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nancygduarteus · 6 years ago

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The Small, Small World of Facebook’s Anti-Vaxxers

Look up “vaccinations” on Facebook, as Representative Adam Schiff did last week, and the results will show a rich supply of anti-vaccination posts, pages, and groups. Such propaganda appears to be flourishing online, drawing the uninitiated into a tangled web of sources through algorithmic recommendations and human shares.

Facebook, for its part, laments the reach of such “health-related misinformation.” But the company can also use the presumed complexity for cover. If the anti-vaccination posts are widely distributed, then fixing this misinformation problem becomes massively more difficult. Imagine that hundreds of thousands of people are responsible for the anti-vaccine chatter: To take action against such a network could cause massive ripples in the fabric of the network. Sensitive to cries of censorship, Facebook would shy away from intervening

However, while Facebook’s scale might as well be infinite, the actual universe of people arguing about vaccinations is limited and knowable. Using the web-monitoring tool Crowdtangle, I analyzed the most popular posts since 2016 that contain the words “vaccine.” I found that a relatively small network of pages creates most of the anti-vaccine content that is widely shared. At the same time, a small network of “pro-science” pages also experiences viral success countering the anti-vaxx posts.

While there is no dearth of posts related to vaccines, the top 50 Facebook pages ranked by the number of public posts they made about vaccines generated nearly half (46 percent) of the top 10,000 posts for or against vaccinations, as well as 38 percent of the total likes on those posts, from January 2016 to February of this year. The distribution is heavy on the top, particularly for the anti-vaxx position. Just seven anti-vaxx pages generated nearly 20 percent of the top 10,000 vaccination posts in this time period: Natural News, Dr. Tenpenny on Vaccines and Current Events, Stop Mandatory Vaccination, March Against Monsanto, J.B. Handley, Erin at Health Nut News, and Revolution for Choice.

[Read: How misinfodemics spread disease]

Despite panic in cases like the current measles outbreak in the United States, anti-vaccination activism most likely has been substantially less influential than it sometimes appears. As Slate’s Daniel Engber pointed out, U.S. vaccination rates for measles, for example, have barely budged in recent years: It was 91.5 percent in 2005, and again in 2010, and again in 2014, and again in 2017. What has changed is the (social) media ecosystem. Even if the bulk of Americans aren’t changing their behavior, anti-vaccine talking points are more widely available thanks to the concentration of social activity on a few platforms and the substantial reach of a small number of anti-vaxx media organs.

Mainstream media outlets and specialty outlets find success in running debunkings of these anti-vaxx claims. The appearance of a debate generates factional attention, driving the us-versus-them shareability of posts on all sides. Not unlike conservative news outlets that relentlessly cover the Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for clicks, the “pro-science” pages like I fucking love science, SciBabe, and Credible Hulk can attract readers on Facebook by tickling the someone-is-wrong-on-the-internet gland of audiences who already agree about vaccination.

This is not at all to say the sides’ evidence or goals are equivalent. One is spreading misinformation, often to sell a product or service, while the other relies on credible scientific evidence to protect a public-health achievement. But each circuit plays a part in expanding the bubble of attention to the anti-vaxx position, even though most people don’t buy it.

The crucial factor is the huge audience that just a few social-media platforms have gathered and made targetable through regular posts as well as advertisements. Pinterest recently stopped showing search results for vaccine searches. YouTube told me in a statement that they were “surfacing more authoritative content across our site for people searching for vaccination-related topics, beginning to reduce recommendations of certain anti-vaccination videos and showing information panels with more sources where they can fact check information for themselves.”

As the other platforms make moves to slow and counter health conspiracies on their sites, Facebook has also been circling the problem. “We’ve taken steps to reduce the distribution of health-related misinformation on Facebook, but we know we have more to do,” a Facebook spokesperson told me. “We’re currently working on additional changes that we’ll be announcing soon.” While Facebook has been loathe to actually delete pages, they could downrank them or even leave them completely out of searches for vaccine information. Right now, it remains unclear exactly what steps Facebook has taken or will take in the near future.

