Telling Anti-Vax Parents They're Wrong Only Makes Them More Anti-Vax

By Karen Ernst

Today, a study in the Journal of Pediatrics seemed to point out that what pro-vaxxers are trying to do is all wrong.  It might seem to suggest that debunking vaccine-autism myths, explaining relative risks of disease, and demonstrating the effects of vaccine-preventable disease is ineffective.  

The study tried to influence parents’ decisions about vaccines using four strategies, all utilizing online resources: correcting misinformation about the MMR-autism myth, giving information about the risks from vaccine-preventable diseases, presenting first-person narratives about children who had contracted VPDs, giving visuals of those risks. After being presented with one of these four strategies, parents were surveyed about how much more likely they were to choose an MMR for their children.  The information used came from the CDC, although the source of the information was not given to the parents surveyed.  The parents participating in this study came to the study with a wide variety of beliefs about vaccines, and almost none of them left with their beliefs being changed.

In short, the Pediatrics study found, in summary, that:

1. Showing ardently anti-vaccine parents proof that vaccines don’t cause autism only made them less likely to vaccinate.

2. Explaining the risks of vaccine-preventable diseases does not increase the chances that parents would agree to the MMR in the future.

3. Showing parents visuals about disease risk or giving them stories about children suffering from vaccine-preventable diseases did not make them more likely to vaccinate their children.

Those findings seem pretty damning for the pro-vaccine message, but I think we should take heart.  There is so much this study didn’t cover, and so much we can do that would work. Here are my thoughts on the findings:

1. Anti-vaccine parents have a broad range of concerns about vaccines beyond the vaccine-autism myth. Hitting one discussion point only irritates their sense of “they don’t get us.” The study might also fail to nudge ardently anti-vaccine parents because there is no human component, and the targeted parents have no opportunity to feel that someone took the time to genuinely hear out their concerns and address them in a personalized way.

2. Emphasizing risks often feels to parents like “fear-mongering,” and parents who refuse vaccines might feel that they are able to continue refusing vaccines since they live in communities with high vaccination rates where the risk of their child actually contracting a vaccine-preventable disease is low.  Just the other day on our Voices for Vaccines Facebook page, one mother commented, “I do not vaccinate, but would definitely consider it if traveling overseas.”  Anti-vaccine parents believe that their risk for contracting diseases is greater where those diseases are endemic, and trying to convince them that their children are at risk for complications from diseases they are unlikely to catch at home is problematic.

Conversely, anti-vaccine parents are likely to disbelieve in herd immunity. As Amy Parker’s mother once did, anti-vaccine parents often rely on organic foods and healthy living to protect their children from diseases that are often airborne and highly contagious. Those of us providing the cover of herd immunity to their children only make it easier for them to continue to delude themselves into believing that their lifestyle is the deciding factor. And because allowing children to become ill to prove our point is wrong in every sense of the word, it’s simply unlikely that anti-vaccine parents will change their minds due to fear of risk from disease.

In reality, what these anti-vaccine parents are doing is increasing the risk that these diseases will come back and that someone will suffer from a serious complication.  The parent who already vaccinates does so not only out of concern about serious complications, but also because they want to prevent illness in their children. But only ardent pro-vaccine parents are typically also passionate about the power of protecting her whole community.  However, maybe we can use pride in protecting the community not as a way to motivate parents to vaccinate but to motivate vaccinating parents to take pride in their actions and speak up about them.

3. Images and stories about children in peril because of disease only makes parents look for other dangers.  I call this the “Law and Order: SVU” effect, named so because after I have watched episodes of this show where children were in peril, I tend to see dangers for my children everywhere--beyond the scope of the subject of the episode.  

The researchers call this the “danger-priming effect.”  Priming parents for danger doesn’t make them more likely to take the solution you are offering, according to this theory.  It makes them more likely to look for dangers everywhere, including in that syringe you are holding out to them.

4. This study was limited in what it could reasonably do to ease fears about immunization because it was online and impersonal. There’s simply no way to quantify all of those conversations that occur on the playground among parents or around the Thanksgiving table or even between friends on Facebook.  

Parent-to-parent communication is entirely different than the communication in this study.  Think about what we know about ardently anti-vaccine parents:  They are more likely to believe conspiracy theories and thus less likely to believe officially sanctioned scientific evidence.  They are more likely to have a social network guiding them toward vaccine refusal, and providing them positive social reinforcement for their decisions.  The cold, impersonal online survey has no chance for success in the mind of a parent whose decisions are socially reinforced and are based on a distrust of official stances.

So what can we, as pro-vaccine lay-advocates, do? Are we likely to make parents less likely to vaccinate through our advocacy?  

I do not believe so.  In fact, I think lay-advocates--everyday parents and citizens--are key. Recent research shows that normalizing immunization works.  So let’s do that. Let’s let people know that we happily vaccinate our children because we understand the science behind it is clear and because we value our children’s health.

And vaccinating is normal.  Well over 90% of parents vaccinate on-time. If anti-vaccine parents feel that their position is being reinforced by their social network, then we as parents are not doing our job to protect our children and their friends. If every parent with fully vaccinated children simply stated that their children were vaccinated on-time, there would be a groundswell. The voices of these parents would drown out the fear-mongering and lies of the anti-vaccine movement, and concerned parents would feel more confident to join our ranks.

In other words--speak up. It just might work.

"This Mama is Exhausted"

The other day, a mom e-mailed us asking for guidance for writing a letter to her state legislators regarding her concern about the rise in vaccine-preventable disease, particularly pertussis, and her state's lax immunization laws. In doing some research on this year's pertussis situation, I came across some remarkable statistics. That 2012 is the worst year for pertussis in nearly sixty years. That Washington State has a full 11% of the nation's pertussis cases (an infant has already died from the disease) while also being the state with highest conscientious objection vaccine-exemption rates. That my home state, Minnesota, is suffering a terrible pertussis year, with more than 4,000 cases recorded at the Minnesota Department of Health. 

