Anti vaccer movement.

[John Cuthber]

I'm going to try and find organizations or groups of moms who hadn't vaccinated and had something bad happened, maybe that will sway her. Thankyou Swansont.

Sadly, they shouldn't be hard to find

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/measles-cases-surge-u-s-fueled-unvaccinated-travelers-n88196

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jun/11/mumps-cases-rising-england-wales

[CharonY]

Problem is that parents who keep their children unvaccinated have likely done so for irrational reasons. I am not sure whether they would open to discuss their ordeal in a helpful manner.

[John Cuthber]

Plenty of them will have done it for what they considered was a rational reason. They were told by the government that vaccination was safe. They were told by the newspapers that it was not.

Around that time- call it 2001, the government was declaring war on Afghanistan because of an attack by Saudi citizens on America.

Not trusting the government was a reasonable option

 

If you didn't have the scientific background to root out the truth yourself, it was perfectly plausible to believe the papers and think that vaccination was "evil".

[CharonY]

Oh yeah, to them it obviously will appear rational. Typically they act they way as they believe it is the best for their child, which makes it even sadder.

[/backslash/]

Someone should do an experiment on this: take one group of children who's parents refuse to vaccinate them and keep them all together all the time for a month or so, and compare their average state of health to a similar group of vaccinated kids.

[Delta1212]

We're already doing this experiment. It's called 'California.'

[too-open-minded]

Measles, mumps, these viruses aren't necessarily life threatening. Extremely uncomfortable, yes.

She makes a good argument.

[iNow]

Just because you've given up on reality and chosen to ignore the massively well supported benefits of vaccines and continue with the ignorant fantasy belief that vaccines are harmful and dangerous enough to avoid entirely doesn't mean her argument is a good one. She's ignoring all of the humans around her and her kids for whom those things ARE life threatening. It's selfish and ignorant and deplorable.

[John Cuthber]

Measles, mumps, these viruses aren't necessarily life threatening. Extremely uncomfortable, yes.

She makes a good argument.

They are life threatening so no, she does not make a good argument; she makes a false one.

[CharonY]

Some facts from the WHO:

 

Measles:

 

 

Key facts

Measles is one of the leading causes of death among young children even though a safe and cost-effective vaccine is available.
In 2012, there were 122 000 measles deaths globally – about 330 deaths every day or 14 deaths every hour.
Measles vaccination resulted in a 78% drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2012 worldwide.
In 2012, about 84% of the world's children received one dose of measles vaccine by their first birthday through routine health services – up from 72% in 2000.
Since 2000, more than 1 billion children in high risk countries were vaccinated against the disease through mass vaccination campaigns ― about 145 million of them in 2012.

Measles is a highly contagious, serious disease caused by a virus. In 1980, before widespread vaccination, measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.

 

Mumps typically has favorable outcomes (to my knowledge), though.

[Arete]

Measles, mumps, these viruses aren't necessarily life threatening. Extremely uncomfortable, yes.

She makes a good argument.

 

Very unfortunately, this is highly incorrect - at least in the case of measles.

 

" In 1980, before widespread vaccination, measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year."

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/

 

" In populations with high levels of malnutrition and a lack of adequate healthcare, mortality can be as high as 10%. In cases with complications, the rate may rise to 20–30%."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles

 

Measles can be a significant cause of mortality in an un-vaccinated population. Regardless of the fatality rate, vaccination trivially prevents infection, with minimal risk.

[CharonY]

On a risk basis, there is simply no good reason not to vaccinate. All complications are orders of magnitudes less likely than any unfavorable outcomes due to contracting the disease. Unvaccinated populations pose a health risk for themselves and others, and can be reservoir for the diseases to persist and eventually mutate. That can result in severe issues for future generations.

[too-open-minded]

You're taking the death statistics out of context. Here in America where children aren't malnourished or don't have bad immune systems to things such as HIV. I've looked at the death statistics for measles and mumps here in America, have you? We have personally talked to parents who vaccinated their children and had horrible reactions. There is a reason that on the main page of the CDC, center for disease control's website. Their main page has a link to handle legal matters involving vaccine related issues, which millions of dollars are given to families each year.

