anti vaxxers

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Can I have a (Polite, yes I know that is hard on this subject) statement preferably backed up from a few of you on how you feel about it?

I'll do what I can to issue a polite statement. Note that if it's a choice between telling the truth and being polite, I'm tell the truth.

I feel the anti-vaxxers have some misguided views that are based on debunked claims and need to be told that according to scientific evidence, their views are misplaced. It's also dangerous to refuse to immunize children because not only is their health at risk, the health of everyone around them is also placed in jeopardy. Herd immunity is a real thing and is thrown out when a child is not vaccinated due to a misguided choice by their parents.

Now for my less filtered opinion. They believe in pseudo-scientific garbage and "alternative medicine" that is shown not to work. They are potentially killing their child and someone else just because of a paranoia about autism(which by the way is beyond offensive) and frankly I place them in the same category of people who deny that climate change is a thing, and holocaust deniers. They all have some commonalities in that they all ignore what the professionals who have spent their whole lives in the field(whereas these people know literally nothing about the field except articles with blatant lies) say about a topic. This is the same demographic Alex Jones panders too. Sorry if that came off as ranty, if it did, that was not the intent. The intent was to tear apart their beliefs in a cool headed manner.

But there wasn’t an “autistic epidemic” during that time. It would have been noticeable.

Funny, I actually did a deep-dive into this today. I was a jerk to an anti-vaxxer and she asked me for proof, so I started looking. It was hard to find at first. What I was hoping to find was rates of children with autism from countries that don't vaccinate. Quickly found that was an impossible task. Countries that don't vaccinate don't really record any kind of accurate rates.

The closest thing I could find was that in 2004, Japan stopped requiring the MMR vaccine, which is the one most commonly blamed for causing autism. Yet, their rates of diagnosis increased at the same rate as the rest of the developed world.

I have a medical student friend who had access to medical publications that sent me the golden gun, but I can't make out a word on it. He's going to help me go through the data tomorrow, and I'll try to report back what I find in English.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/anti-vax-mo ... -worldwide
Looks like anti-vaxxers might be at least partly responsible for a fairly large increase in the number of measles cases.