With any current changes and prospective ones, the company will not be moving against inert entities. Given that my Crowdtangle analysis points out that anti-vaccine propaganda is so concentrated on Facebook among a small, interconnected group, the important nodes in that network have been preparing, rhetorically and operationally, for the Facebook maneuvers. There is not a deep set of pages to push this ideology. Shutting down just a few pages could make a difference.

Among the most prominent anti-vaxx pages is Natural News, which is an Infowars-like conspiracy site sprinkled with tumeric powder and the essence of chemtrails. The site, which has 2.9 million likes and comes up high in a variety of search results about vaccines and vaccination, runs stories with headlines like “Left-wing media run by actual demon-possessed anti-human EVIL entities… watch this stunning mini-documentary” as well as “Tech giants’ censorship is an online ETHNIC CLEANSING campaign, equivalent to intellectual genocide.” According to the site’s list of popular stories, its two most popular posts of the year were both about vaccines.

Natural News has kept up a steady drumbeat of posts about how the company is going to be “silenced” or “censored” by the tech platforms. The site’s owner, Mike Adams, has claimed that Apple (among other tech companies) is defending “Satanism” by asking the company to make changes to its app on the App Store. “This is the first time that a dominant tech company has overtly come out in defense of Satanism while threatening to censor a prominent publisher that exposes the evils of Satanic influence,” Adams wrote in a recent post. Adams refers to the tech companies as “techno-fascists.”(Natural News did not respond to a request for comment.)

But many of the most popular anti-vaccine pages are much less overtly conspiratorial in nature. Dr. Tenpenny on Vaccines and Current Events stars a very reasonable seeming doctor from Middleburg Heights, Ohio. Sherri Tenpenny has an integrative-medical practice in Ohio, but has also begun to offer a “Mastering Vaccine Info” eight-week boot camp for $595. The course offers the anti-vaxx perspective on history, and “most importantly, you will learn the necessary language skills to communicate key concepts in sound bites, to confront bullies and how to stand your ground.” (Tenpenny did not respond to a request for comment.)

[Read: The shadow network of anti-vaxx doctors]

If the pages structured around anti-vaccine misinformation are easy to see for what they are, there are other pages that present a more complicated picture. They are not filled with rants about satanism, and they’re painted with the soft colors of a parenting site. Take Erin at Health Nut News. Most of the posts on the page are related to general wellness and other health news. But some of them follow the softer anti-vaccination line, arguing against “mandatory vaccination” and for “parental choice” among other things. On the Health Nut News website, you can buy chi-balancing tools, CBD oils, as well as tea that “unleashes your body’s potential.”

The proprietor of the page, Erin Elizabeth, posted this week that “FB is Thinking of deleting or censoring pages that talk about alternative/natural health,” while encouraging her followers to like her personal page as it would “hopefully” stay on Facebook. She also encouraged users to subscribe to her email list “as we may disappear with censorship.” (Elizabeth did not respond to a request for comment.)

As the anti-vaxx pages try to herd their audiences off of Facebook or into private groups, Facebook will have to steel itself for the pushback that will come from those affected. But anti-vaxx activism and opportunism do not map neatly onto the left-right political spectrum, which could make it easier for Facebook or YouTube to move against these pages. These activists portray their activity as an exercise of “free speech,” even if, legally, that is not the case.

Since the posts about and attention generated by vaccines are highly concentrated, Facebook should be able to greatly diminish these posts’ impact on the platform if the company really is serious about anti-vaxx misinformation. At the same time, if Facebook begins to get serious about health misinformation, then they might have to deal with the profusion of scientifically dubious or outright ineffective medicines promoted by the likes of more mainstream sites like Goop.

But, hey, first things first.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/02/anti-vaxx-facebook-social-media/583681/?utm_source=feed

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ionecoffman · 6 years ago

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The Small, Small World of Facebook’s Anti-Vaxxers

[Read: How misinfodemics spread disease]

[Read: The shadow network of anti-vaxx doctors]

But, hey, first things first.

Article source here:The Atlantic

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adambstingus · 7 years ago

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30 Children of Anti-Vaxxers Tell Their Stories

At this point, it’s common knowledge that vaccines haven’t been linked with autism. Doctors have checked and checked again, but nothing credible has ever come up.

