Refutations to ridiculous anti-vaccine claims

I don’t normally like posting long lists of random peer review without diving into them individually and explaining their data and results in detail. In this circumstance, due to rumors that are directly harming the elderly, neonates, and the immunocompromised by increasing the rate of preventable diseases in the United States, I’m trying to shorten this as much as possible instead of making this the equivalent of a thesis. Since most of the anti-vaccine arguments I’ve seen are simple lazy copy-and-paste jobs from a Scribd document, I’m going to copy and paste articles I’ve read and accumulated over time that help highlight the erroneous assumptions behind many anti-vaccine arguments. I also want to clarify that these are not the only articles available. I know already that few have time to scroll through giant long lists, but if people want more, I can absolutely provide more. In the future, I’m going to break each one of these down one-by-one.

Anti-vaccine claim: “No studies exist comparing vaccinated individuals to unvaccinated individuals!”

Reality: there are actually many studies comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated individuals. 

Studies comparing vaccinated vs unvaccinated individuals 

Anti-vaccine claim: My unvaccinated child is smarter than all of their peers, and it’s because we gave them immunity the natural way!

Or: “Science proves vaccinated kids are less intelligent!”

Or… pretty much anything else anecdotal about how great/healthy their unvaccinated kids are compared to the nasty vaccinated children

Reality: Have comments like these actually worked on anyone, regardless of conversation? Has anyone looked at a “my fetus is an honor student” (close enough) bumper sticker and truly thought, “Wow, I bet he’ll be the next Albert Einstein!” Moms simply have a tendency to think their kid is the best. I’m not making a statement about anti-vaxxer moms, I’m facetiously pointing out how this is simple bragging practically every parent does as soon as their little bundle is born and should not be counted as evidence for quite obvious reasons. 

Nevertheless, available peer-reviewed evidence actually shows vaccinated kids performing better on cognitive exams, but because I’m not new to research, I can almost guarantee this probably isn’t a direct cause-and-effect either. Unless, of course, we’re talking about the lower chance of one’s amygdala getting deep-fried by measles encephalitis. One also needs to take into consideration confounding variables, like how parents with a higher IQ may be more likely to vaccinate in the first place. In all seriousness though, the “my kids are healthy so you must be wrong” is one of the most puerile arguments when it comes to what I often see from anti-vaxxers. 

Vaccinated children also perform better on cognitive exams and have better educational attainment on average

Anti-vaccine claim: Vaccines haven’t done anything at all to help society! It’s all due to (insert: some explanation about hygiene changes or some kind of description of a particular snake oil)

Reality: I’m almost scared that I have to provide evidence for this when so many people were able to directly observe the life-saving effects of vaccines just a couple generations ago. It’s amazing how much life can change in a single generation when one doesn’t read about history. I would say “just ask someone older than you,” but I don’t want it to appear like a cop-out without providing at least a couple studies. 

Vaccines save lives and have reduced mortality and prevalence of disease: 

Anti-vaccine claim: “Every time a breakout occurs, it’s because of vaccinated kids! When outbreaks occur, more vaccinated kids got sick than unvaccinated!”

Reality: Let’s pretend that a similar outbreak happened at a high school well after students should have been vaccinated, and everyone had documentation. This is an anti-vaxxer’s dream scenario. So in this hypothetical scenario, 16 students got sick with the measles. Now let’s say anti-vaxxers are totally right, and most of the individuals who got sick were vaccinated. Let’s put that percentage at 75%. So that means 4 kids who were unvaccinated got sick and 12 kids who were vaccinated got sick. Oh my god, we should totally stop vaccinating! Except… there’s not just 16 kids in a school. There are 2,000 kids in this school, and most of them (statistically speaking) are going to be vaccinated. This number would be, according to the most recent studies I can find, around 1,975. 

Do you know what that leaves us with? 0.6% of those who were vaccinated in the school got the measles. That means 99.4% of the vaccinated students didn’t get sick. Even if the number was actually as high as 90%, that still means only 0.7% of the vaccinated students got the measles. This is basic middle school math. What we’re left with is almost always a majority of the unvaccinated getting sick, and that is definitely not helping their case. 

But because I like backing things up, here is evidence that outbreaks are often seen in undervaccinated communities/schools and are often also linked to the anti-vaccine movement (imagine that): 

Anti-vaccine claim: “Measles is a childhood illness that we all survived just fine, and there is no reason to vaccinate!”

