Warning mini rant/TED Talk:
I think MDs and public health professionals share some degree of blame for the rise of anti vaxxers (celebrities, conspiracy theorists and social media have the rest).
Instead of giving people nuanced information about vaccines, they really downplay the idea that there is *any* risk to them. And this (rightfully so) builds huge mistrust.
If instead, it was discussed like say peanut allergies in children where a discussion might look like: "it's very highly unlikely to cause a problem but everyone's immune system is different and there is always a chance your son or daughter could get a severe reaction from a Reese's cup."
Instead, the debate is centered around two groups: vaccines are uniformly "toxic" or vaccines are uniformly safe. Neither is the whole picture, as it depends entirely on the individuals immune system. What clinical trials aim to show is that it is "almost always" safe, which of course is not the same as "always."
The discussion should also include that vaccination is a cost/benefit equation and should be taken when the disease is a great risk to you or members of your family. COVID-19 definitely fits this criteria when you consider not just mortality (especially in high risk groups) but chronic debilitation after damage to the heart, lungs and even CNS.
Personally, I have given thousands of vaccines in my career as a vet. The diseases I vaccinated for fit this bill (I was not one to push for things like the ringworm vaccine): they were highly contagious and very serious. I saw many more dogs get sick (and die) of Distemper and Parvo then vaccine reactions (by far).
But are they always safe? No. A very small amount of dogs will get, for example, immune mediated hemolytic anemia following a vaccine and, if not treated aggressively with immunosuppressive drugs, can be fatal. These dogs should never be vaccinated again once they recover.
In cats, there is a kind of cancer that is associated with vaccination, "vaccine associated fibrosarcoma" but it effects about one in every 10000 to 30000 cats. Most of the vets I worked with would counsel owners and say, this is a rare but serious problem and to minimize this we giving vaccines only as often as needed and if the cat is not outdoors, sometimes they only get the kitten series for FVRCP (feline herpesvirus can cause a lot of long term immune problems for cats and sometimes contributes to even serious systemic disease and is most often transmitted to kittens). Cats are also given vaccines in a place amenable to aggressive surgery if they develop a vaccine associated fibrosarcoma (this is a little bit of a tangent but some cats have the kind of immune and fibroblast abnormalities that can get neoplastic changes even if plain saline is delivered subQ with a needle, they just have poor immune control genes).
Anyway, the point is, anti vaxxers probably have heard (true) stories about people getting things like GBS from vaccines and they feel lied to because they are always shut down. So in this distrust, they turn to conspiracy sites which blame everything on vaccines including autism and downplay that fact that sometimes they really are necessary.
I think MDs and public health professionals share some degree of blame for the rise of anti vaxxers (celebrities, conspiracy theorists and social media have the rest).
Instead of giving people nuanced information about vaccines, they really downplay the idea that there is *any* risk to them. And this (rightfully so) builds huge mistrust.
If instead, it was discussed like say peanut allergies in children where a discussion might look like: "it's very highly unlikely to cause a problem but everyone's immune system is different and there is always a chance your son or daughter could get a severe reaction from a Reese's cup."
Instead, the debate is centered around two groups: vaccines are uniformly "toxic" or vaccines are uniformly safe. Neither is the whole picture, as it depends entirely on the individuals immune system. What clinical trials aim to show is that it is "almost always" safe, which of course is not the same as "always."
The discussion should also include that vaccination is a cost/benefit equation and should be taken when the disease is a great risk to you or members of your family. COVID-19 definitely fits this criteria when you consider not just mortality (especially in high risk groups) but chronic debilitation after damage to the heart, lungs and even CNS.
Personally, I have given thousands of vaccines in my career as a vet. The diseases I vaccinated for fit this bill (I was not one to push for things like the ringworm vaccine): they were highly contagious and very serious. I saw many more dogs get sick (and die) of Distemper and Parvo then vaccine reactions (by far).
But are they always safe? No. A very small amount of dogs will get, for example, immune mediated hemolytic anemia following a vaccine and, if not treated aggressively with immunosuppressive drugs, can be fatal. These dogs should never be vaccinated again once they recover.
In cats, there is a kind of cancer that is associated with vaccination, "vaccine associated fibrosarcoma" but it effects about one in every 10000 to 30000 cats. Most of the vets I worked with would counsel owners and say, this is a rare but serious problem and to minimize this we giving vaccines only as often as needed and if the cat is not outdoors, sometimes they only get the kitten series for FVRCP (feline herpesvirus can cause a lot of long term immune problems for cats and sometimes contributes to even serious systemic disease and is most often transmitted to kittens). Cats are also given vaccines in a place amenable to aggressive surgery if they develop a vaccine associated fibrosarcoma (this is a little bit of a tangent but some cats have the kind of immune and fibroblast abnormalities that can get neoplastic changes even if plain saline is delivered subQ with a needle, they just have poor immune control genes).
Anyway, the point is, anti vaxxers probably have heard (true) stories about people getting things like GBS from vaccines and they feel lied to because they are always shut down. So in this distrust, they turn to conspiracy sites which blame everything on vaccines including autism and downplay that fact that sometimes they really are necessary.