- Joined
- Oct 28, 2006
- Messages
- 3,109
- Reaction score
- 1,941
Anyone know a good concise resource for addressing anti-vaccine concerns?
Anti-vaccine rebuttals?
- Thread starter DeadCactus
- Start date
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2002
- Messages
- 5,480
- Reaction score
- 176
There are several good resources. Some of the better Facebook sources are Vaccinate Your Baby and Voices for Vaccines. Refutations to Antivaccine Memes is also good, though they are a bit more snarky. Websites that are good resources are Every Child by Two and Shot of Prevention. I often read the comments on these pages because they will get a lot of antivax people spouting the usual commonly repeated misinformation which vaccine advocates then counter with evidence.
CHOP also has a great vaccine information website: http://vec.chop.edu/service/vaccine-education-center/ . Hope that helps.
CHOP also has a great vaccine information website: http://vec.chop.edu/service/vaccine-education-center/ . Hope that helps.
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2009
- Messages
- 255
- Reaction score
- 67
When I get the antivaccer in clinic, I figure they are coming into this setting thinking their science is better than mine. Throwing data at them may sometimes just harden their resolve. However, what I find that works well is negotiation. I typically can get them onboard for DTAP, Prevnar, and/or HiB if in exchange I throw HepB out (granted I wouldnt avoid HepB in a child who had confirmed exposure at delivery). Pertussis, strep pneumo, and H flu scare the hell out of me. But HepB in a population with lower exposure risk and no increased vunerability compared to gen pop, well it just makes it easy to use in negotiation. I may get alot of heat for this. But If I can get DTaP or prevnar in a kid who otherwise wouldnt take anything and all I have to do is keep HepB off the table, where do I sign?
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2015
- Messages
- 16
- Reaction score
- 10
Thanks stitch. I'll be bookmarking those sites for later review.
When it comes to being concise, lately I'll skip evidence or forensic debate and try and stick with simple narratives.
I find some doctor that the patient knows who trained in the early 90s. This isn't too hard cause a lot of our graduates from that era stayed in the area. Once I've figured out that mother knows a pediatrician over 40 years old, I tell the mother that when that doctor was in my shoes, he almost always had one or two babies with meningitis under his care on the floor in the hospital. These kids would always have H. Flu, Strep and sometimes Neisseria. Then the Hib Conugate vaccine came out in 1990, and in a few short years Haemophilus meningitis was decimated two-fold. Then Prevnar came out in 2000 and we stopped seeing much of any bacterial meningitis at all in babies. Then Menactra came out in 2005. I then ask them to guess how many infants with bacterial meningitis I've personally taken care of. The answer is one. And that kid wasn't vaccinated.*
If I have time I'll hammer home that vaccines aren't just polio and typhoid and lockjaw and a whole bunch of third world sounding diseases. Depending on the parent's reaction I might mention how these three vaccines stopped diseases that caused college kids to drop dead in 48 hours, or that I've never seen bad nuchal rigidity that made infants as stiff as board, but older pediatricians have. Or that older docs have done lumbar punctures to have purulent fluid come out of the spinal canal. I haven't even heard of a purulent tap in the last year except the kid I mentioned above.
Another story I like but I have never used is the changing sensitivities of community acquired pneumonia. With Prevnar we basically turned back the clock on bacterial resistance since the vaccine selected for the most pathogenic strains that had the most significant likelihood of being beta-lactamase producing. That means kids who have vaccines and CA-PNA will get amoxicillin meanwhile unvaccinated kids will get Augmentin and a bad case of the squirts. That one seems more funny than scary, so mostly I just tell it to med students. And online forums I guess.
*I sometimes leave that last part out. For one, it's hitting the nail a little to hard on the head. Second, the kid had a couple malformations that might have put him at risk for the meningitis.
When it comes to being concise, lately I'll skip evidence or forensic debate and try and stick with simple narratives.
I find some doctor that the patient knows who trained in the early 90s. This isn't too hard cause a lot of our graduates from that era stayed in the area. Once I've figured out that mother knows a pediatrician over 40 years old, I tell the mother that when that doctor was in my shoes, he almost always had one or two babies with meningitis under his care on the floor in the hospital. These kids would always have H. Flu, Strep and sometimes Neisseria. Then the Hib Conugate vaccine came out in 1990, and in a few short years Haemophilus meningitis was decimated two-fold. Then Prevnar came out in 2000 and we stopped seeing much of any bacterial meningitis at all in babies. Then Menactra came out in 2005. I then ask them to guess how many infants with bacterial meningitis I've personally taken care of. The answer is one. And that kid wasn't vaccinated.*
If I have time I'll hammer home that vaccines aren't just polio and typhoid and lockjaw and a whole bunch of third world sounding diseases. Depending on the parent's reaction I might mention how these three vaccines stopped diseases that caused college kids to drop dead in 48 hours, or that I've never seen bad nuchal rigidity that made infants as stiff as board, but older pediatricians have. Or that older docs have done lumbar punctures to have purulent fluid come out of the spinal canal. I haven't even heard of a purulent tap in the last year except the kid I mentioned above.
Another story I like but I have never used is the changing sensitivities of community acquired pneumonia. With Prevnar we basically turned back the clock on bacterial resistance since the vaccine selected for the most pathogenic strains that had the most significant likelihood of being beta-lactamase producing. That means kids who have vaccines and CA-PNA will get amoxicillin meanwhile unvaccinated kids will get Augmentin and a bad case of the squirts. That one seems more funny than scary, so mostly I just tell it to med students. And online forums I guess.
*I sometimes leave that last part out. For one, it's hitting the nail a little to hard on the head. Second, the kid had a couple malformations that might have put him at risk for the meningitis.
