[user104658]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

Be less of a hypocrite, TS. You've been preaching about how we need to handle anti-vaxxers with kid gloves and be respectful to them but you've been screeching at me telling me to grow up because my views upset you. Come speak to me when you've sorted out your hypocrisy because you can't be all 'we need to reason and treat anti-vaxxers with kindness!' in one breath and then be patronising as **** to someone you disagree with. That **** won't fly with me and that hypocrisy will completely upend everything you're saying here.

I'm talking about the best way to handle them in order to convince them to vaccinate and address a large issue, I'm not saying treat them with kid gloves out of concern for their feelings . Honestly when it comes right down to it I don't care all THAT much about how you speak to them, so long as no one starts sticking needles in anyone with dubious levels of consent. (Remember: consent under duress is NOT consent.)


All of this aside... I've not even started on one of my main gripes with "vax-hyperbole" rhetoric. The constantly touted (and completely incorrect) assertion that infant and child mortality rates have dramatically dropped over the last century thanks to vaccination.

This is false. Vaccination has improved rates slightly, but it is MINISCULE in comparison to the ACTUAL reason for the vast reduction in infant mortality. Which is undeniably, 100%, the discovery of penicillin and further development of anti-biotics.

Why is this important? Because anti-biotics are at risk. Ironically, they're MOST at risk from exactly the same people who are furious at other parents for not vaccinating; the parents who rush their kids for AB's at the slightest cough. And the doctors who over-prescribe them. The effects of AB resistance have the potential to be utterly catastrophic, orders of magnitude above what would happen if EVERYONE stopped vaccinating tomorrow.

But how do you even begin to convince the public of the FACT that anti-biotics are the real reason - almost entirely - for reduced child death, and that we must preserve working anti-biotics and reduce AB resistance progression at all costs - when there's a horde of other people insisting that reduced child mortality is all thanks to vaccination? It's very difficult. Very, very difficult. The idea that vaccines have "saved the children" is firmly rooted in the public mindset.