To: the anti-vax writer. Subject: a direct response.
- Samantha White
- Jul 15, 2014
- 7 min read
Anti-vaccination advocates have shared various articles and stories with us since we opened our Facebook page this year. This online post in particular bothered me, and I wanted to write a response to the writers “8 points”.
My response to: “8 things pro-vaxxers say that contradict each other”
Medical professionals know that vaccines are not absolutely 100% effective, and by no means do they lie to parents and tell them they are. Vaccines immunise the majority of individuals that receive them, and all vaccines go through testing and trials to ensure they are safe and effective before they are distributed to the public. Despite the dramatic improvements to society and decreased burden of infectious disease through the implementation of vaccines, we are still in the early stages of understanding how to achieve better protection and efficacy through improved vaccine design. This is a continual goal for centres and governments, to better protect people and give life-long protection.
It is true that some individuals who are vaccinated do not acquire immunity and can go on to get the disease, however this is a small number of people, and compared to the decreased incidence of vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) and number of lives saved through vaccination it seems insignificant to be used in an argument against vaccines. Looking at the statistics makes it clear how great vaccination has been for the community.
Compared to the pre-vaccine era, cases of VPDs have decreased dramatically:
This link will take you to a study exploring and explaining the reasons why vaccines have variable efficacy, and demonstrates that the medical community endeavours to continually improve vaccines in regards to efficacy and safety.
The writer’s second point is again, a wild accusation: “Pro-vaxxers like to scare people into thinking their children with DIE if they don’t get vaccinated.” This is definitely not true. No scare tactics are necessary when there is such clear evidence that vaccines save lives.
It is important to acknowledge that children who are vaccinated definitely have a decreased chance of contracting the VPD, and therefore suffering severe consequences of these diseases.
Such consequences can include:
Measles pneumonia or encephalitis
Cirrhosis or liver cancer from hepatitis B
Meningitis from pneumococcus, meningococcus, or Hib
See our page here to see the facts about effects of the VPDs, juxtaposed next to the side effects of the vaccine.
Some VPDs are life threatening, and cannot be “fought off within a few days if a child is healthy” (paraphrased), as this writer claims. Most people alive today were never around to see the devastation of child morbidity and mortality that some VPDs once caused. It’s true, most people who contract a VPD do not die, but the risk of an infected child suffering a severe consequence of a VPD far outweighs the risk of side effects from the vaccine used to prevent it.
Number 3 makes a valuable point, just with the wrong intention. VPDs kill millions of people each year in countries with poor sanitation and infrastructure, no clean drinking water, limited access to food, and therefore weak immune systems. This should not be dismissed as a point to separate us from them. This simply emphasises the impact and importance of vaccines, and the difference they can make in countries that are not as lucky as us. Sanitation and living conditions make a huge impact on the transmission of infectious disease, and so a VPD would not spread as rapidly in Western society such as Australia or the US, however that does not de-validate the purpose and need for vaccines in these countries. Agreed, a VPD would not kill millions of people each year in countries like Australia or the US if we didn’t have vaccinations, but would we want a VPD making thousands of people sick, some with permanent repercussions, when we have an effective prevention strategy waiting to be used? And which seems like the more economical option here, when you factor in medical and hospital costs for the sick?
It’s well known that package inserts for all medications, including vaccines, must list every side effect for that medication. It’s the law, and it’s fair. Anti-vaxxers like to play on this point a lot though. Did you know headaches are listed as a side effect for paracetamol?
Facts on the incidence of vaccine side effects can be found here.
The government has created a vaccine adverse event reporting system to continually monitor the safety of vaccines once they have been distributed to the public. It’s there to catch anything that might occur unexpectedly after the vaccine passes clinical trials. What kind of society would we have if the government did not do this, and simply did not care about monitoring medical interventions in the community? Surely the fact that we have such a good health system with a reporting system cannot be used against the medical community in the argument against vaccination.
