Remember last fall when people were crazy over Ebola? There were lots of stories about a possible Ebola vaccine in the near future and people seemed to think that was a great idea. Then, the election happened and Ebola dropped off the 24/7 news cycle.
It's months later and now it seems measles is in the news along with the anti-vaxxer controversy. There are tons of diaries out there posting the rebuttals to the anti-vaxxer rhetoric. My personal experience with anti-vaxxers was that they simply don't make any sense and I didn't waste much time attempting to cajole them into deciding to use vaccines.
While anti-vaxxers talk about personal freedoms, I'm thinking about personal responsibility and wondering if it's worth it to try and challenge the anti-vaxxer.
While they talk about quack science, I'm thinking how to cut them off and demand peer reviewed, published factual data from a respected source and wondering if they comprehend just how nonsensical their position is.
Somehow, the anti-vaxxers got a toe hold on respectability. Too many medical professionals get "squishy" when talking to patients about their immunization fears because they fear they will lose their patients to a more "sympathetic" doctor. Not all, some. Too many don't give enough push back when parents to opt out of immunizations. The number of anti-vaxxers is growing not shrinking. I'm just as bad. As a trained health care risk manager, I should promote vaccination, but I usually say something like, "What did the doctor tell you to do?" and change the subject if I think the anti-vaxxer is about to make a scene. Why? Because, I don't want the medical staff angry with me overstepping my boundaries.
In some ways those of us who chose to get our immunizations on time and get our children inoculated have allowed the anti-vaxxers within our social circles more than a toe hold. We've respected their position enough to let them endanger the rest of us and allowed them to grow in numbers without challenge. We don't demand honest argument from anti-vaxxers. I don't challenge my friends when they spew anti-vaxxer hog wash, but maybe I should rethink that. I would never drive my car unless everyone is buckled in, then maybe I should have a similar approach to immunization.
Here's three snippets about three different immunization issues. These conversations went well and I've kept my friends, but, maybe I should be less "squishy".
Too many Vaccinations "Overwhelm" the Immune System
This one got a traction starting in the 90s. It's totally wrong, but think of it from the other side of things. Consider this situation.
Years ago, we were with friends and our kids in a get together when Mr. Wolverton dropped a brownie on the floor. Now, if it were a piece of meat with a sloppy sauce on it, maybe something different would have happened; but it was a solid cake brownie. Mr. Wolverton caught that brownie on the first bounce, checked it for dust and popped that sucker into his mouth. Uproar ensued. Mr. Wolverton's response was, "What! You think I was going to throw away a brownie!?! 2 second rule."
The cacphony included perjoratives such as: "EWWWW!", "Gross!", "Why'd you do that! There were germs all over that!", "The kids will thank that's ok!" (Like the kids wouldn't do the same thing if Mom wasn't looking.)
Everyone looked at me because I was not piling on. I said, I'm going to bank on the hydrochloric acid in his stomach and the alkaline wash in his duodenum to take care of it." That didn't go over well, either.
Think about all the safety standards we know exist. If you are in KFC and they drop a piece of chicken on the counter, not a plate; they are supposed to drop that piece of chicken in the trash. Cheese and meat have different cutters in the deli. You have two cutting boards - one for meat and the other for everything else. You defrost in the refrigerator or microwave - never the counter. You put the leftovers away immediately after dinner - I mean within 15 minutes of the last forkful (certainly within an hour). You dispose of processed foods the day after it's best by date expires even if it's never been opened, despite a best by date having nothing to do with food safety. You make hamburger patties and meat loaf using plastic gloves or ziploc baggies over your hands. You refrigerate ketsup, barbeque sauce and peanut butter. You use Lysol wipes on the washer barrel between laundry loads, at least weekly on door knobs, railings, steering wheels, light switches, keyboards, mice and toilet flush handles. You either run your toothbrush through the dishwasher, replace it or use peroxide on it regularly. You wash canned goods with soap and hot water before opening them. You don't use a kitchen sponge or dish cloth or if you do, you launder them with bleach and change them after every use/meal. You change the dish towel every day or after every meal. You get queasy thinking about your toddler playing in a ball bin in Chuck E Cheese - you get queasy thinking about your child anywhere in Chuck E Cheese. You run your babies teething toys in the dishwasher every load. You would NEVER put your baby in a shopping cart seat without a barrier or at least using an anti-bacterial wipe on it first. Your dish washer either heats the water to 140 degrees or you keep your water heater at 140 degrees. You think anti-bacterial soap is superior to regular soap. You use so much bleach, you buy it at Costco. You change your teenager's pillow case every other day if not every day. You change out the bath towels at least once a week if not twice. I could make this paragraph two feet long and still not cover the common things we know about cleanliness/antigerm standards. If you nod or approve of 1/4 of these examples (even if you are inconsistent about doing them), you've totally bought into the germ phobia thing. If you are, don't read this. (heh)
With so much paranoia about germs, no wonder the anti-vaxxers are sure 6 vaccines in one day is over load. Every paranoid cleanliness article printed encourages this bogus theory.
Recently, I was talking with one of the kids from that get together. She's going to be a first time mother this coming summer. I was listening to her various plans. What' she's doing to get the house ready for baby which is along the lines of what I wrote above. Then she asked me, "We don't know what to do about vaccinations. I mean, we're thinking about how to keep our house clean enough for the baby and then we're going to inject him with the very bacteria and viruses we are scrubbing out of our house? There's a lot of people who say there are too many vaccines, too fast. We're thinking of delaying some. What do you think?"
