Dr. Amy Tuteur explains why medical science will never change the minds of anti-vaxxers.
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We told them this would happen.
We told them that it was only a matter of time before a childhood disease that had nearly been eliminated from the US would come roaring back if they failed to vaccinate their children. And that’s precisely what has happened. Measles has come roaring back, but not simply because a child incubating measles visited Disneyland.
Twenty years ago, if the same child had visited Disneyland, the measles would have stopped with him or her. Everyone else was protected—not because everyone was vaccinated—but because of herd immunity. When a high enough proportion of the population is vaccinated, the disease simply can’t spread because the odds of one unvaccinated person coming in contact with another are very low.
We thought the problem was that anti-vax parents didn’t understand science. That’s undoubtedly true, but the anti-vax movement is NOT about science and never was.
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Of course, we told them that. We patiently explained herd immunity, debunked claims of an association between vaccines and autism, demolished accusations of “toxins” in vaccines, but they didn’t listen. Why? Because we thought the problem was that anti-vax parents didn’t understand science. That’s undoubtedly true, but the anti-vax movement is NOT about science and never was.
The anti-vax movement has never been about children, and it hasn’t really been about vaccines. It’s about privileged parents and how they wish to view themselves.
1. Privilege
Nothing screams “privilege” louder than ostentatiously refusing something that those less privileged wish to have.
In a world where the underprivileged may trudge miles to the nearest clinic … nothing communicates the unbelievable wealth, ease and selfishness of modern American life like refusing the very same vaccines.
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Each and every anti-vax parent is privileged in having easy and inexpensive access to life saving vaccines. It is the sine qua non of the anti-vax movement. In a world where the underprivileged may trudge miles to the nearest clinic, desperate to save their babies from infectious scourges, nothing communicates the unbelievable wealth, ease and selfishness of modern American life like refusing the very same vaccines.
2. Unreflective defiance of authority
Unreflective defiance is really no different from unreflective acceptance.
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There are countless societal ills that stem from the fact that previous generations were raised to unreflective acceptance of authority. It’s not hard to argue that unflective acceptance of authority, whether that authority is the government or industry, is a bad thing. BUT that doesn’t make the converse true. Unreflective defiance is really no different from unreflective acceptance. Oftentimes, the government, or industry, is right about a particular set of claims.
Experts in a particular topic, such as vaccines, really are experts. They really know things that the lay public does not. Moreover, it is not common to get a tremendous consensus among experts from different fields. Experts in immunology, pediatrics, public health and just about everything else you can think of have weighed in on the side of vaccines. Experts in immunology, pediatrics and public health give vaccines to their own children, rendering claims that they are engaged in a conspiracy to hide the dangers of vaccines to be nothing short of ludicrous.
Unfortunately, most anti-vax parents consider defiance of authority to be a source of pride, whether that defiance is objectively beneficial or not.
3. The need to feel “empowered”
The combination of self-education and defiance of authority is viewed by anti-vax parents as an empowering form of rugged individualism, marking out their own superiority from those pathetic “sheeple” who aren’t self-educated and who follow authority.
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This is what is comes down to for most anti-vax parents: it’s a source of self-esteem for them. In their minds, they have “educated” themselves. How do they know they are “educated”? Because they’ve chosen to disregard experts (who appear to them as authority figures) in favor of quacks and charlatans, whom they admire for their own defiance of authority. The combination of self-education and defiance of authority is viewed by anti-vax parents as an empowering form of rugged individualism, marking out their own superiority from those pathetic “sheeple” who aren’t self-educated and who follow authority.
Where does that leave us?
First, it explains why efforts to educate anti-vax parents about the science of immunology has been such a spectacular failure. It is not, and has never been, about the science.
Second, it suggests how we must change our approach. Simply put, we have to hit anti-vax parents where they live: in their unmerited sense of superiority.
How? By pointing out to them, and critiquing, their own motivations.
Anti-vax parents are anxious to see themselves in a positive light. They would almost certainly be horrified to find that others regard them as so incredibly privileged that they can’t even see their own privilege.
Only teenagers think that refusing to do what authority figures recommend marks them as independent.
