Tag: vaccine hesitancy

I’m Not Anti-Vaccine, I Just Don’t Believe in the HPV Vaccine

Believe it or not, there are some parents who get their kids each and every vaccine, but skip the one that protects them from cancer.

I’m Not Anti-Vaccine, I Just Don’t Believe in the HPV Vaccine

Why?

That’s a good question.

And although they won’t have a good answer, some of their reasons include that:

the HPV vaccine is too new – even though Gardasil was first approved in 2006 and the first phase 1 and phase 2 trials began in 1997!
they don’t think it is necessary – even though about 4,200 women die of cervical cancer each year (that’s just in the United States), even in this age of routine pap tests
it might lead their kids to have early sex or unprotected sex – even though studies show it won’t
Michele Bachmann once said it caused mental retardation – even though she had no evidence to support her claim
the HPV vaccine is too controversial – any “controversy” about Gardasil and Cervarix is made up by anti-vaccine folks
HPV vaccines can cause POTS, ASIA, primary ovarian failure, venous blood clots, behavior problems, or multiple sclerosis, etc. – even though over and over, studies have found HPV vaccines to be safe and to not cause any of the other serious side effects or vaccine induced diseases you read about on the Internet that scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids
it is banned in Utah – even though that isn’t true
it doesn’t provide life-long protection – even though the protection has been found to be long-lasting, as long as we have been giving the vaccine so far
it is banned in Japan and France – even though HPV vaccines aren’t banned anywhere and are actually on the immunization schedule in at least 64 countries
Katie Couric once did a scary segment on HPV vaccines – well, she did but later apologized… after being called out for pushing anti-vaccine misinformation
an HPV vaccine researcher says it’s dangerous – no, the HPV vaccine researcher, Diane Harper, actually says it is a safe vaccine
HPV vaccines are just for girls – even though there are around 11,000 cases of HPV induced cancer in men each year, including anal cancer and cancers of the mouth/throat and penis
their kids are too young and can get it later, when they are older – even though protection is likely better when they get the vaccine when they are younger, and you don’t want to wait too long, when you increase the chance that they will have had sex and will already be exposed to HPV

So why aren’t you getting your kids vaccinated and protected… against cancer?

Need to do more research? Read the links below and then schedule your kids for their HPV vaccine.

Vaccines – Year in Review 2018

Another year has passed and although anti-vaccine folks keep talking about those 300 vaccines in pipeline, there were few new developments in the vaccine world in 2018.

Bob Sears got in trouble with the Medical Board of California over vaccine exemptions. — This happened in 2018.

Well, maybe that’s not entirely true.

Vaccines – Year in Review 2018

So what can we say about 2018 when it comes to vaccines?

Well, we did get some new ones!

approved by the FDA in late 2017, a new hepatitis B vaccine for adults, Heplisav-B, the formal recommendation for its use from the ACIP came on February 21, 2018
although it was both approved by the FDA and formally recommended by the ACIP in late 2017, Shingrix, the new shingles vaccine, became more widely available in 2018 – well kind of – there have been a lot of shortages due to high demand for the vaccine
Vaxelis, a hexavalent vaccine that combines DTaP-IPV-Hib-HepB into one shot was FDA approved on December 21, 2018, but likely won’t be available for a few more years
FluMist, the nasal spray flu vaccine, returned

And we lost one… Last year was the first full year that Menomune, an older meningococcal vaccine, was no longer available. It was discontinued because of low demand, as we began to use the newer vaccines, Menactra and Menveo instead.

