Tag: regret

How Do Anti-Vaccine Folks Respond to New Information?

Ever wonder why most anti-vaccine folks don’t change their mind and get their kids vaccinated and protected when they “do their research” and “get educated” about vaccines?

You would think that they would, considering that anti-vaccine talking points are all based on myths and misinformation.

How Do Anti-Vaccine Folks Respond to New Information?

While some do change their mind, even before they are faced with an outbreak or their child getting sick, the biggest reason that others don’t is that they are stuck in an echo-chamber of like-minded folks.

This discussion is a good example of how this works.

The original poster wasn’t aware that measles was on the rise all over the world and that people are dying.

How do you respond to the fact that people are dying of measles?

So do they understand that reason behind the deaths is because those folks were unvaccinated?

Why didn’t “extreme poverty, poor nutrition, and a lack of sanitation” cause more measles deaths in Ukraine, Philippines, and Brazil before now?

Nope.

It’s always the vaccine with these folks…

It is anything and everything except that they weren’t vaccinated!

According to whom? You can actually go to the national health sites for each of these countries and find the data for yourself, if you were really interested in doing research.

And that they aren’t in America!

That’s not America… yet. Our measles cases are rising though and sooner or later we will start seeing measles deaths.

So what’s wrong with their thinking?

To start, these countries aren’t underdeveloped!

Brazil and the Philippines are newly industrialized countries and while Ukraine is considered a developing country, it is hardly the developing country without sanitation and nutrition that these folks make it out to be.

The problem in all of these countries isn’t a lack of nutrition, clean water, or health care. It is that too many folks are unvaccinated!

That becomes easier to see when you look at where else we are seeing a lot of measles deaths – the rest of Europe.

In the past 12 months, there have been 22 deaths from measles in Romania, Italy, France, and Greece.

Are folks in Italy suffering from malnutrition? Do they not have clean water?

There have been 64 deaths in Romania since there outbreaks started a few years ago.

Although Romania is a developing country, it isn’t a lack of clean water and sanitation that is causing measles deaths. It is that too many people in Romania are unvaccinated!

And too many people are listening to anti-vaccine propaganda.

Vaccines are safe, with few risks, and are obviously necessary.

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Did Bob Sears admit that he doesn’t “waste my breath” talking about the benefits of vaccines?

Have you noticed the bias in the anti-vaccine movement?

His advocacy against vaccines??? And what about his "educational" writings?!?
His advocacy against vaccines??? And what about his “educational” writings?!?

It’s hard to miss…

The Bias in the Anti-Vaccine Movement

Yes, that’s it.

You really only get one side from anti-vaccine folks.

But that’s not all.

In addition to never mentioning the benefits of vaccines, they make you think that:

  • you don’t have to worry about getting measles, chicken pox, and rubella, etc., anymore, because these diseases are rare, forgetting to mention that they are still relatively rare in many countries because most people are vaccinated and protected! When more folks skip or delay their vaccines, as they forget what these diseases are like and they listen to anti-vaccine propaganda, we get outbreaks, especially when they aren’t vaccinated and they travel to places where the diseases are more common!
  • everyone else overlooks the risks, when in fact, the risks of getting vaccinated and protected are just small and all of the so-called vaccine-induced diseases and other things anti-vaccine folks blame on vaccines aren’t real vaccine injuries
  • you don’t have to worry about getting measles, pertussis, or pneumococcal disease, etc., because those diseases are all mild, neglecting to mention that some people do have complications and some die when they catch them
  • if you don’t choose to vaccinate your kids on your own, someone is going to force you to get them vaccinated, overlooking that vaccine mandates don’t actually force anyone to vaccinate their kids – they are just about whether or not intentionally unvaccinated kids should be able to attend school
  • your choice to skip or delay your child’s vaccines won’t affect anyone else, failing to mention that most outbreaks are started by someone who is intentionally not vaccinated
  • if there is a risk, there must be a choice, but with their slogan, they overstate the risks of vaccines, never mention the risks of having the disease, and don’t mention the risk of your child getting other people sick, taking away their choice to keep their kids safe and healthy
  • you can always get vaccinated, but you can never get unvaccinated, neglecting to mention that you can indeed wait too long to vaccinate your kids

The biggest bias though, is not that these folks are against vaccines, but rather that everything they do and say scares parents and makes them feel that they should skip or delay their child’s vaccines, leaving them unprotected and at risk.