But the most remarkable piece of data I came across was not a statistic. It was a story. It appeared on the notably anti-vax forums of Mothering.com. One mother did not vaccinate her younger children against pertussis. Then her children contracted pertussis. From her post: 

Sure they may end up with full immunity to pertussis (at least severely), but my 9yo and 11yo have suffered tremendously with uncontrollable coughing fits that wake them up every hour or two and leave them gasping for breath, gagging and sometimes vomiting.  They are exhausted.  The mama is exhausted...

sometimes running upstairs to comfort them dozens of times in a couple hours.  My 4yo has been up many nights herself and while not to the severity of the older two, it could break your heart to see her cough.  My 2yo is just starting to cough.  When the 9yo and 11yo started whooping and the severe cough we took them in to be seen and we have now been prescribed antibiotics for the entire family.  While I suspect the oldest 3 of us were exposed first, we won't take any chances in spreading it to anyone, and because I am 25 weeks pregnant.  I am hopeful that they will prevent my youngest little one from getting to the severe cough point. 

We have always said that we will choose not to vaccinate but always been willing to re-evaluate our decisions like any other.  When we found out the pertussis was circulating in our region we had decided to go ahead with the shots and even called the health dept...the kids came down sick literally 2 days later and the shots were postponed.  Sick irony if you ask me!

She goes on to say she know she will "catch some flak" for these comments, which is a profoundly sad commentary on the anti-vaccine community, if you ask me. But I was stunned by this mother's strength of character to not only decide that her decision not to vaccinate her little ones for pertussis was a mistake and to schedule those shots, even if she was too late, but also to stand up in a hostile environment as an insider (not as someone coming from outside the group) and say: the vaccine is better than the disease. I don't know if she will choose to catch her children up on all their vaccinations (one can hope) but I find this particular story, and this particular mom's courage, inspiring.

"Scare Tactics"

Recently, a mother who immunizes her children tried to post on a blog called "Modern Alternative Mama" in response to a worried mother of a newborn. The new mother had chosen not to vaccinate her baby out of fear, but was living in a community in the midst of a pertussis outbreak. Her pediatrician had called to ask if she might reconsider immunizing her baby at this point. The mother seemed worried--she didn't want to vaccinate, but clearly she didn't want her infant to contract pertussis. After reading responses from other non-vaccinating mothers--telling her to hold strong, to rest assured that breast milk would somehow make her baby immune from pertussis, one of the most devastatingly contagious diseases on the planet--this mother-who-vaccinates felt moved to post a response. 

She asked the mother of the newborn to reconsider getting her child the Dtap, and linked to Everlee's pertussis story here on this blog as an example of how an infant handles pertussis. Not only was the comment not approved by the woman who runs Modern Alternative Mama, but the mother also received an e-mail saying that the blog didn't allow commenters to use "scare tactics" and so the comment would be censored. After reading the e-mail myself, I was somewhat surprised--until I went to the blog's Facebook page and saw the anti-vax posts from the blog author. Typical stuff I encounter on a daily basis from the underbelly of the mercifully sparsely populated anti-vax world, more banal than the truly bizarre "Moms Who Vax Make Up Their Stories" conspiracy theories floating around. 

Still, I found myself stewing over this one.

In many ways, I am not surprised that we live in a world where the true story of a vaccine-preventable disease can be considered a "scare tactic." After all, we are still burdened by climate science skeptics and Creationists who believe the earth is 6,000 years old and that we hung out with our dino friends. But coming as it did in the midst of preparing a story from another mother whose life was changed by a vaccine preventable disease, I found this appellation--"scare tactic"--used to describe Everlee's story particularly distasteful, even for the anti-vax crowd. While serious side effects from vaccines are exceptionally rare, I would never look a parent, whose child had had a bad reaction to a shot, in the eye and say: your story, and your child, are a scare tactic, and therefore you do not deserve to be heard. I'm not certain how you can respond to any parent who is suffering in such a dismissive way and remain human. It doesn't necessarily mean you agree with their theories as to why their child became ill, or that you acknowledge that such reactions are common, but it means you have a basic level of compassion. 

Illness and death from vaccine-preventable disease, which are far, far more common and, unfortunately, on the rise, are not scare tactics. They are the true stories of fellow human beings who want to be heard and, even more important, who want to save other families the heartache they've suffered. More, the science is on their side. The facts are on their side. And I, as a parent, am deeply grateful for the work they do by keeping their wounds wide open in order that they might save lives, something those who criticize them have no interest in doing. 

Mayim Bialik's "Personal Decision"

By Karen Ernst

Normally, I love Science Friday on NPR with Ira Flatow.  The topics are wide-ranging and discussed with real experts who have a real passion for their work. Science Friday on May 4, 2012 was a disappointment for many reasons, but the biggest was the guest and her stance on vaccinations. 

Mayim Bialik, who plays Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, has a PhD in neuroscience.  She also write books about her parenting style, some of which may be controversial to the mainstream public.  Rarely does she publicly discuss her decision not to vaccinate her children.  Thus, when Science Friday announced that Mayim Bialik would be the guest, numerous people went to Science Friday's Facebook page and commented that they'd like Ira Flatow to ask her about her decision to abandon all good scientific understanding in favor of the pseudoscience of the anti-vaccine movement.

About halfway through the interview, he did ask her about vaccines.

