I was scrolling Facebook a week ago when I came across an anti-vaccine meme. It was a photo of a cigarette carton labelled “VACCINES” filled with syringes, and the following two quotes purported to be from the CDC (American Centre for Disease Control):
“Cigarette smoking does not cause cancer.” (CDC, 1958)
“Vaccines do not cause autism.” (CDC, 2012)
Posted with the caption, “they’re safe as cigarettes”, the implication is clear. The CDC was wrong about cigarettes and their link to cancer, so they could be/are wrong about vaccines and their link to autism.
Obviously it’s a pretty big leap to make, given the autism link has been debunked time and time again, and I can’t help feeling insulted for all of the children and parents of children with autism that there are people who think that death by preventable disease is preferable to autism.
The thing is, we’ve all had arguments with anti-vaxers online, and if those arguments have taught me one thing, it’s that no one wins. You can throw all the scientifically proven studies in and rationally debunk all their claims until the cows come home, but you won’t change their minds.
So, I did the sensible thing and rolled my eyes and went to scroll on. But then I saw it. The sharer of the meme.
Oh. Oh no.
The meme was shared by my 10-year-old daughter’s best friend’s mum. Someone with whom I’ve had some friendly conversations, and even thought I could see us potentially being friends.
The Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull spoke to Mamamia’s Mia Freedman about anti-vaxxers. This is what he had to say:
What It Means To Give Birth On Country
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The CDC never said that cigarettes don't cause cancer. In fact, they said the opposite in 1957 and 1959.
For you unfamiliar with the USA medical system - the Surgeon General is head of the CDC.
"The Surgeon General first brought the Public Health Service into the scene by establishing a scientific study group in 1956 to appraise the effects of smoking on health. The study group determined that there was a causal relationship between excessive smoking of cigarettes and lung cancer. Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney issued a statement in 1957 that “the weight of the evidence is increasingly pointing in one direction: that excessive smoking is one of the causative factors in lung cancer” (Burney 1958, p. 44)"
“The weight of evidence at present implicates smoking as the principal etiological factor in the increased incidence of lung cancer” (Burney 1959 p. 1835).
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco...
I would actually want to hear this friend's opinion because only with open discussion will this debate become a consensus. There is actually a lot of research coming out, particularly from Germany, looking at the dangers of adding vaccines when there is impaired gut bacteria. I want to hear more about this. Yes, vaccines have brilliantly controlled contagious disease but it is simply unscientific not to talk about what they also might have worsened for us. As mentioned, some of our most educated pockets of population are also our highest non-vaxxers. Why? It is time we talked about this without the bullying and abuse of the non-vaxxer concerns. After all, it hasn't increased the vaccination numbers so let's try a different tack.
To be honest, I think people have tried in the past to engage in conversation with anti-vaxxers to try and find out why they think the way they do and get nowhere.
As for why it's high income/educated areas with low rates - who knows? Perhaps they think these diseases are only an issue for the poor, or they have the luxury of good healthcare and aren't worried about the possible effects?
I personally think numbers have fallen because vaccinations have been so successful that people don't have experience with these diseases. They don't have a friend from school who had polio and couldn't walk properly, or heard of someone who was infertile after mumps or blind after measles, or had a little sibling that died young. They don't see the effects firsthand so they aren't concerned.
Just because you are educated (and/or wealthy) does NOT mean you are an immunologist, epidemiologist or medical specialist of any kind. Let’s leave these up to the experts rather than looking to the materially privileged for answers - flawed reasoning.