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We need to highlight the fact that unreflective defiance is just the flip side of unreflective acceptance. There’s nothing praiseworthy about it. Only teenagers think that refusing to do what authority figures recommend marks them as independent. Adults know that doing the exact opposite of what authority figures recommend is a sign of immaturity, not deliberation, and certainly not education.
Finally, we need to emphasize to parents that parenting is not about them and their feelings. It’s about their children and their health and well being. It’s one thing to decline to follow a medical recommendation. Most of us do that all the time. It’s another thing entirely to join groups defined by defiance, buy their products, and preach to others about your superiority in defying medical recommendations. That’s a sign of the need to bolster their own self-esteem, not their “education.”
We have to confront anti-vax parents where they live—in their egos. When refusing to vaccinate your children is widely viewed as selfish, irresponsible, and the hallmark of being uneducated, anti-vax advocacy will lose its appeal.
Originally published on The Skeptical OB.
Photo—NIAID/Flickr
“The pharmaceutical industry will do everything within its power to prevent the correlation between the MMR and neurological disorders from being made… There is more and more evidence surfacing that toxins like aluminum and mercury (ones found in vaccines) cause neurological disorders.” At the top of the list of most significant discoveries from this ‘new evidence’ I think would be the very fact that the MMR vaccine itself NEVER contained mercury and/or thimerosal. http://immunize.ca/en/publications-resources/questions/additives.aspx As for aluminum, they are indeed making radical new discoveries about it, such as: “Aluminum is the most abundant element in the earth’s crust and is found… Read more »
Amy, you don’t seem to want to lower yourself to enter into a debate with non-vaxx parents. Perhaps you have a comment for a colleague then? Dr. Terry Lynn Wahls is an Assistant Chief of Staff at Iowa City VA Health Care and clinical professor of medicine at the University of Iowa where she teaches internal medicine residents, sees patients in a traumatic brain injury clinic and conducts clinical trials.
https://youtu.be/4kwgkI1RkF0
Sorry…I realized later I was mistaken in referring to Dr. Wahls as a colleague of yours Amy. That would have to mean that you are a doctor yourself…which you are not and are misleading people into believing you are.
Well, since you broached the subject- also on the topic of ‘not a doctor’ would be Andrew Wakefield himself. Wakefield, as you may know, has been barred from practicing medicine in the UK since 2010, precisely because of his gross professional misconduct and fraudulent research to misrepresent his own (now verifiably disproven & discredited) claim that there was a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. “Common sense” or uncommon sense- Wakefield is not to be taken seriously.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield#General_Medical_Council_hearings
I know all about Wakefield and I couldn’t disagree more. The pharmaceutical industry will do everything within its power to prevent the correlation between the MMR and neurological disorders from being made. The liability will be tremendous once that correlation is made and even the US laws protecting pharma from law suits won’t even help them. There is more and more evidence surfacing that toxins like aluminum and mercury (ones found in vaccines) cause neurological disorders. Wakefield being discredited was a calculated tactic to prevent the correlation from being made. And that’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s smart business on… Read more »
“The pharmaceutical industry will do everything within its power to prevent the correlation between the MMR and neurological disorders from being made… Wakefield being discredited was a calculated tactic to prevent the correlation from being made. And that’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s smart business on the part of big pharma.” Joyce, however fervently you believe in it, your ‘big pharma’ panacea did not arbitrarily bar Andrew Wakefield from practicing medicine in the United Kingdom – and however you want to define ‘big pharma’ and whatever mystical illuminati-like powers you think we should ascribe to them, ‘big pharma’ doesn’t have the… Read more »
And believing corruption doesn’t exist in government (and in every other aspect of society for that matter, including the medical community) is about as believable as the feasibility of Dr. Jeff Bradstreet shooting himself in the chest, throwing himself in the Rocky Broad River in North Carolina and calling it suicide. Bradstreet, was a medical doctor, a prominent autism researcher and vaccine opponent who was also the parent of a child who developed autism after vaccination. A fisherman found his body floating down a river with a gunshot wound to the chest, a week after his clinic was searched by… Read more »
You can expand the circle of conspiracies and corruption broader and broader and spin it any way you like, but it’s still just circling away from the core fact that Andrew Wakefield himself was the one that was corrupt, and that his own fellow physicians found him guilty of professional misconduct. If that fact is unpalatable to you because you like him and you like the comfort embedded in his explanations for why bad things happen to good children, then I am deeply sorry for that, but that still doesn’t change the fact that Wakefield is guilty and corrupt. … Read more »
Amy, have we met? Because it certainly sounds like you think you know me, when you in fact know absolutely nothing about me and are wrong on every point in your article with the exception of one. You are right, the vaccine issue, for me isn’t (entirely) about science, it’s about common sense. Let me explain… When I look at this issue, the contradictions and inconsistencies in the industry are glaringly obvious and make it impossible for me to trust you and your industry. As an intelligent woman, I have to ask myself, if your industry were so concerned about… Read more »
Oh yeah she tends to have a know it all attitude like the bitter woman she is, too. She is a coward to hide and pretends to know her stuff. Freedom of expressions from others is very hard for her to accept.
