Dealing with "I'm not having the vaccine because my friend had it and said his dick fell off" and other stories..

[flashbac]

Ok the dick falling off is an exaggeration but I'm just so tired of this. I now don't know anyone who isn't sceptical about the jab and my pleas fall on deaf ears because there's always some story of so and so "whose legs stopped working after his jab".

I'm just ranting really. Worried about loved ones.

I think one of the issues here is the increasing complexities of modern medicine. People are often afraid of things that they do not understand. That is not to say that they have a low level of intelligence. It is that medicine is becoming so complex it can take years of dedicated study to specialise in tiny areas of it and know very little about other areas.
I teach A level biology, and vaccination is covered in probably two lessons. mRNA vaccines are not on spec as they are such a new development. On some GCSE specifications, vaccination is not covered at all. So, many people are leaving school with little to no knowledge about how vaccination works.
In the early days of vaccination, people took it on faith because they had seen the awful consequences of smallpox. It was observed that vaccinated people didn't get it and that encouraged more to do it.
With something like COVID, the rates of serious disease are so low that lots of people have not experienced or seen anyone else being ravaged by it. So, there is nothing to convince them to take a vaccination that they do not understand.

If the next pandemic is a bit more distressing (disfigurement, bleeding from orifices type of thing) then people will be fighting to get a vaccine. Even though they don't know how it works.

I walk away. It's usually never first hand anecdotal, it's my aunties second cousins boyfriends friend had x happen, with no actual link to the person saying it. Are there side effects- absolutely. Are they very minor to most, absolutely. Are there some that are more serious, yes. You'll never be able to have a rational conversation about this- so I choose not to engage.

It’s the lack of understanding for me - we don’t have personalised vaccines and so of course when one vaccine is given to millions of people, some of them are going to have adverse reactions. Is it really sad and in some cases, tragic? Absolutely. Is it avoidable? No. Is life based on risk/reward? Yes.

Vaccination is positively correlated with education level I believe, not specifically IQ or cognitive scores that measure intelligence

Will be tied to critical thinking, but also more complex things like socioeconomic status & deprivation

In a large US study specifically looking at the coronavirus vaccines, the strongest predictor was whether someone had repoted voting for Biden versus Trump

Whenever I see someone say that intelligence level is to do with their vaccination status, it is invariably to do with the preconceived stereotype that unvaccinated = thick
Such a stereotype is all over this forum.

That title made me proper lol OP. A friend won’t have dose 2 or a booster cos dose one gave her a headache…

You’re wasting your time debating with an anti vaxxer but I don’t believe it’s to do with intelligence. I think it’s more about ego. They think they’re in a special group of independent thinkers who ‘know the truth’. When actually, they’re still sheep, but they’re just following a different shepherd. It’s fact that a person’s more likely to get ill (regardless of to what extent) from covid than they are from the vaccine so arguing risk assessment is not going to change their mind.

It's quite simple.

You do you.

Let others do what they want.

Don't judge.

It's not that much of an exaggeration after the whole Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend has giant balls story

@TitoMojito Imagine the cousins friend finding out they had gonorrhoea that way!

I'm not saying it never happens, just that I don't believe some of the stories.

I totally agree. Anti vaxxers will pounce on anything to futher their cause. I don't live in the UK, but in real life I haven't heard of one person who has had anything other than a very mild reaction to the vaccine. I'm sure there are some who have, but it simply is not as common as some would have us believe.

Please don’t belittle other people’s experiences. I know one person who died from covid , age 40, one person who died from blood clots in her brain after the vaccine and one 13-year-old who has been left with tics and tremors after her vaccine. I’ve had covid. I am not having the vaccine.

My Nan wouldn’t wear a seatbelt, because she believed that if she got into an accident it would get jammed and stop her escaping the car. It didn’t matter when we said she was much more likely to be injured or die through not wearing one, or even that she was a danger to other passengers in the car seat in front of her. She was incredibly anxious and didn’t like to feel “trapped” I think a lot of antivaxxers today feel anxious and are afraid to be trapped by the consequence of making the decision to have the jab, even though the numbers show having the jab is overwhelmingly the sensible thing to do. As someone up thread quoted 70 people have died from the jab, compared to 147,000 of COVID in the uk alone, but it’s the 70 number they have chosen to really fear because it plays to their prejudices. If my Nan was alive today no doubt she’d be trawling the internet for seatbelt “truthers” to validate her own beliefs and behaviour.

I don’t think there is really anything you can say to these people. It’s going to take a massive event in their own lives to change what has gone from being their believes to their very identity. In some cases, even catching COVID and being at deaths door, or watching their family die of it still hasn’t changed. It’s quite hopeless really.

I am surprised that so many people have said that the Government have not received clear about it. I think it is very clear.
Don't argue with antivaxers as they won't listen. We are all scared and I think most of them are just in denial.

I also listened to a podcast by Jay Van Beval describing the same as @ollyollyoxenfree states there.

That republicans/right wing (Trump voters) are more likely to be anti vaccination and restrictions. There is a correlation there.

Individualism = right wing = an emphasis on personal freedom and success, so more likely to put personal needs above community needs.

Collectivism = left wing = more likely to follow restrictions and support the community.