She responded: “Attachment Parenting as defined by Dr. William Sears and Attachment Parenting International has absolutely no opinion on vaccines.  It is a completely separate issue, one that I do not discuss in the book for that reason.  What I do mention in the book is that I give some resources for some kind of pros and cons kind of books. . . What I do say is that we researched every single vaccine, and we spoke about each individual vaccine with our pediatrician.  We went to the CDC sources.  The number of vaccines that we received when you and I were kids is a third or a fourth less than kids get now.  So my feeling is, you can really do whatever you want, just like I get to do whatever I want.  But I don't inherently think that no one should get the flu [vaccine], for example.  That's my personal opinion.  Meaning, to me, the things that people choose to vaccinate against are not necessarily things that were vaccinated against 20 or 30 years ago.  My feeling is that everyone gets to decide and do research based on their family and their needs as to what they want to do, but it's completely separate from Attachment Parenting or from my book.”

What is a parent supposed to think when this sort of information is presented without challenge?  After all, a parent might assume that since Bialik is well educated in the sciences, she knows what she is talking about.  And when a respected science journalist like Ira Flatow does not question any of her ideas, they seem all the more legitimate.

Mayim Bialik has made a mistake by refusing to vaccinate her children, and she has done so based on bad information and erroneous logic.

First, she relies on doctors who are not experts in the field of vaccines, immunology, or epidemiology.  While Attachment Parenting International does not take a position on vaccination, they are not a medical organization like the American Academy of Pediatrics.  As Ira Flatow pointed out when introducing the question, the AAP supports breastfeeding, as well as on-schedule, full vaccination of children.  Bialik also misconstrues the position of Dr. William Sears, who, in The Baby Book, explains that our “present vaccine schedule carries very little risk.  The benefit of preventing these diseases, all of which are potentially fatal, far outweigh the tiny risk of the vaccines.”  This sound risk-benefit analysis clearly promotes vaccination. 

Bialik relies on other M.D.s who have made careers out of catering to wealthy non-vaccinating clientele, and much of the rest of her explanation on Science Friday comes from their books.  She mentions the “pros and cons” of vaccinating.  The pros of vaccinating are preventing disease and its possible accompanying complications of hospitalizations, disability, and death.  The cons are uncomfortable but not dangerous: pain, swelling, and fever.  Very rarely, a serious side effect can occur, such as an anaphylactic allergic reaction.  These reactions occur in one of of every half million or million injections, depending on the vaccine. (http://www.chop.edu/service/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/#Are_vaccines_safe)  When presented with this information, most parents realize that the benefits of vaccinating are indeed worth the potential but unlikely risks.  These are not the cons Bialik is considering.  She is considering cons that have long been discredited by peer-reviewed, replicable studies that have been published in the most prestigious science and medical journals around.  The cons she is considering exist only in the imaginations of people writing books against vaccines and promoting them on their websites.

Bialik next claims that she studied each vaccine and discussed them with her pediatrician.  Her pediatrician may or may not have also discussed the diseases these vaccines prevent.  I do hope that pediatricians discuss with their patients the 222 measles cases in the United State last year, including the third of those patients who were hospitalized due to various complications. (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6115a1.htm)  I also hope they discuss the 27,550 pertussis cases (http://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/outbreaks.html ) in 2010 and that they include the stories of Everlee (http://momswhovax.blogspot.com/2012/02/everlees-story.html), Kahlia (http://kennethaskorner.weebly.com/1/post/2011/12/first-post.html), and Brady (http://shotofprevention.com/2012/05/03/pertussis-problems-persist/). Sadly, these are no longer isolated cases. Because she is trained as a neuroscientist, one would hope the Mayim Bialik would factor the real risks of disease into her decision not to vaccinate. 

One of Bialik's rationale for skipping her children's vaccines centers on a fear of newer vaccines.  Rather than seeing vaccines that prevent more diseases as a triumphs of science, she fears exposing her children to something she didn't have as a child.  Forget for a moment that she did not have the Internet, cell phones, five-point harness car seats, and various other scientific advances for a moment.  Bialik makes the assumption that because she did not have these vaccines, the diseases which they prevent are not dangerous.  She is dead wrong.

For example, before the vaccine, approximately 20,000 children in the United States suffered Haemophilus influenzae B. Between 2-5% of these cases were fatal, and up to 30% of cases result in permanent disability, including blindness, deafness, and serious neurological damage.  (http://www.vaccineinformation.org/hib/qandadis.asp).  Pneumonia is another disease my children are protected against when I was not. 


In fact, as an infant, I was hospitalized with pneumonia.  I was lucky to escape without permanent damage since pneumonia is the leading cause of death in children under 5 worldwide, killing 1.4 million children every year. (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs331/en/index.html)  These are only two of the diseases that our children are lucky enough to escape. 

The other part of Bialik's longing for the vaccine schedule of the 1970s and 80s hints at the “too many, too soon” argument popular in the anti-vaccine movement.  Parents should rest assured that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) reviews the vaccine schedule every year to make sure vaccines are given at times and in combinations that are safe and that offer children the best protection against disease possible.  Parents should also rest assured that the vaccine schedule has been studied (through studies like On-time Vaccine Receipt in the First Year Does Not Adversely Affect Neuropsychological Outcomes http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2010/05/24/peds.2009-2489.abstract) and found to be safe.  The science is clear: today's vaccine schedule prevents dangerous disease as safely and effectively as we can at this time.

