurrence, for example.

They were due to add varicella the year I was pregnant with DD, but a pertussis outbreak meant they pulled it in favour of a campaign encouraging pregnant women to be revaccinated against pertussis. It’s very much felt in NHS public health that you only run one vax campaign at a time to avoid muddying the information waters, and proceed slowly with an eye to clinical data from other countries before adopting a new vax.

Just to add that Cevarix is actually more effective than Gardasil in protecting against the two strains it offers; but the new Gardasil is effective across a wider range of 9 strains (as opposed to its initial 4) — hence the switch, as the efficacy/cost benefit analysis has shifted more in favour of Gardasil. Useful overview below for those interested:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0090825817307746

It really depends where you live. If you’re based in a country like the UK where a majority of children (and adults) have been vaccinated you and your DCs will benefit from the immunity of others who got vaccinated. Childhood diseases that used to regularly kill babies and children until the mid 20th century are extremely rare thanks to mass vaccination programmes though the lower take up of mmr has led to a number of deaths in UK and Republic of Ireland. I think you need to read up on the eradication of preventable disease thanks to mass vaccination (measles, scarlet fever, polio). Look in church yards at the number of babies and children who were buried in the Victorian era 😢

I thought this too. I wouldn’t be able to make a sound judgment by reading a vaccination ingredient list as I’m not a pharmacist or similar. Even if someone has appropriate qualifications, they’d need to work in the relevant speciality to use this information to make a sound critique.

As a child, I was vaccinated against everything. All fine. I caught Covid just before being called for vaccination. Seemed to recover completely. Long Covid hit like a truck in January 2021. Been ill ever since. Currently on holiday, but still needed to go to bed this afternoon. If you've not reacted badly to the vaccination, I'd recommend you get it. Sadly, I did react badly to the last 2 vaccinations, so dr recommended I don't have any more...A difficult situation.

I worked for over thirty years with children who had various disabilities. My work also encompassed supporting their families, extended families and educators. There was always another group of children on my large caseload simply because their parent/s had decided against childhood vaccinations. Sadly, the parents have lodged in my memory better than their children.

“If everyone stopped vaccinating, wouldn’t we start seeing diseases like polio coming back? That would mean more infant deaths and lifelong disabilities.”

Yes, in a word. Yes, all these diseases will start emerging

“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.”

Exactly this, these people have no concept of just how severe or even deadly these ‘childhood’ illnesses can be, and think it’s just a bit of a temperature and an unpleasant rash. The current anti-vax generation has grown up shielded by the NHS, and is completely clueless.

I wonder how many anti vaxxer's are having Botox injected, the most poisoness substance known to humans. (Look it up) or are having the weight loss injections?

Waddaya think MN is if not social media???

Isn’t Covid recommended during pregnancy too? I got pregnant a year ago (with the wonderful baby that’s now in my arms :) ) and went and had the flu and Covid jabs a few weeks after finding out. I also had the others vacs recommended to me by midwifes. I just assumed Covid was also a risk if I caught it whilst pregnant and flu/cold season was approaching..

Being satisfied now doesn't mean that one day you won't have a headstone instead of a child. These vaccines came out generations ago for good reason! The graveyards used to be full of kids in the days before vaccines.

Your children risk the lines of other kids when they pick up these horrendous illnesses and pass them to kids too vulnerable to be vaccinated! These illness won't disappear because you feel satisfied - you are taking us back to Victorian times!

Also worth mentioning is the fact that the fewer people who vaccinate, the more these illnesses circulate, and the more they circulate, the higher the odds they will mutate into potentially more deadly forms. When that happens we are risking a scenario in which they don't respond to current vaccines or interventions.

The problem is (in my opinion) there is a risk with absolutely every medical procedure/medicine available to us. The majority will benefit with little to no known side effects but unfortunately there will always be someone who has an adverse reaction. In medicine we have to weigh up the benefits against the potential risks.
These sometimes are not always made perfectly clear to Joe-public and we are therefore not able to make an informed decision based on ALL the facts. The last time you had a vaccination were you allowed to see the contents of the vaccine vial or relevant data sheet?? We rely heavily on the medical professional we put our trust in at the time of administration etc. I just think that people are now starting to ask more questions and not accepting the blanket statement of oh don't worry, it'll be safe.
Unfortunately people make mistakes (and believe me I've seen some whoppers in my time in practice...) and so do big Pharma.
In case people are wondering, yes I am vaccinated and so are my children

Take a look at this:

www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html

There have been 44 outbreaks of measles in the USA this year and 12% of them were hospitalized - presumably due to serious complications.

You really don't get that the more unvaccinated kids there are, the more prevalent these disease get? Never assume that kids today have better nutrition than a few generations back! I've seen the ultra processed crap that parents pile high at the tills for kids.
Ultimately anti vaxxers take a great risk with their kids lives and sacrifice the lives of vulnerable kids who can't be vaccinated. And not one of you saw an issue with childhood vaccines until the dumb conspiracy theorists commanded the gullible to attack every vaccine since COVID!