 

We are not putting my sons health in danger by not vaccinating him. However the population and his future health maybe. Him not being vaccinating increases the breeding grounds for the virus and thus increases it's chances to mutate and become worse. However we're going to homeschool him and if he want's to vaccinate when he is older, he can.

 

Seriously you guys have been very rude to me about this subject, I don't claim to know everything. However you're not even hearing out my side of the argument and automatically label me selfish, ignorant, sad from your perspective, etc.

Vaccines have gotten better but that doesn't mean they still don't cause problems - http://www.nvic.org/nvic-vaccine-news/may-2011/in-memoriam--infant-deaths---vaccination.aspx

They are life threatening so no, she does not make a good argument; she makes a false one.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6236a2.htm

That's just one week, first link I found and can't find others? Maybe I'm not looking hard enough but from what I understand the mortality rate is very very low here.

On a risk basis, there is simply no good reason not to vaccinate. All complications are orders of magnitudes less likely than any unfavorable outcomes due to contracting the disease. Unvaccinated populations pose a health risk for themselves and others, and can be reservoir for the diseases to persist and eventually mutate. That can result in severe issues for future generations.

 

On a risk basis no good reason not to vaccinate? We personally know parents who's children have gone deaf, blind, encephalopathy, even shown signs of regressing in their milestones after receiving their vaccines, and death.

Edited October 10, 2014 by too-open-minded

[iNow]

We are not putting my sons health in danger by not vaccinating him.

Yes, you are, and the risks you cite are orders of magnitude smaller than the benefits of vaccination... Anti-vaccination advocates are often well-intentioned, but are quite simply wrong.

[StringJunky]

Vaccination may be becoming a victim of it's own success because as time goes on there will be increasingly few of us who remember these diseases, their prevalence in our younger lives and the harm they caused. Because the benefits are effectively invisible to younger generations - who have no memory or connections with past epidemics - all they will increasingly see and hear about is the adverse effects of vaccination and this lack of personal experience is causing people like simple-minded to have doubts. A consequence we may see of this overwhelming success towards increasing overall herd immunity is a degree of reversal in the prevalence of these diseases such that they might make the news again.

Edited October 10, 2014 by StringJunky

[John Cuthber]

"On a risk basis no good reason not to vaccinate? We personally know parents who's children have gone deaf, blind, encephalopathy, even shown signs of regressing in their milestones after receiving their vaccines, and death."

 

 

Isn't that a post hoc fallacy?

[Arete]

You're taking the death statistics out of context. Here in America where children aren't malnourished or don't have bad immune systems to things such as HIV. I've looked at the death statistics for measles and mumps here in America, have you?

 

They aren't out of context as you made a sweeping statement and are now shifting the goalposts and yes, I have read them. And I think the facts totally disagree with your assessment that measles is a trivial disease:

 

"In the decade before the measles vaccination program began, an estimated 3–4 million people in the United States were infected each year, of whom 400–500 died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and another 1,000 developed chronic disability from measles encephalitis. Widespread use of measles vaccine has led to a greater than 99% reduction in measles cases in the United States compared with the pre-vaccine era, and in 2012, only 55 cases of measles were reported in the United States." http://www.cdc.gov/measles/vaccination.html

 

 

 

 

We are not putting my sons health in danger by not vaccinating him

 

You absolutely are. To counter your anecdote with one of my own, we just had a child in our pediatric clinic die, horribly, of measles caused encephalitis. The child was unvaccinated. Vaccination would have easily prevented the infection.

 

 

 

Seriously you guys have been very rude to me about this subject, I don't claim to know everything. However you're not even hearing out my side of the argument and automatically label me selfish, ignorant, sad from your perspective, etc.

 

Your perspective is ignorant, willfully so and puts others at risk of serious disease. The anti vaccination argument is based on misinterpretation of the facts and risks, and in a lot of cases plain fallacy. It's been heard and found to be baseless. If you maintain it, at the risk of your child and your community's health, then you should expect some blowback. I personally would not allow your child to interact with my own if I knew he wasn't vaccinated, and you probably wouldn't be welcome in my home.

