Response to an Anti-Vaccine Video

2015-01-01

A friend of a friend on Facebook shared this video arguing against the use of vaccines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMdObIbP8zs

It’s been a long time since I wasted 90 minutes arguing with someone on the internet, so I decided to watch all 25 minutes of it and actually write a response. Something about the title, “Pro-Vaxers Debunk THIS” just bothered me, I think. The video says almost nothing of substance, but I did my best to pick apart every little claim and discuss it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t write my response as a comment in the original discussion, presumably because it was too long? So here it is, and I’ll link it there appropriately:

“It’s not possible to have a safe vaccine” is like saying it’s not possible to have a safe surgery. There are always risks, always trade-offs, it’s just a matter of whether they are overwhelmingly worth it, like they are certainly are with the commonly recommended vaccines.

Natural unnatural talk. Well medicine isn’t natural, and it’s a good idea.

“The problem is vaccines don’t come into the body the same way”. “It also contains other chemicals which the natural disease would not have”. Well it could be a problem with some things, sure. It depends on the precise circumstance. But the commonly recommended vaccines don’t have problems with this. We’ve eradicated some diseases completely from populations with these techniques. There’s no disputing that they work. That doesn’t mean every vaccine is 100%. We know the flu one isn’t, for example, it just improves the situation a lot. The number still clearly demonstrate vaccines reduce infections.

“There is no possible way that that can be safe”. Some of these vacinnes have been given to entire generations of almost everyone in basically every country with a world-class average life span. Of course it’s POSSIBLE they’re safe!

“But why?” “But why?” The origins of industries, all pretty much the same group. That group is what, the global medical community of millions of educated, funded, organized researchers? Because a lot of them have made a career out of it? Nothing sinister defined here.

Other areas of medicine are also a problem, a big crack in one area will cause other areas to crack. Okay, so not just vaccines she believes that all of modern medical science is going to crumble? I mean, do you know any doctors personally? They know a LOT of stuff, and the stuff they learn is supported by a lot of carefully scrutinized research, years of checks and peer reviews. There is so much stuff that used to be lethal that we can fix today. So much stuff that used to ruin lives that can now be treated. She’s not naming specifics - she almost never does - so I can’t pinpoint anything, but good luck treating AIDS with an organic meal plan.

“No vaccines increase the health of a population because no vaccines increase the health of a human”. Resistance to infections sounds like a good definition of health to me. And they DO do that. Most anti-vaccine people just argue there are risks we aren’t all aware of. It’s crazy to me to see people actually arguing that they don’t do anything. You really, REALLY have to be out of touch to think the whole world is that evil.

“We don’t require aluminum, mercury…” well obviously not, but some of those vaccines do, and they’re allowed to in safe enough quanitities.

“Always better ways of dealing with diseases in a population”. Blatantly unreasonable. Even if every vaccine we have today were dangerous and ineffective, it doesn’t mean they always would be.

“part of what the book shows with over 50 coloured graphs - they’re not in colour in the book but” lol

“What the revolution actually was”, how it was nutrition and sanitation. Yes, that’s HUGE. Bigger than vaccines. But it’s funny, I hear people criticize doctors all the time for just dishing out prescriptions rather than finding the source of problems and fixing them. Physicians played a big role in identifying the need for and encouraging sanitation too. They did both.

“I can give my immune system the nutrients that it needs” “I can avoid the circumstances and situations that would expose you to different diseases”. Yes do all those things. It will help, a lot. Just don’t stop there, and don’t act like that alone is enough, because it isn’t.

The wealthy could end world hunger, etc. You feed a billion starving people and soon you’ll have to feed two billion starving people instead. I guarantee you charities that spend tens of billions of dollars on improving the situation in underdeveloped countries have looked at this very carefully and among all the world’s rich people, if it were this easy at least one of them in the history of the world would have chosen to do it by now.

“they think nature is flawed” - yes of course it is. It’s not perfect, obviously. “they think mother nature got it all wrong” - no, not all wrong. Just room for improvement, like everything.

The immune system develops thoughtfully because it has a mind of its own. I don’t know what she’s even trying to say here. It has no mind and if it did, we should still all wish our minds developed faster.

“why are [children] not extremely vulnerable to disease” - they are? Relative to the rest of the population, the very young and the very old ARE much more vulnerable to many illnesses.

Breast milk is it, it works it’s worked for a really long time - we’ve had breast milk for ever. Modern formula is much more recent. In the US in 1900, 10% of babies died before their first birthday. Today that number is 0.01%. It’s more than breast milk.

“Why don’t they want me to hear the other side? Why don’t think they I can actually listen to both and come up with my own decision” because we’re seeing people make bad choices all the time, and spreading poorly researched, misinformed crap and expecting everyone to recognize it as such is dangerous.

“I will never tell you not to vaccinate but they will always tell you to vaccinate”. Well some WILL tell you not to vaccinate, but even if they didn’t, other people not vaccinating helps diseases to spread and affects us all, so of course we care. Also, since we have to make health decisions for our children, influencing the decisions of others affects the innocent. If people are making bad medical decisions for their kids, that’s a problem.

Fear is used to convince people to vaccinate. Yep, sure it is. But it’s not invented fear, it’s a real problem we’re talking about.