He also talked about anti vaxx groups and likened their behaviour to cult like behaviour. The analogy he used was of a true story about a cult who believed that the world was going to end at a particular time on a particular day. So the cult and their leader gathered together on this day - expecting the world to end. When it didn’t, rather than admit they were wrong - the cult leader stated that she’d been sent a message from some kind of supreme entity. That because the cult had ‘believed’ they had - in fact - saved the world - and it was now no longer going to end. Every single member of the cult took this to be the truth rather than admit - or face the embarrassment that they might be wrong. Similarly with anti vaxx believers, their ‘truth’ is so ingrained that it’s very difficult to change their beliefs - even when faced with irrefutable proof.

The thing is, the placebo effect is real so I reckon many of the other cases (not your father's) are just psychosomatic

Ah yes ok so I must have imagined the massive painful swelling under my arm for months....and then the stressful wait for the scan after being told it might be something more sinister. Just for it to disappear as quickly as it came and be told by a consultant (not random mumsnetter) that it was a well known side effect of the vaccine.

Ok then glad u cleared that up OP.

Why do you find it so hard to believe that there will always be those who have terrible consequences from vaccines? This has always been the case with every vaccine, some more than others. We just don’t know the long term consequences if any from this vaccine yet but there are lots of stories out there about deaths, heart issues, blood clots and more. It’s extremely concerning. It’s Russian roulette taking your chances with covid or taking constant rounds of vaccine - not a choice any of us are thrilled to be stuck with. I don’t understand where you are coming from OP?

I will probably get flamed for this and I can’t prove it: but I strongly suspect 90% of these “reactions” are psychosomatic.

Most of them are likely to have been triggered by other factors: headaches for example. Of course you’re going to get headaches after a vaccine.

Also a lot of the menstrual stuff I suspect is menopause related.

People are grasping at straws.

Vaccines absolutely have side effects and these ones actually seem to have a larger proportion of people having reactions than most (there are a lot of more than 1 in 10 side effects listed, which I don’t recall being the case for the ones for things like hepatitis or typhoid that I’ve had for travel relatively recently. The side effects are mainly an inconvenience. For the vast majority of people having a reaction feeling/being sick, bad head, tiredness & aches and pains for a couple of days will be all you experience. There are also some people who have a much more severe reaction to the vaccine and become seriously unwell and are impacted long term or even die. People shouldn’t try and minimise or deny this but it’s also important to be realistic that it is a very small proportion of people and that to recommend the vaccine for different age groups this will have been considered alongside the impacts of the disease you are being immunised for and part of the vaccine approval process requires a vaccine to provide significantly greater benefit in terms of protection from the disease than risk in terms of side effects. While I can understand people worrying about side effects of the vaccines it’s a bit weird to me they aren’t more worried about catching covid. Even in younger age groups you are more likely to die or be seriously ill with the disease yet a lot of people that won’t be vaccinated in case it isn’t safe don’t seem worried about the (admittedly low but still bigger) risk they will get serious complications from the virus.

Even in younger age groups you are more likely to die or be seriously ill with the disease yet a lot of people that won’t be vaccinated in case it isn’t safe don’t seem worried about the (admittedly low but still bigger) risk they will get serious complications from the virus.
I'm under 40 and had the virus, mild enough that I would not have normally had a single day off. I'm not worried in the slightest about catching it again as I am in a better position health wise, still had antibodies a few months ago, and because viruses tend to get milder but more transmissible over time. Many colleagues have been more unwell following the vaccine. Better the Devil you know I guess.

Just exclude them. If they bang on about ‘personal choice’ then your ‘personal choice’ is not to associate with them.

The overall benefits of vaccination are well established - smallpox was eliminated globally by vaccination and I remember you had to have an international certificate of it in order to travel abroad. It is true there were side effects but the benefit far outweighed them. Unfortunately, social media and scare stories spread by gossip and rumour-mongering do a great deal of harm.

Sorry, but it is absolutely none of your business why someone might not want the vaccine.

Who are you determine whether they have or haven’t got a valid reason?

There are absolutely rare, life changing side effects possible with all vaccines. They’re not an innocuous substance.

But two things, there is a problem with perception of risk. We have experienced a massive vaccination programme in such short timescale before. Some issues that have received a lot of attention that in a different time would have barely raised an eyebrow outside medical/scientific circles.

Secondly the last couple of years have magnified the amount of ‘worried well’ amongst us as well as those susceptible to conspiracy and those groups have sadly become conflated. Mostly due to the speed at which we can communicate and the speed at which information, both reliable and unreliable, can be produced. I’m sure this will settle in time but it’s understandable why we are where we are if a hard time socially.

Correction: We have never experienced

I've had all mine, my DB hasn't and tbh I knew he wouldn't because of his views and thought god he's going to be spouting nonsense about it.
What really surprised me is we chatted about the vacine and as a type 1 diabetic and also work for the nhs I decided it was in my best interest to get it, he gave me his point of view on it but then said that he was against it but we all have a choice and believe what we believe.
As a non vaxer he has finally been able to see that it's a personal choice, for the first time in about 20 years it didn't lead to a full rant on his beliefs.
So as much as I believe people should be vaccinated I do now understand why some people just won't have it.