Reality: Measles can actually be deadly, especially when it comes to SSPE. And few in the last decade have died from it BECAUSE. OF. THE. VACCINE. Before the introduction of an effective vaccine the USA had 300-700 deaths a year from measles pneumonia and encephalitis, and 20-100 cases of permanent mental handicap a year from measles encephalitis (Isaacs & Menser 1990)

Measles vaccination is important and greatly reduces the number of cases and deaths 

In fact, children vaccinated against the measles not only have decreased mortality from being protected from measles deaths, but also have decreased mortality in general: 

Anti-vaccine claim: “Other countries hate vaccines and their studies show it! Kids are dying in (name random developing country)!” or “China/Japan/other developed country refuse to vaccinate because they know better!”

Reality: Do you think nobody else in the US has ever immigrated from another country or has never traveled to another country? Yes, other countries find similar results to us, and no, they are not refusing to vaccinate. In fact, China is already in conducting clinical trials on hand foot & mouth vaccines. Other countries, specifically developing countries, have vaccines the US doesn’t even recommend, such as yellow fever and tuberculosis. You would think, if it was all a conspiracy, that we would have to get those vaccines as well if it was really all about profit. You would think that we wouldn’t have gotten rid of other vaccines that did actually cause intussusception and other linked side effects if it was all about Big Pharma profit. Regardless, I’ll provide some studies that provide evidence that less “BigPharma-y” countries are not refusing to vaccinate and are actually studying this just like the United States.   

Other countries show little reactions to vaccinations as well as increased benefits

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. “That is the most random list I’ve ever seen, you didn’t even mention Azerbaijan!” (or whatever country you were picturing). I agree, I would be here for months if I was truly going to list out every country and vaccine one by one. That’s the problem with generalizing when throwing out pseudoscience, I don’t even know where to start. I’m just throwing in random examples of peer-review from researchers in other countries, who are also finding similar results and conducting clinical trials in a passive-aggressive manner. If you want a specific country and a specific vaccine, just bleeping look for it.

I do, however, think it’s specifically important to highlight how we can see overall changes in disease incidence and mortality due to vaccination movements.

Other countries show reduced or eradicated diseases due to vaccination and reduced mortality rates: 

Not to mention there have even been articles showing an increase in economic welfare, productivity, and general wellbeing from not having to tend to themselves or their sick children: 

 

Anti-Vaccine-claim: “herd immunity doesn’t exist.”

Reality: Oh, yes it does. And many of your questions regarding its validity can be answered so precisely that they can be linked directly to mathematical equations and very detailed papers. Questioning is a part of life, and researchers for decades have been asking the same questions regarding its effectiveness, providing specific ways to determine the efficacy and herd immunity in regards to particular vaccines. And if you think that math itself is a government conspiracy, then I can’t help you. 

The importance of immunization and available mathematical modeling 

  1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5404202/ 
  2. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rmv.1980020304/full
  3. http://www.nature.com/articles/srep40885
  4. http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/115/772/700
  5. http://sci-hub.cc/10.1038/nrmicro1845
  6. http://sci-hub.cc/10.1137%2FS0036144500371907
  7. https://waset.org/Publication/tuberculosis-modelling-using-bio-pepa-approach/9996654

Normally I wouldn’t provide wikipedia as a valid source, but it does a great job explaining herd immunity in a simple format using many of these same equations. That’s perfectly fine if you don’t count it as a valid source of information. But since I’m already stooping to a low level, I might as well include this.

Anti-vaccine claim: Big pharma makes so much money off of vaccines!

Reality: “BigPharma” isn’t making giant hoards of money from vaccines. Vaccines are actually pretty cost-effective considering they prevent disease, and “BigPharma” is PAYING to save children in other countries through vaccination. It would be the most idiotic conspiracy known to mankind, considering the amount of money people spend on other medications. The amount earned significantly changes when it is actually compared to the amount lost. Really, this guy explains it better than me:

https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/big-pharma-supports-antivaccine-movement-conspirac-vaccines-maybe-not/

Anti-vaccine claim: Well… so what? I can choose what I want. It doesn’t affect anyone else, and your kids shouldn’t have to worry if they’re vaccinated

Reality: Anti-vaxxers negatively impact the community around them by contributing to spreading illness and doubt of medicine

Articles expressing the mindset/repercussions of the anti-vaccine movement: 

  1. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0089177&fullSite
  2. http://ben-israel.rutgers.edu/711/Vaccination-Games.pdf
  3. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0264410X11019086
  4. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0264410X08000315
  5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/21993613/
  6. http://www.jpedhc.org/article/S0891-5245(00)70022-8/abstract
  7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19326630/
  8. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X06002076?via%3Dihub
  9. http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d2
  10. http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jwh.2008.1329
  11. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0e6e/916d89f8c85b77b32a36bcf2abc29043b79b.pdf

Anti-vaccine claim: Why does no one bring up VAERS?

