Tag: vaccine scare stories

What Is Vaccine Injury Denial?

Few people deny that vaccine injury is real.

Vaccine injuries, while rare, are certainly real.

That’s why we have table injuries, the Vaccine Court, and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

What Is Vaccine Injury Denial?

Again though, vaccine injuries are rare.

“Vaccine Injury Denialism is rampant across the mainstream media, where child-abusing vaccine pushers like the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN deliberately contribute to the holocaust of vaccine injuries now devastating humanity’s children. Sadly, the same denialism about the alarming growth in medical injuries caused by vaccines is also endemic across universities, science journals and medical schools, where doctors are indoctrinated into a kind of “Flat Earth” denialism of vaccine injury reality.”

Mike Adams on Vaccine Injury Denialism is the denial of fundamental human dignity

Claims of vaccine injury denial come when we are skeptical or don’t believe that anything and everything is a vaccine injury.

Barbara Loe Fisher's NVIC even claims that Shaken Baby Syndrome can be a vaccine injury.
Barbara Loe Fisher’s NVIC even claims that Shaken Baby Syndrome can be a vaccine injury.

For example, in some circles, if you point out that vaccines do not cause asthma, ADHD, autism, Celiac disease, diabetes, eczema, food allergies, infertility, multiple sclerosis, POTS, SIDS, or transverse myelitis, etc., then claims of vaccine injury denial begin to fly.

That shouldn’t be surprising, as these and other so-called vaccine induced diseases make up the bulk of the vaccine injury stories that scare many parents.

“IMAGINE YOU LIVE IN A COUNTRY in which a minority of people are taken in the middle of the night, and beaten, kicked, poisoned, half-drowned… they are crippled for life, maimed, and they are expected to accept a doctor’s or a judge’s view that “It wasn’t the Gestapo” or “It’s not even an injury”.

Imagine that minority amounted to tens of millions of people.

Now imagine that these victims are lured into traps by their own doctors with promises of medicine that will prevent illness – but in reality the doctors are paid for every patient they manage to convince to show up – and the doctors determine which injuries they caused and which were just “coincidences”.

Now imagine the media is primed to tell the world that no such injuries ever occur. Now your neighbors are denying it, calling you crazy for thinking there is a link…”

James Lyons-Weiler on Should Vaccine Risk/Injury Denial Be Prosecutable Offenses?

But doctors and the media, and your neighbors for that matter, don’t deny that claims of vaccine injury are real because of some grand conspiracy or simply because they want to.

It is because of research and science, understanding the difference between correlation and causation, and more research. And we understand that vaccines are both passively and actively monitored for side effects.

Vaccine injuries, although real, are rare.

The only denialism about vaccines that is important, is among those who deny that vaccines work and that they are safe and necessary.

What to Know About Vaccine Injury Denial

Anti-vaccine folks like to claim that anyone who doesn’t believe that vaccines cause all of their vaccine-induced diseases are part of a conspiracy of vaccine injury denial.

More on Vaccine Injury Denial

I Refuse to Listen to Bad Advice About Flu Shots, and I Won’t Apologize for It

The only thing that seems to be more rampant than the flu this season are the articles pushing people to skip a flu shot.

POPSUGAR moms will hopefully go somewhere else for advice about flu shots.
POPSUGAR moms will hopefully go somewhere else for advice about flu shots.

They. Are. Everywhere.

I Refuse to Listen to Bad Advice About Flu Shots

Why are we seeing so many folks attacking flu shots lately?

It’s simple. A bad flu season reminds people that they should get vaccinated and protected. We see the same thing when there are outbreaks of measles, mumps, and pertussis, etc.

And then those folks who are truly anti-vaccine have to come out and justify why they still don’t believe in vaccines.

That leaves us with arguments like this:

“Whenever I start to get worried that I’ll end up with the flu if I don’t get the shot, I remember that it isn’t always effective.”

Jen Glantz on Do You Need To Get A Flu Shot?

It is true that the flu shot is not always effective, but if you are only going to use things that are 100% effective, then why would you take “lots of vitamins and natural supplements” when you have the flu, things that have been shown to be ineffective?