As a Mom I find this article deplorable n self indulgent. She is no doctor in any sense of the word. Doctors don’t sit there and insult people who make choices they don’t agree with. They don’t TRY to publicly shame someone either. It’s there job to educate and then work with you to find another solution. Not all medical interventions are good for you or has she forgotten all the drugs that come out with LONG, LONG lists of nasty side effects that cause more harm then good? I seriously wonder IF she us a Doctor at all or… Read more »
I’m pro-choice on this topic and I find this article to be absolutely horrendous. I couldn’t even read to the end because the anger and hate in it was incredibly off putting. When did we decide that we understood the minds of other people we have never even met. Some would call this projection.
You can not know another person’s reasons for their decisions unless you sit and talk with each and everyone of them. The reasons are varied, just like in the instances of abortion.
Angry speculation and accusation does nothing for anybody. Not even the author.
As someone who is anit-vaccine, i oppose this article – strongly. “… the anti-vax movement is NOT about science and never was” – Not true. I did a paper on vaccines 2nd year University, and found an overwhelming amount of scientific facts AGAINST vaccinations – huge reason why im opposed to them, ” In a world where the underprivileged may trudge miles to the nearest clinic … nothing communicates the unbelievable wealth, ease and selfishness of modern American life like refusing the very same vaccines” – BS! underprivileged countries have a high percentage of being under educated, therefore of course… Read more »
These types of threads are never the best forum for open debate but i’ll do my best here. I think this misses the mark a bit. I think thats the perception but in reality the underlying issue is that actual scientific data can support both sides. But the story you hear is that they are safe. They aren’t for some people. And the real concern is what does the increasing number of shots do for the health of a child long term. The measles “epidemic” is seen as a gateway to enforce ALL vaccines no matter what. It gets pretty… Read more »
Yes, of course, because that’s where all the big money is hiding in ‘big pharma’ – not in trillion dollar lawsuits over patent protection, not in the proscription of thousands new drugs for depression, fertility, acid reflux, and erectile dysfunction, not in the development of new antibiotics- No: You figured it out; the *real* money is there in those 40-year old-patent-expired vaccines, and shilling them to the comparative handful of privileged westerners who haven’t gotten them yet- Indeed, the profit pharma stands to make from the MMR vaccine alone this year could practically be in the tens of dollars… Seriously,… Read more »
Well said!
“Committed people will kill and die for the sake of their sense of religious identity; it’s no surprise then that other people would be willing to murder or to contort science and truth for the sake of their own misguided ‘morality’ -the veracity and sincerity of you belief does not equate to the validity of it.”
very well said by one of the questionable commentators
it hows however suit the opposite of their argument when taken in context of the adulescent article above
Thank you. I should point out too; what DOES equate to validity is objective, impartial physical evidence, rigorous scientific interrogation & review, and, of course, not being totally deluded. As I said, you’ve programmed yourself to think that everything and everyone that contradicts you is proof that you were right all along; the ‘wronger’ people say you are, the more you take that as an indication of the righter you must really be. I have no stake in this either way – I certainly don’t want to see science or truth contorted or ‘murdered’ by the likes of you, but… Read more »
To quote Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who said it best & most succinctly: “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”
you should perhaps read that quote and try allow it to seep in then
I will if you will.