 

 

 

 

http://www.cdc.gov/m...ml/mm6236a2.htm

That's just one week, first link I found and can't find others? Maybe I'm not looking hard enough but from what I understand the mortality rate is very very low here.

Have you read your own link? It refers to post elimination of the disease due to vaccination rates of infection. Pre-vaccination, approximately 3-4 million people contracted measles annually. See previous quote.

 

On a risk basis no good reason not to vaccinate? We personally know parents who's children have gone deaf, blind, encephalopathy, even shown signs of regressing in their milestones after receiving their vaccines, and death.

I'm just going to straight up call bs on this one. The rate of serious complications due to vaccination are several million to one. To "personally know" several parents whose children experienced severe reactions to vaccines, one would have to meet tens of millions of people - or as is more likely seek out anti vaccination advocates who are making the claim that their child's ailments were caused by vaccines - often spuriously.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Arete

[StringJunky]

QuoteQuote

Statement on Risk vs Benefit of Vaccinations by David Satcher, M.D., PH.D.

Assistant Secretary for Health and Surgeon General;

U.S. Public Health Service

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

 

...Today there are far fewer visible reminders of the suffering, injuries, and premature deaths caused by diseases that can now be prevented with vaccines. So that we do not forget the past, allow me to share some examples:

• Polio vaccine was licensed in the United States in 1955. During 1951 to 1954, an average of 16,316 paralytic polio cases and 1,879 deaths from polio were reported each year. As of 1991, polio caused by wild-type viruses had been eliminated from the Western Hemisphere. We have a goal that by the end of the year 2000, polio, like smallpox, will be a disease of the past.
• A physician entering practice today may never see a case of meningitis due to Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib). Before the introduction of effective vaccines, in 1988, approximately one in 200 children, under the age of five, developed invasive Hib disease. Hib was the leading cause of bacterial meningitis in children under age five-- accounting for about 60 percent of all cases. From 15 to 30 percent of affected children became hearing impaired and about 420 children died every year despite antibiotic therapy. In addition, Hib vaccine has prevented the leading cause of acquired mental retardation in the U.S. By 1998, vaccination of pre-school children reduced the number of Hib cases by more than 99 percent.
• In the 1960s, many people witnessed first-hand, the terrible effects of rubella, commonly known as German measles. During an epidemic between 1964 and 1965, about 20,000 infants were born with deafness, blindness, heart disease, mental retardation, and other birth defects because the rubella virus infected their pregnant mothers. Today, thanks to nearly universal use of an effective vaccine, the rubella virus poses virtually no threat to the children of expectant mothers.

 

http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/t990803a.html

It's worth reading all this statement made in 1999..

Edited October 10, 2014 by StringJunky

[CharonY]

You're taking the death statistics out of context. Here in America where children aren't malnourished or don't have bad immune systems to things such as HIV. I've looked at the death statistics for measles and mumps here in America, have you?

 

 

Apparently you have not. The fatality rate in the US is about 0.3%, but that is to a large extent also because there are so few each year due to vaccines. Nonetheless, the rate is much higher than the rate of adverse reactions, as Arete and others have pointed out (which are in the per million range). It is also worth noting that currently the US has 594 cases of measles, the highest number since measles were reported to be eliminated. Congratulations, you are contributing to the conservation of endangered diseases.

[too-open-minded]

I have no reason to lie about the parents we personally know. My soon to be wife is an intactivist and lactivist who has her own local mothers group and part of other moms groups. The people she has personally met and told us their stories is pretty compelling. I stood with a pro-vax standpoint but after talking to them, I've changed my mind. Call me ignorant or even delusional believing in fallacy. The small amount of parents I've talked to who had horrible outcomes after vaccinating is enough to sway me not to.

 

I guess I'm done here, not much more to say unless ya'll have more belittling comments to make.