“Side effects can include soreness around the injection side, a low-grade fever for a few days, and muscle aches. Now, I know that this may seem like a small price to pay to avoid getting the full-blown flu, but if I can avoid any sickness at all, why not try?”

Jen Glantz on Do You Need To Get A Flu Shot?

Uh, if you want to try and avoid any sickness, why not get a flu shot? Even when it isn’t as effective as we would like, a flu shot can help reduce your chance of hospitalization, serious flu complications, and of dying with the flu.

“Have you ever taken a step back and learned more about what the heck is actually inside the flu shot? ”

Jen Glantz on Do You Need To Get A Flu Shot?

I know exactly what’s in the flu shot.

Does anyone at POPSUGAR?

Got something you want published online? Head over to POPSUGAR...
Got something you want published online? Head over to POPSUGAR…

Even with a disclaimer from an Editor, POPSUGAR should be ashamed of themselves for publishing an article that says the flu shot is filled with toxins. In addition to an ingredients list, the CDC explains that “all ingredients either help make the vaccine, or ensure the vaccine is safe and effective.”

Flu shot ingredients are not toxins!

“Instead of injecting myself with toxins, I do things like practice good hygiene, take lots of vitamins and natural supplements, and rely on my body and it’s strength to fight off any unwanted bacteria. The human body is an incredible thing, and I trust it. I also like it to ride out things naturally.”

Jen Glantz on Do You Need To Get A Flu Shot?

The flu is a virus, not a bacteria, but I get the point that the author is attempting to make. The thing is though, that while the human body is certainly incredible, relying on it to get you over the flu is not always an easy ride. We often have to pay a high price for natural immunity.

And the people who die with the flu don’t die because of poor hygiene or because they don’t take enough vitamins and supplements. They die because they have the flu. And more often than not, especially in the case of children, because they are unvaccinated.

“For some people, getting the flu shot is at the very top of their to-do list, but for me, it’s something I refuse to do. And that’s OK too.”

Jen Glantz on Do You Need To Get A Flu Shot?

It is certainly OK that Jen Glantz doesn’t get a flu shot each year. At least it is OK as long as she doesn’t get the flu and give it to someone else.

It is not OK that POPSUGAR gives her a voice on such an important topic. Don’t listen to them.

It’s not as big a deal when she writes about the “importance” of drinking both hot and cold water each day, drinking apple cider vinegar for bloating, the best baby names of the year, or how to pee when wearing a wedding dress. That’s the kind of clickbait type content you expect from a POPSUGAR type site.

But scaring people and making them think that there are toxins in flu shots?

Save it for GOOP.

What to Know About Bad Flu Shot Advice

This year’s bad flu season wasn’t limited to folks getting sick… There was also a lot of bad flu shot advice going around.

More on Bad Flu Shot Advice

Hierarchy of Evidence and Vaccine Papers

Evidence is evidence, right?

Nope.

There is a hierarchy of evidence, from weakest to strongest, that help folks make decisions about science and medicine.

That’s why you can’t just search Google or PubMed, read abstracts, and say that you have done your research.

Hierarchy of Evidence

For any study, you have to review and judge the quality of the evidence it provides.

A meta-analysis with over 1.2 million kids found that vaccines were not associated with autism, while Wakefield's retracted case series included only 12 children.
A meta-analysis with over 1.2 million kids found that vaccines were not associated with autism, while Wakefield’s retracted case series included only 12 children.

Is it a case report (a glorified anecdote), case series, or animal study (lowest quality evidence)?

Or a systemic review or meta-analyses (highest quality evidence)?

“The first and earliest principle of evidence-based medicine indicated that a hierarchy of evidence exists. Not all evidence is the same. This principle became well known in the early 1990s as practising physicians learnt basic clinical epidemiology skills and started to appraise and apply evidence to their practice. Since evidence was described as a hierarchy, a compelling rationale for a pyramid was made.”

Murad et al. on the New Evidence Pyramid

What about case control studies, cohort studies, and randomized controlled trials?