Lastly, Bialik asserts that everyone should make his or her own decisions about vaccines.  In a sense, I agree with her.  Parents should understand and agree to the vaccines their children receive.  However, asserting that the average parent can reach a conclusion about vaccines that is different from the ACIP/CDC recommendations, all while believing it is equally valid, is misguided.  The members of ACIP have spent their lives studying disease, epidemiology, virology, microbiology, and the like and have far more expertise on vaccines, disease, and the vaccine schedule than even a mother with a doctorate in neuroscience, and certainly far more than the average parent walking into an office.  It is perfectly reasonable for parents to present their pediatricians with their concerns about vaccines. It is unreasonable to choose not to believe pediatricians, infectious disease specialists, and vaccinologists, choosing instead to "do your own research" to prove them wrong. The suggestion that they should do their own research and reach their own conclusions is unreasonable and unwise, especially coming from a woman who knows what kind of work goes into a Ph.D. in the sciences.

Asking parents to go rogue with the vaccine schedule also puts our community health at risk.  This blog is based on the concept of “living by the social contract and protecting our kids and yours.”  Pockets of vaccine refusal create opportunities for disease to invade our communities.  The aforementioned measles and pertussis outbreaks are examples of the unvaccinated bringing diseases into the community.  Oftentimes, the people who catch those diseases are parents of children who did not want to be exposed to disease and who were relying on other members of the community to maintain herd immunity.  Julieanna Metcalf, who has been featured on Moms Who Vax http://momswhovax.blogspot.com/2011/10/story-by-story.html) did not know that she had a problem with her immune system, and caught Hib meningitis from an unvaccinated child. She almost died--her mother has the pictures of those days in the ICU.  Other people in our communities are too young to receive vaccines or have immune systems compromised by leukemia or chronic conditions, and they depend on us to stay vaccinated and keep disease away.

So the decision about vaccinations is actually not just a personal decision, as Bialik claimed, but a community decision.  As such, it should be made using the best science from the best experts in conjunction with a pediatrician who follows AAP guidelines.  I find it deeply troubling that a woman of science would misuse her education in order to justify her decision not to vaccinate, and I remain terribly disappointed that she was not challenged on that decision.  However, let us not allow her unchallenged fallacies to sway our decisions to protect our children and our community through vaccination.

Perspective Saves Lives

Why, some people ask, are the real-life stories of parents and children whose lives have been damaged by vaccine-preventable diseases passed on to them by unvaccinated children more "valid" than stories of children and adults who had reactions to the vaccines themselves. The easy answer is they're not. They're not more valid. They're different.

They're different because of the way they are presented. Individuals, like Barbara Loe Fisher from the National Vaccine Information Council, present stories of vaccine side effects like they are common reactions to vaccines. The truth is that the reactions she describes, and that other parents post about, are exceedingly rare. In fact, children and adults can have similar, sometimes even worse, reactions to routine medications, like antibiotics. I've told the story before about the time my then-four-month-old daughter was hospitalized with RSV-1. It was moving so aggressively into her lungs that she now had bacterial pneumonia. The doctors gave her a large dose of antibiotics, via syringe, right there in Urgent Care. With her labored breathing and her tiny little chest heaving, I did not hesitate. Not for an instant.

Since that night, I've often wondered if a parent who chose not to vaccinate out of fear of side effects would have hesitated in my position. If they allowed their child to receive the antibiotics, why? The list of potential side-effects to that particular shot of antibiotics, and all other antibiotics are similar, and vastly more common, than side effects of vaccines. And if this hypothetical non-vaccinating parent wouldn't give her child that antibiotic shot if she were in my position, well...god help them. Bacterial infections don't usually heal themselves.

In reality, no parent, no matter her position on vaccines, would choose not to save her child and walk out the door (if she did, it'd probably make the evening news, honestly). But that's because the disease is right before your eyes, with your child in its grip. Decisions are easy then. Vaccine-preventable diseases are largely invisible, due to the very success of vaccines. It's not until our child contracts one of these awful diseases, or a friend watches her infant struggle to survive pertussis (see Everlee's story below), that we realize the repercussions of our choice whether to vaccinate. By then, it's too late to do anything different. I didn't want to be too late because I didn't have perspective, like this: the medical journal Pediatrics reported that more than a half million children in this country have bad reactions or severe side effects from widely used medication--many of these reactions required hospitalization. The medicines/injections most frequently causing severe reactions? Pencillin and other antibiotics. Five percent of children were sick enough to require hospitalization. Vaccines are mentioned nowhere in this article.

So there are no circles being run here, no parents swapping anti-vax story for pro-vax story, no one-upsmanship. There is simply a difference.  New and expecting parents are sold a bill of goods that, among other things, equates the potential side effects of vaccines with the dangers of contracting the disease the vaccines immunize against, and that is false. I fell for it, too, and wish with all my heart that I hadn't left my son vulnerable to measles, mumps, and rubella for the months that I did. I realized, luckily not too late, that I owed it to my children to gain some perspective on the information I was hearing.

By the way, another question we get a lot is: what's in it for you? Why are you doing this? We're parents. We have no affiliation with any organization. We write this blog from our homes. We gather the stories of other parents. We receive little or no hate mail from anti-vaxxers (although our friends in public health get a lot of it) because we're hard to attack in an effective manner. We are not "pharma shills" (an accusation I hear from time to time and which I find endlessly amusing). We garner no income from this work, unlike Barbara Loe Fisher and other big anti-vax names. We are parents who care deeply about other parent's children, no matter who they are. If we have a bias, it's a bias toward protecting your children, whether you've vaccinated them or not. At the end of the day, no matter your decision on vaccines, we are doing the same thing: doing our best to protect our children. We do this work because we don't want another parent to be scared into risking her child's life, and the lives of other children, by not vaccinating--as a few of us here did for too many months.

Compromising Children's Health and Safety...