Edited October 11, 2014 by too-open-minded

[iNow]

What evidence did they provide you that confirmed the problems their children face were directly caused by vaccination and how do you know their conclusions are valid?

 

They don't have to be intentionally lying to be completely mistaken in their conclusions, and yet you have set your decision threshold so incredibly low that you are choosing to ignore the mountains of scientific evidence showing the massive benefit and negligible risk of vaccinations, and consequently you are putting your child at risk based on hearsay and speculation just because it aligns with your preconceptions.

Edited October 11, 2014 by iNow

[John]

I have no reason to lie about the parents we personally know. My soon to be wife is an intactivist and lactivist who has her own local mothers group and part of other moms groups. The people she has personally met and told us their stories is pretty compelling. I stood with a pro-vax standpoint but after talking to them, I've changed my mind. Call me ignorant or even delusional believing in fallacy. The small amount of parents I've talked to who had horrible outcomes after vaccinating is enough to sway me not to.

 

I guess I'm done here, not much more to say unless ya'll have more belittling comments to make.

This is sad to hear, but not entirely unexpected. Confirmation bias is a pretty strong effect, and if you've landed on the anti-vaccination side, then it's doubtful you'll easily be persuaded by the evidence available.

 

But to reiterate, at the end of the day, the data we have available indicate that vaccination is safer than non-vaccination, for both your family and your community. It can be difficult, as a new parent, to decide what's best for your child, and in many cases, the best option isn't very clear. But here, the data is simply unequivocal. Vaccination is the better option. The rate of complications due to vaccination is much lower than the rate of disease and morbidity/mortality from the diseases these vaccines are designed to prevent.

 

Take this as you will, but your reasoning here seems similar to concluding that drunk driving is safer than sober driving if you've known (as I have) more people who've gotten into wrecks sober than people who've gotten into wrecks drunk.

 

Some may differ in their opinions, but I wouldn't go as far as to say you're a bad person for choosing not to vaccinate. However, you are taking an unnecessary risk, and parents who do see the benefits of vaccination may react more strongly.

 

In any case, hopefully your child will grow up without experiencing mumps, measles, etc., and without infecting other children.

Edited October 11, 2014 by John

[John Cuthber]

The small amount of parents I've talked to who had horrible outcomes after vaccinating is enough to sway me not to.

 

You have failed to count the people who told you tales of how their child didn't get measles and die.

 

If the human race behaves sensibly then we will eliminate measles (we nearly have with polio and we wiped out smallpox a while ago).

At that point it will clearly be true that the risk from vaccination is bigger than the risk from the disease.

In fact, slightly before that point, it won't make logical sense to vaccinate someone.

 

Your mistake is that you think we have reached that point .

We have not.

I think that might partly be because you think (judging by some of your posts) that your country is somehow isolated from the rest of the world. You talk about the death rate in the US as if that's the only thing that matters. An increasing number of people are coming to the same conclusion that you have- the vaccine is more trouble than it's worth.

That fact destroys the herd immunity.

So your child will grow up in a community with no resistance to measles.

Sooner or later there will be an outbreak.

With inadequate supplies of vaccines and swamped medical care, the result won't be pretty.

 

Do you want your child to be part of that?

[too-open-minded]

If you wanna talk statistics, I know my son is more likely to get measles, mumps, other viruses if he isn't vaccinated. I'm not saying "Hey everybody, don't vaccinate because it's bad." In my opinion it's a pick your poison kind of deal. I'm not the one living in fallacy, bad reactions to vaccines are very real and they do happen. You're all hypocrites if you say otherwise.

 

http://www.immunizationinfo.org/science/measles-mumps-vaccination-and-hearing-loss

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9521728/Rogue-strain-of-MMR-vaccine-caused-deafness.html

I've personally spoken to someone who has a child who went deaf likely within a 24 hour period, they can't say for sure 24 hours however it was noticed within 2 days after. Not that easy to notice if a 12 month old is deaf or not.

 

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2011/06/01/vaccines-and-brain-inflammation/

I've spoken to someone who's baby had seizures and started foaming at the mouth and needed to be resuscitated. 12 hours after receiving the vaccine. Had she not co-slept her baby likely would have died. She tried suing and they said it's not provably related.

