Why the sudden hostility to anti-vaxxers? (Not here, I mean in the culture at large...)

[Rocaille]

Sorry, this will be garbled: I'm thinking aloud. First of all, I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I don't think I've ever refused a vaccination, either for myself or DD. But in the last year or so, I've noticed a sudden ramping up of hostility towards people who choose not to vaccinate their children, not necessarily on Mumsnet, but certainly in the culture at large. Even the term 'anti-vaxxer' is a new coinage, I think.

I'm posting to find out, has anyone else noticed this, and if so, what do you make of it?

For me, it's reminiscent of the way that, some years back, the trans agenda appeared suddenly at the forefront of public discourse. In my tinfoil-hat-donning moments, I wonder who decides what issues we debate, when we debate them and to what end. Why now for anti-vax? I suppose there have been some serious measles epidemics in recent years, but that doesn't seem to account for the heat and urgency of debate, or the way anti-vaxxers are being characterised as a certain type of person.

Another thing that makes me associate pro-vax with the trans agenda is that it's potentially about the compulsory medical treatment of children, and removing the parent (mother) as the final arbiter of what can and cannot be done to her child's body. That's where I see pro-vax going.

Could this be another dimension of the same agenda, or have I completely lost the plot?

I heard vaccinations might be the reason new and strange diseases are popping up like AIDS and SARS. I had an ex who was doing a PhD in microbiology and he was convinced AIDS was man made or something because it was just so strange and didn't behave like other viruses.

HIV jumped the species barrier from apes to humans multiple times, and SARS originated in civets.

Unless there was widespread vaccination of these species circa 1910 (the last common ancestor of HIV strains) vaccination seems an unlikely cause.

What is the problem with this new way of thinking? Are you afraid your medicines don't work or your water treatment plants are ineffective because of scientific orthodoxy?

My point was one about current orthodoxy. Even science can be orthodox. Some of the greatest discoveries can come from very unorthodox means and methods.

Truth is an interesting concept when it comes to science, or to any method of approaching such things. Science is not 'God' and has no absolute claim to truth. There will always be competing and alternative theories or speculations, even within scientific method.

Old 'truths' are eventually discredited, and contemporary practices come to be superseded, or shown to be wrong.

Scientists can be seen as 'heretics' by others in their profession, just as much as one religion brands others heretical. Those that push knowledge forward are often doubted and out-cast at first.

Orthodox scientific method is the new religion - is what I'm saying. And this relates not just to vaccinations, but to all areas. 'Pop Scientists' are the new gurus.

Rational thinking on the basis of evidence, that'd be

Rational thinking still relies on working assumptions. Rationality is a method of approaching truth in a step by step fashion. Working assumptions change with time, though - and sometimes come to contradict the working assumptions of the past. That is how the scientific method progresses. It is not fool proof, or truth in and of itself.

Indeed. This is why flu vaccine is optional, not standard, and not required for anyone afaik (though maybe some healthcare facilities require it for their employees?)

It is certainly very heavily pushed, though.

FFS. Childhood vaccines mainly prevent deaths in childhood

Yes, they can; but that is not my point.

It is possible to make wider points without having to jump into for/against boxes. I'm not sure why the need for "FFS?".

It's like the trans thing. If you make wider points about transgendersim as an ideology, or way of thinking - some jump to accusations of transphobia. To question 'the idea' or set of beliefs in any way is met with intransigent personal condemnation.

Just reading this thread with my jaw slack. Bravo to pallisers.

I really do wish people would just talk about these issues without hurling threats and insults.

Science by its very nature is a work in progress and nowadays paid for by large corporations with vested interests in the results.

Since 1988, the pharmaceutical companies that produce vaccines cannot be sued and governments have a special fund to pay out compensation to children who are damaged by vaccines. To my mind that means there is less of an incentive for these companies to take care with their products.

I also think that the list of vaccines is so very long now that children between 0 and five years of age must spend an awful lot of that time recovering from getting vaccines. It is also an awful of adjuvants being injected into their small bodies.

Here in Mexico, the Hep B vaccine is given to two-day-old babies. Why? Apparently it's effects wear off in fifteen years so it does not even give them protection when they most need it.

one of the reasons that children nowadays grow so tall is that they do not have their growth stunted by preventable disease.
wrt hepatitis vaccine - small children are more likely to splash in puddles or shallow water in seas and lakes and are more likely to pick up things and lick them.
if you are in an area without safe sanitation then jt is really advisable to have the vaccine. iirc middle and south america are risk areas and travel advice is to ideally have the hepatitis vaccine before travelling.

People that choose not to vaccinate are putting others in the population at risk.

That's why.

People die because of their decisions.

Ultimately everything else no matter how nuanced doesn't stop that being true.

I heard vaccinations might be the reason new and strange diseases are popping up like AIDS and SARS.

I heard the Earth is flat too. There's no scientific basis for that at all. Or even non-scientific.

I had an ex who was doing a PhD in microbiology and he was convinced AIDS was man made or something because it was just so strange and didn't behave like other viruses.

Either he knew very little about HIV (aids is the disease) and virology in general or he did his PhD in the early 80s.
It's true that it was an odd virus then, but a lot more like it have been found since then, all in nature.
Also, there's not one HIV. HIV 1 and 2 have different behaviours and origins.

I really do wish people would just talk about these issues without hurling threats and insults.

I think that about a lot of issues. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t have the intelligence or maturity to do that.

Here in Mexico, the Hep B vaccine is given to two-day-old babies. Why?
I suggest you look at the literature and reasoning for such licensing and present it here for discussion, rather than a generic question.

Surely when vaccines wear off, people are given boosters.
I suspect the early schedule for hepB in Mexico is related to the risk of transmission in early childhood. I could be wrong, but I'd have to look at the evidence before criticising it or defending it.

