I have a (possibly dumb) question about vaccinations

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Re: I have a (possibly dumb) question about vaccinations

Posted by MrsProfessor

Posted by Hopefulmama

I think another thing is that people need to learn to accept their intellectual limitations. I am not an auto mechanic. Therefore I do not attempt to fix cars. I don't design houses because I am not an engineer. I am a SAHM with a bachelors degree and some things are simply above my pay grade. My best friend is a pediatric cardiologist and simply no other profession on earth requires so much education and training as becoming a doctor does. And yet you have all these non-medical people who think they are capable of picking apart scholarly journals, "exposing" links and connections that brilliant trained professionals have repeatedly found no evidence of. Let's leave the business of medicine to those who have invested 100s of thousands of dollars and decades of their lives on this very specific type of education. This is not something you can pursue casually. No amount of googling is going to make you a doctor. Sorry.

If you are going to debunk science, you better be pretty confident that you are pretty brilliant.

Yep. It has to be so frustrating to be a doctor these days because I am sure they have their share of patients who try to challenge their years of study with an hour of reading WebMD.

Doctors are not perfect but I chose DD's ped because I TRUST him and respect his expertise. And frankly, I do not want my kid to be that one kid who has complications.

Exactly. I just finished teaching a Medical English Class to Medical Students and Doctors here. I taught them how to talk to patients and vocabulary like the runs, tummy, etc. They just know the medical terms or the German words for it.

A few classes we would talk about current events and we would talk about this very topic. They just couldn't understand why people wouldn't vaccinate. I don't know, but I do trust doctors as they know their stuff and are experts. They read these studies, and they know more than we do. I can read these studies, but it is up to them to interpret the studies. I trust them.

However, I do sometimes doubt the doctors here Chat Icon

. I have gotten some crazy advice (I had a UTI and was told to not step into a cold shower, maybe even wear socks Chat Icon

) . Or to wear a scarf when I had a sore throat. I could go on, but there is some Homeopathy quackery going on as remnants from WW2 (I read this in an articleAlternative Medicine ).

TL;DR: I trust doctors, especially with vaccines, but sometimes I wonder with some advice I've gotten here... For the most part, they know their stuff.

Message edited 2/6/2015 6:55:28 PM.

Posted 2/6/15 6:47 PM

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MommaG
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I have a (possibly dumb) question about vaccinations

I think some people actually read the inserts that come with the vaccines and see all the possible complications and think it's not worth it - the disease itself is unlikely and not as bad as most of the potential complications, so they decide not to take the risk. And yes, they are putting their child first instead of thinking of the "greater good". And honestly, I don't think I know any parent that would put the greater good ahead of what they believe to be best for their child.

Either way, vaccine or not, you are taking a chance. I would think parents get all the information they can so they can make an informed choice and do what they think is best for their child. I can't fault them for that and would never fault them if my vaccinated child happened to fall ill with something their child was not vaccinated against. There are so many illnesses in this world that they can be exposed to - most of which have no vaccine - and I will never fault a parent for choosing what they believe to be best for their child. Again, vaccine or not, you are taking a chance.

Posted 2/6/15 9:07 PM

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katiebug
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Re: I have a (possibly dumb) question about vaccinations

Posted by Hopefulmama

I think another thing is that people need to learn to accept their intellectual limitations. I am not an auto mechanic. Therefore I do not attempt to fix cars. I don't design houses because I am not an engineer. I am a SAHM with a bachelors degree and some things are simply above my pay grade. My best friend is a pediatric cardiologist and simply no other profession on earth requires so much education and training as becoming a doctor does. And yet you have all these non-medical people who think they are capable of picking apart scholarly journals, "exposing" links and connections that brilliant trained professionals have repeatedly found no evidence of. Let's leave the business of medicine to those who have invested 100s of thousands of dollars and decades of their lives on this very specific type of education. This is not something you can pursue casually. No amount of googling is going to make you a doctor. Sorry.

