Tag: vaccine research

Who’s Who in the Anti-Vaccine Movement – 2019 Edition

We know that there will always be some folks who won’t vaccinate their kids.

“Although many may characterize all individuals who eschew vaccines as “anti-vaccine” or “vaccine deniers,” in reality, there is a broad spectrum of individuals who choose not to have themselves or their children vaccinated.”

Tara C Smith on Vaccine Rejection and Hesitancy: A Review and Call to Action 

Who are these people?

Who’s Who in the Anti-Vaccine Movement – 2019 Edition

We used to conveniently call them anti-vaccine, but that doesn’t really work.

Well, it still does, as long as you understand who you are talking about.

The thing is, the folks who don’t vaccinate their kids exist on a spectrum, from those who just need a little extra reassurance (the worrieds) or a lot of extra reassurance (parents who are on the fence or vaccine-hesitant), to vaccine refusers (will likely vaccinate during an outbreak, etc.) and deniers who likely aren’t vaccinating their kids in any circumstance and who might try to persuade others to avoid vaccines too – the vocal vaccine deniers.

So you don’t really want to bunch them all up one big anti-vaccine group, especially when you are typically talking about the vocal vaccine deniers, many of whom believe that they have a child who was injured or damaged by a vaccine.

We are still missing some folks though…

No, I’m not talking about those who like to claim that they are pro-safe vaccines, pro-choice vaccines, or vaccine skeptics, just because they don’t want to be labeled as being anti-vaccine.

Bob Sears appeared on Fox & Friends in 2010 for the segment "Vaccines: A Bad Combination?"
Remember when Bob Sears appeared on Fox & Friends in 2010 for the segment “Vaccines: A Bad Combination?”

We need to talk about the:

These are the folks who push misinformation about vaccines that scares parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

Who's to blame for low immunization rates and continuing outbreaks?
Who’s to blame for low immunization rates and continuing outbreaks?

Do you know who I’m talking about it? Have you noticed that these folks never seem to face any consequences?

Who else do we need to talk about?

I remember speaking with my mother about vaccines, and at one point in our discussion, she claimed a link existed between vaccines and autism. In response, I presented evidence from the CDC which claimed directly in large bold letters, “There is no link between vaccines and autism.” Within the same article from the CDC on their official website, extensive evidence and studies from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) were cited. Most would assume when confronted with such strong proof, there would be serious consideration that your views are incorrect. This was not the case for my mother, as her only response was, “that’s what they want you to think.”

Ethan Lindenberger

There are also the folks who are pushing an anti-science agenda, making you think that mainstream doctors are bad and that anything holistic and natural must be good. Until the damage these folks are doing is seriously addressed, it won’t matter if we get a few anti-vaccine folks off of Amazon, Facebook and Pinterest.

Learn to be more skeptical. Do real research. Vaccinate your kids.

More on Who’s Who in the Anti-Vaccine Movement – 2019 Edition

What Are the Greatest Tricks Anti-Vaccine Folks Use to Persuade Parents to Skip Vaccines?

We are hearing a lot about anti-vaccine misinformation these days.

John Birch (B) and the other anti-vaccine heroes of the day on their way to fight the vaccination monster.
John Birch (B) and the other anti-vaccine heroes of the day on their way to fight the vaccination monster.

And how the anti-vaccine movement is using social media to persuade parents to skip their child’s vaccines, leaving them unprotected.

So how do they do it?

What Are the Greatest Tricks Anti-Vaccine Folks Use to Persuade Parents to Skip Vaccines?

If you want to understand the anti-vaccine movement, the first thing to know is that they have been around for centuries. That they are using social media is of course new, but their messages are basically the same.

They use scare tactics to try and make you believe that:

  1. vaccines are dangerous and injure people
  2. vaccines aren’t necessary because diseases are mild
  3. vaccines don’t even work

And you need all three elements, after all, even if you thought that vaccines were sometimes dangerous, you might want to vaccinate your kids if you thought that vaccines could stop an even more dangerous vaccine-preventable disease, right?

That’s why they keep all of your fear focused on the vaccines!

