Do you sense something in the air?
No, it’s not measles.
It is talk of panic about measles.
Why Are Anti-Vaccine Folks Panicking over the Measles Outbreaks?
I’m not panicking.
I am definitively concerned about these outbreaks, because I understand that they put a lot of folks at unnecessary risk for getting a life-threatening disease. And I understand that these outbreaks are getting harder and harder to control, but ultimately, since more and more people get vaccinated during an outbreak, they will eventually end.
So why are anti-vaccine folks panicking?
It’s easier to be anti-vaccine and leave your kids unvaccinated and unprotected when you don’t think that you are taking much of a risk.
You likely still know it’s wrong, so cognitive dissonance pushes you to believe that vaccines don’t work, vaccine-preventable diseases aren’t that bad, vaccines are full of poison, or that you can just hide in the herd.
It gets much harder during an outbreak, when you realize that it is almost all intentionally unvaccinated kids getting sick. And typically an intentionally unvaccinated child or adult who starts the outbreak.
Is my child going to start an outbreak?
If measles is so mild, why do so many of these folks go to the ER multiple times and why do some of them get hospitalized. Why do people still die with measles?
That’s when the panic starts to set in.
Are you really doing what’s right for your child?
Who are these people I’m getting advice from and what’s their motivation?
Am I really supposed to skip my kid’s MMR because they did a Brady Bunch episode about all of the Brady kids getting measles?
Will I regret not vaccinating my child?
Why don’t any of the people in my Facebook groups who talk about how marvelous measles used to be in the old days talk about how they called it a “harmless killer?”
Of course, there is an easy way to stop worrying and panicking about measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases – get your kids vaccinated and protected. Vaccines are safe and necessary.
More on Measles Panic
- VAXOPEDIA – 10 Reasons You Aren’t Vaccinating Your Kids
- VAXOPEDIA – Are You on the Fence About Vaccines?
- VAXOPEDIA – Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times
- VAXOPEDIA – Anti-Vaxxers Should Be Able to Answer These Questions Correctly
- VAXOPEDIA – How Do Anti-Vaccine Folks Think?
- VAXOPEDIA – Dear Anti-Vaxxers,
- VAXOPEDIA – This Is the Modern Anti-Vaccine Movement
- VAXOPEDIA – The Moral Outrage of the Anti-Vaccine Movement
- VAXOPEDIA – Answers To Frequently Asked Questions About Immunizations
- VAXOPEDIA – 100 Myths About Vaccines
- VAXOPEDIA – Answers to Anti-Vaccine Talking Points
- VAXOPEDIA – 50 Ways to Get Educated About Vaccines
- VAXOPEDIA – When Was the Last Measles Death in the United States?
- VAXOPEDIA – Why Do We Only Worry About Measles?
- VAXOPEDIA – Can MMR Shedding Start a Measles Outbreak?
- VAXOPEDIA – What to Do If Your Child Is Exposed to Measles
- VAXOPEDIA – The Pacific Northwest Measles Outbreak of 2019
- VAXOPEDIA – News on the Latest Measles Outbreaks of 2019
- To the Parent of the Unvaccinated Child Who Exposed my Family to Measles
- One more time: Vaccine refusal endangers everyone, not just the unvaccinated
- Meryls Marvellous Measles
- The Disneyland measles outbreak: “Dr. Bob” Sears says measles isn’t that bad, and an antivaccine activist invokes the Brady Bunch fallacy
- Disneyland Measles Outbreak Hubbub
- The Roots of the Vaccine Panic
Last Updated on January 30, 2019