In other immunization news:

a 2017 shortage of yellow fever vaccine continued into 2018
a shortage of monovalent pediatric hepatitis B vaccine will continue into 2019 (doesn’t affect combination vaccines with hepatitis B)
Gardasil 9 received an expanded recommendation – women and men between the ages of 27 and 45 years can now get vaccinated and protected with this HPV vaccine
the hepatitis A vaccine got a lower age recommendation – at least in special situations – “HepA vaccine be administered to infants aged 6–11 months traveling outside the United States when protection against HAV is recommended.”
the recommendation to use a third dose of MMR to control outbreaks of mumps was formally approved
the WHO updated its recommendations for use of the dengue fever vaccine (Dengvaxia) to makes sure that only dengue-seropositive persons are vaccinated, as they found an increased risk of severe dengue in seronegative people who were vaccinated
Of the 163 million to 168 million doses of flu vaccine that will be distributed in the United States for the 2018-2019 season, more than 80% will be thimerosal free.
China had an issue with substandard DTaP vaccines made by one company in one part of the country
India had an issue with contaminated polio vaccines made by one company in one part of the country – bivalent oral polio vaccines (two strains) still contained all three strains of polio vaccine virus
Measles cases and deaths spiked globally because of gaps in vaccination coverage

If you didn’t hear about any of those things in the news, you may have heard about the death of two young children in Samoa after they received an MMR vaccine. That tragedy almost certainly was caused by an error in administering/mixing the vaccines, and not because there was anything wrong with the vaccines themselves.

Need help getting educated about vaccines? Despite continued outbreaks, 2018 was a good year for vaccine advocates and vaccine education.

Several good books about vaccines were published, including:

And in case you missed it, we found out that:

Of course, for most of us, none of this is really news. We know that vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary.

And sadly, Betty Bumpers died. We can honor her legacy by continuing her work and helping to make sure that every child gets vaccinated and protected.

How Are Australia’s New Vaccine Laws Working?

Have you heard about the No Jab, No Play / Pay laws in Australia?

Did Australia's new vaccine laws prompt anti-vaccine folks to put up these billboards that eventually got vandalized? — Did Australia’s new vaccine laws prompt anti-vaccine folks to put up these billboards that eventually got vandalized?

Unlike the No Pass, No Play rules that we have in Texas, in which kids can’t participate in extracurricular activities unless they pass all of their classes, No Jab, No Play / Pay has to do with getting kids vaccinated.

They were enacted in 2016 due to an increase in outbreaks of vaccine preventable disease, a rise in the spread of anti-vaccine misinformation, and more parents choosing to delay or skip their child’s vaccines. As in the United States, the real problem has been clusters of unvaccinated children in certain regions of the country, as the great majority of people in Australia vaccinate their kids.

How Are Australia’s New Vaccine Laws Working?

As expected, Australia’s new vaccine laws have been a success.

On the national level, No Jab, No Pay has meant that children need to be fully immunized “as a requirement for parents to be eligible to receive the Family Tax Benefit Part A end of year supplement, Child Care Benefit and Child Care Rebate.”

Five-year-olds in Victoria are now better protected against diseases prevented by vaccination than in any other state in Australia, new data shows.
Victoria Leads The Nation When It Comes To Vaccination Rates

But it is only in New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria that children need to be immunized to attend childcare – No Jab, No Play. Additionally, children need to be immunized to attend kindergarten in Queensland and Victoria.

An increase in vaccination rates, by 2 to 5%, has been seen nationwide though.

What about the idea that No Jab, No Play has lead to a drop in preschool enrollments?

KATHARINA GORKA, NON-VACCINATING PARENT: I don’t think it is fair, to be honest. It makes me feel like we are a bit excluded from society, yeah.
PETER MCCUTCHEON: Did you ever think, “I’ll get my son vaccinated so I get around this pre-school problem”?
KATHARINA GORKA: No, I never thought about that.
PETER MCCUTCHEON: Why not?
KATHARINA GORKA: Because I have a set opinion on vaccinations and that is not going to change.
Some pre-schools experience drop in enrolments over ‘no jab, no play’ policy

The law about attending daycare and kindergarten just came into effect in New South Wales, in 2018, but has been in effect since 2016 in Victoria.

We will have to wait a few more months for the 2018 numbers, but preschool enrollment in Victoria was way up after they instituted their strict vaccine requirements!