Received news this morning regarding the interesting legislation working its way through the Vermont State Legislature over the last week or so that I wanted to pass on. As many of you know, Vermont is currently trying to remove its philosophical or "conscientious" objection opt-out in vaccine law, in order to better protect children. And, as expected, the anti-vax community is fighting tooth and nail to make sure they can continue to refuse to vaccinate their children AND send them to school with no obstacles or challenges. They don't seem to care that this happens when unvaccinated children contract the diseases they could have been vaccinated against, and pass those diseases on to other people.

Today we learned from PKids that   “a compromise on S.199 has been introduced by the Senate Health & Welfare committee.  The proposal would require a conversation between a parent and their child’s Primary Care Provider which included a discussion of the risks and benefits of refusing a vaccination. After this discussion and after sign off by the provider the exemption would be accepted. The process could be incorporated into routine well-child visits before school entry or during the provisional entry period. The proposed legislative language and a sample of a draft exemption form is attached.  The original bill can be found at http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2012/bills/Intro/S-199.pdf."


The committee is voting next Tuesday--Valentine's Day--on the compromise, as well as the original bill. As parents who love our children, and the children of parents who choose not to vaccinate them, we really need to get on the horn, or the keyboard, and get in touch with these Senators and ask them to pass S.199 as written. I'm not willing to compromise on the health of my kids. I doubt any of us are. 


If you are from Vermont or know anyone in Vermont--he or she does not even have to be a parent--please ask them to contact their legislators at the e-mail address or phone numbers below. Some talking points include the following:

·       This “compromise” does nothing to improve the protection of our vulnerable children in public daycare and school. 

·       This only formalizes and gives credence to philosophical objection to vaccines making it more ‘official’ that we are slipping backwards on this issue.

·       Why would Vermont adopt the plan of a state (Washington) that is one of three states with the poorest of immunization rates? While their recent legislation hasn’t been around long enough to be evaluated thoroughly, viewed reasonably, it is not likely to have a significant impact on immunization rates.

·       Children are not political decisions, please do not allow children to be opted out of a lifetime of health and happiness.

Senate Health and Welfare

Sen. Claire Ayer, Chair, 504 Thompson Hill Rd., Weybridge, VT 05753
(802) 545-2142 -cayer@leg.state.vt.us

Sen. Kevin Mullin, Vice Chair, 118 Ox Yoke Dr., Rutland, VT 05701
(802) 775-7631 - kjmbjm@aol.com

Sen. Anthony Pollina, Clerk, 93 Story Rd., North Middlesex, VT 05682
(802) 229-5809 - apollina@leg.state.vt.us; apollina@sover.net

Sen. Sally Fox, 80 Bartlett Bay Rd., South Burlington, VT 05403
(802) 860-6428 - sfox@leg.state.vt.us; senatorsallyfox@gmail.com

Sen. Hinda Miller, 84 Deforest Heights, Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 862-7008 - hmiller@leg.state.vt.us

Why No Comments?

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, as we get e-mails from time to time asking why we don't have comments enabled on our website (some anti-vaxxers, characteristically not paying attention to details, gleefully assume lack of comments equals lack of interest in the website). The decision not to allow comments on the blog did not come easy. On one hand, open comments can often lead to healthy debate. 

I was not convinced, however, that in our case, the debate would be healthy. Instead, I feared our comments section would begin to look like a lot of blogs on the topic: a barrage of misinformation and downright falsehoods directed toward new and expecting parents in the hope that they will be scared out of vaccinating. Anyone speaking up for vaccines often finds herself under attack, even her love for her child questioned (happened to my sister). I even find there is a distinct level of desperation in these comments, as the hyperbole and vitriol grow stronger as the anti-vax movement grows weaker. I didn't want to be a place where that hyperbole and vitriol was on display.


In fact, as it becomes more and more clear in the scientific community--and in the media, thank God--that anti-vax claims of the harms of vaccine are utterly without merit, they have lost a great deal of access to new and expecting parents. No longer do new parents see anti-vaccine activists pitted against epidemiologists, pediatricians, and infectious disease specialists on morning shows. Rarely do you see these anti-vaccine activists quoted in newspaper articles. What they have left are their blogs and websites--and the comments sections on others' blogs and websites.


I remember vividly the late nights I spent, as an anxious new parent, scrolling through comments on articles about immunization, and growing more and more fearful the more and more "information" I read from anti-vaccine activists and mothers who chose "cod liver oil" over giving their child the DTaP for whooping cough. It took a lot more work, and some bad decisions about immunizations on my part, to realize I'd been duped. There is no law that says blog comments have to be truthful. In fact, a study in Science has found that online comments on science blogs, like ours, have a tendency to lower people's scientific understanding. 


I absolutely respect the decision of some of my favorite and most admired blogs and websites to keep comments enabled, and I fully support their reasoning for doing this. However, on this site, I have chosen not to enable comments from either pro-vaccine parents or anti-vaccine parents because I refuse to allow misinformation anywhere on the site--and the amount of time comment moderation would take to honor this is beyond my current capabilities. 

Another reason I choose not to enable comments is because the majority of the stories here are written by parents--parents who have chosen to talk about a health care decision they've made. They don't deserve vitriolic comments hurled toward them in a public forum (and I know because I get the e-mails these parents would've, had the commenters gotten ahold of their e-mail addresses or been able to comment on the stories). 


The media has often been accused, in covering the immunization debate, of employing false equivalency, something they have also been accused of doing in the climate change debate. That concept describes the way journalists (and others) mistake fairness and balance with equivalence. An example I use a lot is the Bigfoot Defense. If a news outlet were to do a story on species thought extinct but later found extant, and have on the panel a biologist, a rainforest activist, and E.O. Wilson, would it make sense to also have a person who knew a lot about Bigfoot? That's exactly what the media has done--except in the case of vaccines, this false equivalency has caused a great deal of harm in the form of dropping immunization rates.  You will not see a forum here for false equivalency, which is why the comments are closed. 

