Vaccinations – Do anti-vaxers have a point?

A growing trend in recent years has been an increased doubt of vaccines. This doubt has given rise to a group of people calling themselves “Anti-Vaxers”. They claim that vaccinations are bad for us, however, they use incredibly flimsy and easily debuncable arguments. So today, I am going to debunk some of them.

“Vaccines cause autism”

Only one paper (from around 30 years ago) has found that vaccinations cause autism and 10 of the 13 original authors have since retracted their statements. That study has since been found to have fundamental errors, and yet, anti-vaxers flock to it as a staple of their argument.

“There hasn’t been much research”

Vaccinations have been around since 1796 and have been gaining traction since then. They have been researched since that time so we have 223 years of solid research on the topic. If that isn’t a lot of research, then I don’t know what is!

“Vaccines are profitable”

For one, a number of things we buy every day are profitable, such as flour! But no-one has started an “anti-flour” movement yet (that I know of). That’s because being profitable and not being harmful are not mutually exclusive.

Another thing, vaccines aren’t even that profitable! They are nowhere to be seen even in the top 15 highest earning pharmaceutical products. The most profitable items are actually generic brand drugs and painkillers.

Vaccine injuries/ people getting sicker

The number of people who get a serious injury from a vaccination is 1 in 1,000,000 (a million). This number has been verified and accepted by many countries like Japan, Australia, The UK, The US, and many, many more.

We aren’t getting sicker, at least not fatally anymore. Global trends show life expectancy going nothing but up and infant mortality plummeting. This isn’t just true for wealthy countries, it’s happening all over the world.

Vaccines contain toxins and dangerous materials

Yes, some vaccines do contain substances often considered “toxins” or “poisons” but the real danger of these substances only comes from the dosage.

For example, some vaccines contain tiny amounts of aluminium to help the vaccine work more effectively. The amount contained is roughly 0.123 mg per dose, considerably less than the amount of aluminium the average human consumes in a day (30-50mg)

Even though mercury used in vaccines was an incredibly small amount, most mercury has been removed from vaccines to ease the public’s fear and apprehension of vaccines back in 2001

Vaccines weaken immune systems

Vaccines actually strengthen the immune system by introducing a small dose of the weakened and inactive or dead version of the disease they are preventing. The immune system then easily prevents this from escalating to anything but has gained the same knowledge it would have if it were actually fighting off the disease for real. This means that if the person encounters the actually dangerous pathogens of the disease, their immune system can easily kill it.

The diseases vaccines prevent are negligible

The diseases vaccines prevent used to be the worst nightmares of every parent. They were deadly and killed off millions of children every year. Then, when widespread vaccinations were introduced, the death count from these diseases suddenly plummeted. We have been living in a widely vaccinated part of the world so not many are old enough to remember the devastating and horrific effects of diseases like polio or measles. And even if the diseases were mostly harmless, isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?

“Vaccines are a personal choice”

Vaccines don’t just protect the vaccinated person, they help prevent the spread of the disease to vulnerable people who could not be vaccinated due to things like having chemotherapy, or being below the age when the vaccination is given (newborns, certain cancer patients, and various others can’t get vaccines). This is called herd immunity.

I hope that this article has reassured you that vaccines are good for us, incredibly good for us, and that, without them, a considerable amount of us would not be here today. If you know an anti-vaxxer and are trying to make them see sense, you might want to word your debate more carefully than I have my article: you can’t change someone’s mind if they are unwilling. You have to listen to their argument and then find some common ground to stand and start from. (In this case, both anti-vaxers and everyone else generally care about the wellbeing of children). I hope you’ve learned something from this article. If not, there are countless further reading sources easily available on the internet.