Questions Anti-Vaccine Influencers Want You to Ask Your Child’s Pediatrician About Vaccines
The Real Truth About Vaccines
Anti-vaccine influencers often talk about transparency and informed consent, but all the while, they use misinformation and propaganda to scare parents away from deciding to vaccinate and protect their kids.
Take for instance, their lists of questions for parents to ask their pediatrician about vaccines.
Questions Anti-Vaccine Influencers Want You to Ask Your Child’s Pediatrician About Vaccines
In most cases, they don’t want you to really get answers, they are just asking questions!
Wait, is there a difference?
“One of the strategies of denying established science is to “just ask questions” (affectionately known as JAQing off). The oint is to undermine the science by probing for things that don’t appear to make sense, but not in a sincere attempt to understand. Rather, the idea is to ask questions that have already been answered, or that are based upon false assumptions or straw-man distortions of the science.”
Just Asking Questions – Creation Edition
Yes, there is!
They are simply asking loaded questions and framing misinformation and propaganda about vaccines as questions.
And, of course, they are not expecting you to get any real answers.
But, so that you can spend your time with your pediatrician more effectively, here are some answers to the 13 Questions to Ask Your Child’s Pediatrician About Vaccines from Children’s Health Defense, the organization that RFK, Jr created:
Which vaccines does my state actually say are needed for school attendance?
Most states have immunization requirements that follow the AAP immunization schedule, but some do suggest a few less vaccines as a mimimum for attending daycare and school, maybe excluding the hepatitis A and HPV vaccines, for example. But know that these requirements and recommendations aren’t only about protecting public health, as suggested by the folks at Children’s Health Defense. It is mostly about protecting your child and helping them avoid getting a vaccine preventable disease!
How many vaccines will my child receive by the age of 18 if we follow the CDC schedule and would you consider a delayed schedule?
While anti-vaccine influencers typically inflate the vaccine count to scare you into thinking your kids are getting more vaccines than they actually are, know that with and the nasal spray flu vaccine, your child can get as few as 27 individual shots and still be completely vaccinated and protected!
And know that a delayed or alternative schedule offers no advantages and simply leaves your child at risk to get sick.
Are vaccines 100% effective?
Vaccines are not 100% effective, but know that even when they don’t work perfectly, most vaccinated people who do get sick typically have much milder cases than if they had been unvaccinated.
In medical school, did you study each vaccine and its possible side effects? How do you keep up to date with this information when new vaccines are introduced or updated?
Pediatricians learn a lot about vaccines in various settings, from basic science classes to clinical rotations and lectures. And we keep up on new vaccines by reading about them or going to conferences.
Do you read the package insert for each vaccine and make sure you look for updated inserts regularly?
Yes, we read the package insert for each vaccine, but even more importantly, unlike anti-vaccine influencers, we understand what it says!
As much as they bring up vaccine inserts, you should know that anti-vaccine influencers either don’t know how to read these inserts or they do know and are intentionally misrepresenting what they say. Do you find any of these vaccine ingredients problematic for young children?
Vaccine ingredients are safe at the dosages present in vaccines.
Do you know what VAERS is?
Of course, and again, we understand the limitations of VAERS.
Do you believe that adverse reactions happen, know what to look for, and report any adverse reactions to VAERS?
Yes, but we do not believe that anything and everything that happens after you give a vaccine is a vaccine injury, especially if it occurs weeks, months, or years later.
Do you have an understanding of the illness for which you are giving an immunization, and what is the risk today of my child acquiring this illness?
Yes, and this is a good question to ask anti-vaccine influencers, who downplay the risks of vaccine-preventable diseases and don’t seem to understand that the risk is often low because most people are still vaccinated (hiding in the herd). Of course, that isn’t true if you and most people around you are unvaccinated!
Did you know vaccine manufacturers are free from liability when children are injured or die following vaccination?
We understand how the Vaccine Court works.
Prior to injection, do you look into whether or not there is a family history of auto-immune issues or do testing for the MTHFR genetic polymorphism, which may increase the chances of vaccine injury?
We understand that MTHFR genetic polymorphisms are common and not a predictor of disease or vaccine injury.
Are you knowledgeable about the clinical trials for the vaccines you administer and do you know if they have been tested against an inert placebo control?
We understand that vaccines have been well tested and that inert placebos were used as a control when possible, but that it would be unethical to use saline placebos in many circumstances. Of course, that doesn’t make any of today’s vaccines any less safe.
Does your practice receive any financial incentive for having patients follow the CDC vaccination schedule (or the state requirements) and will you allow my child to remain in this practice if we decide not to follow it?
Personally, I have never received any financial incentives or bonuses for vaccinating and protecting a child. And yes, I typically would allow families to remain in my practice if they didn’t follow the AAP schedule so that we could continue to have conversations and I could help lead them away from the misinformation and propaganda of anti-vaccine influencers that was scaring them away from protecting their child.
What else?
While your pediatrician will very likely answer your questions, it is doubtful that you will ever get an anti-vaccine influencer to do the same.
If you don’t believe me, just ask them some of these questions (and see if they match our answers):
How much money do you get to promote anti-vaccine misinformation and propaganda? Anti-vaccine infuencers have turned being anti-vaccine into a big business!
Anti-vaccine influencers are paid to push propaganda about vaccines. What happens when many people are scared into skipping or delaying getting vaccinated and immunization rates significantly drop? We know what happens - outbreaks happen.
Bob Sears was right about one thing! If measles and pertussis and other vaccine preventable diseases are so mild, then why do so many people end up in the hospital? Why do some people die? And why are there so many stories about how horrible it is to get sick with these diseases? Vaccine preventable diseases are rarely mild if you are unvaccinated.
How can anything and everything that happens to someone after they are vaccinated, even if it is weeks, months, or years later, be a vaccine injury? That’s right - the only reason they think think there are so many vaccine injuries is because they think everything is a vaccine injury, from eczema and cancer to ADHD and autism.
If vaccines don’t really work, then why were pertussis deaths more than 7,000 percent higher just as we got the DPT vaccine? And why were measles deaths more than 22,000 percent higher just before we got a measles vaccine? It’s because vaccines do work!
So go ahead and ask your questions.
Just make sure you’re getting honest, accurate information from all sides before making a decision that could protect your child’s health—and even their life—or leave them vulnerable to a life-threatening, vaccine-preventable disease.
They're utterly unbelievable - they don't know the answers, they're just passing their ignorance onto people who, for whatever reason, are looking on the wrong place for answers. It drives me mad. Why would anyone want their child to be sick, even if it's a relatively mild illness?
What they’re doing is instructing their minions to do a gotcha with the doctor in the hope that the doctor will slip up and not give the scripted answer they are expecting. But the thing is that all good doctors are gonna take time to answer questions. I asked my doctors questions when my babies were little because I was scared by AVers into wondering about the safety/efficacy of vaccines. And our doctors were not surprisingly very well informed and very patient with me. I had a bad reaction myself to the MMR when I was in college and they were very open to me doing that shot by itself with my children. We did it exactly within the timeline the CDC recommends, but we just came in for a separate appointment. Thankfully, my children had no problems whatsoever.