If you are going to debunk science, you better be pretty confident that you are pretty brilliant.

I think this can be a very dangerous and untrue belief. I am not a mechanic, nor is my good friend, but he is self trained and can fix nearly any car issue. I am not a doctor, but I am completely capable of reading scientific literature. My mother IS a scientist, and has worked in the medical field for 40+ years and has always taught me to challenge doctors. She said the biggest mistake you can ever make is to treat doctors as infallible. The best thing you can possible do for yourself is arm yourself with knowledge. While I may not be able to fix a car, I have always done well in the sciences. So perhaps "you" (general you) can't understand biology, doesn't mean other people can't just because they haven't spent $200K on their educations. And I am not trying to come off as rude to you in anyway, but this is something that had I not been educated in science, had I not been told all my life to challenge doctors my 17 month old daughter would be dead. Last year when she was a newborn, very long story short, the doctors who were suppose to be some of the best in the country, kept wrongfully diagnosing her. Had I let them send me home like they wanted to, had I not been able to fight, she wouldn't be here. Then the pathologist, one of the top 5 in dendritic cells misdiagnosed my daughters cancer. I am the one who challenged him, I am the one who researched her cancer and said things aren't fitting. So please, don't believe you can't fight against science or doctors.

Science is ever evolving, if we never questioned it, we would believe the world is flat, have twilight births, and scarfing down margarin. I think all the back and forth is actually taking away from what should be a real conversation. Why are we so willing to inject our newborns with Hep B vaccines? Why shouldn't we question why they do so? I am not positive for the disease, my child is not an iv drug user, having unprotected sex, etc. Why at 5 hours old would I inject them with a vaccine? Why are pediatric cancer rates soaring? Food allergies going up? And I am not saying this is because of vaccines, but I think saying they are 100% safe and there could not possibly be a correlation is naive. When my daughter first had her tumor removed the first thing they asked was what vaccines she had received, because some can cause intestinal blockages. I do vaccinate, I do believe that some risks to the vaccines are worth taking over the disease, but I don't fault people for being concerned.

As for people constantly bringing up measles and adults not getting their boosters. I think we are forgetting some important facts. There is a large population of our country that have had measles. Most of our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, older cousins, heck even our older siblings most likely have had it. That is a whole population who are immune. Then you have even younger generations of people who are immigrants, who have had measles. I have friends from Brazil who are in their early 30's and had measles so they are immune. Then the population who have been immunized as children, who are still immune, like myself, my titers are at a level still of immunity. Children who are immune because of their recent immunizations. So to say that herd immunity doesn't work because of people not receiving their boosters is a moot point. The only way you can make that argument is if EVERYONE was immune by vaccination, and you took a sample, tested and found out the majority of our population is no longer immune from the shot. We simple do not have that information to go by.

Message edited 2/7/2015 6:37:30 PM.

Posted 2/7/15 6:33 PM

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MrsA1012
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Re: I have a (possibly dumb) question about vaccinations

Posted by katiebug

Posted by Hopefulmama

I think another thing is that people need to learn to accept their intellectual limitations. I am not an auto mechanic. Therefore I do not attempt to fix cars. I don't design houses because I am not an engineer. I am a SAHM with a bachelors degree and some things are simply above my pay grade. My best friend is a pediatric cardiologist and simply no other profession on earth requires so much education and training as becoming a doctor does. And yet you have all these non-medical people who think they are capable of picking apart scholarly journals, "exposing" links and connections that brilliant trained professionals have repeatedly found no evidence of. Let's leave the business of medicine to those who have invested 100s of thousands of dollars and decades of their lives on this very specific type of education. This is not something you can pursue casually. No amount of googling is going to make you a doctor. Sorry.

If you are going to debunk science, you better be pretty confident that you are pretty brilliant.

