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Description:
Anti-vaxxers stating they have a right to protect their health freedom by choosing not to vaccinate

Red flag, reasons for belief:
Simplicity; this is an explicit advertisement that may seem like so explanation is needed.  It is a simple statement however, why defend your health freedom when it’s your children who are supposed to be getting vaccine?

Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotion):
A mistake about this is that it is not their health freedom they are advocating for, it’s their kids however, they protest about it as though it is their own.

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Description:
This propaganda is comparing vaccination to injections by Nazis by forming a Nazi swastika with needles.
Red flag, reasons for belief:
Red herring; take the attention away from what vaccinations are for and misinform them by gearing them towards how Nazis would inject people.

Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotion):
The assumption that supporting vaccination is like injections by Nazis is very flawed because it is comparing something that is for one’s health whereas the other was to experiment on people and manipulate them.

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A statement questioning how unvaccinated kids a threat to those who are already vaccinated.

Red flag, reasons for belief: Confirmation Bias; anti-vaxxers confirming they are right by claiming only one side of the argument without looking at both sides of possibilities. They do not take into consideration that just because vaccinated kids did not contract the disease or sickness by themselves, doesn’t mean it can’t be spread and given to them by kids who are unvaccinated.

limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotion): This is flawed based on the assumption that just because a kid is vaccinated they can’t become affected by an unvaccinated kid.

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This article features the eight most common arguments against vaccines and answers to them. This includes main ones like vaccines causing autism, people getting sicker, and vaccines costing a lot of money.
Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotion):
This article has no limitations or flaws. It answered all the bias questions and assumptions that anti-vaxxers claim has the base of their movement and answers them truly.

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And why they don't make any sense at all

Being an argumentative sort of person, every once in a while* I find myself getting into a spot of witty repartee. It usually happens on twitter, the land of the 140-character he-said/she-said/THE-GOVERNMENT-IS-OUT-TO-GET-YOU banter, but occasionally I find myself getting into arguments in other places online, or even in real life.

Often these arguments are over the subject of vaccines. Because whilst vaccines have been accepted by public health organisations the world over as the most important medical innovation of the 20th century, and one of the most lifesaving interventions that we've ever come up with, there is a small minority of people who are convinced that vaccines are bad for their child's health.

A small, very vocal, minority.

Now, I'm not here to criticize parents. It's very important to note that most parents want the best for their kids. They are trying to look out for their children, and occasionally in this pursuit they get misled. And make no mistake, the people who sell vaccine fear are professionals in the art of deception. They know exactly how to convince a worried parent that the most dangerous thing in the world for their child is the vaccine, rather than, say, the measles.

It's not the parents who are spreading vaccine denial. They are victims of professionals. If you are a parent who is worried about vaccination: don't stress. You are a good parent. You have just been lied to. Have a read of this article, and maybe go have a chat with your doctor about why immunization is important and why it's a good thing for your kids.

Whenever you talk vaccines, the anti-vax professionals come up with the same arguments time and again. Here are my top 8, and why they make no sense whatsoever:

8 Vaccines Cause Autism. I'm not really going to go into this, because it has been refuted time and again. Virtually every study involving a) humans, b) more than 10 participants, and c) researchers who haven't been convicted of fraud, has shown that there is no link between vaccines and autism. It was a valid concern in the early 90s, but we have 30 years of evidence showing that autism is in no way linked to vaccines.

VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM ALL REPUTABLE STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THIS FOR DECADES

7 There Hasn't Been Much Research. This is always a bit of a weird one, because people are usually claiming that on the one hand there hasn't been enough research done on vaccines to prove them safe, but on the other they know the truth because they've done their research and it shows vaccines to be basically poison.

It's a strange argument to make, but it comes up all the time.

This is simply a lie told by vaccine-deniers to make parents scared. Vaccines are one of the most well-researched interventions of all time. We have data from literally millions of children across the world demonstrating their safety. There has been more research on vaccines than almost any other medical intervention.

The research has been done. Time and again. Vaccines are safe and effective.

6 Vaccines Are Enormously Profitable. This is also a weird one, because...so what? So are any number of things. The international flour market is gigantic, but that doesn't make every bread advert a missive from the devil. Flour millers have actually been influential in protecting babies worldwide by fortifying their products with macronutrients and preventing neural tube defects.