Still, there are people who identify as ‘anti-vaxxers’ and decline to vaccinate their children. Now, in a packed Reddit thread, those peoples’ children have a few things to say about it.

Check out stories from 30 children of anti-vaxxers, who each feel quite different from their parents!

One redditor always thought they had been vaccinated—until their employer discovered otherwise.

I had an idea they were anti-vaxxers, but it was never confirmed.

They mentioned my younger brother wasn’t [vaccinated] but it was “justified” because we were living in the mountains of Montana and it was too far a drive to the Doctor.

I assumed I had been as I was born in civilization and we didn’t move to the hills until I was 3.

We were homeschooled, my older brother had trouble at college with his immunizations and Mom said all the paperwork was lost when they moved.

I was 30 years old and I was offered a job at a university helping train doctors, started getting paperwork asking for proof of vaccinations, I just said test me and give me whatever I need.

But I know I’ve had Chicken Pox.

Turns out I had nothing, no antibodies and I’d never had Chicken Pox either (Mom said I had). Lit up both arms with a run of shots over the next 3 months.

Never forgot telling my boyfriend and he yelled “You’ve been to Mexico, TWICE, and Europe. Oh my god.”

Called my mom and said “Hey I’m getting a job and they say I’ve never been vaccinated. Was I?”

She got very defensive and said no, she hated making us cry as babies and they’re bad for little kids.

Also, did I really need them? She then tried to talk me out of them.

Since I know how they work I felt very okay letting her know I’d already started the process.

I’m so thankful for all of you protecting me until I found out. –sirenssong

This redditor, unfortunately, suffered the consequences of a disease for which a vaccine exists.

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Mom got rubella when pregnant with me. As a result, I was born severely deaf so there ya go.

Life’s not the best. –strangeunluckyfetus

This person’s parent had to see them with measles to understand the importance of vaccination.

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I got measles, as a 22-year-old, in my first week of moving to London.

I’d previously lived up north, and on my first day of working immediately after finishing uni, I began feeling lethargic. By the second day, I felt pretty bad but soldiered on.

Third day, I began taking (fairly effective) painkillers for the remainder of the week. Saturday, attended a local fair, after taking my morning painkiller.

Had a bottle of beer with my dad and felt very strange afterward, almost floaty but in a kinda bad way.

Decided to stop taking the painkillers, woke up with a raging fever and intense coughing on Sunday.

Hobbled out of bed, feeling dizzy and horrible and noticed in the mirror of the bathroom that I looked like an Oompa Loompa (red splotchy rash all over).

My step mum had been feeling similar symptoms that week, she decided to call an ambulance, who checked both of our conditions and turned out I had a raging (41c) fever and low oxygen.

They took me to A&E and I was given fluids via a drip.

Later, my step mum came in and was given the same treatment; the doctor on call said it’d probably be a general viral infection.

At home, took the week off work and recovered. Step mum took off two weeks. She went back to A&E a couple of days after; the doctor on duty immediately spotted that it was measles.

Thing is, in England if you get it, an organization called Public Health England has to be legally informed by your doctor, which informs your workplace about your illness.

Cue an embarrassing email being sent by your new boss to everyone in your company before you’ve even met most of your colleagues.

Took a while to recover. In a week I felt well enough to be out and about. You’re only infectious when you have the rash (and a little before and after).

I still felt out of whack for several weeks. This happened in July, and I didn’t feel quite fully recovered until October or so.

Obviously, neither myself or my step mum had been vaccinated with the MMR. My dad and sisters had had it as children. We immediately got both jabs, after we were told how painful mumps could be.

Strongly recommend everyone gets the MMR vaccine. It’s straightforward and time-honored.

Measles is unpleasant and can cause complications in adults. My intense coughing almost certainly caused some lung damage, and my hair just kind of… fell out in the months following.

Save yourselves!

My graduation ceremony was a couple of weeks after this. My actual mum saw how ill measles had left me and changed her mind on vaccinations.

Shame it had to be that way, though. –AdamJay26

It’s a good thing medical professionals are often ready to help kids of anti-vaxxers, even later in life than usual.