Consent forms don’t tell you the risks - I don’t know which forms we’re talking about, but I bet the consent forms in Canada disclose any risks that are actually substantiated by evidence.

“We know that with the influenza vaccine that it is not a highly effective vaccine” - not compared to some, no, but the flu is super common so we’re doing what we can. And wait, isn’t “not highly effective” saying that it IS somewhat effective? And that if this one in particular isn’t highly effective, that other ones ARE highly effective? Then what happened to “no vaccines increase the health of a population/human”? If even SOME vaccines are SOMEWHAT effective…

SMALLPOX! She’s actually saying something concrete. Arguable facts that if true are significant. Almost indistinguishable from chicken pox. Not killing people by the 1900s. I don’t know much about this, but I did some Googling and the last outbreak of smallpox in North America was apparently an epidemic in Boston in 1902, with 1596 cases where 270 people died. Chicken pox is apparently 1 death in 60,000 cases. “How these vaccines were made, what animals they came from”. Doesn’t matter if it works (and animals aren’t harmed, etc.) “It is absolutely ludicrous insanity that the smallpox vaccine eradicated smallpox”. There’s no arguing that sanitation and isolation go a LONG way in disease control. But I don’t know what to tell someone that says it’s insane to think that a magic needle that prevents someone from contracting a disease is to thank for that disease not spreading.

Polio she was less specific on, but it feels worth pointing out that polio was thriving even later in human history, when germs and sanitation were well understood and far more achievable.

More natural/unnatural stuff, as if it matters.

All designers of vaccines look for is antibodies. No, they look for the effectiveness of the actual vaccine, I promise you. That’s just not true. And I guarantee you people and organizations that have devoted their careers to this stuff understand immune response better than just about anybody, this woman included.

If vaccines really worked everyone would want them - people have made poor medical choices for themselves throughout history. Besides, in general the demand IS high. But people can’t see themselves being saved by a vaccine, only killed by a disease. You never know if the vaccine saved you. That makes it hard for people to think clearly about them.

Babies dying/developing diseases after getting smallpox vaccines, but “the diseases are often said ‘oh, that would have happened anyways’ but parents who watch this happen time and again know otherwise”. No, they sure as hell don’t. Side effects are identified via blind trials.

“The rewards are not watching people get healthy. The rewards are monetary and power.” You don’t watch people get healthy with vaccines, you watch populations. People with money and power give it away to charities for this purpose. Not everyone is making a profit. People like me calling this nonsense out sure aren’t.

Take rate is better for vaccines when they’re younger - sure it might be that, or that it eliminates early vulnerability. “The real reason is to train the parents”. I’m sure they want parents to start taking medical decisions seriously right away, but you aren’t allowed to bring them in for non-medical treatment as if it were medical advice, and obviously everyone would be in an outrage if they did. You vaccinate as it becomes safe to do so, and as priorities allow, which for different things happens at different times.

Pharmaceudical industry has gotten a hold of our government, hospitals, education, etc. Pure paranoia. We ALL know people working in these institutions. They aren’t ALL brainwashed idiots.

“More vaccines given = more money generated” for some entities, sure. Not for the government, not for the hospitals. Funny they don’t complain.

Increase in sensitivity to latex, peanuts, etc. is due to vaccines encouraging overactive immune responses - again, another real specific factual thing that would be important if true, but she mentions no source for this so I’m left googling. If plausible, someone likely would have released a paper by now showing latex allergies are 300% more common in vaccinated children or something. I did a quick Google search and at least some studies seem to have found a link between economic status and peanut allergies. They think it’s the lack of germ exposure that’s involved. Could be, I don’t know. I found another one that believes food allergens in vaccines could have an effect. Not sure on this one. Might be a genuine?

Acetaminophen, ibuprofen make you sicker - okay now she’s just complaining about Tylenol and Advil. Top to bottom, from preventative measures like vaccines to symptom-only treatment like painkillers and anti-inflammatories, she thinks the whole medical industry, absolutely everything, is hurting us. The whole industry. Millions of people, all walks of life, all over the world, hundreds of years, hundreds of professions, hundreds of governments and legal systems, our friends, family, neighbours, all just out there to get us. And yet the countries with the most modern medicine have led the way in lifespan, child mortality, elimination of various deadly ailments.

“The doctor was never taught in medical school how to take care of an immune system.” How DARE she. you can get whole PhDs in immunology. I guarantee MDs study it.

“I don’t believe that … a tuned immune system can’t handle just about anything that comes along”. Again, this is way beyond arguing vaccination. If you’ve got a natural and well-fed immune system, she thinks you’re near-invincible. It’s so, so clearly not the case it’s hard to know where to start. Diseases have killed people of all types, and every other plant and animal, by the way, for probably almost as long as life has been on this planet.

Look, a healthy diet and responsible living are absolutely important, and I guarantee you the medical establishment puts a LOT of emphasis on these things. Hand washing stations everywhere, diet recommendations, all that stuff. But acting like it’s sufficient to protect you from everything is sheer idiocy. It’s not. People will still get sick, and they’ll still die, even if they did and do all the right things. All we can do is slow it down. Listening to the advice of the overwhelming majority of the world’s experts is a pretty good place to start.

Updated Oct 16, 2020 9:56:23pm

Dec 23, 2017 7:53:38pm