Posted on 03/04/2019 9:18:13 AM PST by rickmichaels
A baby in the midst of a whooping cough (pertussis) fit will appear to cry without making a sound. Her mouth will be open as she tries to cough to clear the mucus from her narrowed airway, but if she's really struggling, nothing will happen. Her lips and tongue might turn blue. She could seize. When the fit is finally over, she'll vomit.
It's absolutely terrifying to watch (and no doubt, to experience), and precisely the type of picture public health organizations need to paint to counter anti-vaccination propaganda. No more stats about the infrequency of adverse reactions, or sterile "myth vs. fact" pages on government vaccine information websites. Facts don't move people the way that an appeal to emotion — fear, specifically — does.
Anti-vaxxers know that. Their dispatches are compelling: Vaccine Choice Canada, a registered not-for-profit, posts devastating, detailed, first-person stories on its website by parents who report taking their perfectly healthy children in for their scheduled vaccines and leaving with sick, disabled or otherwise "vaccine-injured" children.
There are, of course, the requisite stories about children exhibiting autistic behaviours after vaccination — anecdotes that are easily dismissed by people who already know that there is no link between the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine and autism.
But some of the other stories are harder to shrug off. They include tales of babies experiencing seizures, anaphylaxis and even paralysis after vaccinations. According to the parents' own accounts posted on Vaccine Choice's website, emergency room physicians dismissed their concerns, telling them that they were simply overreacting.
These are the critically dangerous stories from a public health perspective, in that they can't be flat-out rejected as false. That makes them potentially persuasive even to parents who know better. We know the chance of a serious adverse reaction as described above is exceedingly rare — about three in a million, according to the most recent data out of Ontario — but statistics don't stick in the mind the same way a single story of a mother's anguish does. And anti-vaccination groups tell those stories perfectly.
Right now, British Columbia is currently grappling with a measles outbreak, and so too is Washington state, Texas (where a lawmaker erroneously suggested that antibiotics could clear up the outbreak) and a handful of other regions mostly along the Pacific Northwest. Not surprisingly, the World Health Organization (WHO) has identified "vaccine hesitancy" as one of the top 10 threats to global health in 2019.
Vaccine hesitancy, however, is an umbrella term that really describes two distinct groups. There are the strident anti-vaxxers whose opposition to vaccination is entrenched and full-throttled — the organizers and proselytizers, who made up less than three per cent of parents surveyed, according to one study. And then there are those who can more accurately be described as vaccine-hesitant — those who are worried about adverse reactions, or autism, or the pace of the vaccine schedule, or about putting "artificial" medicines in their children.
The former group might be impossible to influence, but the latter group can still be reached, though bombarding them with stats about safety and sterile warnings about vaccine-preventable illnesses obviously isn't working.
So scare them. Show them what a child hospitalized with measles-induced encephalitis looks like. Tell stories like that of Jamie Schanbaum, whose legs and fingers were amputated after she contracted meningitis as a Texas University student. Let them see what it's like for a baby with whooping cough try to struggle to breathe.
Then let the anti-vaxxers try to counter with stats: But encephalitis from measles is rare! (True) Vaccines don't prevent against all kinds of meningitis! (True) You can still get whooping cough even if you've been vaccinated! (True) But alas, information about the relative infrequency of complications doesn't stick in the mind the way the image of a baby's blue lips and tongue does.
Some might be uncomfortable with pro-vaccination efforts using the same appeal-to-emotion, anecdotal tactics as do anti-vaxxers. But offending our collective polite sensibilities matters less than herd immunity and the suffering of children who have little to no say in their own health care.
Some regions have adopted or are considering adopting policies that essentially make life more difficult for anti-vaxxers; for example, by preventing them from sending their children to public schools unless they have been vaccinated or have a legitimate medical exemption.
But these measures just tend to galvanize the most militant anti-vaxxers, many of whom are convinced that there is a government and pharmaceutical conspiracy to vaccinate children. (In my day, the goal of government conspiracies were a lot more nefarious than trying to keep kids alive, but I digress.) It also does little to actually help the children of vaccine-hesitant or anti-vaxx parents, other than entrench their parents' beliefs. These sorts of prohibitions also do little to mitigate the risk of measles spreading at the grocery store or community centre or anywhere else these banned-from-public-school kids can still frequent.
The better way is to reach vaccine-hesitant parents before, or more effectively than, the anti-vaxxers do. Anti-vaxxers know how to turn suffering into propaganda: to use anecdote to stoke fear. Fighting fear with information doesn't work as well, unfortunately, as fighting fear with fear. Anti-vaxxers have graciously already given us the formula. All we have to do is follow it.
The only thing that “proves” is that you have assumed without evidence that there is some correlation between vaccines and autism.
Yes, kids can have adverse reactions to vaccines. But you idiots do not have historical context or understanding of the horrors people used to suffer from diseases that are now largely an anomaly in the US thanks to vaccination.
Herd immunity comes into play, too.