I think this can be a very dangerous and untrue belief. I am not a mechanic, nor is my good friend, but he is self trained and can fix nearly any car issue. I am not a doctor, but I am completely capable of reading scientific literature. My mother IS a scientist, and has worked in the medical field for 40+ years and has always taught me to challenge doctors. She said the biggest mistake you can ever make is to treat doctors as infallible. The best thing you can possible do for yourself is arm yourself with knowledge. While I may not be able to fix a car, I have always done well in the sciences. So perhaps "you" (general you) can't understand biology, doesn't mean other people can't just because they haven't spent $200K on their educations. And I am not trying to come off as rude to you in anyway, but this is something that had I not been educated in science, had I not been told all my life to challenge doctors my 17 month old daughter would be dead. Last year when she was a newborn, very long story short, the doctors who were suppose to be some of the best in the country, kept wrongfully diagnosing her. Had I let them send me home like they wanted to, had I not been able to fight, she wouldn't be here. Then the pathologist, one of the top 5 in dendritic cells misdiagnosed my daughters cancer. I am the one who challenged him, I am the one who researched her cancer and said things aren't fitting. So please, don't believe you can't fight against science or doctors.

Science is ever evolving, if we never questioned it, we would believe the world is flat, have twilight births, and scarfing down margarin. I think all the back and forth is actually taking away from what should be a real conversation. Why are we so willing to inject our newborns with Hep B vaccines? Why shouldn't we question why they do so? I am not positive for the disease, my child is not an iv drug user, having unprotected sex, etc. Why at 5 hours old would I inject them with a vaccine? Why are pediatric cancer rates soaring? Food allergies going up? And I am not saying this is because of vaccines, but I think saying they are 100% safe and there could not possibly be a correlation is naive. When my daughter first had her tumor removed the first thing they asked was what vaccines she had received, because some can cause intestinal blockages. I do vaccinate, I do believe that some risks to the vaccines are worth taking over the disease, but I don't fault people for being concerned.

As for people constantly bringing up measles and adults not getting their boosters. I think we are forgetting some important facts. There is a large population of our country that have had measles. Most of our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, older cousins, heck even our older siblings most likely have had it. That is a whole population who are immune. Then you have even younger generations of people who are immigrants, who have had measles. I have friends from Brazil who are in their early 30's and had measles so they are immune. Then the population who have been immunized as children, who are still immune, like myself, my titers are at a level still of immunity. Children who are immune because of their recent immunizations. So to say that herd immunity doesn't work because of people not receiving their boosters is a moot point. The only way you can make that argument is if EVERYONE was immune by vaccination, and you took a sample, tested and found out the majority of our population is no longer immune from the shot. We simple do not have that information to go by.

Posted 2/7/15 6:56 PM

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DancinBarefoot
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Re: I have a (possibly dumb) question about vaccinations

I bumped this thread on the parenting board due to this debate, and the fact that the episode re-aired on USA Network earlier today.

Posted 2/7/15 11:19 PM

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Hopefulmama
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Re: I have a (possibly dumb) question about vaccinations

To clarify, I do not think that doctors are infallible, and I definitely agree that when it comes to obscure conditions, parents often know more about their child's condition than many doctors do. I have witnessed that myself. And if your mother has a science background than maybe you have a leg up on reading scientific data. But I still maintain that it is very unwise and foolish for an average person to think they are capable of understanding - and in Fact, debunking, long held scientific data.

For instance, two posters on here insisted that"no one" has died of measles in ten years. They didn't realize that that specific nugget of data applies to US only, and even that has been disproven as there have been documented measles deaths in the US. They felt comfortable coming on here an disseminating embarrassingly incorrect data. That's a dangerous problem, and that's really what I was referring to when I encouraged people to accept their limitations (myself included). I wasn't encouraging blind faith in doctors. Best to you and your daughter! pray:

Message edited 2/8/2015 12:58:16 PM.

Posted 2/8/15 12:39 PM

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seaside
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Re: I have a (possibly dumb) question about vaccinations

This might make the point better than I could ever:

http://robertmoorejr.tumblr.com/post/110101466091/im-an-anti-braker

Posted 2/8/15 10:54 PM

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jessnbrian
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