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My parents chose not to vaccinate my sister and me. They have some… unique ideas about science and medicine.

We were also homeschooled if that clarifies anything.

We both wound up volunteering at hospitals at different points in our lives, so we had to get caught up anyway. For me, it was at age 20, for an internship at a mental health facility.

It was a little awkward explaining to the nurse why I had nothing on my record, but she was understanding overall.

My big concern now is what will happen when I get around to having children of my own in a few years.

I think they’ll see me as a bad mother if I get them vaccinated, so I’m anticipating some fireworks. –Arihagne

This redditor’s struggle wasn’t for their own vaccination, but their parents’.

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I was vaccinated when I was a baby as part of a mandatory vaccination program in the Soviet Union, but my parents wouldn’t vaccinate/get boosters after we moved to the States.

My family is pathologically distrustful of doctors and medication of any kind and prefers homeopathy and alternative medicines.

I didn’t realize I wasn’t fully vaccinated until I went in for a physical in college.

Up till then, I’d just assumed I’d been fully vaccinated in Russia (Because that’s what my parents told me).

I got all my shots up to date and I just never mentioned it to my parents.

Their anti-medicine stance has softened as they age, but I generally avoid the topic because I can’t handle their bullshit and it never goes anywhere anyway.

That said, I had a baby this past December in the middle of a really bad flu season and I told my parents that they weren’t allowed to see the baby until they could produce proof of a flu shot (this is absolutely something they’d lie about, so yes, I demanded written proof).

They both got one as soon as they realized I was serious. –Kookalka

Next up, another redditor gave their parent the same choice…and the answer wasn’t so peaceful.

This person’s mother had a different answer to the ‘get vaccinated for my baby’ ultimatum.

I said the same thing, and my mum opted not to see the baby for 3 months. Bizarre life choices.

Ultimately she hasn’t had a lot to do with raising her grandson, which might be for the best.

To her credit, she is honest. –actuallyarobot2

When in doubt, go with science.

I was not vaccinated as a child because my mother thought vaccines were evil, unchristian, and other ridiculous things.

This was in the early ’80s before all the autism BS, but she had her own unique theories. I got myself vaccinated when I went to university.

My mother was disappointed and wanted to write a letter to the school explaining her religious views on vaccines (as she had done for years to keep me exempt), but I decided to go with science. –squeezymarmite

Even a medical degree didn’t change this redditor’s anti-vaxxer parents.

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I didn’t receive any vaccinations through childhood due to my parents’ beliefs.

Once I got to college, I did my own research on them, learned the actual science behind them, and got all vaccinations.

I then went to medical school, and yet they still don’t believe me and my medical degree regarding vaccinations.

Holidays can get awkward. –guardian528

Starting college without your vaccines adds an extra few hurdles.

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When I was 19, I had to get some vaccines in order to start college, and my mom was NOT helpful.

First, she tried to get me exempt from the vaccines, and when that didn’t work, she sent me into the clinic (alone) with completely false/outdated info.

I was super embarrassed when the nurses looked at my notes and told me that none of it was correct.

But luckily they helped me figure out what I needed and didn’t shame me too much for not having a previous vaccination record. A couple years later I went back in to get the rest of the recommended vaccines.

My sister had her first kid (and the first grandbaby) last year, and our mom has been pushing her not to vaccinate. Fortunately, my sister has chosen to vaccinate.

She still is trying to get us to watch a documentary about it to change our minds.

Now all us kids just don’t talk to our mom about vaccines because it always turns into an argument. –itsshamefulreally

And the process of applying to college is hard enough without parents interfering.

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[My mom] sabotaged me getting into the college I wanted simply because they did not accept religious exemptions and she couldn’t trick any doctors into signing a health exemption.

I wanted to go do it myself, but they were through accepting applications by then, and I was desperate to go to some college, so I found a different one. –eXpialidocious_

On the next page, one child of the anti-vaxxers has a response to an anti-vaccination “documentary” that made the rounds a few years ago.

There’s an anti-vaccination film called ‘Vaxxed’ (made by an ex-doctor whose license was revoked), and these redditors are NOT about it.

