# What's the next move for the antivax crowd? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 12, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346 "2011-01-12T15:13:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/41 "2011-01-14T02:49:07Z")
[A large number are worried about plots to sap and impurify their precious bodily fluids.](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/01/precious_bodily_fluids.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28Pharyngula%29) > [@](#): > > For instance, all the howling about formaldehyde in some vaccines; it’s a trivial amount, a tiny fraction of the quantity your very own metabolism produces in the normal course of a day. Now, this doesn’t go for everyone: Some people are simply defiant for the sake of being defiant. If you tell them to go left, they’ll go right while looking you dead in the eye, even if it means slipping on a patch of ice and breaking their tailbone. _Their_ pet obsession seems to be the unwavering and largely unjustified belief that they’re smarter than everyone else. A third group is in it because their favorite celebrity is and they’re just that stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/42 "2011-01-14T02:54:38Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > My mother grew up in a Third World country where kids routinely died of all the stuff we vaccinate against. Measles and whooping cough are REAL terrors to her, not nebulous statistics. When we were a few weeks late getting Widget her MMR, for various reasons, my mother couldn’t believe it. She had me and my brother vaccinated practically the exact second we were old enough. I think you’ve actually hit on one of the issues…these people have no idea or understanding of what these diseases are really like. They are so far removed from the reality of it that it’s easy to dismiss them as not being as bad as people say they are. I have even seen it stated that polio isn’t as bad as people say…only 2% of people experience paralysis from it! ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/43 "2011-01-14T03:17:05Z")
But the BMJ supports itself with advertising from Big Pharma! And Brian Deer works for Big Pharma! And vaccines are full of toxins! How dare you suggest I fill my precious, pure child’s body with toxic chemicals! You obviously don’t care about the defenseless, innocent children. Dr. Wakefield is a hero, because all he cares about is the children, and he’s the only one who did. Big Pharma had to take him down because he was going to expose them. The whole house of cards is going to come tumbling down any time now, because more and more people are seeing the truth. And then the law will catch up with all you pharma shills! Lather, rinse, repeat. Oh, and while we’re at it, you can’t believe anything the CDC says, especially statistics, because they have a vested interested in vaccines. So, I’d say the next move is the same as the old move. Second verse, same as the first. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/44 "2011-01-14T03:31:43Z")
Fortunately for these giants of intellectual strength, they benefit from herd immunity because they are in the minority, while the rest of us get the vaccines when we are able to. Since they’re surrounded by people with vaccinated immunity, they’re not at risk as a group of getting wiped out by the Flying Pig Flu or whatever we’re afraid of this year. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/45 "2011-01-14T04:04:51Z")
Some of these diseases aren’t all that removed from modern day memory. For example the Hib vaccine was only introduced for babies in 1987. Before then you had [20,000 cases annually of bacterial meningitis](http://www.immunizationinfo.org/vaccines/haemophilus-influenzae-type-b-hib) – a rather awful disease. That’s easily within the lifetime of many if not most posters here. Not exactly ancient history. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/46 "2011-01-14T04:14:57Z")
Some people you won’t convince. I worked in a study back in 2004 for a research hospital/university. I just took the stats, but one woman had a child who got vaccines then he was diagnosed with autism. The next child she refused to vaccinate till after he was five. He was fine. The third child she changed her mind and vaccinated the girl. You guessed it, the girl shortly was diagnosed with autism. Now I don’t belive the vaccinations had anything to do with it, but you will never convince that mother that they didn’t. To her she saw it and that is that. Some people will only see a healthy child, getting “germs” put into them on purpose. Same thing with people who swear the megadoses of vitamins “Cured” them or they are deathly allergic to things they are not, or they’re fat because of something else beside eating too much. Yes, there are people who are dealthy allergic to substances, and get fat from true metobolic illness and there are certain diseases that vitamins cure, but do you REALLY have them? When I did the stats for that above mentioned studies, it still blows my mind that 20% to 35% of people in each study got better on the placebo. Shows the power of the mind ---