Reality: Because it’s not accurate enough. A lot of random unrelated crap is blamed on vaccines, and VAERS doesn’t truly show the side effects of vaccines.

VAERS is important and a great idea, but still needs work: 

Anti-vaccine claim: Well, we can vaccinate, but we shouldn’t have the same vaccine schedule

Reality: the vaccine schedule is done for a reason.

Importance of the vaccine schedule (I added more articles due to the amount of heavy miscommunication)

Anti-vaccine claim: “Well what about the non-required vaccines? Gardasil has horrible side effects and has no benefit, yet everyone is wants me to vaccinate my son and daughter. Why should I vaccinate my son for cervical cancer?

Reality: because it can case esophageal and anal cancer as well. Gardasil is actually very safe, very effective, has few side effects, and the most I ever got was a sore arm. It is a literal cancer prophylaxis, so why on earth would you choose to not protect your children from a deadly cancer from a virus most people end up contracting? Isn’t prevention more important than treatment? I’ll probably write a post on gardasil itself, as people keep spreading false information about it. It’s amazing how much people stress how “bad” a vaccine is when it involves women’s sex 

HPV vaccine is safe and effective: 

Gardasil isn’t the only cancer prophylaxis: the HBV vaccine also prevents liver cancer:

Anti-vaccine claim: But what about the toxins in vaccines? Those are totally linked with “insert whatever here”

Reality: They keep moving the goalposts on this one, and it repeatedly falls back into a fear of autism. First they were obsessed with thimerosal, which was subsequently removed from all required childhood vaccines over a decade ago, and we found out that rates of autism still increased (it’s almost as if it’s genetic and people are still breeding). When they discovered this, they decided it must be aluminum hydroxide, then. Next it will be saline. Then oxygen. Then NASA saying the earth is round. God only knows. They will call anything a toxin except the botulinum toxin they have injected into their face. 

They don’t even call thimerosal a toxin if it’s labeled organic, I shit you not. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time: 

Screen Shot 2017-07-19 at 11.02.57 PM

Regardless, thimerosal still isn’t linked to autism:

Vaccines in general also aren’t linked to autism:

What about aluminum hydroxide? It’s seriously an antacid, and isn’t the same thing as aluminum just like thimerosal isn’t the same thing as mercury. Chemical formulas are actually important. And aluminum hydroxide is studied in kids and pregnant women alike, often with double-blind placebo trials. You know, that type of study anti-vaxxers claim don’t exist. And notice WHY it is used in this circumstance- purposely risking kids lives by having some unknowingly unvaccinated is considered unethical for….some strange reason. When it can be used without killing people and bringing back polio, it is preferred. Regardless, some double-blind placebo studies did take place awhile back before ethics committees cracked down on them. We’ll still see them with clinical trials of gardasil, but not experimental studies for required vaccines. Nobody wants to sign up for that.

Anyways, here’s a double-blind placebo study in twins showing few adverse reactions to MMR:

Not like I’m complaining about that- it’s for the protection of citizens from a researcher who may want to redo the Tuskegee Syphilis Studies (if you don’t know what that is, I suggest looking it up. It was one of the most horrific examples of genocide via science that led to the deaths of many African-American men). We need ethics.

Sorry, I went off on a tangent there. Back to showing how aluminum hydroxide isn’t toxic.

Aluminum hydroxide used as an adjuvant for a potential group B strep infection in pregnant women:

Aluminum hydroxide used as an adjuvant for children in randomized controlled studies

Aluminum hydroxide in randomized controlled studies do not attribute them to horrible side effects

Aluminum hydroxide is actually used in studies as a placebo. 

Effectiveness of aluminum hydroxide

Aluminum hydroxide is safe, is used frequently as an anti-acid, and has to be used daily over years with very high amounts to illicit any kind of toxicity

Published by

NSFWbiology

Current medical student with a couple biology degrees trying to help curb the spread of dangerous pseudoscience

One thought on “Refutations to ridiculous anti-vaccine claims”

  1. Pingback: God Does Not Hate You For Vaccinating – NSFW Biology

Leave a comment