At first I wasn't going to write this post since I believe that a film that appears to be (at least in part) based on thoroughly discredited, fear-mongering nonsense should get as little attention as possible.
Then after browsing several anti-vaccine and conspiracist websites I found as I suspected, that this has already exploded and whatever I write here won't make matters any worse.
The film 'Vaxxed' is directed by Mr Andrew Wakefield, a former physician who lost his medical license after research that he had authored, was found fraudulent (containing as I understand it, both methodological and ethical flaws).
Just watching the trailer for this film elevated my BP into dangerous territory. How is it that this man keeps promoting the same debunked data to this day? Hasn't it caused enough harm already?
It seems that anti-vaccine proponents span the entire spectrum from sadly misinformed to clearly unhinged. However, no matter what their individual motivation happens to be, they are in my opinion dangerous. We have fought a hard battle against diseases that today are vaccine-preventable. Millions of children have died in the past and some still do, to this day. We don't see much of it in first-world countries due to the success of vaccines. Anti-vaccine proponents seem to believe that the "olden days" were better. I think it's deeply worrisome.
In my escapades around the internet, I've found all sorts of scary blogs, clips and opinions relating to childhood vaccines.
This YouTube clip rather amusingly (in a sad way) has 90 likes and zero (!) dislikes (probably because no rational person would even click on it in the first place). (I'm not sure what this says about me)
Anyway this women thinks that nagalese (an enzyme) is added on purpose to vaccines in order to induce autism, cancer and type 2 diabetes in vaccine recipients. And the doctors who discovered this were subsequently murdered to cover this up. This vaccine tampering seems to be a part of some nefarious population control plot.
(It seems that alpha-N-acetylgalactoseaminidase (referred to as nagalese in the YouTube clip) can deglycosylate vitamin D binding protein (DBP) and DBP plays a role in the immune cascade response. So it seems that alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase can interfere with the immune response. While some cancer cells can release alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase, I've found no proof that injecting them into humans induces cancers, never mind autism and DMII. I will however admit that I didn't spend an inordinate amount of time researching her theory).
I admit that this last video is a bit extreme. But this woman and other "anti-vaxxers" have one thing on common. They are willing to accept something as true, even when there is no supporting evidence available.
Serious questions:
* Why are some people so vulnerable/susceptible to flawed logic and poor research?
* What can we as nurses/healthcare professionals do to ensure that our patients base their decisions on sound evidence-based facts or at least have the opportunity to do so? Or should we just reconcile ourselves with the fact that a portion of the population will base their decisions on questionable or outright false information, misconceptions and fear?
Unfortunately it is rooted in a need to blame someone/something for difficult circumstances and events, I think. Random chance and/or complex biochemistry are scary unknowns.
You will notice that pro-vaxxers provide a lot of anecdotal stories, not always strictly research statistics.
I had to reread this because I thought you were saying that anti-vaxxers provide a lot of anecdotal stories, not strictly research statistics and this I totally agree with! I don't think Mother Jones and natural news blogs are unbiased scientific resources, which they love to quote from
I also think that whenever someone posts real facts, real research and real statistics the anti-vaxxers say Oh No, I don't believe that!! Giving them real statistics doesn't look like it works. It's the anti-vaxxers who post the anecdotal stuff that makes scientific minded people roll their eyes and walk away from what I've read. If anti-vaxxers want to believe in science fiction then that's on them!
I have absolutely no desire to get into this debate; however, I wanted to make note that name calling on any side of a debate is not a good thing.
Whether you believe that vaccines are infallible, flawed or somewhere in between, when you make your argument calling the other side crazy, lunatic, dumb, stupid, retarded or uneducated, it makes you hateful.
Why would you NOT vaccinate your child against a disease that could potentially kill him/her?
I am not anti-vax.....but have tried to see both sides of the issue because I see both sides at work and in our school/home life. To answer the above question - the reason the anti-vaxxers dont vaccinate is because they are MORE afraid of the side effects of the vaccine than they are of contracting the disease. Simple as that. And yes, they know it's due to herd immunity that they may be less likely to get the disease.
Why are they more afraid of the side effects than the disease? Because we live in America, for one thing, where we are benefitting from availability of vaccines. Because even people who are "trained" to look at research are confused by all of the information available on the internet. Who do you believe? There are Drs on both sides of the issues that construe the data in favor of their hypotheses. The anti-vax people I know love Dr Sherry Tenpenny, Dr Mercola, etc. What bugs me about these "Drs" is that they do not work in Peds, PICUs, NICUs, public health.....they get to sit in an office telling the scared public what to do, while never seeing with their own eyes what these diseases can do. We do. What a difference that makes! Correct me if I'm wrong about this - I'll happily take it back.