Right after you bring some objective fact, verifiable scientific information or impartial studies, or -in fact- anything at all, other than paranoia, cynicism, egotism, and blatantly detrimental ignorance. You’re like a person with a million dollar debt, trying to even up by trading donuts for diamonds- it doesn’t come even. Also, perhaps you should look up the word ‘facts’ before you re-read the quote- don’t be averse to that, just because it rhymes with ‘vax.’
your really quite skilled at making yourself a hypocrite and to look stupid are you not?
you do little more then run down any who disagree and yet sprout from the anus in your face endless rubbish about others egotism
you really are one of a kind
if not then we honestly are all screwed
have a nice day “Doctor” *cough fraud cough
nice job refusing to permit the earlier comments too
Well, I wouldn’t want to be accused of being a hypocrite; so it might alleviate your fears to know that for the sake of prudence I’ve had a booster shot- I saw my healthcare provider, asked questions, did some research of my own, got a second opinion, and then decided that it was safest to get a booster shot; so no big deal. So again, you might want to look up the definitions of words like ‘hypocrite’ before you toss around the labels so haphazardly: It’s not ‘hypocritical’ to disagree with you when sir you, are, objectively wrong. In fact,… Read more »
i love reading the utter stupidity some people manage to come out with
cant help wondering if this guy deserves his kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies
i think they might be getting jibbed
A very interesting article:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/science-doubters/achenbach-text?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fbp20150204ngm-sciencedoubt&utm_campaign=Content&sf7277310=1
Ultimately, this was an informative article. It certainly rings true for the people I know who are anti-vax. It certainly rings true for me when I was mostly anti-vax. I was young and idealistic. I did think I knew better. I definitely wanted to buck the trend and feel superior. I was surrounded by a wonderful community of interesting, intelligent, alternative people, most of whom are still friends. I also didn’t want to alienate that community. But now, I can call myself a scientist. I have studied biology. I have learned how to conduct my own research. Most importantly, I… Read more »
This might be a little off topic, but I’m intrigued – if those opposed to vaccines were to travel to a place like Thailand or Cambodia, would they get their hepatitis A and B, tetanus, and rabies vaccines, considering how very easy it is to contract any of these diseases in such places? When I stood on a nail at a wildlife sanctuary in Thailand and when I sliced my finger on a lock in public toilet in Laos, I was eternally grateful that I was as immunised as possible. Or would you just avoid travelling to such amazing places… Read more »
OK, you don’t want to vaccinate your kids and yourself. Fine, but doing so poses a public health hazard and your personal decision must be weighed against the welfare of the public. If you, for whatever bizarre reason, opted out of scientifically validated protection for yourself and your children, then the rest of the public need to know of your decision because it effects them. If you choose to opt out of immunization, then you should be listed on a public register similar to sex offenders since you too are a public menace. The public needs to be empowered to… Read more »
the reaction to stance of people who question vaccinations, global warming, gmo’s etc., and demand more evidence and discussion from our medical , political and other establishments in our society have really revealed how we have become more intolerant of the any questioning or differing views from our orthodoxy. whether it is politics or any especially establishmentarian stance on an issue, if you disagree or merely question, you are automatically an idiot or a bigot of some form or fashion.
Let’s start with any evidence da smith – then we will move to more evidence if needed.