It is this fear that allows several cognitive biases, heuristics, and logical fallacies to take hold and change your perception of risk into something that is much different from reality.

And that’s maybe the ultimate trick – making you think that the risks of vaccines are greater than the risks of catching a vaccine-preventable disease or even greater than the risks of having a vaccine-preventable disease.

But what about the graphs they have, the autism studies, the vaccine injury stories, Whistleblowers, complaints about saline placebos, the idea that better hygiene and sanitation fixed everything, and all of the claims of toxins and the conspiracy theories about Big Pharma?

Anti-vaccine folks are constantly moving the goalposts…

These and every new argument they come up with are easily refuted.

When will you stop listening to them?

“Thank you Chairman Alexander, Senator Murray, and distinguished committee members for the opportunity to speak today. Good morning, everyone. My name is Ethan Lindenberger and I am a senior at Norwalk High School. My mother is an anti-vaccine advocate that believes vaccines cause autism, brain damage, and do not benefit the health and safety of society despite the fact such opinions have been debunked numerous times by the scientific community. I went my entire life without vaccinations against diseases such as measles, chicken pox, or even polio. However, in December of 2018, I began catching up on my missed immunizations despite my mother’s disapproval, eventually leading to an international story centered around my decisions and public disagreement with my mother’s views.”

Testimony of Ethan Lindenberger Student at Norwalk High school Before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee March 5th, 2019

Should kids really have to hope that they grow up without getting a vaccine-preventable disease so that they can get themselves vaccinated?

“I have discovered along the way that it is easy for parents to be misinformed. It is a real challenge to be well informed.”

Suzanne Walther on A Parent’s Decision on Immunization: Making the Right Choice

Vaccines are safe, with few risks, and necessary.

It might be a challenge, but it is worth the effort to be well informed about vaccines. It is worth knowing that your kids are vaccinated and protected.

More on the Greatest Tricks Anti-Vaccine Folks Use to Persuade Parents to Skip Vaccines


Is Larry Cook an International Threat to Pharma?

Larry Cook?

An International threat to Pharma?

Does Larry Cook really think that he needs bodyguards because Big Pharma is coming for him?
Does Larry Cook really think that he needs bodyguards because Big Pharma is coming for him?

Your first thought on seeing this was likely “Larry who?,” right?

Is Larry Cook an International Threat to Pharma?

To catch you up, Larry Cook is one of the newer heroes of the anti-vaccine movement.

He rose up post-SB 277 (the California vaccine law) on Facebook, with an anti-vaccine group that pushes stories that he claims are of kids who have died after they were vaccinated.

Larry Cook is not just about opposing vaccine mandates.

He has created a group to scare parents away from vaccinating their kids because he seems to believe that vaccines are dangerous and aren’t necessary.

Doing your vaccine research with Larry Cook is like learning about astronomy from a member of the Flat Earth Society.
Doing your vaccine research with Larry Cook is like learning about astronomy from a member of the Flat Earth Society.

Is he a threat to Pharma?

He’s only a threat to the folks who listen to him!

Vaccines are safe, with few risks, and with all of the outbreaks we are seeing, they are obviously very necessary.

Is Larry Cook an International Threat to Pharma?

Behind the Curtain of the Anti-Vaccine Movement

Ever wonder what anti-vaccine folks talk about?

How they do their research?

Behind the Curtain of the Anti-Vaccine Movement

Here you go!

How do you argue the point that vaccines killed off all of the diseases?
That seems like a reasonable question…

There is a good reason that folks have a hard time arguing this point.

Vaccines work.

But let’s see how they do…

It is with her summary that says you can treat cancer naturally and without chemotherapy.
It is with her summary that says you can treat cancer naturally and without chemotherapy.

The idea that we simply renamed diseases to make them disappear has to be the silliest anti-vaccine claim that you will hear. If that’s true, why not come out with an RSV vaccine or an HIV vaccine and rename those diseases?

If smallpox was renamed to monkey pox, then where are all of the kids with monkey pox?
If smallpox was renamed to monkey pox, then where are all of the kids with monkey pox?