They lie somewhere in between on the hierarchy of evidence scale or pyramid.

And there are other factors to consider when judging the reliability of a study.

“Ultimately, the interpretation of the medical literature requires not only the understanding of the strengths and limitations of different study designs but also an appreciation for the circumstances in which the traditional hierarchy does not apply and integration of complementary information derived from various study designs is needed.”

Ho et al. on Evaluating the Evidence

For example, you might also have to take into account the sample size of the study.

A study can be underpowered if it doesn’t have enough subjects. Unfortunately, even an underpowered study will give you results. They likely won’t be statistically significant results, but folks don’t always realize that.

Even a meta-analysis, usually considered to be at the top of the hierarchy of evidence pyramid, can have problems that make their results less useful, such as not using appropriate inclusion criteria when selecting studies and leaving out important studies.

All in all, there are many factors to look at when reading a medical paper and considering if the results are valid and should influence what you do and how you think. This is especially true when looking at low quality vaccine papers, many of which the anti-vaccine movement uses to scare people, even though they are often poorly designed, and several of which have been retracted.

What to Know About the Hierarchy of Evidence

Learning about the hierarchy of evidence can help you better evaluate medical studies and vaccine papers and understand that there is more to doing your research about vaccines than searching PubMed and reading abstracts.

More on the Hierarchy of Evidence

 

Anti-Vaccine Websites

Anti-vaccine websites are usually easy to spot.

They are typically filled with vaccine injury stories and articles about how vaccines are filled with poison (they aren’t), don’t really work (they do), and aren’t even needed (they certainly are).

And many will try to sell you fake vaccine detox kits and autism cures at the same time they are making you terrified about vaccines.

Anti-Vaccine Websites

All of the organizations that help autistic people agree that there is no association between vaccines and autism.
Most of these sites continue to push the idea that vaccines are connected to autism, even though all studies, and all major autism associations that actually help autistic kids say they aren’t.

Tragically, the pseudo-scientific arguments on many anti-vaccine websites can sometimes be persuasive, especially if you don’t understand that they are mostly the same old arguments that the anti-vaccine movement has been using for over 200 years to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

Sites that are considered anti-vaccine by most people and that push propaganda and myths include:

  • Age of Autism
  • Child Health Safety (The facts about vaccine safety your government wont give you)
  • The Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute
  • Collective Evolution
  • Cure Zone (educating instead of medicating)
  • David Avocado Wolfe
  • Fearless Parent
  • Focus for Health
  • GreenMedInfo (the science of natural healing)
  • The Healthy Home Economist
  • Immunity Education Group
  • Immunity Resource Foundation
  • InfoWars
  • International Medical Council on Vaccination
  • Kelly Brogan, MD
  • Lew Rockwell
  • Living Whole
  • Mercola
  • Modern Alternative Mama
  • Moms Across America
  • National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)
  • Natural News
  • Medical Academy of Pediatric Specials Needs
  • Physicians for Informed Consent
  • safeMinds
  • SaneVax
  • Talk About Curing Autism (TACA)
  • The Thinking Moms’ Revolution
  • Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute
  • Vaccination Information Network
  • Vaccination Liberation
  • Vaccine Awareness Network
  • Vactruth
  • Vaxxter
  • Weston A. Price Foundation
  • WHALE
  • World Mercury Project

If you were influenced about vaccines from one or more of these websites, consider doing a little more research.

Get educated and understand that vaccines are safe and necessary, with few risks and many benefits. Learn to think critically, be more skeptical about the things you see and read about vaccines, and overcome your biases.

What to Know About Anti-Vaccine Websites

Anti-vaccine websites use misinformation about vaccines, pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, propaganda, and a lot of fear to scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids.

More on Anti-Vaccine Websites

Anecdotes as Evidence

Evidence is evidence, right?

Not really.

There is a hierarchy of evidence, from weakest to strongest, that help folks make decisions about science and medicine.

In an age when everything is evidence of something, remember that anecdotes are not scientific evidence.

