There is a new Crazymothers video floating around and it is everything that’s wrong with the modern anti-vaccine movement.

On the fence parents are being told ‘this this and this’ by their pediatricians and then going to someone who has found Internet fame making Crazymothers videos to find out if they are true.

As you might expect, her videos include:

• anti-vaccine talking points
• anti-vaccine myths
• ideas that autism can be cured
• misinformation about VAERS
• Big Pharma conspiracy theories
• the bonus check conspiracy theory

She even defends Andrew Wakefield and doesn’t believe that people died of measles once MMR vaccination rates went down after Wakefield’s study was published.

A Crazymother Visits Her Pediatrician to Talk About Vaccines

Crazymothers?

As someone who is mindful that language can promote stigmas and stereotypes, it is not a term that I chose.

It is the name of a parenting group.

Wait until you hear what this pediatrician has to say when a Crazymother informs her she will no longer be vaccinating!

“Ok, today is just a hepatitis vaccine.”

I have made the decision that I no longer want my kids to be vaccinated.

“At all?”

At all. So, I know that’s not what you want to hear.

“It isn’t. It scares me. It scares me a lot.”

I know. I hear that, but I also have to do what I feel is best.

“Is there a specific concern that you have?”

Oh, there is a lot of things.

“What are they?”

There’s a lot. I’m worried about a lot. I wasn’t planning on having this conversation today. I didn’t know he was getting a shot. I wasn’t prepared. I thought he coming in for a blood test today. There’s a lot of reached out and met a lot of other moms who just have a lot of really sad stories and I just kind of started doing my own research and I just don’t feel like it is best for my kids and … I’m very concerned for his health and him getting vaccinated with all of these problems that he already has isn’t going to benefit him right now so I may change my mind down the road.

That last paragraph says an awful lot about why some parents are choosing to delay or skip their children’s vaccines:

• they are scared
• they are getting influenced to make their decision in anti-vaccine Facebook groups, which are essentially echo-chambers of anti-vaccine misinformation and propaganda
• they are doing their own research, but are not using reputable sources
• they are influenced by vaccine injury videos

Mostly they are scared. Hopefully this mom does some more research, gets more answers to her questions, and does change her mind soon.

Crazymothers Propaganda

The video, most which I have transcribed, also illustrates why it is important to be prepared when you talk to your pediatrician about vaccines.  After all, you can’t get your questions about vaccines answered if you don’t ask any questions.

“So my job at every visit is to let you know what you are declining and what we’re trying to protect against. It’s also very important if you decide not to immunize to remember that he’s at risk for a lot of other things so if he gets a fever its going to mean something different to mean than a child who is fully immunized as a fever… so if you call us after hours and he has a fever, make sure you tell us, oh by the way, he isn’t immunized…”

How does it mean something different if a child is intentionally not vaccinated?

It is actually very simple.

They are at increased risk for vaccine-preventable diseases.

While a vaccine-preventable disease should be in the back of your mind for any kid if their symptoms fit the disease, since vaccines aren’t 100% effective, they move higher up your list of possibilities if you know the child is unvaccinated and unprotected.

“I also just want to tell you that there’s a very big difference between anecdotal evidence and population based evidence, so just because someone has a sad story doesn’t mean that what happened to them is truly related to the vaccine.”

yeah

“And also keep in mind that in terms of autism, the study that was done in England years ago that supposedly linked autism to the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine was tainted. It was funded by anti-vaccine lawyers, was retracted by every single person that offered that study and because of that study, children didn’t get the MMR and many died.”

Crazymothers – OMG, I can’t even with this… She said that children didn’t get the MMR and many died. That’s not true. If you look at the cases of measles after 1998 when the Lancet study was published the measles cases actually went down. Nobody died. Nobody has died in America for years and years from the measles. It is completely silly.

Nobody died?

Measles cases went down?

“Between 2001 and 2013 there was a sharp rise in the number of UK measles cases, and three people died.”

Current measles risks in the UK and Europe

As most folks now, before Wakefield was stripped of his medical license, he practiced in the United Kingdom, and not surprisingly, that’s where we saw a big effect on MMR rates. They went down and measles cases went up.

But even as measles cases and deaths have gone down globally, measles outbreaks and measles deaths have been much worse in the rest of Europe.