In Australia during 2017, 339,243 children aged 4 or 5 were enrolled in a preschool program, representing an increase of 2.6% on the previous year’s figure. The largest growth rates were in the Australian Capital Territory (6%) and Victoria (5%).
Australian Bureau of Statistics on Preschool Education, Australia, 2017

Maybe folks just don’t want to go to care centers that had been pandering to anti-vaccine parents…

Still, some vaccine advocates don’t think that No Jab, No Play / Pay laws are a good idea for Australia. Many also don’t think that it is a good idea that some Australian doctors are starting to refuse to see unvaccinated children, a practice that seems to have been exported from the United States.

Others don’t see alternatives, as they feel that they have been trying for a long time to educate parents that vaccines are safe and necessary, and this is one of the few ways that can reliably improve vaccination rates.

Ethics and Vaccines

A lot of ethical issues come up around discussions of vaccines and vaccination.

Of course, when you talk about ethics and vaccines, you shouldn’t just think about vaccine mandates and informed consent, but also about the ethics of skipping or delaying vaccines and putting others at risk of getting a vaccine-preventable disease.

And there are also ethical issues around spreading misinformation and propaganda about vaccines (misinformed consent) to scare people away from getting vaccinated and protected.

Ethics and Vaccines

Does it surprise you that many folks don’t actually understand what the real ethical issues are in the “vaccine debate?”

Questions about ethics often come up when Dr. Bob talks about vaccines.

To begin with, there is no real vaccine debate.

Vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary.

“But how can anything with known side effects be forced, knowing some will definitely be harmed?”
Dr. Bob Sears

Dr. Bob’s statement helps illustrate why this isn’t a debate.

No one is forced to get vaccinated.

And how can you say that “some will definitely be harmed” without defining what some actually means?

Severe reactions to vaccines are very rare. Fortunately, they are even more rare than the risks of a complication from a vaccine-preventable disease. And that’s why the great majority of people choose (they aren’t forced) to vaccinate and protect their kids.

Remember, a vaccine mandate that says you have to be vaccinated to attend daycare or school does not force anyone to get vaccinated. Folks still have a choice to not get vaccinated, even without access to non-medical vaccine exemptions, although they might not like what that choice entails, such as homeschooling or not being able to attend daycare or summer camp.

What about the idea of community responsibility?

Should you vaccinate your child just to protect everyone else in the community or should you just try to hide in the herd?

“One is morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion. The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine. This is especially important for parents, who have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them.”
The National Catholic Bioethics Center FAQ on the Use of Vaccines

Of course you should vaccinate them. But in getting them vaccinated and protected, you are not just protecting everyone else in the community. Getting vaccinated also protects your own child!

Similarly, when you skip or delay your child’s vaccines, it is not just your own child that is put at risk. If they get sick, especially since many vaccine-preventable diseases have long incubation periods and you can be contagious before you show symptoms, they can expose others and get them sick too. Where’s their choice?

If the people they expose are too young to be vaccinated, too young to be fully vaccinated and protected, or anyone with a problem with their immune system, the results can be tragic.

Is it ethical that someone decides to skip or delay their child’s vaccines and then, through no fault of their own, someone else dies after getting exposed to this unvaccinated child when they develop measles or chicken pox?

Remember the measles outbreaks of 2015? In addition to the large Disney Land measles outbreak, 2015 was infamous for a smaller outbreak in Clallam County.

“The death of a Clallam County woman this spring was due to an undetected measles infection that was discovered at autopsy. The woman was most likely exposed to measles at a local medical facility during a recent outbreak in Clallam County. She was there at the same time as a person who later developed a rash and was contagious for measles. The woman had several other health conditions and was on medications that contributed to a suppressed immune system. She didn’t have some of the common symptoms of measles such as a rash, so the infection wasn’t discovered until after her death. The cause of death was pneumonia due to measles. This tragic situation illustrates the importance of immunizing as many people as possible to provide a high level of community protection against measles.”
Measles led to death of Clallam Co. woman

There were five measles cases in that 2015 Clallam County, Washington outbreak, including four who were not vaccinated. The outbreak cost at least $223,223 to contain and led to the death of a woman who just happened to be at a health clinic as one of the infected people.