That’s why you can’t just search PubMed, read abstracts, and say that you have done your research. For any study, you have to review and judge the quality of the evidence it provides.

Is it a case report (a glorified anecdote), case series, or animal study (lowest quality evidence) or a systemic review or meta analyses (highest quality evidence)?

What about case control studies, cohort studies, and randomized controlled trials? They lie somewhere in between on the hierarchy of evidence scale.

Anecdotes as Evidence

And where do anecdotes fit in?

“Anecdotes are uncontrolled subjective observations. I have often criticized reliance on anecdotes, which is especially problematic in medicine. The problem with anecdotes is that they are subject to a host of biases, such as confirmation bias. They are easily cherry picked, even unintentionally, and therefore can be used to support just about any position. For every anecdote, there is an equal and opposite anecdote.”

Steven Novella on The Context of Anecdotes and Anomalies

Anecdotes are not scientific evidence.

Unfortunately, some people use anecdotal evidence to make some very serious decisions, including skipping or delaying their children’s vaccines, leaving them unvaccinated and unprotected.

“An anecdote is a story – in the context of medicine it often relates to an individual’s experience with their disease or symptoms and their efforts to treat it. People generally find anecdotes highly compelling, while scientists are deeply suspicious of anecdotes. We are fond of saying that the plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data.”

Steven Novella on The Role of Anecdotes in Science-Based Medicine

Believing that anecdotes are important scientific evidence is also what often drives some pediatricians to pander to fears that parents may have about vaccines, helping them create non-standard, parent-selected, delayed protection vaccine schedules.

What else do you need to know about anecdotal evidence?

Anecdotes are basically the fuel of the anti-vaccine movement.

“With little or no evidence-based information to back up claims of vaccine danger, anti-vaccine activists have relied on the power of storytelling to infect an entire generation of parents with fear of and doubt about vaccines. These parent accounts of perceived vaccine injury, coupled with Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent research study linking the MMR vaccine to autism, created a substantial amount of vaccine hesitancy in new parents, which manifests in both vaccine refusal and the adoption of delayed vaccine schedules.”

Shelby et al on Story and science

Well, anecdotes and fear – often combined in vaccine scare videos.

If you have been making your vaccine decisions based on anecdotes, it is time to do a little more research and get better educated about vaccines.

What to Know About Anecdotes as Evidence

Anecdotes, although they are easy to believe, are not scientific evidence, and certainly shouldn’t persuade you that vaccines aren’t safe, that vaccines aren’t necessary, or that vaccines are associated with autism.

More on Anecdotes as Evidence

 

Vaccine Injury Stories That Scare Parents

It is not uncommon to hear about parents having ‘panic attacks’ over the idea of vaccinating their kids.

“…many parents are inundated with horror stories of vaccine dangers, all designed to eat away at them emotionally while the medical and scientific communities have mounted their characteristic response by sharing the facts, the data, and all of the reliable peer-reviewed and well-cited research to show that vaccines are safe and effective.”

Federman on Understanding Vaccines: A Public Imperative

Or simply becoming anxious over an upcoming appointment for routine immunizations or to get caught up on vaccines.

What’s fueling all of this anxiety?

Vaccine Injury Stories That Scare Parents

Some of it is likely from the vaccine injury stories that they read  or videos they watch.

As parents get better at spotting the myths and misinformation behind the anti-vaccine movement, we are seeing more and more vaccine injury stories pop up to scare them.

“…recognizes the importance of examples—testimonials and stories—that are the lifeblood of vaccine-hesitant beliefs.”

Nathan Rodriguez on Vaccine-Hesitant Justifications

Vaccine injury stories aren’t new though.

These types of anecdotal stories were very popular when folks used to think that the DPT vaccine was causing a lot of side effects. It wasn’t though. And it was soon proven that the DPT vaccine didn’t cause SIDS, encephalitis, non-febrile seizures, and many other things it was supposed to have caused.

“Anecdotes – about a new miracle cure, a drug that is not being made available on the NHS, or the side effects of treatment, or some environmental hazard – sell product. Data, on the other hand, which take us towards the truth about these things, are less popular. Anecdotes, however many times they are multiplied, do not point the way to reliable knowledge. As the aphorism says, “The plural of anecdote is not data”.”