And just to keep things simple, understand that if A comes before B does not mean that A causes B – unless of course you conduct proper scientific studies that support A causes B
Elissa, you say that if A comes before B that does not mean causation. The same argument can (and has) be made with vaccines. You say because vaccines exist then they are the reason the diseases have declined. The actual evidence shows otherwise. Also, all I (and others like me) am demanding IS proper scientific studies. Let’s start with one that compares vaccinated to unvaccinated children. Watch this video and see how the FDA representative tries to avoid the question because it hasn’t been done. That is the ONE piece of research that should be done first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF-5RKnlsp8
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/thimerosal.htm There is a large body of scientific evidence on the safety of thimerosal. Data from several studies show the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines do not cause harm, and are only associated with minor local injection site reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site. CDC, FDA, and the National Institutes of Health [NIH]) have reviewed the published research on thimerosal and found it to be a safe product to use in vaccines. Three independent organizations (The National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices [ACIP], and the American Academy of Pediatrics [AAP])… Read more »
There are literally dozens of similar conclusions: specifically on the Wakefield research which has since been retracted.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3469143/pdf/i1551-6776-8-3-187.pdf
“After consideration of all available information and presentations, leading pediatricians, developmental pediatricians, child neurologists, pediatric infectious disease specialists, virologists, pathologists, epidemiologists, psychiatrists and researchers in the field, The British Medical Research Council, the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Pediatrics
all reached the same conclusion – the available evidence does not support an association
between the MMR vaccine and autism or inflammatory bowel disease.”
The burden of proof is on the people declaring the positive not the negative. The burden of proof here is to prove that these vaccines are causing problems not to prove that the vaccines don’t cause problems. It’s impossible to prove a negative, only to establish that you can’t find a correlation.
Dead Babies. That’s how they did it. That’s how they turned a lot of otherwise rational people into a lynch mob against the enemy, the “anti-vaxxers.” They did it in 2003 with terrorists. They lied then about the dangers of terrorists at our doorsteps, about non-existent weapons of mass destruction. They convinced Americans that death was coming for us. You called me anti-American back then when I protested. You spit at me from your car and called me a traitor. Now that it is obvious that the war was indeed a fabrication to support Bush and Cheney’s corporate friends, I… Read more »
“If you all really care about preventable dead babies, why aren’t you up in arms about the 3,200 children that start smoking every day.”
I believe the above line summarizes your argument Doug.
And to answer your query directly: yes, I would be up in arms if an advocacy group held a belief that smoking is good for children.
lol yes. Pro-vaccine people are the one’s weakening heard immunity and putting everyone at risk by bringing, lethal, virulent, painful diseases back to life when they had been completely dead in the US on the advice of a con artist scientist and a celebrity who has more money than credible opinion. Alright, taking my snark hat OFF for a moment, you do have a decent argument when it comes to side effects of vaccines. They exist, they are tragic, and they are rare. People suffering from them do not, generally, receive good compensation for their suffering. This is an important… Read more »
All I have to say is thank the gods you aren’t my doctor, or a doctor treating any of my family. I’ll take my chances with the vaccines that had almost completely wiped out several diseases before you hackjobs started in. I had never thought that an actual doctor who swore a Hippocratic oath to do no harm would ever put his patients at risk this way. I sincerely hope this is another case of the internet letting anyone pretend they are a big shot, and that you aren’t actually a practicing physician.
Amen!!!! Agreed!
As a 36-year-old child of a parent who was anti-vaccine before it was cool, this article is a breath of fresh air. A warning to all anti-vax parents: one day your child may come to hate you for your refusal to give them basic medicine. My mother still believes she was right to “buck the trend” by refusing all vaccinations for me. Even after I had an awful experience with measles in college. She made up her mind in the 1970s and never educated herself any further. After that experience, I realized I couldn’t rely on my parent to protect… Read more »
And here you are, alive and able to complain about your awful parents. Have you looked at all the awful reactions children have to the vaccines? Would you rather they took the risk of killing you with the vaccine? At least you will never ever have to risk getting the measles again AND you will be able to protect your children with your immunity for their first 2 years if you breastfeed. If you had the vaccine, you wouldn’t have been necessarily protected as a lot of the cases of measles are happening in the vaccinated.
Measles is much more likely to kill a person than the vaccination is. Which is why we have an injection for it rather than just letting people live with the consequences of the infection. The burden of proof here is on the anti-vaxxers. There has been more than enough research done on the subject to demonstrate that the vaccine is safer than the disease that it prevents. Sure, there are occasional side effects, but compared with the alternative it’s a bargain. By the way, Rauld Dahl lost his oldest daughter to the measles and he would have gladly gotten her… Read more »
Your comment about breastfeeding is patently false. Please stop disseminating this wrong and potentially dangerous information.