Want to dismiss this case as being too rare to worry about? Just look at what is happening across Europe, with the rise in measles cases and measles deaths over the last few years.

Ethically, why should you vaccinate?

That’s easy, so that your kids don’t get a life-threatening vaccine-preventable disease. And so that they don’t expose others, potentially giving them a life-threatening disease that they are too young to be vaccinated against, couldn’t be vaccinated against because they had a true medical exemption, or were vaccinated against but are still susceptible to because they now have a problem with their immune system.

Are vaccine preventable diseases not common enough for you to be concerned about these days? You know that’s because most folks vaccinate their kids, don’t you? Do we need to go back to the pre-vaccine era before more vaccine-hesitant parents will start vaccinating their kids?

“I also warn them not to share their fears with their neighbors, because if too many people avoid the MMR, we’ll likely see the diseases increase significantly.”

Dr. Bob Sears in The Vaccine Book

What about the risks of vaccines?

While vaccines are not 100% safe, they do not cause all of the vaccine injuries and vaccine-induced diseases that anti-vaccine folks push. The real risk is believing their propaganda and leaving your child unvaccinated and unprotected.

“It is UNETHICAL to expect me to sacrifice my child for yours—especially when I know that sacrifice won’t even stop the disease from spreading. It’s time for people to stop touting their “moral superiority and selflessness” when it comes to this topic; because if you really understood how this all works, there would be nothing for you to be proud of.”
Melissa Floyd (she apparently does a podcast with Dr. Bob)

Here is where the misinformed consent comes in and ethics go out the window:

only if you say everything is a vaccine injury can you begin to imagine that you are sacrificing your child by getting them vaccinated
although vaccines aren’t 100% effective, they work very well to protect us against disease and keep us from getting others sick, even those vaccines that anti-vaccine folks like to say don’t prevent the spread of diseases

And for the record, few of us think that we are morally superior to anyone else for vaccinating and protecting our kids. We just understand that many anti-vaccine folks are victims of their cognitive biases and need to do more research. And we know that it is UNETHICAL for parents to sacrifice their kids to anti-vaccine propaganda.

How Do You Provide Informed Consent to Vaccination?

When you take your child to their pediatrician, you expect to be given all of the information you need to help you make good decisions about their care.

Whether it is about an antibiotic to treat an ear infection, the need for an MRI if your child is having severe headaches, or weaning off an asthma medication, etc., you deserve to be well informed of the risks and benefits of any and all procedures they have.

How Do You Provide Informed Consent to Vaccination?

Of course, informed consent also applies to vaccinations.

It's not an "informed consent form," but the Vaccine Information Statement can help you get informed consent before getting vaccines. — It’s not an “informed consent form,” but the Vaccine Information Statement can help you get informed consent before getting vaccines.

How do you provide informed consent to vaccination?

Provide the latest edition of the appropriate Vaccine Information Statement (VIS) before a vaccination is given. Although these aren’t actually “informed consent forms,” they are required to be given by federal law and because “cover both benefits and risks associated with vaccinations, they provide enough information that anyone reading them should be adequately informed”
Give parents/guardians the chance to take the VIS home to review later.
Answer any questions about the vaccine that their child is about to get.

Hopefully you always get informed consent before your child is vaccinated.

You should also get informed consent before skipping or delaying any of your child’s vaccines, as it risks their getting a life-threatening vaccine-preventable disease and puts others at risk, all without any extra benefit.

“At trial, the parent and physician both acknowledged that the vaccine was recommended, but the parent stated that the risk of death wasn’t mentioned during the discussion.”
Document ‘informed refusal’ just as you would informed consent

Believe it or not, a pediatrician in California was successfully sued after a parent refused to vaccinate their child with Prevnar and their infant died of pneumococcal sepsis, which the vaccine could have prevented.