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We had our first child at the very beginning of the year and had to tell my father that since he won’t get vaccinated, he won’t be able to see his grandbaby until the baby gets their shots.

The baby had their first round of shots a few months ago, and my father can now visit. It pained me to do that, and I know it pained him, but I was not putting my child at risk for his choice.

This last weekend we visited my father. At the end of the visit, he handed me Vaxxed.

He knows our feelings on the matter – preventable diseases should be prevented, herd immunity protects those most at risk, autism is not caused by vaccines.

It’s just… disrespectful.

I know he thinks he’s trying to protect his grandson from harm, but it’s coming from the completely wrong direction, and no one can seem to change his opinion on the matter. –humplick

More often than not, anti-vaxxer parents are trying to protect their kids—until they realize where the real danger is.

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My mum didn’t get the measles vaccination because at the time she thought it caused autism; she was kinda one of the first anti-vaxxers, wrote to papers about it everything.

Anyway, a girl in our social group caught meningitis and died, basically freakishly uncommon.

After that, mum was really scared the same thing could happen to me with any disease and basically begged me to get up to date with my shots.

I guess the main takeaway is that when my mum was younger and inexperienced, she thought everything was a danger; she honestly thought she was doing best by me, I guess. –bellend_bellend

This redditor’s mother eventually turned it around herself!

My parents didn’t give us the whooping cough vaccine under the advisement of our pediatrician.

I actually didn’t know this until last year, so I went and got vaccinated on my mom’s recommendation. She wrote my siblings and me the following email to bring it up:

As a parent, you are bound to make many mistakes.

For me, not having the advantage of younger siblings, the internet, or (initially) many friends with babies, I think I learned to parent on the fly.

At the time, there seemed to be a compelling reason not to include the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine along with whatever else was the recommended protocol for infants under the age of one year.

I think we had read that it was one vaccine too many to be included in the series, and our first pediatrician felt strongly that it might have harmful side effects.

Gramps had told me that he remembered having whooping cough as a child, and although it was harrowing, he survived.

Draw your own conclusions here!

However, I would now hope that you all might consider following up with your doctors to see if you should be vaccinated now as adults.

Out of guilt, I’d be willing to sweeten the deal by paying for whatever isn’t covered by your healthcare. (Tetanus shots, flu shots, etc. aren’t a bad idea either, although you’re on your own there!)

Also, I want to apologize to [Sister], [Sister] and [Brother] for the time we went to the geneticist who took punch core samples of your skin for testing.

We had no idea–and there’s no excuse for our ignorance–that it would be a process painfully administered without anesthesia. I feel traumatized to this day, so I can’t imagine how awful it was for you.

I was reminded of those procedures recently when I heard Nobel Prize-winning geneticist, George Church tell his story on The Moth: My Life as a Guinea Pig.

I love you all dearly!

So, I didn’t get them on my own in contradiction to my parents’ decisions, but at their request, after they realized they had made a mistake. –affixqc

Don’t be afraid to ask your doctor about concerns—they’ve done this many times before.

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When my daughter was born, we were terrified of the mercury. We asked a doctor, who explained everything to us clearly.

The poor doc had that look though— “Oh shit, not this again”… –cat_of_danzig

In fact, this redditor got an idea of how much doctors have to explain the necessity of vaccinations.

When we had our first kid, we were shopping around for a pediatrician, and I was astounded how many doctors specifically told us they would only be our general doc if the children were vaccinated.

I had no idea how often they must have that conversation.

Apparently, in some places, the percent of anti-vaxxer parents is as high as 10%.

The number of parents who are reluctant to give their kids vaccines can be as high as 25%. –dsf900

Keep reading for a crazy story of how far one parent went to prevent their child from receiving certain types of medical attention.

Sometimes understanding takes a while, and now this redditor needs all their shots together.

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My parents were very against it.

Never particularly vocal about it, but growing up, my schools would organize mass vaccinations for all the kids (MMR, etc.) and I was always mysteriously off sick those days.

My school never noticed, and I was always pretty happy as I have a terrible phobia of needles and never really understood the health implications.

I’ve never had any health problems, but I’ve had partners weirded out by it. I was dating one guy who didn’t want to go near me once he found out I hadn’t had any vaccinations. That felt odd.

