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Vaccines: how do I talk to my anti-vac wife about it?

So perhaps in saying that they "never get sick" is the wrong way of putting it. My kids never show outward signs of being sick, I believe if something comes at them, their own immune system is strong enough to prevent a serious illness.


Ah, right. Your kids "never show outward signs of being sick" so you never take them to the doctor. :rolleyes:
 
Originally Posted by Mojo View Post
But do you know that viruses are different from bacteria? Apparently not.

To which Truthat replied :

"Uh yes which is why I noted that in my comments"

So how do you explain your original statement that your child only had colds when you were giving him Amoxicillin, and when you stopped, no more colds. You clearly indicate here that you (and your friends apparently) thought that it might help prevent colds and flu, which it patently doesn't.
 
Yes, again, did you read my post?


Of course it is selfish and freeloading etc coasting on herd immunity. But is it really contemptible?

Yes. It is directly and entirely contemptible, and here's why:

There are people in this world who cannot be vaccinated: The very young, the very old, the immunosuppressed.

At the moment, these people are protected by being surrounded by a phalanx of immunized people. The more vaccinated people in the phalanx, the greater the protection for the vulnerable.

By enjoying the protection of the phalanx without adding to it yourself, you are weakening our herd immunity. You are increasing the risks for the most vulnerable members of our society. I have absolutely nothing but contempt for that.
 
I don't want to explain it again. But it's above, take a look. I may have worded it wrong. It's really not the point of this thread. But I wanted to bring it up as a point to show that the OP's wife is probably going by some of her own personal reality. Her reality might not match what the science books show, but she's not going to care about that. She's going to deal with her personal reality.
 
Yes again, did you read my post.


Of course it is selfish and freeloading etc coasting on herd immunity. But is it really contemptible? That's what I'm saying.

Yes, yes it is. Utterly so.

If the OP's wife knows her child is able to "coast on heard immunity' on the one hand you might say she's selfish and contemptible, but I'm sure she's not going to give a whit what a person on the internet thinks of her when she's worrying and afraid of the possible problems associated with vaccines, especially if she's read all this "fear mongering" etc.

The highlighted part is obviously not true, so the rest is meaningless.

But frankly she's playing the safest hand she has.

How do you figure? Safest hand she thinks she has, perhaps. The safest? Not by a long shot.

You might want to get pissed off about it, but really she's being very smart about it.

You might want to look up smart in a dictionary. It doesn't mean what you think it means.

Even though people want to rag and guilt people into the corner it doesn't change the FACT that since most people are getting vaccinated her child is very much protected by herd immunity. Dem's the facts.

99.99% Immunity + Herd immunity > Herd immunity

She's not being smart. She's being extremely dumb, and willfully ignorant on top, since she's been shown evidence that falsify her beliefs.
 
It is my belief that doctors overprescribed antibiotics years ago and because of this many children have weak immune systems because they didn't have a chance to build up a strong one.

That's just about the only sensible thing you said thus far. Incidentally, it also demonstrates the value of vaccinations.

McHrozni
 
I don't want to explain it again. But it's above, take a look. I may have worded it wrong. It's really not the point of this thread. But I wanted to bring it up as a point to show that the OP's wife is probably going by some of her own personal reality. Her reality might not match what the science books show, but she's not going to care about that. She's going to deal with her personal reality.

the problem is that she doesn't live in her "personal reality". She lives in the really real world. Things don't stop being dangerous because we don't think they are. Things don't start being dangerous because we think they are.
 
I don't want to explain it again. But it's above, take a look. I may have worded it wrong. It's really not the point of this thread. But I wanted to bring it up as a point to show that the OP's wife is probably going by some of her own personal reality. Her reality might not match what the science books show, but she's not going to care about that. She's going to deal with her personal reality.

Look, everyone is entitled for their own beliefs, but not their personal reality. To deal with one's "own personal reality" is a recipe for disaster, especially for severely deluded and willfully ignorant people.
 
