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?

^ was?

I realise statistically my children are less at risk of what you describe than of a VPD, and it also scares me.

Someone above also said that some children are susceptible to vaccine damage genetically, but I don't think this is confirmed by the medical establishment?

If there were a test to confirm or deny this I would use it as I would like to give my children vaccines but I am just too afraid of the adverse events from the vaccines.

And even though it suggests that there are conspiracies involved within medicine, I don't believe that, if it were the case vaccines caused more harm than is widely accepted, it would be publicised. So I remain sceptical and I remain worried about VPDs to an extent.

Chicken pox is a mild, routine, self-limiting infection and I wouldn't even consider a vaccine. There's just no indication my children would have a more than baseline risk of complications.

Vaccines are a perfectly reasonable public health policy. It's not practical to administer them on a case by case basis; say kids who are never breastfed, exposed to toxic stress, malnourished, immune compromised... so we use them for all, but we are still free to hedge our bets of resilience in other ways and forego prophylactic therapy.

I'm not denying that unvaccinated children are statistically more at risk of VPDs, but I don't believe that being unvaccinated makes you intrinsically more likely to die.

And yet there were still women who had disabled babies or stillbirths because of rubella, and some children who had brain damage from varicella encephalitis, deafness, vision loss or cognitive impairments from measles, young men who had fertility problems from mumps, and so on. For some people it was actually very serious; as a small child you would have been unaware of these cases and so naturally you just recall it all being fine.

I was once on a live MN thread about ten years ago where a mum couldn’t wake her fifteen month old, and posters came on to say get him to A&E now, including another poster’s DH who was a GP. It turned out that the baby had encephalitis from undiagnosed chickenpox (with only a few spots on his foot). The mum came back on a while later to say he had survived, but had a long road to recovery. I often think about her and her child and hope they are okay. Childhood illnesses are not always all simple and minor, and most Western countries now vaccinate for chickenpox because even though it’s generally mild, in rare cases it can be disastrous.

you can be prescribed a medicine off-label by a professional if there is evidence that it can work for that condition. There is a medicine used for anxiety and intrusive thoughts that was developed as a medicine to stop excessive scratching in dogs. Ketamine is used in human medicine but is primarily a horse tranquiliser.

But it's the same with vaccines. Generally safe but an adverse event can be disastrous.

The only thing that vaccines have in their favour with that particular point is a statistically lower risk of an adverse event from a vaccine than from a disease, but then there are other factors at play as I said above. Every individual child's risk profile is different,.

To be honest, I think that anyone who cites “toxic stress” as equivalent to the brain injuries that can be caused by measles encephalitis is not educated or informed about medicine, or posting in good faith.

I agree. I didn't do that though. I mentioned it as something which contributes to worse outcomes.

It's a valid question and I think if we did see cases of this we would change our minds.

But I know lots of families who don't use vaccines and there is a yearly outbreak of measles locally and these vaccinated children remain unscathed.

Tetanus is a bad example surely? People worked on farms in dirt and the lack of sanitation back then. A deep puncture wound filled with horse manure is hardly likely in the UK. If they want to be farmers when older they can get a tetanus jab first.

Do you think the NHS recommends a tetanus booster every 10 years just for fun, then? They’ve nothing else to spend money on?

What is it you are asking? I don't know what it is like now as I'm not a kid and don't have any but chicken pox was the thing that patents weren't too worried about us getting when I was a kid of the 80's. It was seen as sooner the better.

Do you think many people take this up?

Here’s some current epidemiology on tetanus:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tetanus-in-england-annual-reports/tetanus-in-england-2023

There were 5 cases in England in 2023; all were hospitalised, 2 died (that’s a 40% mortality rate). The only case of mild infection was in someone who had been vaccinated but was not up to date with boosters. The others were in unvaccinated people. If you look back through the cases in recent years, almost all injuries were sustained from gardening or cat/animal bites. The biggest risk factor for getting it is not being vaccinated, especially older adults who were born before the vaccination programmes.

The tetanus vaccination has all but eradicated what is a horrendously painful, dangerous disease with a very high mortality rate, which you can get from a minor injury in the garden or an animal scratch or bite — not at all restricted to farmers with deep puncture wounds with manure, as you suggest.

You’re relying not on any form of scientific or medical knowledge here, but on a combination suit of pure dumb luck and other people vaccinating. There’s no logic or reason behind it apart from that. Better to go away and read a few basic biology textbooks and understand these things than posting here.

Er…yes? Even the childhood vaccinations plus the pregnancy booster give some protection (you can see that in the records of recent cases in England, the milder disease courses were in people who had had at least some tetanus vaccinations). But yes, everyone I know goes and gets a booster if they’ve had a gardening injury or a bad animal scratch. My DH had to get one when he got a bad scratch from a cat; when I was pet sitting for a friend’s rabbit I got some bad scratches from it, rang up our GP and the nurse literally had the tetanus booster ready as I walked in the door.

Your knowledge on tetanus is bizarre! Who said it's just caused by wounds full of horse manure! I had to have tetanus booster because of a dog bite! Many people have tetanus injections if they sustained cuts or stood on nails, it's a common thing for people in such as the construction industry! It's all sorts of bacterias getting in! If you are a mechanic and cut your hand on a rusty of car you need to be up to date on tetanus! Do not ever tell anyone that tetanus is exclusive to farmers that cover themselves in horse shit!

Ah, sorry, I thought "wasn't" was a typo in your post!

I think to be honest we were used to getting sick and being in bed for a couple of weeks. Nowadays you'd think that was terrible.

I don't disagree at all, times and knowledge has changed. I can remember being in bed with mumps and thank god I was vaccinated to stop it being too damaging.

I always did (and do now that I live in France). I live on a farm and have horses so am more likely than most to have a "deep puncture wound filled with horse manure". I also understand that that's not the only potential source of Clostridium tetani infection and I'm not an idiot who's prepared to risk getting a disease like tetanus when there's a safe and proven vaccine.

Ahh that makes sense.. I was actually pregnant with our first late 2020/21 and did take the jab and thankfully didn’t have any side effects or get Covid (that I’m aware of). Thinking about it now, this must have swayed my decision to get it again during this second pregnancy..
All the best with the rest of your pregnancy and birth :) such an exciting time x

A friend of mine was not vaccinated as a child and had measles in her 30s. She bloody nearly left 2 kids motherless.

@user098786533 With all due respect, you’re dismissing well established facts in favour of personal anecdotes. I understand you’re operating from a place of fear, and that’s completely human, but fear doesn’t change the evidence.

I genuinely hope your children continue to enjoy good health and never have to experience the consequences of the very diseases you were fortunate to be protected against through your own childhood vaccines.

Like a PP, I’ve been unfortunate enough to suffer dystonia - a type called tardive dyskinesia, caused by medication allergy. This mimicked the twisting motions a person with tetanus might have. My back was twisting upwards for hours and I couldn’t unclench my jaw. It was agony.

The bacterium that causes tetanus lives everywhere, not just in horse manure, and it’s quite happy to kill you.

This is worrying. I could still get both of my older kids jabbed for measles in the single jab, which I may do. I was born in 1979 and did not have the same schedule. I had a single measles jab, no MMR. I had measles in my teens and 15 years later had a blood test to confirm I was immune.

Can you share more about what happened to your friend please? Was she otherwise well?

Yes she was, very healthy and sporty. She was in hospital for weeks and was skeletal when she came.out.

If you had measles in your teens and a blood test confirming that you are immune, you shouldn’t need any other vaccination for measles. The NHS is doing a catch-up programme for MMR at the moment, so your GP will be able to arrange for your kids to be caught up if necessary.