The idea that better hygiene, sanitation, and good nutrition made now vaccine-preventable diseases go away is a very good theory, because those things did actually improve the mortality rates for most things in the early part of the 20th century. Unfortunately, those effects plateaued by the 1930s.

When my uncle got polio in Brooklyn in the early 1950s, our family and access to very good hygiene, sanitation and nutrition. It didn’t help. Remember, a lot of people were still dying at the time from polio, pertussis, diphtheria, and measles.

It was vaccines.

Actually, it’s the charts and graphs with declining mortality rates from better hygiene and sanitation in the early 20th century that anti-vaccine folks can use to fool folks into thinking that vaccines don’t work. If they actually look at disease rates, with a few exceptions, they will see that they were mostly unchanged.

Charts with mortality rates won't prove their point, but are their only chance to fool folks. They have no chance if they use disease rates...
Charts with mortality rates won’t actually prove their point, but are their only chance to fool folks. They have no chance if they use disease rates…

This is actually an interesting idea. Do viruses and bacteria become attenuated or less dangerous over time? Considering that smallpox was around for thousands of years and was still deadly right up until it was eradicated, in general, there is plenty of evidence against this idea. You can also look at polio, which still paralyzing people.

Scarlet fever has become less dangerous, but no evidence that many other diseases have over time.
Scarlet fever has become less dangerous, but no evidence that many other diseases have over time.
Sanitation, plumbing, clean food, hygiene worked to get rid of diseases - anything but vaccines...
Anything but vaccines…

This is another silly idea. It implies that vaccines actually cause outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease. If this were true, then as we have been vaccinating more and more people, wouldn’t rates for all of these diseases have been going up over the years? And how did we eradicate smallpox? How are we so close to eradicating polio?

Then why do we see outbreaks in clusters of folks who are mostly intentionally unvaccinated.

Instead, we see outbreaks in clusters of folks who are mostly intentionally unvaccinated and no, it’s not just during “shedding season.”

Witch's brew of vaccines?
Again, anything but vaccines…

Do you really believe that ‘they’ are purposely “releases (sic) these diseases again, to cause hysteria, to get people back in their corner vaccinating again?”

It's a conspiracy! Big Pharma!!!
It’s a conspiracy! Big Pharma!!!
Vaccines are not killing people.
And yet, life expectancy and infant mortality rates are going up…

We know why they are coming back… It ain’t magic.

Are you prepared to argue their point now?

Did they convince you that we renamed diseases, flushing toilets and clean water got rid of all diseases, vaccines cause outbreaks, or that all of the diseases we developed vaccines for just naturally got milder and went away?

Or did they convince you to go out and vaccinate and protect your kids?

More on Behind the Curtain of the Anti-Vaccine Movement

Fact Checking Sharyl Attkisson on the Measles Outbreaks

Breaking News!

Erin Elizabeth and Sharyl Attkisson reporting on measles outbreaks. What could go right?
Erin Elizabeth and Sharyl Attkisson reporting on measles outbreaks. What could go right?

Anti-vaccine folks are spreading fake news and propaganda from Sharyl Attkisson again.

Fact Checking Sharyl Attkisson on the Measles Outbreaks

While that’s probably not really news to anyone, let’s see what we got here…

“Bottom line is that they say that 31 of the 124 are not vaccinated. So guess what that means? You do the math, the rest are vaccinated.”

Erin Elizabeth

Her source?

An abc7NY article, Health Alert: 124 cases of measles now confirmed in Rockland County, which apparently was talking about both the outbreak in New York and another outbreak in Washington.

There are 35 cases in Washington, and “officials confirm that 31 of those confirmed patients had not been vaccinated against measles.”

What about in New York?

When this was published, there were 96 cases in Rockland County, 50 cases in Brooklyn, and 6 cases in Orange County. Almost all cases were unvaccinated.
When this was published, there were fewer cases in the outbreak, but still, almost all cases were unvaccinated.