Last year there was a measles outbreak at my university, and I was very nervous about it.

Called my parents for advice and their response? “Go get the vaccine.”

Classic.

I’m guessing their opinions have changed over the years, but they’re too proud to say outright that maybe they were wrong and their children’s health could now be at risk.

About time I got the rest of them done! –1742587

This redditor’s mother was not only anti-vaccination, but anti-doctor altogether. It resulted in a medical emergency.

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My mother is just plain crazy when it comes to medical topics, and thinks that hospitals and doctors only want your money.

So I was never vaccinated. For a little insight into the craziness, when I was 14, I was a breath away from dying from a burst appendix.

My mother refused to take me to the hospital despite the pain.

It was only when I started urinating blood that my father said he was taking me to the hospital. I was in and out of consciousness while he carried me to the car.

My mom physically fought him as he carried me.

I was medevaced to a larger hospital and had emergency surgery. The doctor told me in recovery that the infection was spreading to other organs, and my body was starting to shut down.

If it had been a couple of hours or more, it would have been too late.

Fast forward four years later when I joined the Army…the gauntlet of shots I received to get all the vaccinations was something else.

I literally walked almost naked down a row with multiple medical staff on each side poking me with needles everywhere as I was told to keep walking forward and not stop.

I am 35 now and feel just as healthy now as I did as a kid.

Never had any other issues except for a hernia from strenuous exercise. Vaccinations do more good than harm. –Kukulcan83

Lack of vaccination lead to a terrible bout of whooping cough for this redditor—and four siblings!

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My parents used to not vaccinate me or any of my four siblings, but when I was like three years old me, and my siblings all came down with whooping cough.

It scarred my lungs, and I have yellow stains on my teeth because the high fevers cooked my adult teeth inside my head. My parents vaccinated us after that.

I am not and have never been mad or spiteful toward my parents for not vaccinating me.

They were just naive, and doing what they thought was best for my siblings and me. –Volcano_gurl

Herd immunity is the key to ridding ourselves of dangerous contagious diseases.

What people don’t understand about vaccination is it isn’t just there to protect the vaccinated.

It protects the “herd” (herd immunity); the people who can’t be vaccinated for whatever reason.

This is part of the reason being vaccinated if you’re able to be is so important. You’re not only protecting yourself.

You’re protecting those around you whose immune systems aren’t up to it and could be hugely negatively impacted by their fellow neighbors refusing for their own uneducated reasons. –hihelloneighboroonie

This child of anti-vaxxers has plenty of reason to discontinue tradition.

My dad was the anti-vaxxer, my mom was mostly ambivalent. Neither my brother or I were vaccinated at birth, and I didn’t get my shots until I turned 19.

My brother had to get a tetanus shot once when he was six, due to an injury. It burned my dad up for a while.

His reasoning was typical: he believed that the mercury in the vaccines would cause us to somehow develop autism.

My parents were also pretty hippy-dippy compared to most baby boomers, so they were concerned about chemicals and all that as well.

Jokes on them, though, because both my brother and I have [Aspergers] regardless of being unvaccinated.

It was always a pain in the ass whenever we had to do school-related paperwork or field trip stuff because my parents would have to produce a letter stating that it was their “religious right” to keep us “untainted” by vaccination (we were never a religious family).

I wasn’t a super sickly child (with a few exceptions), but my younger brother suffered a lot.

He got pneumonia when he was little, like 3-4. They had to keep him in the hospital and I remember my dad taking care of me at home while my mom stayed in the room with my brother.

About a year or two after that he got walking pneumonia and again was hospitalized.

He’s also allergic to damn near everything and has bad asthma now. He has epilepsy, and we both have chronic migraines.

I never had anything seriously life-threatening in terms of illness, but there was a nearly yearlong period where I had strep throat almost every other week.

I should have had my tonsils out (they wanted to intubate me at one point but for whatever reason changed their minds?), but my dad threw a fit about having any surgeries performed.

I also developed shingles when I was 13, which my father initially treated as poison ivy and left mostly untreated until my mother intervened.

I still have little to no feeling on swatches of the left side of my body from the blister scars. That sucked.