Yes. It is directly and entirely contemptible, and here's why:

There are people in this world who cannot be vaccinated: The very young, the very old, the immunosuppressed.

At the moment, these people are protected by being surrounded by a phalanx of immunized people. The more vaccinated people in the phalanx, the greater the protection for the vulnerable.

By enjoying the protection of the phalanx without adding to it yourself, you are weakening our herd immunity. You are increasing the risks for the most vulnerable members of our society. I have absolutely nothing but contempt for that.


This was part of my first post on this thread


So...........my advice would be to set up the actual vaccinations that she is suspect about and see if there are some of them she would be willing to go for, instead of lumping them all together.

I am not "anti vaccine" my kids have had the MMRI and one other. But I don't feel the need to fix what isn't broken. Maybe breaking it down will stop it from being so drastic in the discussion.

Also do remind her that it is very unfair to other people especially children going through chemo and the elderly. She could kill them by exposing her child to people in the world. Would she like that on her head?

That's one of the things that swayed me in the provaccine direction. Good luck.


The title of this thread is "How do I talk to my anti-vax wife about it"

And I'm trying to help him create a real conversation.


Theory and science and statistics are not going to work on a scared woman with a little baby.

Reality is going to work. It is smart enough for a while for her to take her ONE baby (this isn't the stand for everyone) but this one baby is going to be fine because he or she will most likely be able to coast on herd immunity.

Unfortunately if many more people begin to think like she does it can damage the herd immunity. Except in the US you can't send your child to school without the vaccinations. So she has the option of home schooling.

I think it is important if he does want to convince his wife to talk to her in a very personal way.

Before I also mentioned examining which vaccinations she was most worried about. For example I got all my kids the ones you needed for school, I just bucked the H1N1 vaccine and there was a huge firestorm of outrage that I didn't want to get my kids that vaccine because I was leary of the way it was being handled. I was accused of child abuse by more than one poster on here.

Let me just let you all know that is NOT a way to convince someone.


One thing that did make me think about it was the fact that if my kids became carriers they could kill someone. That freaked me out. If there was an epidemic that would have been the primary reason for getting my kids vaccinated.
 
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Also I'm not sure but I don't think you can vaccinate for the common flu and I know there is no vaccination for the common cold.

It is my belief that doctors overprescribed antibiotics years ago and because of this many children have weak immune systems because they didn't have a chance to build up a strong one.

Again you seem to be confusing bacterial infections with that of viral, by talking about common flu, anti-biotics and immune systems together.

You state that you have a belief that Doctors have been oversubscribing anti-biotics years ago. They were, and still are, but that has no effect on whether or not it is easier to catch a cold or flu.

By the way, I am booked in for my seasonal flu vaccine next month!. The one I had last year seemed to work!

PS: Don't forget that viruses can mutate into different strains in the same way as bacteria, so each year medical science has to change the vaccine to suit the predicted strain for the next winter. The science has to keep up with the evolutionary biology.
 
Look, everyone is entitled for their own beliefs, but not their personal reality. To deal with one's "own personal reality" is a recipe for disaster, especially for severely deluded and willfully ignorant people.

Depends on where you live and what your lifestyle is like. The Amish do very well with their "personal reality."
 
Again you seem to be confusing bacterial infections with that of viral, by talking about common flu, anti-biotics and immune systems together.

You state that you have a belief that Doctors have been oversubscribing anti-biotics years ago. They were, and still are, but that has no effect on whether or not it is easier to catch a cold or flu.

By the way, I am booked in for my seasonal flu vaccine next month!. The one I had last year seemed to work!

PS: Don't forget that viruses can mutate into different strains in the same way as bacteria, so each year medical science has to change the vaccine to suit the predicted strain for the next winter. The science has to keep up with the evolutionary biology.


That's cool but is the body not designed (not by a creator... don't go nuts) to keep up as well?