Although the case counts have gone up – 128 in Rockland County and 64 in Brooklyn, it is unlikely that the percentages of unvaccinated to vaccinated have changed that much.

You do the math, even with the extra cases, you can’t get to 93 vaccinated people in the outbreak.

Bottom line, as in every other measles outbreak, the kids in the New York measles outbreak are almost all unvaccinated.

At it's worst, measles causes encephalitis or kills you! What's wrong with these people?
At it’s worst, measles causes encephalitis or kills you! What’s wrong with these people?

Anti-vaccine folks are panicking over the outbreaks and are putting out misinformation in overdrive.

“This is a very big article for us.”

Erin Elizabeth

Erin apparently thought she had a scoop. She “found” the first measles outbreak in which most kids were vaccinated! Except she didn’t… If she had done a little research and checked the outbreak stats on the health department website, she would have seen that.

Or she could have just read the article…

The 31 unvaccinated folks in the abc7NY article are clearly from the Oregon/Washington Outbreak.
The 31 unvaccinated folks in the abc7NY article are clearly from the Oregon/Washington Outbreak.

Don’t let them scare you into keeping your kids unvaccinated and at risk, especially when measles is on the rise.

More on Fact Checking Sharyl Attkisson on the Measles Outbreaks

What Are Anti-Vaccine Folks Saying About the Measles Outbreaks?

If your kids are intentionally not vaccinated and you live in an area where there is a big measles outbreak, then you are hopefully saying, “where can I get an MMR for my child.”

There were 23 measles cases in Orange County in 2014 and an additional 35 cases in 2015.

And you hope that your “vaccine friendly” pediatrician has vaccines and will actually vaccinate your kids…

What Are Anti-Vaccine Folks Saying About the Measles Outbreaks?

And while many parents change their minds and ending up vaccinating their kids when faced with an outbreak, you likely won’t be surprised about what some folks think or say during an outbreak of measles.

Actually, the CDC said that there was no ongoing, single, multi-state outbreak of measles. Instead, there were lots and lots of little outbreaks.

Yes, these are the things anti-vaccine folks say to try and reassure themselves that they made a good decision to intentionally leave their kids unvaccinated and at risk for a life-threatening disease. One that their kids are even more at risk of getting, because there is an outbreak in their community.

Of course, most folks in measles outbreaks are unvaccinated. It isn’t spread by those who are vaccinated.
And these outbreaks are never caused by shedding or a vaccine strain of measles.
Reporting about outbreaks to help get them under control is not media hysteria. And yes, measles made the headlines in the pre-vaccine era.
That’s because measles didn’t kill everyone who got sick. But there were about 500 measles deaths each year in the United States in the pre-vaccine era. Those folks all had stories, whether or not you ever heard them.
Vitamin A as a treatment for measles is typically helpful if you have a vitamin deficiency. It is probably not going to be very helpful in a developed country.
Homeopathic remedies will do nothing. Google it.
And yet measles was referred to as a harmless killer, because while many kids didn’t recover, others died or had complications, like encephalitis.
Measles is not a deadly disease if you don’t ever get it. And are you really not going to vaccinate your kids because the Brady Bunch had an episode about the measles?
This copypasta links to a post that left out the part of the article that told folks to get vaccinated…
God I hope that measles parties aren’t going to become a thing.
What scares folks about measles? Anti-vaccine misinformation about vaccines.

While you’re researching measles, do a little research about vaccines too.

Yes, a woman who got caught up in the 2015 measles outbreaks in Washington died.
Yes, a woman who got caught up in the 2015 measles outbreaks in Washington died.

Your kids will feel better if they are vaccinated and protected and don’t have measles.

More on What Anti-Vaccine Folks Are Saying About the Measles Outbreaks

Propaganda Busting Confirms Anti-vaccine Sites Photoshop Images

Spend a few minutes going through our list of anti-vaccine PRATTs, and you will quickly realize that they just push misinformation and propaganda.

Propaganda Busting Confirms Anti-vaccine Sites Photoshop Images

How easy is it to refute their claims?

Consider this “article” about measles outbreaks…

It shows an infant with chicken pox.