Although they realized that their pediatrician had recommended the vaccine and they refused it, they claimed that they didn’t realize that their baby could die without it. He did…

Myths About Informed Consent and Vaccines

Not surprisingly, many folks get the idea of informed consent to vaccination wrong.

For one thing, unless it is required by state law, no one has to sign a consent form before getting vaccinated. Many pediatricians and clinics do have you sign that you received the VIS, although federal law does not require this signature.

And informed consent doesn’t come from reading a vaccine’s package insert, as the parts pushed by anti-vaccine folks are just things included from voluntary reports and have not actually been proven to be caused by the vaccine.

“Now that case one is settled, I can go back to being loud and proud about my belief that every single patient should receive complete informed consent prior to vaccinations. This two-year period of silence has been tough. I will not rest until every single family has been given access to full, complete, objective, and un-doctored information that makes every parent fully aware of the risks they accept if they don’t vaccinate their child, and all the risks they take if they do vaccinate their child. Period. And I will fight against mandatory vaccination laws until they are no more. When every single person on this planet has access to informed consent, and can make a free choice, I will then be able to say my work is done.”
Dr. Bob Sears

When Dr. Bob talks about vaccines, do you think he mentions the parents who skipped the Prevnar vaccine and then successfully sued their pediatrician for not warning them that their baby would die?

Dr. Bob Sears actually reassured parents that measles wasn't deadly in developed countries, neglecting to mention the dozens of people who have died in outbreaks in Europe - another well-nourished population with lower vaccination rates than the U.S. — Dr. Bob Sears actually reassured parents that measles wasn’t deadly in developed countries, neglecting to mention the dozens of people who have died in outbreaks in Europe – another well-nourished population with lower vaccination rates than the U.S.

Overstating the side effects and risks of getting vaccinated, rarely or ever mentioning the benefits of vaccines, and underestimating the complications and risks of life-threatening vaccine-preventable diseases isn’t informed consent.

It is actually misinformed consent.

It is propaganda.

It is a tool that some folks use to scare you away from making the right decision to vaccinate and protect your kids.

Parents deserve informed consent about vaccines. Unfortunately, that’s not what they are getting from the modern anti-vaccine movement.

Vaccine Analogies and Metaphors

Analogies and metaphors are a good way to explain things, including that vaccines are safe and necessary.

We are sunk if we stop vaccinating. — As the CDC explains, we are sunk if we stop vaccinating.

Here are some of my favorite vaccine analogies and metaphors.

Getting vaccinated is like:

applying sunscreen before going to the beach
applying insect repellent before going camping in the woods
making sure that your kids are wearing a seat belt or sitting in an age-appropriate car seat or booster seat when you get in the car
installing anti-virus software on your new computer

When do you put on your seat belt? When you get in the car, before you get in an accident. Just like a vaccine. You get it before you get sick. Yes, some vaccines do work after you have been exposed to an illness, but they don’t work after you are already sick.

There is a problem with these metaphors though; they don’t include the risks to other people.

These do:

taking driver’s ed and getting your license before driving
taking swimming lessons before going in the water without a life jacket
putting your gun in a locked safe
putting a fence around your backyard so that no one in your neighborhood can drown in your pool
making sure folks don’t text and drive

That’s right.

Vaccination equals protection.

And not just protection for the person getting vaccinated. Being unvaccinated puts others at risk too, as you might start an outbreak.

Getting your kids vaccinated is like taking them to swimming lessons instead of just throwing them in the lake. Either way they can learn to swim and have protection/immunity from drowning. But one method (throwing them in the lake) is much more dangerous than the other.

Analogies can also help explain how vaccines work.

“Vaccines are a like a wanted poster, they just show your body what the bad guys look like, so when faced with them for real you are ready, prepared, and able to stop them before they cause harm.”

Can vaccines overwhelm the immune system?

Are there analogies that explain the idea of free-riders – folks who intentionally don’t vaccinate their kids and attempt to hide in the herd?

