No, Mrs R hasn't answered any questions. She has been vague (as is her right) on her reasons for not taking vaccines. The only answer she has provided was to the question "Are vaccines good or bad". Her answer was a definitive (um, depends!). When given various scenarios, she didn't answer (as is her right), but she still has plenty of vague things to say about vaccines.
"Firstly, if vaccines are so effective, then you shouldn't be concerned if she doesn't accept them as you will be already protected."
What a selfish attitude to take. Let me tell you why I AM concerned. I have read so many stories of people who, on the basis of Dr Wakefield's and other anti-vaccine people, are beating themselves up over somehow giving their kids autism. I have read even more stories of parents of kids who didn't take the MMR vaccine and whose kids became seriously ill from the effects of measles, mumps or rubella.
My young cousin, not vaccinated, contracted encephalitis after suffering from Mumps.
"Secondly, what the hell has it got to do with other people (you included) when it comes to personal medical choice?"
Measles, for example, kills millions every year. There are kids who are unprotected because their parents/guardians have been mis-educated, mis-informed, or just think it's a great thing to not "conform". Parents worldwide are making the choice "Do I give my kids autism, or let them have measles for a couple of weeks" and are choosing the latter. I admit that this does "flip" my mind, purely because the REAL choice is "Do I let my kids have a vaccine that prevents measles (a potentially deadly disease), or do I not give them the vaccine and risk them getting measles (a potentially deadly disease".
So, I am sorry, but I do COMPUTE. Yes, people are well within their rights to make choices about their own bodies. But, those choices often come off the back of poor studies (of TWELVE people in Dr Wakefield's damaging paper).
Of course, you can live in a town of 10,000 people. Of those 9,999 have been vaccinated against all diseases. You haven't. But you get the external benefit of everybody else having been vaccinated. Until you take a trip to another town where, of 10,000 people, only 100 have been vaccinated. And, yikes, you're in the middle of a Rubella outbreak and (in the case of a pregnant woman) your unborn child is now in danger of being still-born.
Smallpox (eradicated). Polio - 350,000 cases in 1988. 74 in 2015.
That we are still getting measles outbreaks
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html
is largely due to the fact that so many people are non-conforming and being wiser than us "uber conformists" by not getting themselves, nor their offspring, vaccinated.
Originally Posted by Kris
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