 

Look I know vaccines do good things. However I'm not some delusional idiot who is paranoid that there's a conspiracy to kill my kids with vaccines either. Vaccines can do bad things, they have, and I will not inject something into my sons bloodstream and risk an injury from that. He's been vaccinated for whooping cough, hep B, Dtap, and rotavirus. He received all his 6 month vaccines because I pushed the argument. Nothing bad happened, he's fine and very smart. Grayson loves playing with my computer, pressing the buttons, and bringup up pages. He will not receive his 9 month vaccines however, my stand on the subject has changed and for reason.

 

 

WHETHER YOU WANT TO ADMIT IT OR NOT, VACCINES DO AND HAVE CAUSED INJURY. JUST LIKE THE VIRUSES THEIR DESIGNED TO ELIMINATE.

Edited October 11, 2014 by too-open-minded

[Arete]

I have no reason to lie about the parents we personally know.

 

Well, the odds of meeting several parents whose children have had severe reactions to vaccines is tens of millions to one. Either, your mother's group is profoundly and uniquely unlucky, or someone isn't being entirely honest. You tell us which sounds more plausible...

 

I've met a woman in our hospital who claimed vehemently that her child's learning disabilities were caused by the MMR vaccine. Upon examination, the child had all the hallmarks of fetal alcohol syndrome. However the idea that she might bear some responsibility for her child's condition was too hard to fathom and the vaccine was an easy scapegoat.

 

There's a multitude of alternative explanations for virtually all the conditions people blame on vaccines, and often no causal link between the vaccine and the condition - see your own example below. That doesn't stop distraught parents from looking for something or someone to blame.

 

I'm not the one living in fallacy, bad reactions to vaccines are very real and they do happen. You're all hypocrites if you say otherwise.

 

You're strawmanning as no one ever claimed that they didn't happen. The evidence clearly shows that they are exceedingly rare. Conversely, severe complications from many of the infectious diseases they prevent are several of orders of magnitude more likely - including measles, which we discussed earlier.

 

For anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of probability, the least likely choice to result in harm to a child is clearly to vaccinate.

 

I've personally spoken to someone who has a child who went deaf likely within a 24 hour period, they can't say for sure 24 hours however it was noticed within 2 days after. Not that easy to notice if a 12 month old is deaf or not.

 

From your own link, out of 5.4 million children who received a obsolete vaccine in the 80's, ten suffered some deafness afterwards, and zero cases could be directly linked to the vaccination. It's sad when a child loses the ability to hear, but to baselessly blame a vaccination is irrational.

 

I've spoken to someone who's baby had seizures and started foaming at the mouth and needed to be resuscitated.

 

Febrile seizures are a known side effect of any attenuated virus vaccine (approx 1/3000 risk for MMR), as they can cause fever. It should be noted that any fever can cause a febrile seizure, and there's strong evidence that vaccines which prevent viral infections have significantly lowered the overall occurrence of febrile seizures.

 

It is normal for a child not to breathe and turn blue during a febrile seizure, and they are not known to cause any long term effects.

http://www.emsworld.com/article/10319626/febrile-seizures

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000980.htm

 

 

However I'm not some delusional idiot who is paranoid that there's a conspiracy to kill my kids with vaccines either. ...He will not receive his 9 month vaccines however, my stand on the subject has changed and for reason.

 

Sorry, these two statements are contradictory, or at least irrational: your argument is essentially the same as saying that because seatbelts can cause certain injuries to occupants of a car during a crash, you've decided it's safer to not have them in your car - which I think we can all agree is irrational. Similarly, it is very clear that the benefits of vaccines overwhelmingly outweigh the risks yet you've irrationally decided it's somehow safer not to get your child vaccinated.

 

If you are unable to see that it would appear that you have fallen victim to a conspiracy theory, unfortunately spurred into action by an unethical doctor who lied for monetary gain (see http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield), which is a very large shame for your son.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Arete