Raymond Tallis on Anecdotes, data and the curse of the media case study.

That anecdotes “sell” better than data may be one reason why you see them so often on anti-vaccine websites. Another is that they simply don’t have any good data to use as evidence!

Are Vaccine Injury Stories True?

Vaccines are not 100% safe, so there is no doubt that some vaccine injury stories are true.

There is also no doubt that what many people perceive to be vaccine injuries have actually been proven to not be caused by vaccines, from allergies and eczema to autism and MS.

“In the absence of a specific etiology for ASDs, and a tendency among parents of children with a disability to feel a strong sense of guilt, it is not surprising that parents attempt to form their own explanations for the disorder in order to cope with the diagnosis.”

Mercer et al on Parental perspectives on the causes of an autism spectrum disorder in their children

Also keep in mind that in addition to the many so-called vaccine induced diseases, there are many historical vaccine injury stories that have been shown to be untrue:

  • the first deaf Miss America did not have a vaccine injury
  • Johnnie Kinnear supposedly began having seizures 7 hours after getting a DPT vaccine, when he was 14-months-old, but medical records actually shown that his seizures started 5 months after he received his vaccines
  • Dravet syndrome now explains many severe seizures associated with vaccinations

And at least one of Wakefield’s own followers – a mother who claimed that the MMR vaccine caused her son’s autism, was “dismissed as a manipulative liar” by a court in the UK.

Vaccine Injury Stories are Dangerous

Do vaccine injury stories have a purpose? They might help a parent cope with a diagnosis in the short term, but vaccine injury stories are dangerous in so many ways.

We have seen how they create anxiety for many parents, which can scare them away from vaccinating and protecting their kids from life-threatening vaccine-preventable diseases.

What else can they do?

Driving a wedge between parents and pediatricians does not help autistic kids.
Driving a wedge between parents and pediatricians does not help autistic kids.

They can certainly build up mistrust towards pediatricians and other health professionals. That is one way that the anti-vaccine movement continues to hurt autistic families. They also can lead parents to think that their “vaccine injured” child is “damaged” in some way.

And they push parents towards dangerous, unproven, unnecessary, and expensive alternative treatments. It shouldn’t be a surprise that many of the sites and forums that push vaccine injury stories also promote a lot of dangerous advice.

From recommending goat milk for your baby and skipping your baby’s vitamin K shot to various kinds of detoxing “treatments,” these are not the folks you want to trust with the health of your child.

What to Know About Vaccine Injury Stories

Vaccine injury stories prey on the fears of parents, help drive a wedge between them and their pediatricians, and are considered by many experts to be the lifeblood of the anti-vaccine movement.

More on Vaccine Injury Stories

Vaccine Scare Stories and the Media

We know why some parents are hesitant to get their kids vaccinated and protected against vaccine preventable diseases.

“In today’s world, smallpox has been eradicated due to a successful vaccination program and vaccines have effectively controlled many other significant causes of morbidity and mortality. Consequently, fear has shifted from many vaccine-preventable diseases to fear of the vaccines.”

Marian Siddiqui et al on the Epidemiology of vaccine hesitancy in the United States

These vaccine-hesitant parents have become more afraid of vaccines than of the vaccine-preventable diseases that they have never seen – thanks to effective vaccine programs.

Although there have always been folks around pushing misinformation about vaccines, stoking those fears, there is no denying that vaccine scare stories in the media have played a very big role in the history of the modern anti-vaccine movement.

The Media’s Role in Pushing Vaccine Misinformation

The media has done a good job in helping vaccine controversies either get started or at least spreading to a lot of people.

In addition to helping to publicize the controversy in the first place, you are likely see false balance in their reporting, making it seem like many experts believe that these are real controversies.

“Many recent immunization programs have suffered setbacks from immunization scares. Children have been needlessly put into danger by frightened parents that refused immunization for their children after “scare stories” about particular vaccines.”