What do I do? Sadly, I've given up. I say "Here is this information, please read it. If you have any questions, write them down and I'll make sure you can talk to the Dr about it." I let the Dr handle it because he/she is the most educated on the topic. Why do I do this? Because I'm never going to convince them. Their minds have already been made up by Dr Google. Need examples? Well I have a million in my head from the nightmares I've had taking care of the patients of these families and I dont have the energy to keep fighting anymore. They dont want to listen, they are too scared, there is no discussion possible anymore for most of them. In the anti-vaxers mind, I, an RN, represent those bad Big Pharma Allopathic people who they were already against before they opened the hospital doors. Maybe this isnt your experience, but it sure has been mine. I live in a part of the country that is both highly educated and loudly antivax in many places.
And yes, the conspiracy theorists only get louder as they age! I am shocked to know really lovely, smart people who truly dont think we were on the moon, dont think Sandy Hook actually happened, 9/11 was an inside job....you name it. (Scratching my head)
And one more thing - pls dont assume all homeschoolers are anti-vax. Like everything, many are, some arent.
If vaccines are so safe, why won't physicians or manufacturers take any liability, why use a special court?
If one had no liability for something and made a ton of money off of it, would they even want to know if it is safe or not?
Partent and individuals who choose to vax or not have skin in the game.†All these who say vaccines are safe have NO liability.
That is a fact.
Now you wonder why some people question the safety of vaccines?
You simply cannot allow a person of normal intellect to make a decision that requires brilliance, and is also detrimental to the health of society. That is why you cannot have a normal court.
There have been countless cases in history of companies' products being pulled for being unsafe. Why would vaccines be any different? Are you implying there is some shadow government behind this who are conspiring the downfall of mankind through injecting us with cancer and other diseases??
if your child was vaccinated against measles how would coming in contact with a person with measles affect your vaccinated child?( unless the vaccine doesn't give immunity.) so why would you take away someones freedom of choice. if you feel your child needs to get vaccinated then do it ....if you are against it don't. parents should decide not a state mandate.
Did it ever occur to you that there are a population of children who have not received the full dose of the MMR vaccine? During this period you are more likely to contract the virus if exposed. If you have received both doses then you are even more protected. Children do not get this vaccine until one year of age.
Allow me to setup a scenario for you.
You bring you unvaccinated child who has been infected measles into your local pediatrician's office. The child is sneezing, coughing and his nose is running all over the place. At the same time, you have many children from just a couple of days old all the way to young adults.
The most susceptible age group would be from age 1 day to 12 months, followed by 12 months to 4-5 years old (depending on when they do their elementary school well-child check). The most susceptible after that would be people from age 5 to young adult who did not receive their MMR vaccine.
You have just potentially exposed all of these people to the virus, and it doesn't stop there! You have the doctors and nurses who are exposed and the environment itself. True, your docs and nurses are more than likely vaccinated, but that doesn't mean the virus can't sit on their scrubs (after being sneezed on.) So now you have potentially exposed an entire days worth of patients. Where I work that around 100 children, but wait it doesn't stop there either!! You then have to think about the people in the waiting room and who they may expose the virus to. They go home and spread the virus to their loved ones who may or may not be vaccinated, and some may even be immunocompromised.
This all results in the pediatrician's office temporarily being closed down, and the children who were exposed (even if vaccinated) have to be put on contact precautions (they cannot go to school or daycare.) This causes many patients to not be able to see their pediatricians when sick, the doctors office and employees lose money, and other business lose money as well because now the parent has to stay home and watch their children instead of sending them to daycare or school so they can work.
As you can see from my example, this is a matter of public safety. It has nothing to do with taking away parents' rights.
Here is the argument I have gotten. Perhaps you can enlighten me. An unvaccinated child contracts, say chickenpox, but goes to school before diagnosis. According to my classmates, that child is a danger to their classmates who were previously vaccinated. Why? Should not their vaccination give them immunity from chickenpox? Logically, it will affect the child, but only pass on minor effects, if any to the previously vaccinated children.
For those of us who work in a school system, not every child is vaccinated, some by parental choice, but others are immune compromised for a variety of reasons. I have had multiple children in my district go through chemo for cancer and several had agammglobulinemia. They have little to no protection against disease.