**Author:** ![TurboNuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f19dbf/32.png) [@TurboNuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TurboNuke)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/47 "2011-01-14T15:04:36Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Some of these diseases aren’t all that removed from modern day memory. For example the Hib vaccine was only introduced for babies in 1987. Before then you had [20,000 cases annually of bacterial meningitis](http://www.immunizationinfo.org/vaccines/haemophilus-influenzae-type-b-hib) – a rather awful disease. That’s easily within the lifetime of many if not most posters here. Not exactly ancient history. My dad’s bother died from meningitis in 1930. His brother was 18 at the time, my dad was 5. 80 years later, he still remembers standing in the rain for the funeral. It was very devasting for my family. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/48 "2011-01-14T16:46:25Z")
I’d like to see an anti-vaxxer transported back in time to when smallpox and polio were not uncommon, and tell all the little boys and girls with braces on their legs, and with bleeding sores and lesions on their skin, that vaccines are bad and getting diseases the natural way is better. I’d like to think that if FDR were somehow alive today, he’d use what little strength he had to stand up out of his char and smack Jenny McCarthy square in her mouth. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/49 "2011-01-15T00:11:31Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Some of these diseases aren’t all that removed from modern day memory. For example the Hib vaccine was only introduced for babies in 1987. Before then you had [20,000 cases annually of bacterial meningitis](http://www.immunizationinfo.org/vaccines/haemophilus-influenzae-type-b-hib) – a rather awful disease. That’s easily within the lifetime of many if not most posters here. Not exactly ancient history. A girl in my high school died of meningitis in 1989. Had we had the Hib vaccine earlier, she’d be alive today. He family would not have been devastated by the loss of their beloved child. Maybe Jenny McCarthy doesn’t care that that girl died, but I can assure you her parents certainly cared. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/50 "2011-01-15T00:54:09Z")
My grandparents had a baby that died of meningitis at three months. I can’t imagine what that must have been like. My grandfather had polio as a teenager. He ended up with one leg shorter than the other. The uneven wear on his joints eventually led to two knee replacements and two hip replacements in his lifetime, besides always walking with a cane and a built-up shoe. My uncle had mumps as a child. He can’t have children. My mother had whooping cough when she was eleven. She’s been susceptible to bronchitis and pneumonia ever since. I’m only thirty years old, and only one step removed from all this. I believe in vaccines. ---
**Author:** ![Gestalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/90ced4/32.png) [@Gestalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gestalt)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/51 "2011-01-15T02:57:54Z")
> [@Otara](#): > > Severe damage to the Central Nervous System causing Guillain-Barré Syndrome (Paralysis) In all fairness there is a correlation b/w the influenza vaccine and Guillian-Barre, but it’s something like 1:1,000,00. There is also some pathology associated with the rotavirus vaccine, which is why they stopped getting it. Cite: a prof’s lecture on vaccines. I’ll dig up a cite if anyone wants one. Also, anti-vaxers are artards. ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/52 "2011-01-15T06:05:15Z")
Heck-if you want a bad disease that vaccines prevent, why not go with tetanus? It’s got about a 50% mortality in unvaccinated people, it’s found in soil all over the world, you can get it from stepping on a nail or cutting your foot (has anybody here _never_ stepped on something that made their foot bleed?) and it causes excruciatingly painful muscle spasm before it kills you. All in all, not a very pleasant disease. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/53 "2011-01-15T10:43:55Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > has anybody here _never_ stepped on something that made their foot bleed? Actually, as a matter of fact, I haven’t ever done that. that said, I’ve slipped and broken my finger, cut myself handling sharp objects, gotten bruises, scrapes, even hit my own index finger with a hatchet (not on purpose, obviously, and don’t worry, evidently I swung like a girl when I was a kid and only caused a scar and some bleeding). That said, many of my cut-related wounds (usually involving knives or tools or what not) could have been nasty for me were I not vaccinated against tetanus. And thanks for making me look up Tetanus, **shudder** ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/54 "2011-01-15T11:19:32Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > My grandparents had a baby that died of meningitis at three months. I can’t imagine what that must have been like. > > My grandfather had polio as a teenager. He ended up with one leg shorter than the other. The uneven wear on his joints eventually led to two knee replacements and two hip replacements in his lifetime, besides always walking with a cane and a built-up shoe. > > My uncle had mumps as a child. He can’t have children. > > My mother had whooping cough when she was eleven. She’s been susceptible to bronchitis and pneumonia ever since. > > I’m only thirty years old, and only one step removed from all this. I believe in vaccines. I had whooping cough when I was 10 months old. I got bronchitis rolling into pneumonia every year until I was 12 lasting for anywhere from 2 weeks to a month in bed. I can remember being on oxygen many many times in those years. My doc said that the only reason I had any lung capacity at all was my love of swimming, and spending hours a day in the summers swimming. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/55 "2011-01-15T12:18:18Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > Heck-if you want a bad disease that vaccines prevent, why not go with tetanus? It’s got about a 50% mortality in unvaccinated people, it’s found in soil all over the world, you can get it from stepping on a nail or cutting your foot (has anybody here _never_ stepped on something that made their foot bleed?) and it causes excruciatingly painful muscle spasm before it kills you. All in all, not a very pleasant disease. Good question. Do anti-vax people get tetanus or rabies shots when needed? ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/56 "2011-01-15T15:41:05Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > Good question. Do anti-vax people get tetanus or rabies shots when needed? The nutters argue that there are only a [few cases of tetanus](http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/786414-overview) each year. They then proceed to argue that your odds of getting tetanus are low whereas your odds of getting a vaccine reaction are high. This is stupid reasoning. The anti-vaxxers nearly always exaggerate the side effects from the vaccine while utterly downplaying the side effects from the actual disease. So if your [arm swells up](http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm) after an adult tetanus shot well that’s completely horrible. But if you get lockjaw and face a 50% chance of dying well that’s a risk you’ll have to take. They’re completely incapable of performing a rational risk to benefits analysis. The only good thing about the anti-vax for tetanus stance is that tetanus, unlike many other vaccine preventable diseases, is not contagious. So the rest of us who are vaccinated don’t face any additional risks from their stupidity. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/57 "2011-01-15T16:38:25Z")
Reminds me of a funny thing I learned a while back: People in car accidents who do not wear seatbelts do not end up in the ER nearly as often as those who do wear seatbelts. Great argument against wearing seatbelts right? Well no. Turns out, people who get in car accidents and wear seatbelts don’t end up in the _morgue_ as often as people who don’t wear them. ER docs don’t treat dead people. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/58 "2011-01-15T16:56:05Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > The nutters argue that there are only a [few cases of tetanus](http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/786414-overview) each year. They then proceed to argue that your odds of getting tetanus are low whereas your odds of getting a vaccine reaction are high. > > This is stupid reasoning. The anti-vaxxers nearly always exaggerate the side effects from the vaccine while utterly downplaying the side effects from the actual disease. So if your [arm swells up](http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm) after an adult tetanus shot well that’s completely horrible. But if you get lockjaw and face a 50% chance of dying well that’s a risk you’ll have to take. > > They’re completely incapable of performing a rational risk to benefits analysis. The only good thing about the anti-vax for tetanus stance is that tetanus, unlike many other vaccine preventable diseases, is not contagious. So the rest of us who are vaccinated don’t face any additional risks from their stupidity. Interesting. I included rabies for two reasons \* Both Ms. Attack and I have had close encounters in the last few years that raised the specter of rabies. Mine was recounted in [thread=477963] my day was like a horror movie [/thread]. In both cases we passed on rabies vaccine because we didn’t really think we’d been exposed. Despite the fact that rabies has an all-but-100% kill ratio when untreated, rabies vaccine is one that isn’t given out casually because the risk of complications. In other words, it is an example of the medical establishment \*\*not \*\*using a vaccine willy-nilly because of the risk outweighs the benefit in the general population. - Tetanus I included because of _Sherlock_, as well as the time I got a fishhook in my cheek and my brother in law had to give me a shot in the ass. But that’s a different story. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/59 "2011-01-15T17:50:01Z")
> [@Gestalt](#): > > In all fairness there is a correlation b/w the influenza vaccine and Guillian-Barre, but it’s something like 1:1,000,00. That one-in-a-million figure for getting GBS after a vaccination is not accepted by all researchers ([it’s questionable whether modern vaccines are linked to any added risk at all](http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/gbs_qa.htm)). It also should be noted that most cases of GBS follow actual infections with disease organisms, including influenza. I’ve wondered whether diehard antivaxers would turn down rabies vaccination after being exposed to a rabid animal. One swore to me during an online discussion that he’d never consent to rabies vaccine, no matter what. Part of the difficulty in determining this one way or another is how you’d tell whether such an antivaxer had rabies or not, given their natural propensity for foaming at the mouth. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346/60 "2011-01-15T19:35:41Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > That one-in-a-million figure for getting GBS after a vaccination is not accepted by all researchers ([it’s questionable whether modern vaccines are linked to any added risk at all](http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/gbs_qa.htm)). It also should be noted that most cases of GBS follow actual infections with disease organisms, including influenza. Anecdote: I know a person that got GB back in the 70’s, shortly after a flu shot. She was initially almost completely paralyzed and then in a wheel chair for at least 3 years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-next-move-for-the-antivax-crowd/567346.md?page=4)