Some anti-vax blogs or commenters on other sites try to paint our decision as being about a lack of "courage" or some desire to create an echo chamber. If you've read this far, you know that courage is not something any of the moms who share their stories here lack. Time for sorting through scientifically challenged comments from people determined to keep you from vaccinating your child and protecting the vulnerable people in your community is. And as far as an echo chamber, my goal in life is to turn this vaccine debate become an echo chamber; the only voices I want to hear coming back at me when it comes to whether or not to vaccinate are ones saying: YES! That is nothing I'd ever apologize for, because vaccines save lives.

"Intentionally Unvaccinated"

I came across a story on the Parents Who Protect blog that sent a chill down my spine. It was about a Hib meningitis outbreak here in Minnesota in 2009, which killed an infant and sickened four others. Hib is short for Haemophilus influenza type B. It's one of the basic childhood vaccinations. 

It's a terrible disease, and it's an unbearable story. But there's something about this story that makes it even more unbearable. The child who died, and two who were hospitalized, were intentionally unvaccinated. Parents of two of these children objected to vaccines; the parents of the third had delayed the vaccine until the child would be five years old. The news reports do not tell us who is who, and it really doesn't matter. The story made my heart bleed. I think about what it must feel like to be in those parents' shoes today and can only be in that place for moments. I don't wish this kind of grief on anyone. "We had a death from a child who was unvaccinated," Kristen Ehresmann, RN, MPH, of the Minnesota Department of Health said.  "We want to encourage parents who have delayed or refused vaccination to reconsider." 

It was stories like these--true stories--that transformed me from a vaccine-hesitant parent to one who is pro-vax. The true weight of my decision making process was laid bare, and I had to reexamine why I had come to my conclusions, what resources I'd consulted, and whether I was operating on fact or fear. We make these decisions for our children, because they can't; and we owe it to ourselves to base those decisions on the facts. I didn't want to be in the position of these heartbroken parents, wondering if I should have done things differently.  


If you are looking for more reassurance that the anti-vax claims are without merit, please consider reading Seth Mnookin's piece in The Huffington Post that ran recently. 

Anti-Vax Legislation, Businesses, and Comment Threads: Moms Who Vax Newsletter #2

Whenever I send out a Moms Who Vax newsletter, I try to post it here as well. If you'd like to be added to the Moms Who Vax mailing list, contact us at momswhovax AT gmail.com

Anti-Vax Legislators--and How Pro-Vax Parents Can Play a Role in Stopping Them

Unfortunately, the Minnesota State Legislature has a handful of vocal anti-vaxxers in its ranks, including Rep. Mary Franson (R-11B), who represents folks in Todd and Douglas counties. From time to time these legislators try to tamper with state immunization statutes, and sometimes have been successful in seemingly small ways, like making sure information about how to opt-out from vaccines is in the same font as all other information on immunization paperwork. But during the Minnesota State Legislature's recess, Mary Franson introduced a bill that would make the notarization of the conscientious objection opt-out in Minnesota unnecessary. As an anti-vaccine advocate, she wants to take the only inconvenience a non-vaccinating parent has to face and throw it out the window. For anyone who is interested, the bill itself can be read here.

Myself, and other pro-vax parents I know, are committed to stepping up and making our voices heard in this debate. It's a debate that is usually dominated by a very vocal minority of anti-vax activists. But the overwhelming majority of us vaccinate, so we have a built-in advantage. The quandary we are facing as a movement is how to mobilize, how to make parents who vaccinate care about this. And that's why I turn to you. If you live in Minnesota and are willing to talk to or e-mail your representative about Franson's proposed legislation, please contact me. I can provide you with a template for a letter or e-mail, or notes for a phone call. It isn't about getting into a debate (chances are your representative vaccinates her own children); it's about telling the person who represents you at the State Capitol that you don't want your child, and other children, put at risk. If you don't live in Minnesota, we'd still love to hear from you if you have any ideas on strategy regarding this matter or about mobilizing vaccinating parents in general.

Safbaby.com, Lullaby Lane and Other Businesses

A few months ago, an article appeared on the website Safbaby.com. It can be read here. It was filled with misinformation and typical anti-vaccine talking points. I posted a comment and it was immediately followed up by more anti-vax nonsense from the Safbaby people, which made me realize that its usefulness as a source of information was nil (and I warn others from heading over there for information--there are far better sites on the internet for information on environmentally friendly, non-toxic baby products). Anyway, I noticed that the article was ringed by advertisements for various businesses, and I chose to contact a few of those businesses, including Lullaby Lane, to let them know about my concerns about their affiliation with the site, which apparently perpetuates misinformation and dangerous advice about vaccines. Only one of the shop owners replied, that to tell me that she also vaccinates her children--except on a delayed schedule. This may be extreme for some of you, but I am considering boycotting businesses who advertise on sites like Safbaby.com or Mothering, which promote anti-vax views. I was devastated to find Earth Mama Angel Baby advertising on Safbaby.com, and e-mailed them to say so. I never heard back. But this might be an avenue worth pursuing--joining together as a group and boycotting companies who advertise with these sites. I plan on continuing to contact Safbaby's advertisers myself and will report back.

