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?

Spot on. I came close to being hospitalised with measles as a toddler in 1958 and the only reason I wasn't admitted was because my mother was a nurse and the GP was a family friend who visited twice a day to see how I was doing.

A child at my nursery school died of measles in that same outbreak. A schoolfriend's brother was disabled as a result of polio, and rubella in pregnancy caused deafness and blindness in babies. Mumps can cause infertility if a child catches it after puberty.

Thanks to vaccination, these are now rare events, and I think a lot of people have no idea of the impact that these illnesses can have.

They won’t read it anyway!

I think parents that made those decisions at the time were put in a really, really hard place, and you made the decisions based on the information available at the time.

The trouble is those people having children now, who see the research, see the debunking, the court cases - and still don't give their children the vaccines.

As did my 3 vaccinated children. Very mild.
Friends vaccinated children barely had 10 spots. Incredibly mild.
Every child I've taught (y1 teacher for 10 years, I've seen a hell of a lot of chickenpox!), majority vaccinated, have all been mild.

What's your point?

But I'm not afraid of them coming into contact with the pathogen, but of them having a serious complication from it. Their of the latter is extremely low.

That my child already has a very low chance of complications from chicken pox.

The crazy thing is that we're all diagnosed with autism anyway!

Perhaps for a healthy child. But the risk of complications increases in immunocompromised children and children with pre-existing conditions. These children cannot be immunised which is why you immunise yours.
Your child might be OK but the children they pass it to might not.

Inherited of course!

For all the diseases we vaccinate against? How about polio? TB?

One of my children hasn't even HAD chicken pox!

Check mate!

If you're in the UK, we don't routinely vaccinate for chicken pox (although that might have changed recently) so presumably you live in a wealthy enough area where parents are paying for the two vaccines separately, and then telling you that, so again, you can use this bias to form a conclusion.

That's an unusually nuanced post on here.

My DC were born in the 90s. The decision on MMR was very difficult but we went ahead. IOTOH I didn't allow them to eat beef until they were about 10 (CJD).

Measles certainly caused my deafness but I guess that's not a life threatening side effect.

I took have an auto immune disease which I've had for 10 years. It's thought that virus infection of some kind is often a trigger and my rheumatologist thinks that was true in my case. Dammed if you do or don't.

my priority is my child. I don't want to put them at risk of vaccine injury.

PS I had three spots from chicken pox as a five year old. I didn't get MMR as I was too old when it came out - I did have rubella and mumps though. Not that I remember as I was very small then.

I remember my dad caught CP from me though. He was very, very ill indeed.

I’m not referring to the poster you’re responding to, because of course I don’t know what they think about this, but I actually think maybe a lot of anti-vaccine people aren’t worried about other people‘s children / vulnerable adults anymore.

Whenever I’ve had this discussion, and have talked about the people who genuinely can’t be vaccinated, that rely on everyone else being vaccinated, people don’t seem to care. I’ve quoted a few times on threads like this about the cases where babies too young to be vaccinated have died from, for example, measles, like a recent case in LA, and very rarely get any kind of response.

But here we go round in circles - because what sources are you using that tell you that the risk of vaccine injury is higher than the risk of catching the disease?

Then they are at risk of getting it in adulthood, which could cause death. What are you going to do?

In your situation I would consider the vaccine for my children.

It's not. you should read my original messages.

My child remains at low risk of complication from these illnesses, and zero risk of vaccine injury.

I would like to keep it that way. That's all.

Anti vaxxers should do some family history research.

My great, great grandparents lost two little ones to diphtheria within a week and another to TB in adulthood. Heartbreaking.

So your source is "my child is at 0 risk from vaccine injury as they don't have the vaccine, and at low risk of complications from these illnesses because I say so".

Okey doke. Thanks for the insightful conversation.

Nearly every child has a low risk of complications from chickenpox. Zilch to do with vaccines.

(Assuming UK and not vaccinated for chickenpox)

Long may their luck last! Cause weirdly you don’t know they will have a terrible reaction to a preventable disease until they do!

No, they are epidemiologically at low risk of complications. Not because 'I say so'

Your statement about 'if everybody stopped vaccinating, wouldn't...diseases like polio come back' is probably true. Vaccines don't just protect whoever takes them, but reduces the spread, which is arguably more important.

There is a possibility that vaccines have unwanted side effects and can affect the body's immune system, but they are undoubtedly effective against the disease for which they are manufactured. As such, society can tolerate a few anti-vaxxers, because those few people have limited scope to spread the disease. Those people risk contracting the disease itself, but are immune to any unfounded side effects that the vaccine may cause. In this sense, it could be argued that anti-vaxxers are selfish, because they risk spreading the disease to the population, while protecting themselves. People who take vaccines protect society and themselves against the disease, but also accept the risk of being inflicted with the unfounded side effects.
I don't have anything against anti-vaxxers personally, in fact I think that it's good that there are a few, as they could form a control group for any side effects discovered in the future. But if too many people become anti-vaxxers, the diseases that the vaccines are designed to protect against will spread more rapidly, causing far more problems among society. It can be seen that the population benefits when most people take the vaccine, but it doesn't need everyone to take it to retain its effectiveness against spreading the disease.

Yes vaccinated but the strain that went through nursery caused all of them to be very ill, even the unvaccinated ones. When I had CP my youngest DSis had it first, a few spots but fine, my other DSis had it next, very poorly but few spots I was last I felt fine no systemic symptoms but I was covered in spots. I had them on my palms and on the soles of my feet, on my eyes, in my mouth even under my fingernails. So it can be very variable.

The interesting thing about DS was that he had shingles when he started school as did one of the other children from nursery. It’s very rare for children to have shingles and for two of them from a very small group to have it at the same time suggests to me that it was the strain of CP that was the problem.

I think one possibility my DS had a bad dose because I had stopped BF six months beforehand and his immune system was at its lowest. So any immunity he’d acquired from me had disappeared.

He also went to a “posh” nursery where families travelled to distant places so it is possible that they had a strain not common to the Uk. It was odd how many of them ended up with complications.