Can you please tell me why those children should be put at further risk? Why a child with Duchenne's Muscular dystrophy or Cystic Fibrosis should have their already compromised respiratory system further put at risk, due to a choice?
They have no choice but to be put at risk. The more kids that are under, or not all at vaccinated, will eventually undermine the herd immunity we have achieved.
There was time when people were in iron lungs for polio. We have eliminated SO MANY vaccine PREVENTABLE diseases, why should we step back in time?
I used to work peds years ago in an Amish-intensive area. The Amish do not vaccinate their children (there are a few rare exceptions, of course). We would get babies with pertussis too, and that strangled breathing is something I'll never forget.
My like is an acknowledgment...that must be awful.
I am not anti-vax.....but have tried to see both sides of the issue because I see both sides at work and in our school/home life. To answer the above question - the reason the anti-vaxxers dont vaccinate is because they are MORE afraid of the side effects of the vaccine than they are of contracting the disease. Simple as that. And yes, they know it's due to herd immunity that they may be less likely to get the disease.
Why are they more afraid of the side effects than the disease? Because we live in America, for one thing, where we are benefitting from availability of vaccines. Because even people who are "trained" to look at research are confused by all of the information available on the internet. Who do you believe? There are Drs on both sides of the issues that construe the data in favor of their hypotheses. The anti-vax people I know love Dr Sherry Tenpenny, Dr Mercola, etc. What bugs me about these "Drs" is that they do not work in Peds, PICUs, NICUs, public health.....they get to sit in an office telling the scared public what to do, while never seeing with their own eyes what these diseases can do. We do. What a difference that makes! Correct me if I'm wrong about this - I'll happily take it back.
What do I do? Sadly, I've given up. I say "Here is this information, please read it. If you have any questions, write them down and I'll make sure you can talk to the Dr about it." I let the Dr handle it because he/she is the most educated on the topic. Why do I do this? Because I'm never going to convince them. Their minds have already been made up by Dr Google. Need examples? Well I have a million in my head from the nightmares I've had taking care of the patients of these families and I dont have the energy to keep fighting anymore. They dont want to listen, they are too scared, there is no discussion possible anymore for most of them. In the anti-vaxers mind, I, an RN, represent those bad Big Pharma Allopathic people who they were already against before they opened the hospital doors. Maybe this isnt your experience, but it sure has been mine. I live in a part of the country that is both highly educated and loudly antivax in many places.
And yes, the conspiracy theorists only get louder as they age! I am shocked to know really lovely, smart people who truly dont think we were on the moon, dont think Sandy Hook actually happened, 9/11 was an inside job....you name it. (Scratching my head)
And one more thing - pls dont assume all homeschoolers are anti-vax. Like everything, many are, some arent.
signed,
A homeschooling parent
just what I mean - anecdoctal, visibly appalling status of pts
For the people in here questioning vaccines. The problem is there are children out there that cannot legitimately receive vaccines. I have a friend with a boy who has Down syndrome and because of the heart problems he cannot receive them. Your unvaccinated child can kill him. Kill him. We 80% of people to be vaccinated in our society for vaccines to work.
And I'm sorry, but no child's life is more important than another's. People say oh, measles isn't that big of a deal. Look at all the kids that have had it and survived. The problem is, lots of kids can't survive it. They can't. And it's not fair for people to just decide that as a whole it's ok for people to contract these deadly diseases. If they weren't deadly, they wouldn't have made a vaccine.
Im very pro-vaccine. There is no evidence that anybody has ever gotten autism from a vaccine. None. Autism seems to be mostly made of genetics. I think there could be some environmental factors as well as the one thing these kids have in common is gastrointestinal disorders. But it's not vaccines.
In addition to Autism, most definitely Aspergers. I have seen a family pass the gene down. Grandparent, children and now grands. This is a very well educated family (doctors lawyers professors etc) certainly not an environmental issue. It is so clearly obvious that the familiar tendency is very present in this family , and I bet previous generations as well.
)
to cover this up. This vaccine tampering seems to be a part of some nefarious population control plot.
but others are immune compromised for a variety of reasons. I have had multiple children in my district go through chemo for cancer and several had agammglobulinemia. They have little to no protection against disease.
Brian57
11 Posts
Unfortunately it is rooted in a need to blame someone/something for difficult circumstances and events, I think. Random chance and/or complex biochemistry are scary unknowns.