Minnesota Monthly article

Some of you may have read Tim Gihring's article on the continuing vaccine-autism debate in Minnesota. I was interviewed for the piece, which came out in early December, and am only now getting over my disappointment and sadness about how that article was written. Instead of focusing on the pushback from pro-vax parents and public health officials to anti-vaxxers, the author chose to pit parents of autistic children whom the parents believe to have been "vaccine injured" against the "big bad public health authorities" and parents like me, who came across looking like an insensitive jerk. Despite the disappointment, I was heartened to discover that I received no angry hate mail after the article appeared--which makes me hopeful that the strategy of putting parents who vaccinate smack dab into the debate could be a game-changer. I begin to see, more and more often, that it's very difficult for an anti-vaxxer to convincingly dismiss another parent the way they dismiss doctors (Big Pharma "shills") and public health authorities. I know some of my pro-vax friends who are parents are still accused of being "pawns" of Big Pharma, whatever that means. But for the most part, I see that we could be a very formidable tool in this debate, and I encourage all of you to speak out regularly, in whatever way you can, in whatever context you can. The stories on my blog that receive the most hits are the stories written by parents and sent to me for posting. Individual parent stories--these move people.

That being said, if you are so inclined, please visit the online version of the article and post a comment. As expected, anti-vaxxers took over the comment thread fairly early, despite valiant efforts from some pro-vax friends (including my little sister, who said she vaccinated her daughter because she loves her; an anti-vaxxer responded that she didn't, in fact, love her daughter, otherwise she WOULDN'T vaccinate!). We could use more pro-vax voices on the comment thread: The Refusers, in Minnesota Monthly.

That brings me to a final point. I was only able to stomach reading a handful of the anti-vax comments on that story, but one thing struck me like a freight train. The level of defensiveness among parents who choose not to vaccinate is so intense that I think any psychotherapist would have a field day with it. Parents who vaccinate their children are generally so comfortable with the decision that they don't even think about it after the fact. But there is a tenor to the anti-vax comments--just take a look at the Minnesota Monthly comments--that suggest overcompensation, a way of justifying a dangerous decision. Anyone who can look a parent in the face--even virtually, as in the case of my sister--and tell them that they don't love their child because they choose to vaccinate, tells me that there are elements in the anti-vax movement who are deeply discomfited by their own decision not to vaccinate. I find it fascinating, if utterly depressing.

Pro-vax parents fighting back...

This blog was mentioned in an article in Minnesota Monthly recently, which tackled the problem of parents in Minnesota who refuse to vaccinate their children due to their belief that vaccines somehow caused their children's autism. As you probably know, there is no study that has ever suggested a link between autism and vaccines (the only study to suggest this link, by Andrew Wakefield, was not just withdrawn from the journal in which it appeared; it was deemed fraudulent). In that article, the author suggests that pro-vax parents are filling in the gaps between the public health authorities and pediatricians, who are often put in a position where they cannot be as frank about the importance of vaccines as they'd like to be. That's where we, as parents, come in.

Predictably, the comments section in this article has become an anti-vax propaganda machine because most parents who vaccinate their children aren't as motivated to advocate for vaccines as those who are anti-vaccine are to advocate against them. Another telling aspect of the anti-vaccine movement is the sheer hyperbole and hysteria of their talking points--it betrays a defensiveness that is not present in the science-backed pro-vaccine movement. Such defensiveness is often symptomatic of a person who knows, at their very core, that their beliefs are based on falsehoods.

If you are a new parent or even a vaccine-hesitant parent, I typically do not suggest that you visit anti-vax websites, because the "science" is not science and startling and frightening claims are made but never backed up with science, but I think a visit to the comments page of this article would actually help to let a new parent understand the milieu of the anti-vax movement.

If a new parent chooses not to vaccinate, she should understand that the individuals posting on this article will be her peers. The people she runs with. The ones she will begin advocating for. After reading these comments--the ones promoting exposing one's child to measles rather than getting the vaccine, choosing substantial risk of death for their child over one of the safest medications known to man--you can come to your own conclusion. But know that the misrepresentation of science, the complete misunderstanding of the way vaccine components work in the human body, and, most clearly, emotions dominate their side of the debate. Are you comfortable with this? As I've mentioned before on this blog, as a cautious new parent, I was taken in by this emotional appeal, until I realized that I had been duped and had needlessly put my son's life at risk by delaying a critical vaccine.

One parent did speak up, and I encourage anyone who has chosen to vaccinate and would like to make that fact known to visit the article site and make a comment. In the meantime, here is the lone pro-vax comment from the article. The "deadly consequences" the writer refers to is in response to an anti-vaxxer claiming the story's subtitle about the deadly consequences of vaccine refusal was yellow journalism because there are no deadly consequences to not vaccinating.

Update 12/22/11: It looks like some pro-vax parents are weighing in. Thank you so much to those of you who have taken the time to post in favor of immunization!


Ah, the "deadly consequences" might refer to the fact that unvaccinated
children die from vaccine-preventable diseases on a regular basis, and pass
on those diseases to helpless infants. Ten infants died of pertussis in
California from an outbreak caused by an unvaccinated child in a waiting
room. Those are your deadly consequences. And to promote contracting measles
as a better way to acquire immunity than the vaccine itself makes me pray to
God you are not a parent. If so, you ought to be arrested. Any parent who
willingly exposes a child to a deadly disease is unfit. Period. Your comment
betrays the danger, selfishness, and downright scientific illiteracy of this
anti-vaccine movement.

Why does your opinion matter on vaccines but another parent's not matter?
Would it be worthy of a magazine quote if one of the many heartbroken
parents whose child died from a vaccine-preventable disease acquired from an
unvaccinated child wanted to speak? Shelby is a voice right now for
thousands of parents whose children have been injured or killed by
unvaccinated children (more accurately--their parents) because she is a good
communicator and they ask her to speak for them. Her platform, judging from
her blog, comes from the stories of other parents. Other parents. That's who
you'll be going toe to toe with next, not the "big bad public health
authorities." We are fighting back, because our children's lives matter too.