“If all my child’s friends are vaccinated, won’t he be protected by herd immunity? Why should I put my child at risk for vaccine reactions if all the other children around him are already immune?

This is like riding in a carpool where everyone contributes each month to pay for gas, repairs and parking. One morning, a new neighbor shows up and says, “I think I’ll ride along with you. But I’m not going to pay, since you’re going downtown anyway and you have an empty seat.” If enough people choose to take a free ride on other children’s immunity, herd immunity will soon disappear.”

Why is herd immunity so important?

And to explain the idea of what some folks consider vaccine injuries.

“I have found that it sometimes helps to give parents an analogy. I ask them the following: If they were to put gas in their car and then later got a flat tire, would that mean putting gas in the car had caused the flat tire? No. The two events were just a coincidence.”

Karen Lewis on What Vaccine Safety Means

What are some good analogies to describe how some anti-vax folks think?

Since that bridge isn’t 100% safe (I Googled that some bridges have collapsed), I’m going to let my kids swim across this river with fast moving water.

Have you heard the bridge analogy?

There are also versions with crocodiles in the water…

In case it’s not clear, in this analogy, walking across the bridge is like getting vaccinated. Swimming across the river is like intentionally not vaccinating your kids.

There are plenty of other good analogies that help to explain the importance of vaccines.

“Clusters of unvaccinated people are like patches of dry grass that, with a single match, can start a wildfire that will burn not only dry material, but sometimes wet as well. The match could be a student who returns from a trip abroad with measles or a train commuter with whooping cough.”

Saad Omer

It’s also important to remember that anyone, even those who are well prepared, can get burned in a wildfire. That’s why the analogy works so well.

“Vaccinating one’s children is like paying taxes. We all have a moral and a legal duty to pay taxes because we have a moral and a legal duty to contribute to the upkeep of our society and to its public goods (e.g., a good public health system, national defence, etc.).”

Vaccine Refusal Is Like Tax Evasion

Why are we concerned about those who are unvaccinated if our own children are fully vaccinated?

“Think of camping as an analogy. If everyone at a campground properly stores their food, bears won’t be enticed to come around. If even one person leaves their food unprotected, it invites bears in to investigate all the campsites for opportunities to eat.”

How does choosing not to immunize affect the community?

These analogies help explain how unvaccinated folks put others at risk.

“Being intentionally unvaccinated against highly contagious diseases is, to carry Holmes’ analogy a bit further, like walking down a street randomly swinging your fists without warning. You may not hit an innocent bystander, but you’ve substantially increased the chances that you will.

One might usefully analogize the risk of disease to a crapshoot. A person’s chance of being infected is, as Dr. Singer acknowledges, a matter of luck. But is it really OK for the unvaccinated to load the dice to increase the odds against other people? If so, by how much?”

Ronald Bailey on Vaccines and the Responsibility To Not Put Others at Risk

Of course, there are plenty of bad vaccine analogies and metaphors that anti-vaccine folks push:

getting vaccinated is like rape
getting vaccinated is like the Holocaust
“genes load the gun but the vaccines pull the trigger”
vaccine manufacturers are like tobacco manufacturers
I won’t set my child on fire to keep yours warm (this doesn’t work as a vaccine analogy, mostly because there is no benefit to setting your child on fire. Would an anti-vaxxer let their child start a campfire to keep their friends from dying in the cold?)
getting a vaccine is like eating a handful of M&Ms out of a big bowl when you know that a few have been poisoned
getting a child vaccinated is like giving 1,000 kids 1,000 cupcakes, telling them to pick one and eat it, knowing that one of the cupcakes is poisoned (it’s maybe like letting a child with a severe peanut allergy choose a cupcake, knowing that there is a one in a million chance that the cupcake he chooses has been made with peanuts…)
I want safer cars, but that doesn’t make me anti-car

You understand why the anti-car one is a bad analogy, right? Folks who want safer cars generally still drive and ride in cars!

Have you heard any good or bad analogies or mataphors about vaccines?

How Do Anti-Vaccine Folks Think?