It's also untrue. Pharma companies make far more money from so-called 'blockbuster' drugs than vaccines - for example, Astrazeneca's Nexium, despite being no more effective than cheaper options for gastrointestinal problems, has made them more than $50 billion. The yearly earnings have been somewhere between 2 and 5 times as much as the flu vaccine. In fact, if you look at the top 20 earners for pharma companies, not one of them is a vaccine.

5 Vaccines Cost Loads. Perhaps more importantly than this, however: vaccines don't cost much at all. Take the whooping cough vaccine. A full 3 doses costs around 100 USD. That seems like quite a bit, until you remember that a single case of whooping cough can easily top $10,000 if it requires significant treatment.

Vaccines are actually cost-saving. What this means is that for every dollar you spend on vaccines, you get about seven dollars back because you stop people from getting sick and dying from their illnesses. Generally speaking, it would be much more profitable for the medical industry to not vaccinate, because disease tends to be really expensive.

4 The CDC Is Lying. This is one of my favourite red herrings, because it is just so easy to disprove. Whenever someone brings up the CDC, my response is...so what? Let's say the CDC is evil, awful, in the pocket of Big Pharma. It's not - the people who work at the CDC are dedicated, honest, and usually incredibly good at public health - but for the sake of argument, let's say the CDC is corrupt.

Who cares?

People who focus on the CDC ignore one glaring truth: the US isn't the only country in the world. If the CDC is corrupt, what about every other public health organisation in the world that recommends vaccines. Australia. France. The UK. Japan. China. The list goes on. Forget about the CDC. Have a look at the Australian Department of Health on vaccines. Or the Japanese immunization schedule. Or one of hundreds of other countries that all choose to vaccinate. Either there's a global conspiracy including countries that are literally at war with one another - a bit unlikely - or immunization is a good thing no matter what you think of the CDC.

3 The US Is Special. This is another one that I love, because it's so easily disprovable. No, the US doesn't give a uniquely high number of immunizations. Much of the OECD has a virtually identical vaccine schedule to the US, bar a few minor differences. The US also has significantly less punitive laws in terms of vaccination than other countries - for example, in France you can go to jail for failing to vaccinate your kids.

So no. The US isn't special. It's just another country, trying to stop nasty diseases like polio, diptheria and measles from killing children.

2 Vaccine Manufacturers Can't Be Sued For Making Kids Sick. This is actually a very simple lie. You can sue whoever you want, even in the US. What the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act actually does is make it much easier to get compensation for children who have suffered vaccine injuries. If you can demonstrate that you had a vaccine and suffered a recognized issue - let's say anaphylaxis - there is a reasonably simple method of gaining access to compensation in the US.

Elsewhere in the world, for example Australia, often all you can do is sue in civil courts. And even if you've suffered genuine harm from vaccination, proving this in a court of law is next to impossible, meaning that people who do suffer injuries are almost never compensated.

It's also worth noting that saying "vaccine manufacturers can't be sued" is again a uniquely American piece of nonsense. There are hundreds of other countries. Most of them allow anyone to try and sue anyone. And yet, the UK court system isn't flooded with cases of vaccine manufacturers being successfully sued.

I wonder why?

1 Vaccine Injury Is Common/People Are Getting Sicker. Last but not least, the most common one of the bunch. Forget the CDC, forget the pharmaceutical companies, this is the real evil.

Every year, people are getting sicker. And it's all down to vaccines.

There are two parts to this story. Firstly, we aren't getting sicker. Not even a little bit. Life expectancy is marching steadily upward, with some people predicting that we will be living past 100 in this century. Not only that, but infant and child mortality is at record lows, and is only heading swiftly down. This isn't just true for wealthy countries mind you - the entire world is getting stubbornly healthier.

Secondly, vaccine injury is an amazingly well-researched field. We know the rate of injuries associated with vaccines all too well. It's roughly 1 serious problem for every million vaccinations given. This is a number that has been replicated worldwide, from Japan to Thailand to Australia to Finland and yes, to the US.

Vaccines Rock

There's not really much more to say. These are common arguments, mostly just based on simple lies. Vaccines are safe and effective, not because pharmaceutical companies say it's so or because the CDC has proclaimed it, but because thousands of dedicated researchers the world over have spent decades checking to make sure that they are.

So go and get your kids vaccinated. It's good for society, it will save us all money, but most of all it might save their life.

Vaccines rock.