WHO on the Impact of rumours and crises

This was certainly true during the “media’s MMR hoax” surrounding Andrew Wakefield.

Why blame the media for Andrew Wakefield’s MMR scandal?

Did a case report about 12 kids really set off a panic about vaccines and autism? Of course, Wakefield deserves a lot of the blame too, but why were his papers so widely  publicized?

“Whatever you think about Andrew Wakefield, the real villains of the MMR scandal are the media.”

Ben Goldacre on The MMR story that wasn’t

Maybe because the British media didn’t learn anything after the pertussis outbreaks of the 1970s and 80s.

In 1973, Dr. John Wilson took to the media to scare parents because he had “seen too many children in whom there has been a very close association between a severe illness, with fits, unconsciousness, often focal neurological signs, and inoculation.” What followed was a drop in DPT vaccinations in many countries and vaccine lawsuits, even though his study was later found to be seriously flawed, with most having no link to the DPT vaccine.

When articles from daily and Sunday papers in Great Britain from the time were analyzed, they were found to be “irresponsible in their attitude” towards vaccines and often depicted “rare, negative events.”

In the United States, Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, one of the first celebrity, anti-vaccine pediatricians, was a frequent guest on Donahue and other talk shows during the 1970s and 80s.

And in 1982, Lea Thompson‘s anti-vaccine documentary DPT: Vaccine Roulette, helped start the modern American anti-vaccine movement.

“Many activists, like Robert Kennedy Jr., have blamed some vaccines for IQ loss, mental retardation and autism. I think that activists and lawyers may be killing people by frightening the public about vaccines. My own daughter got whooping cough after our pediatrician saw a 20/20 report that scared viewers about the whooping cough vaccine and didn’t give her the final vaccination. Fortunately, my daughter recovered, and she will appear on the program. I confront one of the lawyers about “scaring people for money.”

John Stossel 20/20 “Scared Stiff: Worry in America” (2007)

What followed were vaccine scare stories about DPT “hot lots,” vaccine injury stories on Nightline, and Jenny McCarthy on Oprah. There was also a lot of Wakefield on TV, from a 60 Minutes segment in 2000 to a long interview with Matt Lauer in 2009.

Vaccine Scare Stories

What else have we seen? Stories about:

The New York Times did a report about the First Deaf Miss America, saying a reaction to a DPT shot - she didn't.
The New York Times did a report about the First Deaf Miss America, saying a reaction to a DPT shot – she didn’t. The revised story didn’t get as much attention though.
  • hepatitis B vaccine causing multiple sclerosis
  • DPT and other vaccines causing SIDS
  • the HPV vaccines causing autoimmune diseases and other side effects

Lately, the media seems to be doing a better job talking about vaccines, except for a few cases, including Katie Couric discussing the HPV vaccine on her show in 2013 and the TODAY Show letting Robert DeNiro talk about Andrew Wakefield’s anti-vaccine movie VAXXED in 2016.

Worldwide, most vaccine scare stories are limited to tabloid type papers these days. The mainstream media is finally learning about the damage false balance in reporting can cause.

CBS News, who previously had been credited with having a four year run of “extremist views of vaccines and autism,” even ran a story recently educating viewers that dozens of studies have confirmed that the HPV vaccines are safe and that “We need to do better at protecting our children from cancers they never need to get.”

“The stories in the media have focused on anecdotal reports of adults and children who developed several different disorders after vaccination.”

Institute of Vaccine Safety Position on Hepatitis B Vaccines

Unfortunately, yesterday’s vaccine scare stories have been replaced by vaccine injury stories on Facebook and YouTube. These also focus on anecdotal reports of  children developing different disorders after getting their vaccines.

Are they the new fuel for the modern anti-vaccine movement?

Or is it talk about choice and mandates, making parents fear that they will be forced to vaccinate their kids?

Get educated about vaccines so you don’t get scared away from vaccinating and protecting your kids.

What To Know About Vaccine Scare Stories

Vaccine scare stories in the media, fueled by anecdotal reports and false balance in their reporting, have helped scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

More About Vaccine Scare Stories