If you've ever found yourself reading the comments in a news article about vaccines, you have probably experienced a wide array of misinformed people posting vaccine-related "facts" they read on an online forum somewhere or anecdotes about how harmful vaccines are that they learned from their cousin's mother's ex-dog-walker's mailman. And they are wrong, plain and simple.
There's a great article at NBC that goes down the list of these talking points and unpacks them, one by one, and it's worth reading and sharing to drive these facts home.
Myth #1: When you space out vaccinations a la Dr. Sears' alternative vaccine schedule, it's healthier for your child.
No, it's not, says Dr. Neal Halsey, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that babies get their first combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine at 12 months and a second dose at age 4 to 6, before starting pre-school or kindergarten. Not only is your child vulnerable to measles if you delay this, but older kids might be more likely to have frightening complications from the vaccine.
Wait, though. Dr. Sears is a doctor who published a whole book on vaccines!
He must know what he's talking about.
“Bob Sears is a man with no published expertise with vaccines, who has never done research on vaccines and never been a part of a data safety monitoring board, who has collected vaccine inserts in his office and makes up a schedule – what hubris this man has,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and a professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Well, he at least did some research or studies to back up his claims, right?
By contrast, Sears relied on nothing but his own clinical experience to create his schedule. “I will note that there is no evidence that going more slowly [with vaccines] is safer, and I have never claimed such,” he told me by email about his schedule.
Allrighty then. Moving on to
myth #2:
It's "illegals" bringing these diseases into our country!
It's true that measles was eliminated in the United States in 2000 and all outbreaks now begin with an imported case.
But last year, the worst year for measles in the U.S. since 1994, 635 out of 644 cases of measles were in U.S. citizens, says Dr. Diane Griffin of Johns Hopkins.
And out of these cases, 77 percent were unvaccinated people.
Well, isn't that something?
Myth #3: Vaccines kill more people than the diseases they purport to protect us from.
Actually, measles kills more than 140,000 people a year globally, according to the World Health Organization. And WHO estimates that measles vaccines save 1 million lives a year.
In contrast, just 57 claims of deaths due to measles vaccines have been filed through the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a no-fault system set up to compensate people injured by vaccines. The program doesn't say how many of those claims were actually allowed.
Okay but ... there's a Vaccine Injury Compensation Program! That in and of itself proves (
myth #4)
vaccines are dangerous!
No one ever said vaccines are 100 percent safe. People can be allergic to a vaccine. Former California Rep. Henry Waxman helped write the legislation that led to the program's 1986 launch. He told the seminar it was set up because vaccine makers were dropping out of the business because of fear of pricey lawsuits, and public health officials feared the U.S. would suffer a shortage of vaccines.
Oh, so you mean you can have a reaction to vaccines the same way you can have a reaction to
penicillin,
peanuts or
Latex? Good to know.
Myth #5: You can still spread measles even if you've been vaccinated.
This erroneous idea may be perpetuated by people who get measles mixed up with polio. Some polio vaccines are made using "live" viruses. These can revert to "wild" type and cause outbreaks, and now WHO recommends using a "killed" polio vaccine first to provide immunity and then boosting with the live one to prevent this spread.
Myth #6: To vaccinate or not vaccinate
is a partisan issue.
Nope. While some conservatives like Rand Paul and Chris Christie may echo anti-vaxxer sentiments, so do some Marin County liberals. Sadly, it's not partisan politics to be anti-science.
Myth #7: Autism is caused by vaccines.
No. Just no. Even leaders in the autism community are calling BS on this one.
Kudos to NBC for working to dispel these myths. Read the full breakdown here.