# Debating Anti-Vaxxers: The Vaccine Court. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 16, 2013, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389 "2013-10-16T11:50:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/21 "2013-10-17T00:53:16Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > This should be a sticky. That’s really sweet. I appreciate the support. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/22 "2013-10-17T01:06:10Z")
**Kolga** is a wonderful writer and a great source of information on this topic as many others as well. This is another great link full of good info on some of the more common anti-vax myths: > **[Anti-vaccine Myths Exposed](http://www.dangeroustalk.net/a-team/Vaccines)** > > This is the A-Team, Hear them Roar! I would strongly suggest reading anything by Dr. Paul Offit on this subject. He’s the head of the infectious diseases unit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Here’s his take on of the more infamous court rulings on vaccines in the United States: [http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0802904](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0802904) ---
**Author:** ![rsat3acr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/23 "2013-10-17T01:53:48Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Yeah, good analogy. The woman’s daughter (we’ll call her “Lorena”) had a series of massive febrile seizures about four hours after receiving a DPT vaccine, which resulted in permanent brain damage. She was handsomely compensated. The daughter lingered for 15 years, finally passing away about four years ago. Now the woman (we’ll call her “VaxMom”) is using the remaining money to fly around the country and speak at anti-vax rallies about her experience. She even has a picture of herself on her blog with her arm around Andrew Wakefield. It’s enough to make you want to puke. When I pointed out to my LVN friend that VaxMom doesn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground, she responded “well, there must be some truth to it—look what happened to Lorena!” Sometimes I just wanna beat my head against a wall. yes but it would be better if we could beat their heads against the wall. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/24 "2013-10-17T02:55:46Z")
Oh, I left out the best part. The kid was a vegetable, pure and simple. I doubt very much that she was even aware of her own existence. VaxMom was convinced otherwise. According to her, “Lorena” was an Indigo Child, and the reincarnation of a long-dead American Indian warrior. (I shit you not.) She once went to a psychic convention in Las Vegas and Silvia Browne convinced her stupid ass that she was in telepathic communication with Lorena. (As God is my witness, I’m not making this up.) Another time she hired a witch doctor to roll coconuts down her driveway in an attempt to cure Lorena. When the kid broke her leg, VaxMom started shoving purple Kool-Aid down her throat because another psychic told her that the color purple was a healing color. The stories are endless. Sometimes I wasn’t quite sure which one of the two was suffering from the most brain damage. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/25 "2013-10-17T02:56:54Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > That’s really sweet. I appreciate the support. I’m not trying to be sweet. It’s really good information. I appreciate you posting it. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Why\_Bother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19adc/32.png) [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Why_Bother)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/26 "2013-10-17T07:04:26Z")
Excellent responses guys. Thanks a million. **Kolga** , that was, in all seriousness, one of the best and most useful posts I’ve ever read on these boards. Nice one! ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/27 "2013-10-17T08:08:27Z")
You guys _do_ all realize that **Kolga’s** reaction to all this fawning adulation is “so buy my book, bitches,” don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/28 "2013-10-17T08:38:43Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Yeah, good analogy. The woman’s daughter (we’ll call her “Lorena”) had a series of massive febrile seizures about four hours after receiving a DPT vaccine, which resulted in permanent brain damage. She was handsomely compensated. The daughter lingered for 15 years, finally passing away about four years ago. Now the woman (we’ll call her “VaxMom”) is using the remaining money to fly around the country and speak at anti-vax rallies about her experience. She even has a picture of herself on her blog with her arm around Andrew Wakefield. It’s enough to make you want to puke. When I pointed out to my LVN friend that VaxMom doesn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground, she responded “well, there must be some truth to it—look what happened to Lorena!” Sometimes I just wanna beat my head against a wall. Heck, what happened to me would fit better than that. At least I was (erroneously, as later discovered) diagnosed with a pervasive developmental disorder that likely came from my seizure following the MMR vaccine. (PDD being an autistic spectrum disorder.) You’d think the kid dying would be a pretty obvious clue: people don’t die from autism. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/29 "2013-10-17T08:56:24Z")