I am conscious that quite a few Mumsnetters reside in the U.S - but here in Britain, Professor Christopher Exley of Keele University, who has spent his career researching into aluminium, published a report which detailed his findings of how suspected that the toxicity of aluminium was causing autism in some children.

He said that he'd never before received such condemnation and abuse, with people rushing to discredit his findings in whatever way they could.

This is what I mean about 'orthodoxies' and 'accepted wisdoms'......
The amount of heat and emotion is telling, because reason and rationality do not involve emotional responses in and of themselves.

When people get really angry and start condemning people who go against the flow of accepted practice or wisdom - in any area or field of life - then it reveals the emotional fire that really motivates us.

This takes us back to the original thread starter - by someone who said she herself is not anti-vaccination, but had noticed the severe castigation of those that are. "Why?", she said.

We then get people talking about other people as being selfish, stupid, irresponsible etc There is a lot of moral righteousness; and we all know moral righteousness is nothing new...it is as old as the hills - but is now clothed in the words and language of orthodox scientific practice.

What interests me here, is not so much the efficacy of vaccinations, but people's responses to those that go against the flow of accepted truth.

aluminium used in vaccines

Autism isn’t a disease that needs a cure. That’s probably why there was the reaction there was to it.

Is that the same Christopher Exley who is funded by Child Medical Safety Research Institute?

I had an ex who was doing a PhD in microbiology and he was convinced AIDS was man made or something because it was just so strange and didn't behave like other viruses.

When was he doing his PhD?
I did my PhD in microbiology in the 90ties and I still sequenced by hand then, about 150 nucleotides a run and any manipulation like site directed mutagenesis required primers and complicated cloning and lots of plating and screening . I think some biologists forget just how recent molecular advances are. We couldn't even amplify DNA easily at the time AIDS emerged in the West.

Thankyou JessicaWakefielfSV

I despair at this peddling of autism as a preventable disease dogma.

It's not. It's actually pretty upsetting that people persist in this. My son doesn't have a disease.

It's actually so offensive when people talk about 'autism' as though it is something shameful and to be avoided at all costs.

missfliss

Agreed. It is deeply upsetting for it to constantly be framed that way. I suspect there are children with symptoms similar to some autistic traits being misdiagnosed after adverse reactions- tiny numbers btw.

Wow this thread is scary stuff.

I have two premature babies - born 11 weeks early, saved my advances in medical science and the skill and care of the neonatal team that cared for them.

Prem babies are vaccinated according to their actual age meaning my boys were vaccinated before they should have even been born. I didn't hesitate despite them weighing less than 6lbs at 8 weeks old. They are more at risk and more medically fragile. The risks are too great and my babies too precious. Until they have had their first MMR at 12 months I will be avoiding crowded indoor spaces such as soft plays etc as I will not run the risk.

On the birth group I am on (different platform) there is a baby who contracted pertussis (whooping cough) at 4 weeks old, he nearly died - he is still in intensive care 4 months later, was on echo and 100% oxygen and has had to have a permanent tracheotomy. He has suffered severe brain damage from hypoxia. This is the reality of other people not vaccinating.

www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-cdi3404-pdf-cnt.htm/$FILE/cdi3404e.pdf

The case study and comment above was published by the Australian Department of Health. In 2009, a fully vaccinated Sydney nurse infected four newborns with whooping cough, during a single shift. She had a cough, but obviously no idea that her cough was potentially deadly. Fortunately, all four babies survived, and over 70 others in the ward (including newborns) were given prophylactic antibiotic treatment. There are numerous other studies showing that vaccinated HCW can be the source of neonatal pertussis infection - with outcomes tragically including morbidity. It appears that the vaccine provides only partial immunity to the recipient, and for a limited duration. You can still be infected with the pertussis bacteria, while remaining asymptomatic, or mildly symptomatic.

When I discovered this, I thought I was going mad.

We also had a case here in Melbourne not long ago, a recently vaccinated health visitor who saw several newborns while being unknowingly infected with pertussis. Again, she was only mildly symptomatic. Fortunately none of her small charges contracted the illness.

It's not clear to me how the current formulation of the whooping cough vaccine is contributing to herd immunity. But given its apparent limitations, I'm not sure that hostility toward those who reject it is warranted. At least they will be aware they are ill, and can be quarantined accordingly.

A friend of mine posted about her newborn baby contracting pertussis. The only potentially unvaccinated contact the baby had was with the taxi driver on the way home from the hospital. She blames the cab driver for her baby's illness. Given what happened in the maternity ward in Sydney, I can think of far more likely sources of the disease.

I'm ashamed to say that I remained quiet. I am afraid to say anything under my own name that might be considered 'anti-vax', and I have no doubt that what I have written above is considered an 'anti-vax' position. I sincerely hope that the hospital undertook it's own examination of it's staff, and that no other babies were harmed.

*@Igneococcus
*
*I had an ex who was doing a PhD in microbiology and he was convinced AIDS was man made or something because it was just so strange and didn't behave like other viruses.

When was he doing his PhD?
I did my PhD in microbiology in the 90ties and I still sequenced by hand then, about 150 nucleotides a run and any manipulation like site directed mutagenesis required primers and complicated cloning and lots of plating and screening . I think some biologists forget just how recent molecular advances are. We couldn't even amplify DNA easily at the time AIDS emerged in the West.*

Being able to explain something in a simple way is the sign of a good teacher.
Trying to make yourself sound clever by using words the person you're communicating with probably won't understand is the sign of.. something else.

Just because I'm not a microbiologist myself doesn't mean I didn't understand what he said, when he said that it appeared to him that AIDS was man made, or perhaps as a result of some intervention.