And finally, having a vaccine injury compensation program emphasises the fact that we live in a wealthy country, where the government cares about the health, safety, and financial security of their citizens. Vaccine injuries do happen, no one in the medical community is denying this, however they are very rare. The scheme provides assistance to those people who unfortunately had a bad reaction to a vaccine, and it should not be used as leverage in an argument against the use of vaccines.
In this paragraph, the writer is using extremist language in an attempt to validate a point. What are the benefits of vaccination they ask? The benefits of vaccination are this: we no longer see children with polio in a horrific contraption known as an ‘iron lung’, we can prevent children from contracting and possibly dying from meningitis, smallpox has been eradicated from the world, less babies have congenital defects as a result of rubella… the list goes on. People have forgotten the effects of these horrible infectious diseases, because vaccination is doing such a great job at keeping them at such low rates that no one sees these illnesses anymore. And of course no one would ever say that “it’s okay my child died” for any reason at all!! This is just another example of the writer being extreme when they have no legitimate example or argument, only scare tactics.
Okay where do I begin… this paragraph has not disproved the herd immunity theory at all… and then goes on to say it’s junk science? Another perfect example of the ‘junk writing’ some anti-vaccination advocates disseminate. Herd immunity occurs when over a certain percentage of the population (dependent on the infectivity of the disease) is immune to the disease. As most people who are vaccinated will be immune against the disease, they contribute towards this coverage and therefore acquire herd immunity, to protect those people who are not vaccinated for a variety of reasons. Outbreaks of VPDs such as measles do still occur in areas that have sufficient vaccine coverage, however this is always because an unvaccinated person who has left Australia and brought back the infection with them, passes it on to other non-immunised people and introduces the disease into the community. By being immune to a disease you act as a barrier of transmission for the disease, and therefore protect other people that may be unvaccinated from being exposed. It’s not a difficult concept to understand.
This point is repetitive, and I’ve already addressed it above - the “cause” of the outbreaks is usually an unvaccinated person bringing a disease into the country from somewhere that does not have as strong public health system as we do and therefore have these VPDs at a higher incidence in the community. When the infected individual does enter our mostly vaccinated country, they’re much more likely to transmit the infection to another unvaccinated individual than someone who has been vaccinated and is most likely immune. The writer has again leant on their point that people who have been vaccinated may not be immunised, and can still be vulnerable to the infection. However this is not such a common occurrence that they can continually use this as a reason for people to not bother being vaccinated.
The possibility of a link between childhood vaccinations and autism spectrum disorder is a very controversial topic that is under constant review by the anti-vax and pro-vax communities and causes many debates. A meta-analysis study was published in 2014 that conclusively shows no link between autism and vaccinations (link), however the anti-vax community still claims that doctors and “big pharma” are against them, covering up the evidence, and trying to make money from the sick. Really? I just can’t. The evidence is there… vaccines do not cause autism. The medical community is not out to make people sicker, they want to help people get better and improve public health - that’s why they became doctors!
I hope I haven't come across too aggressively and have adequately answered the "concerns" this writer is having about vaccines. It makes me so upset to see people writing such articles, which disseminate via the Internet to people in the community, affecting people's faith in science, the health system, or doctors' abilities/desire to protect the health of the community. It stands to say, there is adequate evidence for the efficacy and safety of vaccines for the vast majority of medical professionals to strongly recommend vaccinating children, and there is only opinion and casual associations holding up the shaky arguments of the anti-vaccination community.
References
1. Slifka MK, Amanna I. How advances in immunology provide insight into improving vaccine efficacy. Vaccine [internet]. April 2014 [cited 2014 Jul 15];32:2948-57. Available from: https://www-clinicalkey-com-au.ezproxy.library.uwa.edu.au/#!/content/playContent/1-s2.0-S0264410X14004599
2. The Australian Immunisation Handbook, 10th ed. [Internet]. January 2014 [cited 2014 Jul 15]. Available from: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/immunise/publishing.nsf/Content/Handbook10-home
3. Taylor LE, Swerdfeger AL, Eslick GD. Vaccines are not associated with autism: and evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies. Vaccine [Internet]. June 2014 [cited 2014 Jul 15];32(29):3623-29. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367
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