Stop listening to them and stop spreading their anti-vaccine propaganda.

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What’s the Worst That Can Happen If You Lie About Vaccinating Your Child?

We have heard about anti-vaccine parents forging their unvaccinated children’s vaccine records to get them in school.

What’s the harm, right?

What’s the Worst That Can Happen If You Lie About Vaccinating Your Child?

Most of us can think of an awful lot of things that can go wrong in this scenario and we know exactly who’s going to be harmed!

An immunocompromised child got chicken pox after her mom lied about getting her vaccinated.

Yeah, if you lie about getting vaccinated, your kid can get sick.

They can also get other people sick…

We found that out last year when an unvaccinated teen returned from a trip overseas and developed measles.

“Although patient A’s parents had chosen not to vaccinate him, his immunocompromised brother, an organ transplant recipient, had received intravenous immunoglobulin to protect him against measles before traveling overseas. When patient A’s illness was reported, SCCPHD recommended that his brother receive additional intravenous immunoglobulin and be quarantined 7 additional days; the family followed both recommendations. Patient C’s unvaccinated sister, aged 17 years, received parental permission to choose to receive MMR vaccine when her brother was quarantined; she opted to receive the vaccine.”

Notes from the Field: Measles Outbreak in an Era of Stricter Immunization Requirements — California, March 2018

While that isn’t so surprising, it is that instead of cooperating with health department investigators, so that they can find and quarantine contact, several people lied. That led to more people getting sick and the outbreak going on longer than it should have.

It is also amazing that they hadn’t already vaccinated their kids, having a high risk, immunocompromised child in the house who couldn’t receive the MMR vaccine!

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What Did Benjamin Franklin Say About Vaccines?

Wait, we had vaccines when Ben Franklin was around?

You can learn what Benjamin Franklin thought about vaccines from his autobiography.
You can learn what Benjamin Franklin thought about vaccines from his autobiography.

That was a long time ago.

What Did Benjamin Franklin Say About Vaccines?

Well, we had variolation…

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Benjamin Franklin

The Benjamin Franklin quote many anti-vaccine folks are using these days (do anti-vaccine folks get daily talking points to use?) doesn’t really have anything to do with vaccines though, at least not in the way that they think it does.

“The Franklin quote he nodded to on Tuesday, ironically, means the opposite of what Paul was arguing. When Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety,” he was opposing the Penn family’s attempt to carve out an exception for themselves from the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s attempt to tax their lands for the collective good of frontier defense. The liberty Franklin was defending was the liberty the rest of us deserve now, too — liberty to choose to protect ourselves.”

Saad B Omer on Rand Paul is wrong: Vaccines are no threat to liberty

It should be clear that Ben Franklin’s quote shouldn’t be used to attack vaccine mandates. If anything, it can be used to attack free-riders and those who skip or delay vaccines and try to hide in the herd!

“It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it’s almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means.”

Benjamin Wittes onBen Franklin’s Famous ‘Liberty, Safety’ Quote Lost Its Context In 21st Century

Interestingly, Benjamin Franklin did famously talk about vaccines, or at least smallpox variolation.

“In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.”

Benjamin Franklin

He got a little temporary safety, avoiding the side effects of variolation, but what were the consequences? What did he lose?

What do you lose when you make decisions about vaccines based on vaccine misinformation?

What do folks like Rand Paul have to gain by speaking out against vaccines?

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