Ignoring Personal Experiences in the Effort to Vaccinate Children

You should vaccinate your children, but I understand where some of the antivaxxer's concerns come from.

Figure: The pertussis whole cell vaccine was introduced in the 1950's and drastically reduced the number of Whooping Cough cases reported to the CDC each year. Due to complications with the vaccine, the US switched from the whole cell to the acellular vaccine in the 1990's - since then the number of cases has increased, reaching numbers not seen to the 1950's (red lines).

What is happening with the vaccine?

How can we make the vaccine better?

Science, do your thing!

I recently met the most amazing bartender, hired for his devotion to tequila and his background studies in mezcal tequila in remote regions of Mexico. I had been out drinking with my friends when we started a conversation with the bartender, as drunk people typically do, on a Monday night in an empty bar.

The usual questions were asked, "what do you do for a living?", and we responded that we studied vaccines and the diseases that they prevent. This is when the conversation took a turn. My friend got defensive, he is building his career off developing next-generation vaccines. The bartender got defensive, he has a young child at home who has been vaccinated, but based on his experiences with modern medicine, thinks the follow up vaccines are a waste.

How can we discredit someone's personal experiences in this conversation?

Simply put, scientists and medical professionals just do because vaccination helps more than it hurts. This is a fact (1). Even though I would love to write it, this is not a piece to talk about all of the science behind vaccines. I don't know enough about all of the vaccines in circulation right now to comment on the efficacy of all of them. With that being said, I do know a lot about the childhood vaccine series. Send me a message with any and all questions.

The goal of this piece is to remind scientists that we can't just tell people that they're wrong when they say that a vaccine killed one of their family members. This is a piece to remind scientists that we should not call people names because of their personal experiences with vaccines. Vaccines have lead to the deaths of some children - whether it be directly because of the vaccine or because of underlying health issues.

We can only try to educate. We can only try to translate the peer-reviewed science behind vaccines to general public. We can only try to make them understand why vaccines do much more harm than good - as many forms of medication do.

AN INTERESTING PIECE FROM CDC INFECTIOUS DISEASE LISTSERV:

Increasing Number Of Children With Commercial Health Insurance Are Getting Recommended Vaccines, Report Finds.

Forbes (1/18) contributor Bruce Japsen writes, “An increasing number of children with commercial health insurance are getting their recommended vaccines while a small but growing number of parents are also refusing vaccinations for their kids, a new report from” the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association shows. Even though “childhood vaccination rates rose 12% among Blue Cross health plan members from 2010 to 2016,” the report revealed, the increasing number of vaccine referrals on the part of parents “is a sign that more education needs to be conducted in communities across the country about vaccine safety, doctors say.”

Just some things to think about as we translate our science, y'all.