I did, however, have to get my vaccinations when I turned 18 and enrolled in college. He was not pleased about that, and actually, we didn’t talk for almost a year because of my decision to get vaccinated.

Eventually, we worked things out, but it took a while. I’ll be vaccinating any children I may have in the future, though.

Tl;dr: wasn’t vaccinated until I chose to do so myself as a legal adult bc parents were afraid of autism.

My brother and I were sick a lot as a kid, with some really preventable and stupid illnesses. I plan on vaccinating any children I have. –Larktoothe

Keep reading to see how one member of Reddit shut down their family’s objections like a boss!

Here’s how one redditor put it to their anti-vaxxer grandpa:

My grandpa is convinced on the whole vaccines cause autism thing.

When I was pregnant with my first kid, he harped on it so much until I finally said, “it doesn’t cause autism, but even if it did I would still do it. I’d rather have an autistic kid than a dead one.”

Shut him up fairly well. –HCGB

This child of anti-vaxxers changed their mind about it after seeing the effects first-hand.

My mom is against vaccines, and I grew up in a very anti-vaccine school and was treated by homeopathic and holistic doctors.

I used to believe all that. Then I started med school and changed my mind to “vaccines aren’t bad, but they aren’t necessary.”

Then I did a rotation at a pediatric hospital in the neurological area. That was a huge eye opener!! Meningitis is an awful disease, and anti-vaxxers never talk about it.

The children I saw were the ones that survived and had brain damage afterward.

It was awful to see kids that could have had a perfectly normal life to end up like that. –anesthesiagirl

This redditor got their MMR vaccine in the nick of time.

My parents were against the MMR vaccination as my older brother was diagnosed with Aspergers shortly after he received it.

I’m the youngest child and so never got the jab, even though mumps actually caused my mum to go half deaf as a teenager.

It always made me uncomfortable knowing I wasn’t protected and I was of a strong mind to do it eventually, but of course it’s hard going against your parents’ beliefs when they felt so strongly at what had happened to them.

To me it felt like a form of denial of the autism in the family, which they see as much worse than it is—my brother is an amazing guy, and they should give him more credit.

Before you go to Uni you have to get a meningitis jab; while I was at the doctor’s, the doctor suggested giving me the MMR.

I told her my parents were against it and she said she’d give it to me now and then in a few months I could tell them and prove that I was absolutely fine. So I did that.

A few months after receiving the full vaccination, my flatmate and close friend got diagnosed with rubella.

It spread all over her body causing glandular and scarlet fever, she spent over a month in the hospital and was in a fatal position.

If I hadn’t done it at that moment, I could’ve been in serious trouble. And rubella isn’t common here at all.

So if in doubt about going behind their backs, do it for yourself and your own safety, and that’s the only excuse you need. –lazyswayz

Pro tip: protect yourself from cancer wherever you can.

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When the HPV vaccine came out, there was a bunch of stories on the news about girls having poor reactions to it, getting seizures, comas.

Most of it nonsense, but my mother saw the news stories and chose not to get me vaccinated. But then, right after college I had a brief bout of thyroid cancer and decided I would take every precaution I could to not get more cancer.

So I got the shots. I think at the time I didn’t tell my mom, but afterward, it came up.

She was more huffy than anything else, and defended her thoughts at the time, but accepted my decision and reasoning. –xrf_rcc

This redditor caught three diseases that could have been prevented with one shot.

via: Getty

My parents never explicitly said they were anti-vaccine to me, but I was never vaccinated as a child.

I actually caught Measles, Mumps, and Rubella on separate occasions, luckily diagnosed quickly enough to not cause any major health implications long term, but still a pretty miserable experience each time.

So yeah, thanks for that. –otto82

Finally, read up on the next page about one redditor’s reliance on ‘herd immunity’ (and family troubles because of it), plus an Autistic person’s response to anti-vaxxer concerns.

One redditor can’t even visit the in-laws.

I am immunosuppressed due to transplant, and my husband’s side of the family are anti-vaxxers.

I don’t think they believe I’m serious about not attending family gatherings ever again.