While that could be a simple mistake, it is actually a Photoshopped stock image of an infant with chicken pox that adds a big scary needle and syringe, that I guess is supposed to represent a vaccine.

Where's the syringe and needle?
Where’s the syringe and needle?

The thing is, neither the chicken pox nor MMR vaccine look like that and neither would be given with such a long needle!

In fact, that needle is about twice the size as any needle that would be used on an infant or toddler, which is why they had to Photoshop a separate photo of a big syringe and needle onto the infant with chicken pox.

It's just a stock image of a big syringe and needle...
It’s just a stock image of a big syringe and needle…

Now that you know that the photo is make-believe, you shouldn’t be surprised that their “article” is too.

This erroneous thinking has led the public, media and government alike to attribute the origin of measles outbreaks, such as the one reported at Disney in 2015 (and which lead to the passing of SB277 that year, stripping vaccine exemptions for all but medical reasons in California), to the non-vaccinated, even though 18% of the measles cases occurred in those who had been vaccinated against it — hardly the vaccine’s two-dose claimed “97% effectiveness.”

Government Research Confirms Measles Outbreaks Are Transmitted By The Vaccinated

By itself, the number of cases in an outbreak doesn’t exactly tell you a vaccine’s effectiveness. You also have to know something about how many people were vaccinated and unvaccinated and the attack rate, etc.

“Among the 110 California patients, 49 (45%) were unvaccinated; five (5%) had 1 dose of measles-containing vaccine, seven (6%) had 2 doses, one (1%) had 3 doses, 47 (43%) had unknown or undocumented vaccination status, and one (1%) had immunoglobulin G seropositivity documented, which indicates prior vaccination or measles infection at an undetermined time.”

Measles Outbreak — California, December 2014–February 2015

Anyway, in the Disneyland outbreak, if you do the math correctly, you can see that only 8 of 110 were fully vaccinated, or about 7%.

What does that tell you about vaccine effectiveness?

Not much!

Again, we don’t know how many vaccinated vs unvaccinated folks were exposed and didn’t get measles.

We can guess though…

Most folks are vaccinated, even in California. So the fact that only 7% of the people that got measles in the outbreak were fully vaccinated actually says quite a lot about how effective the MMR vaccine really is.

What about the idea that vaccinated people are starting outbreaks and spreading measles?

While the vast majority of measles outbreaks are in fact traced to someone who is unvaccinated, there was one outbreak in 2011 that was “started” by someone who was vaccinated.

“She had documentation of receipt of MMR vaccination at 3 years and 4 years of age. There was no travel during the incubation period and no known sick contacts. However, the index patient worked at a theater frequented by tourists.”

Outbreak of Measles Among Persons With Prior Evidence of Immunity, New York City, 2011

Since even the MMR vaccine isn’t 100% effective, is it really so surprising that occasionally, someone who received two doses of the vaccine could get measles and pass it to others, especially considering that around 220 people got measles in the United States that year?

“During 2011, a provisional total of 222 measles cases were reported from 31 states… Most patients were unvaccinated (65%) or had unknown vaccination status (21%). Of the 222, a total of 196 were U.S. residents. Of those U.S. residents who had measles, 166 were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status, 141 (85%) were eligible for MMR vaccination, 18 (11%) were too young for vaccination, six (4%) were born before 1957 and presumed immune, and one (1%) had previous laboratory evidence of presumptive immunity to measles.”

Measles — United States, 2011

Is the MMR vaccine a failure because there were some still some outbreaks in the 1980s, before we started to give kids a second dose? The attack rate in many of these school outbreaks, in which many kids had one dose of MMR, was still only about 2 to 3%.

It is safe to blame a failure to vaccinate and intentionally unvaccinated kids for most of the recent measles outbreaks.

Is the MMR vaccine a failure because we still have outbreaks among intentionally unvaccinated kids and every once in a while, in someone who is fully vaccinated who gets caught up in an outbreak?

Of course not!

It is easy to do a little research, consider what disease rates looked like in the pre-vaccine era, and know that vaccines work and that they are necessary.

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