All in all I find this piece, and the vast majority of the ensuing commentary, to be yet another brutal construct of the, “us vs. them” mentality. Science is fallible. What is considered to be empirical evidence today can be called quackery tomorrow. When the brains reticular activating system has been focused on one set of instructions it will do its job of noticing only that which it has ben programmed to. Simply put, we get what we’re looking for. If we are to find a balanced and inclusive way of openly and respectfully discussing and investigating such tender topics… Read more »
Indeed. And perhaps your commentary may be yet another fake-neutral, preening construct of the “pox on both their houses” mentality.
Thanks for writing this, not because it’s going to help, but because it so perfectly illustrates why medical professionals are failing and will fail to convince parents. This is not about helping, this is about feeling morally or intellectually superior to people in a difficult situation. Congratulations, you have gained the inner pleasure you were seeking. Science says that there is no proof vaccines cause autism. However, science also says there is no proof anything else causes autism. Science doesn’t know much about autism, and ~10 years ago when the anti-vaccine movement was gaining ground, science knew even less than… Read more »
Perhaps you should actually research autism before you make ludicrous claims about what “science” does or does not know about it. I suggest checking out PubMed which shows all of the latest peer-reviewed medical research rather than relying on mommy blogs.
Interesting article. To those readers who feel its tone is impolitic, I should point out that it appears not to be directed at anti-vaxers, but rather trying to explain the reasons behind such irrational and destructive behaviour to those of us who find it incomprehensible.
I totally agree with you, Dr. Tuteur, that we will never convince the anti-vax crowd with reason. There are deeper conflicts going on in their decision and frankly it is none of our business. Because they refuse to be “reasonable”, it is up to the adults in the room to take steps to protect ourselves from their decisions. We need stronger laws to protect the public from private threats and there should be zero tolerance for endangering the health of others. Your article was not aimed at the anti-vax crowd, but to the rest of us who have choices beyond… Read more »
what were you reading?
i have seen more civilized ranting from my un vaccinated 4 year old
she goes to your kids school by the way
This article is wrong on so many levels. First, its understanding of why some parents choose to eschew vaccinations, or work a different schedule is lacking entirely. It fails from the start to have even the most fundamental grasp of what the actual issues are with so-called “anti-vaxxers”. There is no apparent research done on the health concerns, efficacy issues, side-effects, or real science behind the anti-vaccination movement. It is pure hyperbole, dripping with self-satisfaction.
Please do share the “science” that informs your anti-vax views. And don’t point me to a web site. I will require peer reviewed research.
I second that, Elissa.
For the love of god, there is absolutely no such thing as “real science behind the anti-vaccination movement”! Literally every single argument against vaccinations is based upon junk pseudo-science, willful misinterpretation of the evidence, or complete, imaginary fabrications born out of paranoid delusion. There is no debate. This isn’t one of those issues where there are two sides to the story. You are just wrong. There is no room for compromise with those who deny reality: you get to have your own opinion but you don’t get to decide your own facts. Stop it and get your kids vaccinated before… Read more »
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00040890.htm?mobile=nocontent Immunity wanes as you get older–read the stats for yourself (directly from the cdc page) regarding measles in 1995. (20 years ago). Vaccination is not the same as immunization. ” Nineteen outbreaks (i.e., clusters of three or more epidemiologically linked cases) were reported by 12 states in 1995 and accounted for 74% of all reported cases. Five of these outbreaks began in late 1994. The number of cases involved in outbreaks ranged from three to 73 (median: seven cases). The largest outbreak (73 cases) occurred in a community in Ventura County, California, and primarily involved adults. Two outbreaks (25… Read more »
Sounds like Amy to a T! The list of her cyberbully victims skeptical OB is growing by the day.