It's as simple as that.
If you enjoyed and/or like vaccines, send some claps my way with the button below! You can also follow me or on , or read one of my other articles about why herd immunity is pretty cool, how we stop babies dying from whooping cough (hint: it's vaccines), or what you can do to keep kids safe from disease.
* For 'while', read 'hour'

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8 Common Arguments Against Vaccines - The Method - Medium

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And why they don't make any sense at all Being an argumentative sort of person, every once in a while* I find myself getting into a spot of witty repartee. It usually happens on twitter, the land of the 140-character he-said/she-said/THE-GOVERNMENT-IS-OUT-TO-GET-YOU banter, but occasionally I find myself getting into arguments in other places online, or even in real life.

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This article talks about a UK doctor, Andrew Wakefield, who wrote a paper that claimed to find a link between vaccines and autism. He came to America to promote anti-vaxx views and soon became known with President Donald Trump. It is also states many negative impacts Andrew Wakefield has made such as, that he is responsible for over 75 children getting infected because he, and other anti-vax campaigners, were able to push their theories onto other people.

Red flag, reasons for belief:
Suppression by Authorities, Bias; Andrew Wakefield supressed many positives things about vaccines and only talks about the negative, which is mainly autism. This is also caused by him being biased about it.

Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotion):
Bias is shown throughout this article. Anti-vaxxers believe that vaccinations give children autism while pro-vaccination know that it protects against diseases like measles. Anti-vaxxers would rather their children die of diseases, like measles, than their children developing a possible neurobehavioral condition, which they can live with.

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Andrew Buncombe, Source: The Independent

It has been 20 years since the gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield co-authored a now notorious and debunked medical paper that claimed to have found a link between autism and the use of a common children's vaccine.

The paper, later retracted by The Lancet, helped lead to a drop-off in vaccination rates and an increase in outbreak diseases such as measles, not only in Britain and Europe, but in the US. The doctor was subsequently found guilty by the British General Medical Council (GMC) of three-dozen charges, including dishonesty and abuse of children, and struck off the medical register.

Yet two decades later, Wakefield, unable to practice in the UK, has remade himself in Donald Trump's America, travelling the country to promote views experts say have had deadly consequences and seemingly finding an ally in the president.

"You take this little, beautiful baby and you pump - I mean it looks just like it's meant for a horse, not for a child," Trump said, without providing further details.

In the summer of 2016, Wakefield was one of four anti-vaccine campaigners Trump met for 45 minutes, and he also attended one of his inauguration balls after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. After he entered the White House, Trump is said to have considered appointing another vaccine sceptic, Robert F Kennedy, to head a commission to look into their safety. That idea currently appears stalled.

Asked about his meeting with Trump, Wakefield said: "I met him once before the election, when he was running for the presidency. We had a meeting in Florida. We were there, four of us representing the issue of autism and its link to immunisation.

"He interjected and said, 'You don't need to tell me that vaccines cause autism. I've seen it, I've seen it personally'. We went on to discuss the issue of the autism crisis that is set to affect 80 per cent of boys if nothing is done. He said if he was to be elected he'd do something about it."

Asked if he was seeking to seize on the issue in the US because he had been disgraced in Britain, Wakefield, said: "I was discredited in the eyes of those who wanted to see me discredited. In other words, those who had an interest in maintaining the status quo.

"I don't represent any of them. What I represent is the parents and the children who have been damaged.

"Is there a real case to answer? Absolutely. Do I believe vaccines cause autism? Yes I do. Is the problem equally as large in the US? Yes it is."

The overwhelming majority of experts in the field say Wakefield is wrong and point to as many as 17 studies showing no link between autism and the MMR vaccine, which was first introduced in the UK in 1988. Those same experts claim his campaign to try and prove a link continues to have hugely damaging consequences.

"Despite the fact that his findings were found to be fraudulent, that the paper was later retracted and that Wakefield was struck-off the medical register for dishonesty, the damage was done," Seth Berkley, the chief executive of Gavi, a private-public organisation previously known as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, wrote recently.

"Public confidence in MMR and vaccination has never fully recovered, at least not in developed countries. This was made evident by recent news that the number of measles cases in Europe increased by 400 per cent in 2017, with more than 20,000 cases and 35 needless deaths."

In the US, Wakefield has been directly accused over an outbreak of measles in Minnesota last year in which 79 people were infected, the vast majority children under the age of the 10. Most of those affected were members of the Somali American community, a group that had previously vaccinated its youngsters but among which vaccination rates fell off amid ungrounded fears about a link to autism.