One thing I want to point out, I only mentioned the Amoxicillin example to point out how a medical trend and going against it might seem very weird to other people but how a mom (in this case me) was convinced her personal observations were correct and that I had done research to some degree to back up my thoughts. Confirmation bias to be sure, but the OP wants to figure out how to talk to his wife. So that's what I'm addressing.

Also

I'd like to point out that just because someone had a really bad case of whooping cough it doesn't mean that their body didn't heal from it. It seems like people are trying to equate "getting the sickness" with "dying from the sickness" and it's odd. To me the body is designed to fight sickness in a natural way. If you are at risk you should get additional protection. But if you are a normal healthy person you should be able to fight it off naturally. Yes it might be a tough week but that is what your body does.


I do believe this is at the crux of most antivaccine people's beliefs. But once again I have vaccinated all of my kids and would have vaccinated for H1N1 if it had become an epidemic. I waited, it didn't, no worries.

You relied on your vaccine and it seemed to work, I relied on our immune systems.......guess what? Seemed to work as well.
 
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Exactly. If she plans on living on the farm in the middle of nowhere and homeschooling her kids, she ought to be just fine. Her kids when they get older will likely have to go to receive vaccinations. But until then they are probably going to be fine. They are also not likely to infect another at risk person.


The OP wants to talk to his wife. So come up with some ideas, don't just slam her. Guess that's all I'm saying.
 

Indeed:

a rubella epidemic in 1991 among the Amish in Pennsylvania, who had low immunization rates, led to 95 pregnant women getting rubella, results in 9 miscarriages and 11 cases of congenital rubella syndrome.
http://pediatrics.about.com/od/immunizations/a/0408_im_illness.htm


And many more cases of outbreaks among those who exempt themselves from vaccines for religious reasons:
http://childrenshealthcare.org/?page_id=200
 
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Seriously, do you have any idea how vaccines work?

Yep.


Most people who are suspicious of vaccines are not suspicious of the vaccine itself per se, (from what I've seen anyway). They are suspicious of careless errors made by human beings. If someone handed me a 100 percent perfect vaccine that was given to my kid in a 100 percent perfect way with a 100 percent guarantee that my kids would have no adverse side effects, I would happily give him every vaccine on the planet available to man.

However the risk of vaccines come from it being PEOPLE that are the ones handling it. People have made huge mistakes with vaccines over the years.

And that's what I think bothers me about getting them.

Take a looksee

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/recalls/default.htm



Recalled Vaccines
Limited Voluntary Recall on Rabies Vaccine Batch (Novartis) NEW APRIL 2010
RabAvert Kit Batch #458011A, Diluent Vial Batch #927011
Non-Safety Related Voluntary Recall of Certain Lots of Sanofi Pasteur H1N1 Pediatric (0.25 mL, for 6-35 month olds) Vaccine in Pre-Filled Syringes (Sanofi Pasteur, Inc.) December 15, 2009
Questions and Answers
Recall of Prevnar Pneumococcal 7-valent Conjugate Vaccine (Wyeth) July 10, 2009
Recall of Hib Vaccine (Merck) December 12, 2007
Recovery Notice: Fluvirin (Influenza Virus Vaccine) October 20, 2006
Recall of Decavac Vaccine - (Amerisource Bergen / Sanofi Pasteur, Inc.) May 30, 2006
Recall of Rabies Vaccine (Human Diploid Cell), Imovax Rabies
Aventis Pasteur April 2, 2004
Recall of Rabies Vaccine, IMOVAX Rabies - (Aventis Pasteur, Inc) September 9, 2003


Those are just the recalls. Those aren't the other types of human error like the nurse I mentioned above who accidentally gave her patients insulin by mistake.
 
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No, it isn't. You're putting forward all sorts of fallacious and ignorant arguments.

Like what?

People are getting pissed off at the very unpopular truth that the woman's baby is probably fine without the vaccines for a few years because the baby will be protected by herd immunizations. That's a fact is it not?

Sorry you think it's selfish or mean or whatever else people want to say just because they don't like it, but it is a fact.
 

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