This article is the perfect example of what’s wrong with the “debate” between the two sides on this issue. To state that all anti-vaxxers know nothing of science is so absurd that it renders the rest of your rant moot. When doctors can treat the concerns of those on the fence with respect and can engage in meaningful conversation regarding the pros and cons of vaccinations, then maybe some progress can be made towards settling this issue. And yeah, there are cons to vaccinations regardless of whether you believe they are associated with autism. It’s printed right there on the… Read more »
I recognize that you HAD legitimate concerns… Before the author of the seminal research article that initiated the movement was run out of academia due to an inability to provide copies of his data and initial research when pressed by associates. Even if this were not true, even if Andrew Wakefield was above-board on all his research, the n-size of his paper was 12. TWELVE. This is not a meaningful sample for ANYTHING. Much less a research paper to be used to inform public policy. Also, two things. First: Not getting vaccinated doesn’t just hurt you or your kids, it… Read more »
Its not the non vaxers, its the undervaccinated population. Before vaccines, people would get a “booster” shot every time they came into contact with someone who had the illness. Now, immunity wanes by the time you are about 20, and because there is no exposure, immunity is not raised again. Infants are also not getting immunity from their mothers like they used to, so it is more prevalent in the infant population than it used to be.
The way to fix this is to ensure that all adolescents and adults in midlife have booster shots.
http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/04/measles-outbreak-traced-fully-vaccinated-patient-first-time?utm_content=bufferc8cb1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9796389
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000359.htm?mobile=nocontent
It is certainly privilege that informs the anti-vacc parents, but I think you are wrong in many ways about what motivates them. Our culture has a very short memory. Not even 100 years ago, 1 in 7 children died before their 5th birthday due to infectious disease. No one was immune. Nearly every parent knew what it was like to lose a child, or several children. We have nearly defeated childhood disease. How lucky we are to be privileged enough to not live in the world of fear, to the point where loving parents feel safe enough to not protect… Read more »
There are always side effects with any medicine. MMR jab is said to have brought on autism in a child at one point, so you can’t blame parents to be wary about what you inject into our children. I this article is written by a typical pro-vax scientist.. If you don’t agree with someone with high intelligence they simply cannot understand it. It’s not all black and white when you have to think about compromising your child. Yes the vax may protect from measles.. Or whatever other disease but at the risk of something like autism(just for example) when the… Read more »
No, Amanda, there is actually no evidence of an MMR jab causing autism. There was exactly one article published by Andrew Wakefield in the Lancet which was later debunked by more than 20 other articles and later removed due to gross errors on Wakefield’s part. As someone who works in a laboratory that studies the origins of neurodevelopment disorders, including autism, absolutely nobody in the field has found any proof linking autism to vaccines.
Of course you didn’t because Dr. David Thompson, of the CDC, admitted to him and his colleagues hiding the results that linked autism to the MMR. So these ‘trusted’ medical journals and articles that people get their ‘information’ from are not accurate. Imagine the financial and legal ramifications when autism is officially linked to the MMR via his testimony. Big pharma will do everything in their power to make sure that doesn’t happen (including soliciting the backing of all their ‘professionals’ on their payroll at the CDC, FDA and government). But over time, you will see, as more and more… Read more »
“It’s not all black and white when you have to think about compromising your child.” Yes it is, but you’ve convinced yourself that it isn’t- you want so much to disbelieve in vaccines and validate this whole worldview that you’ve constructed around it that you’ve genuninely and sincerely convinced yourself that black is white, and white is black. To accept vaccines would be to accept a worldview and a validation of science & conventions that are an anathema to a very core identity. Committed people will kill and die for the sake of their sense of religious identity; it’s no… Read more »
Wow. This is insightful and well put. I think this kind of analysis is key to understanding why some anti-vaxxers really do think there is science behind their position, when it seems so clear to everyone else that there isn’t.
“…when the chance of contracting measles is not very high.” The main reason the chance – currently – is not very high (unless you happen to live in or visit one of the low-vaccination pockets) is BECAUSE the majority of people are vaccinated against it! It is incredibly contagious when it gains a foothold…as is currently happening. I had it as a child, despite vaccination, because it was still viable in my community. It was horrific. And I was lucky to get through minus any major complications. My father grew up in Zimbabwe (when it was still Rhodesia) and didn’t… Read more »