A Daughter's Legacy: One Mother's Story

By Stephanie 

I’m a mother of three children and a forthright vaccine advocate. However, only two of my children are vaccinated. My daughter was stillborn in April 2010. Losing her, finding out that her heart had stopped beating within my womb, has been the most shattering experience of my life. She was a beautiful little thing, weighing five pounds and twelve ounces. She had dark curly hair, perfect oval shaped little fingernails, blonde eyelashes and ruby red lips. My husband and I never found out why she died, her stillbirth was one of the “unexplained” ones.

When she died, the profundity of what had happened hit me like a sledgehammer. My baby died. I was a mother with a dead baby. For the rest of my life, I would have to deal with this fact One of my children dying had been my worst nightmare for as long as I could remember. I actually am incredibly sensitive to any story of a child being harmed or dying and often am found crying over news stories or magazine article that portray stories of these tragedies.

I never thought it would happen to me. But it did.

This is the crux of the anti vaccinationist movement. You will hear the cries “my child was born with a perfect immune system! Why mess with it? You never see these diseases anymore! My neighbour’s sister’s boyfriend’s son got measles and he was VACCINATED!”

The anti vaccinationists think it won’t happen to them.

This is because of the overall success of vaccines over time. There are a number of diseases that just are not in circulation in the Western world any more, such as Diphtheria, Rubella and Polio. Anti-vaccinationists have not seen, first hand, the horror of Diphtheria wards in the 40’s; they have not seen a child affected by Congenital Rubella Syndrome. (Editor's Note: Click here for photos of children with Diptheria and Rubella)

Neither have I, of course, but I truly believe that these people are blind to real situations where things can go terribly, terribly wrong. I, on the other hand, am constantly on the lookout for ways to keep my children safe and protected. Vaccination is a perfect example of a way to keep your children safe and protected.

Our youngest son was born during the peak of a Pertussis (Whooping Cough) outbreak. Well before he was born, we were advised to have our Pertussis boosters organised, but because I was so concerned about the spread of Pertussis, I had received mine back in 2009, just before I became pregnant with my daughter. Despite this, I still received another shot. Our older son, of course, was up to date with all his vaccinations. When the baby was born, my husband had his jab immediately.

Two weeks before my son was born, another little baby arrived in the world, on the other side of the country to me. This little boy died of Pertussis when he was 5 weeks old. My baby was 3 weeks old when we heard the story on the news and health authorities urged anyone with newborns to keep them indoors and for parents and carers to receive their DTaP vaccine.

For somebody who has already buried a child, this news was terrifying. It made me angry. It made me angry because the reason that this baby had died was because of the perpetuation of misinformation, spread by people who have no critical thinking skills, who cannot evaluate sources, who were urging parents to not vaccinate their children...and as a result, Whooping Cough had managed to penetrate the community. And the most vulnerable members of society, newborns, were paying the price. This little one was amongst many infants who have passed away from Whooping Cough. Dana McCaffrey, Callie Von Tornhout, Carter Dube.

See, it’s all about herd immunity, isn’t it? The more people that are vaccinated, the less able an organism is able to infect a person. Without ample hosts, the disease will die. But the diseases are coming back with a vengeance, because parents are choosing not to vaccinate anymore. There are more available hosts and as the anti vaccinationists bleat “if your kid is vaccinated, why do you care?” we must remember that not all vaccines are 100% effective. There will always be someone who doesn’t mount a good immune response, and so they might be unlucky enough to contract the disease. Furthermore, there are those who cannot be vaccinated, such as those who are immuno-suppressed, women who are pregnant, newborns and people with a genuine contraindication to receive vaccines.

I have always been a supporter of vaccination. But after experiencing the death of my daughter, my advocacy increased, I became a vocal proponent of vaccination and I didn’t care who knew it. In fact, the more people that knew it, the better! I believe that having to have deal with the death of my baby has made me all the more sensitive to children’s health issues and to avoiding unnecessary deaths. As someone who has experienced infant loss first hand, I will campaign to ensure that all parents know the facts about vaccination because I never want to see or hear about another small baby, or any child, for that matter, needlessly suffer the repercussions of a vaccine preventable illness. I am unapologetically outspoken about this cause, it is well known that it is a passion of mine. 

For some, they find it confronting and uncomfortable. I have been unapologetic about not allowing anyone who was not up to date with their boosters to visit my new baby until he had finished his series. I have also been vocal about close family members getting their DTaP, and they did. Not just for my baby, but for all the babies out there who need us to be protected in order to protect them. I have been “unfriended” on Facebook for entering into a debate about the Pertussis vaccine, and as the parties of the debate vehemently purported a range of untruths and incorrect information, I took them to task on the simplest of mistakes. For example, their claim that Pertussis was a virus. Now I asked them how on Earth they expect people to take their assertions seriously if they themselves don’t even have a grasp on basic immunology?                                

This is why I am unflinching  in my quest to increase the amount of correct information regarding vaccination. Because I need to challenge those who are proliferating claims that are downright wrong, influencing parents who don’t know any better, which in turn contributes to the fall in herd immunity. And as this happens, our children are in danger. My young baby, who was not old enough to receive the full series of his immunisations for Pertussis until he was six months old. That was six months of terror that he would be exposed to this insidious bacteria and I would lose another child.

I believe that if my daughter, as little and pure as she was, wanted to leave any sort of legacy, it was this. For her outspoken (yet civil) mother to light a fire underneath people, have as many parents as possible vaccinate their children and themselves to protect our newborns.

Stephanie is a teacher and mother who lives in Australia. You can read more of her writing at www.bornstill-sybella.blogspot.com.