It’s not that she believed that Lorena was autistic, it’s just that after she died VaxMom needed some sort of _cause célèbre_ to involve herself with, and anti-vax nuttery was a handy target. To this day she still thinks that there was something wrong with the vaccine itself. She constantly misuses the term ‘hot lot,’ and has no real idea what it actually signifies. So what did actually happen to you? Do you really have a PDD, or is that what was misdiagnosed? ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/30 "2013-10-17T15:14:41Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > You guys _do_ all realize that **Kolga’s** reaction to all this fawning adulation is “so buy my book, bitches,” don’t you? I’m not sure what the point of this comment is, frankly. Because I wrote a book about the issue being discussed, and have written some notes on the Facebook page for the book and guest blog posts for other blogs that are relevant to the issue being discussed, I’m not allowed to provide that information in an attempt to help people out? Or are you being funny and I haven’t yet had enough coffee to recognize it (a strong possibility)? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/31 "2013-10-17T16:05:51Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > Or are you being funny and I haven’t yet had enough coffee to recognize it (a strong possibility)? 🙂 More coffee is clearly in order. You haven’t snapped into Jesse Pinkman mode yet. (Yes, I’m still in BB withdrawal. There’s no vaccine yet, but there’s always the hope that medical science will find the answers.) ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/32 "2013-10-17T17:48:51Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Maybe you have to be my age (76) to appreciate just how much vaccination has changed lives. Kids died of measles. Or suffered serious enchephalopathy, which happened to a son of my favorite professor (and his wife was a pediatrician). By my time, there was a whooping cough vaccine, but before that kids died of that. People of all ages died from tetanus. And need I mention polio? > > So yes, some kids suffer adverse reactions to vaccinations and some even die, I imagine. I have no objection to indemnifying victims. But there are far fewer victims than there were of the diseases. And the connection to autism has been so thoroughly refuted that is now just insane (not a word I use lightly). > > My doctor calls refusal of vaccination a form of child abuse. Anti-vax stupidity is nothing new. It was old even before your time. For example: the Montreal smallpox outbreak in 1885. The French newspapers and a couple of doctors said that vaccination was not necessary or even that the English were pushing vaccination on the French because it was harmful. Of course, there were some legitimate vaccination side effects, including a clinic that wasn’t properly cleaning or sterilizing their equipment, but the anti-vaccination crowd undoubtedly increased the casualties from that outbreak. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/33 "2013-10-17T18:45:36Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > More coffee is clearly in order. You haven’t snapped into Jesse Pinkman mode yet. (Yes, I’m still in BB withdrawal. There’s no vaccine yet, but there’s always the hope that medical science will find the answers.) Thanks! I’ve had more coffee now, and recognize the Pinkman style (didn’t watch BB, but was exposed to Pinkman-isms enough). > [@dracoi](#): > > Anti-vax stupidity is nothing new. It was old even before your time. > > For example: the Montreal smallpox outbreak in 1885. The French newspapers and a couple of doctors said that vaccination was not necessary or even that the English were pushing vaccination on the French because it was harmful. It’s even older than that. It goes back to at least as early as Jenner’s first inoculation attempts. [Here’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_cow_pock.jpg) an editorial cartoon published in 1802 (I really want a framed copy of that in my office). ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/34 "2013-10-17T19:29:49Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > Thanks! I’ve had more coffee now, and recognize the Pinkman style (didn’t watch BB, but was exposed to Pinkman-isms enough). Apologies for the frivolities. I’ve been this way ever since they expelled me from Clown College for refusing to join the carpool network. Because you posted in the BB finale thread, I assumed you were a card-carrying member of the tribe. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/35 "2013-10-17T19:39:39Z")
Oh, and for the record, I bought your book. (Damned 10 femtosecond edit window…) ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/36 "2013-10-17T20:27:26Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > It’s even older than that. It goes back to at least as early as Jenner’s first inoculation attempts. [Here’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_cow_pock.jpg) an editorial cartoon published in 1802 (I really want a framed copy of that in my office). Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me at all. The Montreal incident is just stuck in my head since watching a documentary on it. The more things change, the more they stay the same… ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/37 "2013-10-18T18:15:49Z")
I believe the specific case that the OP’s “Friend” was referring to (the claim that the vaccine court compensated for autism) was that of Hannah Poling. She was born with a rare mitochondrial disorder that her vulnerable to fever-induced encephalapathy, which in some stages presents symptoms similar to some of those of autism. The vaccine court found that her condition might have been triggered by a vaccination, so awarded her parents compensation. However, it’s not related to autism except in the minds of the antivaxers. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389/38 "2013-10-18T18:35:29Z")
Most recently, Pakistani fundamentalist terror groups attacking and killing free vaccination workers. A perfect storm of causes - it’s _western_ science, therefore cannot be trusted; it’s science generally, therefore a challenge to religion and God’s will; it’s a government initiative, so they are trying to gather information and undermine the local groups; and finally, best of all - the cover for checking on bin Laden’s hideaway was a fake vaccination drive, so therefor all vaccination workers must be CIA. No good deed goes unpunished. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debating-anti-vaxxers-the-vaccine-court/671389.md?page=1)