What everyone gets wrong about anti-vaccine parents
What everyone gets wrong about anti-vaccine parents | The Skeptical OB
This is relevant. Some of our friends are anti-vaxxers, and while I haven't really talked about this with them, here's the thing that we've gleaned--they're not all about "vaccines cause autism," like everyone thinks. So while we pro-vaxxers are like, "Geez, those anti-vaxxers are so silly and irresponsible, thinking that vaccines cause autism!" that's not necessarily the case. And therefore, our criticism of them may need to change, too.
For instance, some of the anti-vax parents think that actually getting a disease like chicken pox provides better long-term immunity than a vaccine shot would.
Or they think they're actually being a benefit to society--and I think this is their reasoning: continual, low-level exposure of everyone to the chicken pox virus (for example) means that we're all constantly updating our antibodies to it and similar diseases. For example, I had chicken pox when I was young. I should be immune to it. But there's a chance as I get older, I might get the related disease shingles. Now, if I were regularly coming into contact with the chicken pox virus, my body would reinforce and update its immunity to that family of viruses, and I would be fine the rest of my life. But since so many people have the vaccine and don't get chicken pox, I'm not ever re-exposed to the virus. And sure, I had chicken pox--but that was thirty years ago, and the antibodies I have in my body never get updated or reinforced. The anti-vaxxers see the rise in the number of cases of shingles as "proof" of this.
Again, R. and I don't want to bring it up with these friends, because mostly we like them, and it's such a hot-button issue, and we're worried that debating it might just cause a rift. I dunno, maybe that wouldn't be bad, but for now, it's Rocky's call. I would be really curious, though, to find out what their thinking is. Do they have arguments against vaccination beyond the "vaccines cause autism" one? Or are they really still clinging to that one? Do they see it as causing a problem when their kids grow up and want to travel to somewhere where things like polio are still endemic? Or at that point, do they assume their kids will have such great immune systems, they'll never catch anything?
Anyway, my point is, just about everything I've seen shows parents not vaccinating because of the "vaccines cause autism" argument. And some of them may not be making that argument at all, in which case, any "vaccines don't cause autism, duh" counter-arguments are moot.
The linked article also makes really good points about the anti-vaxxers and their way of thinking, beyond the science or autism claims...