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The Salk vaccine is the cause of most serious cases of polio we had in the ‘50s.
Vaccines spread disease.
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Moronic to the max!
Vaccines spread disease. That is their purpose.
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The CDC has admitted that vaccines have caused the rise in autism.
The person who wrote that article is comfortable with the government forcing people to do its bidding. Fascism.
Um, that may be the most ignorant statement I have ever read on Free Republic.
Did Polio exist before the Salk vaccine? Yes.
Does Polio exist now? Largely no, except it may be making a comeback in certain Islamic and African countries where they are against vaccination.
They are way too stupid to see or understand this concept. They would much rather prove their ignorance and cluelessness by jumping up and down about being forced to do something by the evil govt.
Idiots like this are the reason conservatives are criticized as Neanderthal know-nothing’s. And most have no recollection of how devastating these diseases actually were, as recently as the 1950’s. Polio, whooping cough,pertussis, smallpox,etc etc etc.
They have no education beyond high school, if that, so they have no idea of the millions upon millions of people who used to die over the centuries until vaccination became commonplace.
This is the level of discourse that FR has become. Most of the truly intelligent or insightful posters have moved on leaving only the conspiracy nuts and stupid morons with a keyboard. So, no, they won’t understand. They will merely attack the messenger because they really believe they are the gifted ones. How pathetic.
This is not a good time for your little rant.
We on FR are praying daily for one of our own whose little relative has been paralyzed after a vaccine. See the thread on little Richie.
Parents are never encouraged to read nor offered the package insert on vaccines, though death, paralysis, brain damage are all listed.
Vaccines are the ONLY PRODUCT IN THE USA not liable for harm they may cause. The government steps in to attempt to fight all cases and pays huge;y in the few where the time difference between damage and shot was small enough, damage severe enough.
Vaccinations are not immunizations. Sometimes they fully immunize but most of the time they partially immunize temporarily. They are neuro-toxic deliberately but it’s a risk to the brain that some people want to take in order to prevent a certain illness.
The risk to the brain increases depending on the variety of bacteria in the patient’s gut, and depending on anything his immune system is currently fighting. It depends on his mineral and vitamin sufficiencies. It’s impossible to know these things without testing.
If you truly want a free republic, you would want parents to be able to have the freedom to choose between the risks of permanent brain damage or worse, and the partial temporary immunity against a childhood disease.
You have no idea what you are talking about. You are factually wrong. Your statement is ignorant propaganda. Ask your family doctor since you are obviously too obtuse to figure this out on your own.
I absolutely agree with every point you made.
You fukwits here act like godam libtards when people don’t think your way. You just can’t let other people disagree and voice their concerns tovothers just like you do. Nope you have to be little socialists and smear and fearmonger and blame them for stuff they have nothing to do with.
Stop importing in known sick people with exotic diseases that are starting epidemics amongst our people. And then blaming people who dont want their kids pumped full of crap as the cause.
Chill out. If Big Pharma can pay politicians to put their vaccine on the required list, they can pay trolls to hang out on FR.
Yeah, this is the answer from any ignorant fool who doesn’t like someone else’s opinion, especially if it is right. The idea that anyone is paying anyone on FR to say anything is so stupid and paranoid as to need mental health services. Where do you kooks get this stuff?
Well said.
The best way is to lead by example!
Pro-Vaccine parents should go in to get their kids and themselves weekly flu shots!
Flu shots are safe and effective!
And many chain drug stores offer free flu shots AND FREE STORE GIFT CARDS TO BOOT!!!!
They should get their weekly flu shots and their free money and brag about it in front of their anti-vaxxer friends and family members!
LEAD BY EXAMPLE!
They can say:
“Look how much MONEY I GOT for getting VACCINATED!”
“You are LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE!”
Don’t scare them, show them how much healthier you are BECAUSE YOU GOT THE FLU SHOTS AND OTHER VACCINATIONS!!!
Make sure to keep up with all the boosters too!
I agree also. I had a child in pediatric ICU way back in 1992. I saw several very young infants with whooping cough there. It amazed and frightened me how hard the nurses had to pound these poor babies’ backs to loosen the phlegm. My children were all vaccinated according to the protocol of that time.
That said, I don’t get a flu vaccine nor a shingles vaccine though I had chicken pox as child. I had measles as a child and lost part of my hearing. But I have never had the flu or the mumps. I was vaccinated once for the flu when the child mentioned above was vulnerable. Otherwise, no vaccines for flu. I have had the tetanus, smallpox and polio vaccines. But I am in a position where I pose little or no threat to others, being a senior citizen now with children living far away, no grandchildren and retired so I am not around other children except incidentally at stores or church and can hunker down if I do catch something going around. Everyone needs to make a decision for themselves but they need to take into account those they come in contact with.
You are guilty of the crime which you accuse.
Really? I don’t believe it. Feel free to copy and paste the CDC statement to that effect. Somehow I don’t think that’s gonna happen.
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