Does it sometimes seem like anti-vaccine folks are speaking a foreign language?

It definitely seems like they misunderstand and misuse a lot of scientific terms, like evidence, research, and toxin, doesn’t it?

Anti-Vaccine Glossary

The first step to understanding someone who is truly anti-vaccine and unnecessarily puts their kids at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases, might be to understand how they misunderstand most things about vaccines…

Measles is highly contagious, which is likely why all of the Brady kids got sick. — Anti-vax folks get the message of the Brady Bunch measles episode all wrong…

For example, many of them believe that anecdotes and case studies are strong evidence and on par with the preponderance of evidence that has shown that vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary.

What other terms do they get wrong?

When you say…	Anti-Vaccine folks think…
research	I googled it and found something on an anti-vaccine website that confirms what I already thought
peer review	I had my anti-vaccine friends, some of whom are actually in charge of the journal, take a look at it
personal stories	can only be anecdotal vaccine injury scare stories, but never about regretting a skipped vaccine or personal stories about vaccine-preventable diseases
aluminum	mercury
consensus	my anti-vaccine friends on Facebook
shills	anyone who supports vaccines
pediatrician	a vaccine pusher
science	pseudoscience
learn the risk	learn the exaggerated risks of vaccines that I’m going to scare you about
expert	anyone who agrees with me
unavoidably unsafe	vaccines can’t ever be safe to anyone in any circumstance ever
toxin	anything and everything that sounds sciency
placebo	pure saline
chemical	anything that isn’t natural, not understanding that everything is a chemical
scientist	anyone who took a science class in high school or college
doctor	typically a chiropractor
medicine	non-evidence based therapies that don’t involve Big Pharma, aren’t covered by insurance, and are likely very expensive
risk	can only come from a vaccine, never from skipping or delaying a vaccine or from a vaccine-preventable disease
shedding	what happens when someone gets a vaccine
vaccine injury	anything and everything bad that happens to you in the days, weeks, months, and years after you get vaccinated or in the days, weeks, months, and years before you were born because of the vaccines your parents or grandparents received
religious vaccine exemption	I just don’t want to vaccinate and protect my kids, so will lie and say it is about religion
vaccine preventable disease	since many anti-vaccine folks don’t really think that vaccines work, they might act more confused if you use this term
informed consent	when I tell you all of the bad stuff about vaccines, most of which isn’t true, and leave out any talk of benefits
leaky gut	explains every major problem kids have after getting vaccinated
MAPS doctors	the new DAN doctors
VAERS	a list of vaccine-injuries
herd immunity	doesn’t exist, but can only happen from natural immunity
hiding in the herd	what used to protect unvaccinated kids, until more and more folks started listening to us to our anti-vaccine propaganda
package inserts	can be used to scare parents about SIDS and autism
do your research	go to an anti-vaccine forum or website
cherry picking	what does picking cherries have to do with vaccines???
natural immunity	easy life-long immunity without any consequences
vaccine choice	I want to do it my way, no matter how many choices I have
germ theory	germs don’t cause disease and if they did, vaccines didn’t stop them, it was better nutrition and sanitation
homeopathy	vaccines don’t work, weekly chiropractic adjustments can keep you healthy, and natural immunity is best, but buy some homeopathic vaccines anyway
essential oils	definitely not being sold as part of a multi-level marketing scheme
monkey pox	just smallpox renamed
Guillain-Barré Syndrome	just polio renamed
roseola	just measles renamed
SIDS	a vaccine injury
vitamin K	a vaccine to be avoided
cognitive dissonance	how we sleep at night after skipping or delaying vaccines and leave our kids unnecessarily unprotected from life-threatening diseases
Andrew Wakefield	“…Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ rolled up into one.”

Get it?

It’s why many people have a hard time talking to friends and family members who are anti-vaccine. And even visits to the pediatrician to talk about vaccines don’t always go so well.

VAXOPEDIA

I’m Not Anti-Vaccine, I Just Don’t Believe in the HPV Vaccine