Even in the United States, cases have gone way up since we hit a record low of 37 cases in 2004 and there have been deaths, with the last in 2015.

“Again, this was very contentious and you would not get consensus from all members of the group on this, but that is my feeling, that the, the risk of this particular syndrome developing is related to the combined vaccine, the MMR, rather than the single vaccines.”

Andrew Wakefield

It is amazing how many times you hear the phrase “that’s not true” in this video about things that are so easy to confirm as facts.

“Continue to give it some thought because to me vaccines are modern miracles and it scares me to death to have people not getting vaccinated… He’ll probably be okay, but that’s because I’ve vaccinated my kids the other day, so we’re protecting your kid… The more people who stop doing it, forget about it, it’s going to go back to the old days where people are dying all of the time.”

Crazymothers – There’s that herd immunity myth. She says that your kid is going to be okay because I’m doing the right thing. I’m vaccinating my child. And anybody who studies this knows that’s not true! Herd immunity is a myth. Go outside and talk to a 30-year-old, 40-year-old, 50-year-old, who hasn’t been recently vaccinated and you can clearly see, plain as day…

As far as I know, we have indoor plumbing, we have sewage systems, we have clean water, and we have access to whole foods, we have ways to supplement with vitamins and minerals, we have all of these amazing things and that is what actually brings disease rates down.

Proper sanitation, sewage systems, all of the modern things that we take for granted – that is what is actually bringing the disease down, because clearly, in under-developed countries, we still see the diseases rampant, right?

Herd immunity myth?

The idea that herd immunity is a myth because adults aren’t vaccinated is silly.

Adults were either born in the pre-vaccine era and likely have natural immunity or were born in the vaccine era and are vaccinated and immune, as many vaccines provide life-long immunity. That’s why adults get few boosters or catch-up vaccines.

But herd immunity is disease specific, so when we talk about herd immunity for measles, it doesn’t matter if someone has immunity against hepatitis A or Hib. Also, some vaccines, like Hib and Prevnar, have indirect effects, protecting adults even though they aren’t vaccinated, because vaccinated kids are less likely to become infectious.

There is only clearly one modern thing that that anti-vaccine folks take for granted – vaccines.

My uncle got polio around 1950, in Brooklyn, just before the first polio vaccine was developed.

You know what?

They had indoor plumbing, sewage systems, clean water, whole foods, vitamins and minerals, and medicine – he was hospitalized for six months – yet many people still died of polio.

At that time, during the pre-vaccine era, many people also died of measles, tetanus, pertussis, chicken pox, and many other diseases that are now prevented with vaccines.

And unfortunately, many under-developed countries still don’t have proper sanitation, sewage systems, or good nutrition, but do you know what they also don’t have?

Polio.

We are very close to eradicating polio all over the world. Only two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan still have cases of wild polio today. And so far this year, there have only been 11 cases. Did every other country in the world suddenly get proper sanitation, sewage systems, and good nutrition? Is that why we are so close to eradicating polio?

Of course not. It’s the polio vaccine.

Vaccines work. Vaccines are safe and necessary. They have few risks and many benefits. You won’t learn any of that from the Crazymothers group and that’s likely why you have made the decision that you no longer want your kids to be vaccinated.

What to Know About Crazymothers Propaganda

Don’t let Crazymothers propaganda scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids.

More on Crazymothers Propaganda

• Andrew Wakefield – the fraud investigation
• Two retractions of fraudulent Lancet paper
• BMJ: Wakefield Paper Alleging Link between MMR Vaccine and Autism Fraudulent
• Majority of Authors Retract Controversial Interpretation of 1998 Lancet Paper
  Linking MMR Vaccine to A New Syndrome of Bowel Disease and Autism
• The media’s MMR hoax
• The MMR story that wasn’t
• autism/MMR scare timeline
• The Autism-Vaccines Myth: The Impact of the Media
• How the Media Fed the Anti-Vaccine Movement
• MMR shot statistics, England & Wales
• Current measles risks in the UK and Europe
• Yes, vaccines did save us from disease: a graphic analysis
• Vaccine denier – diseases eliminated by sanitation, not vaccines
• Pre-Vaccine Declines in Measles Mortality
• Dying the way that nature intended: Appeal to nature fallacies
• How You Can Stop Mental Illness Stigma
• Swapping Out These Words Can Help End The Stigma Of Mental Illness