I know I can bump into a nonvaccinated person by just being out in public, but if I can avoid a known risk, I’m going to do it.

Thank you, everyone, who’s had their shots for helping keep me alive and healthy!! –auntiepink

Tragedy turned this redditor’s mom into an anti-vaxxer.

via: Getty

My story is a bit complex. My mother is an avid anti-vaxxer, but didn’t become that way until after my late sister died.

She blamed the vaccines she got a few weeks before her death (she was 3 months old) for it, instead of the SIDS tragedy it was.

My next youngest sibling was ‘allergic’ to eggs, and so didn’t get any vaccines until she was 8, after my parents were divorced and we had to move to a new state with new laws.

My two youngest siblings have never been vaccinated against anything. –MomentoMoriBenn

Even if vaccinations and autism were linked (they aren’t), autistic people are here to tell us it’s not the worst thing that could happen.

As an autistic person here as well it hurts to know that so many parents think it’s the worst possible thing that could happen to their child.

I would think dying of measles ranks a bit higher on that scale. –el1414

This redditor had a scare after a childhood of anti-vaccination rhetoric.

via: Getty

My mom had a child who became brain damaged during birth due to a hole in the umbilical cord.

She became convinced that there was some malpractice cover-up and gradually that all of medicine is one big conspiracy.

I stopped getting vaccines around 10 due to a mysterious ailment I had that turned out to be recurrent benign positional paroxysmal vertigo.

For some reason, doctors couldn’t figure it out and thought I had brain cancer.

My mom became convinced it was vaccine-related, and claimed she “traced my vaccine” and it was a “bad batch” that had killed a boy who got it.

I stopped getting vaccines and turned in forms to school every year claiming “personal objection” exemption from all vaccines from that point on.

I ended up deciding to become a biomedical scientist and enrolled in a Ph.D. program.

The Hep B vaccine was recommended for all students, and I received the first course of the vaccine…and then mentioned it to my mom.

She FLIPPED OUT.

She told me she couldn’t believe I would do something so stupid, and that there were so many bad reactions I could have and they didn’t all happen immediately.

I started reading horror stories online about bad Hep B shot reactions. And I panicked.

I really thought I may have done something really stupid.

This was pretty ironic since I was in a science Ph.D. program, but I was still making sense of what part of my childhood brainwashing was true and still coming to my own belief system.

In my hesitation/uncertainty, I failed to get the next dose of the Hep B shot in the required time window. I did intend to get it, but I forgot about it in the craziness of grad school.

Fast forward to my 3rd year; I was studying liver cancer and working with a liver cancer cell line called Hep3B.

I was reading the literature and stumbled on a paper that said that scientists had found that Hep3B cells are infected…with LIVE HEPATITIS B VIRUS.

That was really terrifying because I had been working with them for months and definitely had not taken the precautions you are supposed would take if you are working with active human pathogens.

The fact that I passed up a free HepB shot and could have stupidly contracted HepB really crystallized the importance of vaccines for me that day.

I didn’t ever have obvious symptoms of HepB, but nonetheless, I worried that I might have it up until I got pregnant with my daughter and tested negative during the prenatal tests.

Needless to say, my daughter has gotten 100% of her vaccines and will continue to. I chose for her a pediatrician who refuses to see patients who don’t get all of their vaccines on schedule.

I don’t even want to share a waiting room with unvaxxed kids. –the_real_dairy_queen

Some parents have selective hearing when it comes to vaccines.

My mum was completely against vaccinations.

I only got the MMR by mistake because they didn’t ask the parents – just lined us up outside the library and we went in one by one.

She was furious when I told her what had happened.

I caught whooping cough at age 34, and it was hell.

My partner hates her for putting me through that. I’ve since had a few vaccinations for travel, as has my younger sister.

Neither of us would ever tell our mother that we have had them though.

There was a slight hint a few years back, and she was already through the roof before my sister corrected herself and lied to cover the mention.

We will never tell her. –realbasilisk

Like this story? Share and spread the word of these redditors’ firsthand accounts of the dangers associated with a lack of vaccinations.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/30-children-of-anti-vaxxers-tell-their-stories/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/176965626227

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allofbeercom · 7 years ago