I knew she wasn't going to like what I was about to say. "The best thing to do is get a good pediatrician who follows accepted, peer-reviewed standards and avoid a quack. Are you going back to work around 12 to 16 weeks?" She nodded yes, so I proceeded, "Your baby is going to need all the recommended immunizations at 2 months, so he'll have the antibodies he needs when you put him in daycare. And, I don't think I'd get too paranoid about cleaning the house. Pick up your baby and play with him and just clean the important stuff."
Nope, she didn't like it and I knew why, "But I know you delayed a couple of chibi's immunizations, you've said so!"
I shrugged, "Yes, we delayed a couple of Chibi's immunizations, but she also got a couple you didn't because she was a month premature." I don't think she knew that because she was listening. "Her doctor delayed her MMR to either 15 or 18 months - that's not a 2 year delay. We had insurance problems when she was 5 and those took a few months while the doctor's staff straightened that out. Neither of you got your tetanus boosters on time because the manufacture stopped producing it. That's different than the nonsense Dr. Sears is spouting."
She still wasn't convinced, "But there's so many needles and that 2 month visit has several shots...."
I said something passively encouraging about there being more combo vaccines that require fewer needles and changed the subject. That was my mistake. I should have said our immune systems train by exposure. Her baby will be attacked by live, active pathogens every day. Vaccines are weakened or dead antigens to give her infant a better chance to develop an immunity before he'll need it. I should have told her what life was like for my polio survivor Grandmother and cousin. I should have told her about my cousin's husband who died of chicken pox - yes chicken pox! It took a year to kill him, but it was from complications from getting chicken pox as an adult. I should have told her about how I missed a month of school from contracting mumps, chicken pox and the measles (one right after the other) that I caught in my doctor's waiting room getting my weekly allergy shots. I could have pointed out that our bodies are exposed to millions of pathogens all the time and can fight off the attacks. Vaccines aren't the problem. Full strength pathogens "in the wild" are the problem.
I should have pointed out that immunization is a cheap insurance plan compared to the loss of income from having to stay home with a sick baby. She or her husband will be forced to stay home often enough due to the day care sending the baby home at any sign of illness for issues not prevented by immunization. The loss of income and loss of respect at work will take a toll. I should have asked what her child care contingency plan is if her baby is quarantined for a month because he was exposed before he could be vaccinated for one thing or another. Regularly scheduled immunizations might not be enough to keep her kid healthy enough to let her work enough to support him if too many of her peers opt out of vaccinating their children.
I should have used the families in California who have their babies in quarantine because of the measles outbreak. They cannot work because their babies cannot go to daycare. Allowing other people to skip their vaccinations can royally screw up this young woman's life. She needed to know that and I didn't hammer the point home. That's on me.
Aluminum
One time I was baking some cookies with a friend and pulled out the unbleached parchment paper to line the cookie sheet.
"Why do you use that? It's kinda wasteful, don't you think?"
I shrugged, "Faster, easier clean up."
She accepted this statement, "I thought you were going to tell me it was due to the aluminum exposure and I was going to tell you that a serving of cookies would likely get less than .00025 mg and your body would absorb maybe 1% of that. It isn't like it would be injected into you like it's a vaccine". She fake shuddered, "When I think of all the immunizations I got my kids and all the aluminum I let them inject into my kids..."
I don't remember exactly what I said. What she said was memorable because she was spouting stats and she doesn't usually do that. I think I said some like this, "Your kids are fine, strong adults. You made the right choice. Your kids got less aluminum in the 36 or so shots than they got absorbing the 1% in all the food they ate and drank over the same time period."
She didn't believe that statement and vigorously disagreed. I changed the subject rather than continue the discussion. That was my mistake. I should have taken the time to make clear that I would only accept peer reviewed information and not anti-vaxxer quackery. I should have questioned her cherry picking her facts. I should have said several more things, then, changed the subject.
Mercury
Here's my last example as this diary is getting too long.
The main sushi I like is Ahi (tuna). I also prefer swordfish and tuna to just about any other cooked fish. Mahi Mahi, salmon and grouper are fine, too, but just about all the fish I like is too high in mercury to eat it too often; so I do the right thing and limit my exposure to FDA recommendations.
I made arrangements to meet a friend for tuna takaki. She doesn't limit her fish intake. She eats lots of tuna sushi. She eats kingfish, swordfish; all the fish on the FDA's look out list on a daily basis. Anyway, we were having a great time. She was talking about her niece's new baby and that she supported her niece's fear of mercury and all the anti-vaxxer clap trap.
Knowing her niece likes fish almost as much as her aunt, "I suggest she limit her baby's intake of fish to her pediatrician's suggestions. the baby is more likely to get too much mercury from her food (provided she eats the same foods as you and her mother) than from vaccines since thimerosal was removed from all childhood vaccines in 2002."
Although she was glad to hear about mercury being removed from the vaccines, she still clung to the rest of the nonsense, but dismissed the concerns about mercury in the fish she prefers. I let it pass and that was my mistake. I should have said it was more dangerous to have an unvaccinated baby and that her fears of toxins in the serums are overblown. I should have challenged the bunk, but I didn't. I didn't think it was that important. Man, in light of the last few weeks, I was wrong.
I could go through the entire anti-vaxxer's list of objections, but that's not the point. Reasonable people who do an objective analysis can determine that billions of vaccinations have been administered since the 1950s and few and by that I mean 3,540 won compensation in the U.S. for vaccine injury since 1988 few. The medical community has determined when an immunization cannot be given and who shouldn't get them. Everyone else needs to roll up their sleeve and take it. I just need the courage to say that and stick with it when the subject comes up.