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?

With an overall good immune system under 5% of people who come into contact with myobacterium tuberculosis ever contract active disease.

Lack of overcrowding, lack of protein deficiency, vitamin D deficiency, etc. etc. etc.

But you're happy to put them at risk of disability, losing limbs, sight, hearing, lung function, and death though? Even though you can prevent it?

The more and more tiktok researchers thinking like this, the risk of catching, spreading and having serious lifelong disabilities increases, so the risk will no longer be "low".

See, this is the problem... people offer a legitimate example of why they might reject a particular vaccine... and they're immediately met with 'sassy' comments like this. How does this help anyone?

Regardless of what her concerns are, she's concerned. The End!

but their risk of this from contact with illnesses we vaccinate for is really low.

TB kills around two thirds of those infected if untreated. As antivax sentiment increases, so does the rate of drug-resistant TB. Immigration, ease of international travel, and other factors also affect transmission and risk.

Whether that constitutes low risk is something I respectfully disagree with you on. Which is why my child has been vaccinated.

Well it's not routinely vaccinated against anymore. So you're going against NHs advice there surely.

This person hadn't offered an example of why they have rejected vaccines. This is a discussion. Who are you to decide it's the end?

We have family members who occasionally travel to TB risk countries, so it was deemed appropriate.

The point being: not all VPD are low risk if a healthy child contracts them.

I don't know what the stats are today but at its peak in the 1800s TB killed one in seven people, from all walks of life. The wealthy did not escape.

Can I just ask if you've looked up anything, anything at all, for yourself before contributing to this thread?

But doesn’t that also apply to vaccination injury?
Maybe have a look at the epidemiology
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-historic-confirmed-cases-notifications-and-deaths/measles-historic-confirmed-cases-notifications-and-deaths
Initially confirmed cases appear to be increasing and have been doubling since the pandemic. Confirmed would be a nasal swab. But scroll down to notified and the increasing incidence of measles becomes more worrying. A lot of GPs can diagnose measles without a swab test, it is quite easy once you’ve seen a few. It is a notifiable disease so every case is reported.
Predictably 2020 was the lowest it’s been but look how rapidly it is growing and not just in London. I would estimate that the increase in cases is following an exponential curve. Worrying if you haven’t had measles or been vaccinated.

....so cite your sources then. And tell me why the low risk of complications is less of a risk than the risk from vaccine injury.

It may well be reintroduced. But it’s going to be costly so they will continue to monitor.
There are “secret” TB clinics dotted around the country and as it has always been seen as a disease associated with poor living conditions and poor health monitoring is low key.
The problem with TB is that is quite good at living with you without causing symptoms. So many healthy people may have it lying dormant. Before rolling out TB vaccination they would have to do mass screening to identify who can have it. Anyone who tests positive would then have to be further investor treated with an expensive cocktail of antibiotics for a minimum of 6 months.
You can see where I am going with this?
Any government who embarks on this would potential bankrupt the NHS.

I think there was opposition when they stopped routinely vaccinating for TB and it is now becoming clear that it was probably a bad idea.

I'm not an antivaxer. My DC had all routine vaccinations. I do understand people being mistrusting of them though. The most recent new jabs are covid and chicken pox. For the majority of people their only experience with covid and chicken pox has been mild illness. People used to have chicken pox parties because it was believed to be best to get it out of the way whilst they were young. Chicken pox has never been seen as a serious virus we need to fear so why would the gov invest so much in it whilst sectors are desperate for investment we can't afford?With covid jabs there have been many reports of side effects, mainly in young people. As far as I am aware there isn't any strong evidence that they actually make much difference.
There have been huge mistakes with medication in the past which will also contribute to the mistrust.

I didn’t vax mine for years because of ingredients, in the US. They did make a lot of changes and removed those ingredients since then. I got all my information from our government website reading the ingredients, etc. so I wasn’t getting crazy stuff from blogs or whatever. Most people in our community did vax, so the herd thing applied. However, on down the line I did go back to vaxxing, especially after some ingredients were removed and an allergy concern had been cleared. So I was never anti vaccination, but did decide against them for years. I do take science seriously and the effects of anti vaxxing is extremely obvious by the deadly outbreaks of measles we’ve been having over here. I don’t know about the world view, but the movement here has been very connected to religion. I actually used a religious waiver so my kids could still attend school without shots. It was SO embarrassing when I took my kids in and asked for the 14 million shots they needed catching up on though. I wouldn’t advise doing that either. Hopefully we all can have access to to vaccines without harmful ingredients, and can be educated on why they matter.

Chicken pox isn't a new vaccine, it's just newly available on the NHS. My son was very ill will it when he caught it thanks to a secondary infection - hospitalised for 48h with an uncontrollable temperature. I wouldn't wish that on anyone's family, so to me it seems like a very positive step to routinely vaccinate against such a common disease.

Do you think mumsnet is social media? It's a forum. Just curious. As you were.

Do you all realise that the reason your children aren’t getting ill is because everyone else around them is vaccinated? and with this attitude, we will return to a world of people dying from preventable illness? I don’t want to live in such a world. All the people who refuse to be vaccinated should live together in an unvaccinated community and leave the vaccinated people together. It is madness.

Until everyone stops vaccinating. The risk to your child is only low because others vaccinate theirs.

I am not responsible for their health.

Resorting to calling people the C word. Nice.

I don't disagree that chickenpox for most children is a fairly mild illness , but it's not a new vaccine. It's been around for years and the UK is one of the only developed countries not to offer it as part of routine child immunisations, although that is now about to change.

As a side note, my niece was incredibly ill with chickenpox and ended up hospitalised for over a week.

I think this is the crux of it. I think there used to be more of a collective consideration of doing it for others as well as yourself. I also think people don’t remember what it was like to see the impacts of, for example, polio.

I wonder whether that concern only for the self would be displayed in pushing to the front of the line when the impacts of not vaccinating becomes more apparent.

I know a TB nurse who has TB as a result of her job. She has no symptoms and has regular checks but has been advised to wait until she retires because after 6 months of antibiotics she will likely pick it up as soon as she returns to work. She tells all her friends who work in healthcare to get tested when they retire to check they haven’t picked it up. She is obviously high risk because every patient has TB but we really have no idea what the current level of infection is because in healthy people it often lies dormant for years or is very low grade.