Wakefield and other anti-vaccine campaigners visited the community, which is concentrated in Minneapolis, and pushed their theories. The community, which had traditionally had a vaccination rate higher than others in the state, saw it drop from 92 per cent to around 40 per cent.

Last year, when the state experienced almost 80 cases of measles - the highest number for decades and more than the average for the entire US - 20 required hospital treatment.

Health officials said they were convinced Wakefield and other activists, who visited the Somali population on several occasions, bore a degree of responsibility.

"The biggest impact is connecting a condition, that is one that challenges any parent who has a child with autism, and connecting that to immunisations, and specifically MMR," said Lynn Bahta, the immunisation clinical consultant with the Minnesota Department of Health.

"Among our Somali American community we have their rates go from 92 per cent which was higher than non-Somali rates, down to 42 per cent. And that puts them in a very very vulnerable position."

Part of the authorities' response to the outbreak was to involve community leaders, in particular Muslim imams who were able to speak to members of their mosques about the dangers of not getting their children vaccinated.

One of the imams who led the effort, which involved at least 30 of his colleagues, was Sharif Abdirahman, the Muslim leader at Dar al Hijrah mosque in the city's Cedar-Riverside neighbourhood. He said he was able to appeal to people using both religion and science.

"Islam is a religion of expertise," he said. "Verses in the Koran say ... if you don't a know subject ask the advice of people who know the subject very well. I say to the community, take the advice of people who know the subject very well and don't get information from someone who doesn't know anything."

Wakefield, who was speaking in Kansas City at a conference of chiropractors (a form of treatment generally considered a form of complementary or alternative medicine and whose founder DD Palmer believed all human ailments could be cured by manipulation of the spine) has also been linked to the rise of anti-vaccine sentiment in Texas, where he lives with his wife and children.

It was recently reported that since Wakefield moved to the state in the early 2000s, the number of children in Texas who have obtained "conscientious" exemptions for at least one vaccine has increased by 1,900, according to one study.

Anti-vaccine groups in Houston, with Wakefield's support, recently narrowly failed to defeat moderate Republican Sarah Davis - who had spoken in favour of mandatory vaccines, in the primary contest for the state legislature - to replace her with a more conservative candidate.

"I think they have picked the wrong district to wage a war on vaccines in," Davis told the Houston Chronicle.

Since moving to Texas, Wakefield has been involved in a series of organisations and charities related to autism and trying to prove a link between the condition and the use of vaccines.

These included the Thoughtful House Centre for Children, where he served as medical director from 2005 to 2010. It later changed its name to the Johnson Centre for Child Health and Development. He also established the Strategic Autism Initiative, which he ran with Polly Tommey, a British mother with an autistic son.

In 2016, Wakefield directed and appeared in a film called Vaxxed, which was produced by Tommey. The film claims to expose what it says was a case of fraud at the Centres for Disease Control (CDC), the country's primary national public health institute.

The film was to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival until the festival's founder Robert de Niro - who has a child with autism - reversed the plan following a public outcry. It claims to show a cover-up at the CDC regarding a study between autism and MMR and bases its claim on the recorded comments of "whistleblower" William Thompson, a CDC scientist who did not know his comments were being recorded by a colleague.

In a statement released at the time, Thompson said he remained concerned that "statistically significant information" had been omitted from a 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. Yet, he added: "I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives.

"I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious diseases, and the risks associated with their administration are vastly outweighed by their individual and societal benefits."

Wakefield and his supporters continue to give talks about their anti-vaccine views and show the film, which has been widely criticised by experts in the field. A review by Ed Cara in Medical Daily said: " Vaxxed doesn't care about convincing its audience with evidence.

"Instead, Wakefield, Hooker, and producer Del Bigtree run the viewer through a well-trod gauntlet of emotional pleas, context-free statistics and shadowy conspiracies, with Bigtree claiming that 'all of television' has been bought out by the pharmaceutical industry."

Asked whether Thompson's statement undermined his film, Wakefield said he did not care about his views, but was interested in exposing a fraud at the CDC. Asked why he was showing the film to Somalis in Minneapolis and other group that may be considered vulnerable, he said: "We have been showing the film to anyone who wants to watch it, we've not been specifically showing it to people of colour. The implication you put forward is wholly unjustified. The film was shown to whoever wanted to see it."

He said he had gone to Minneapolis at the invitation of the Somali community which was worried about their "exquisite risk" at contracting autism from vaccines - something health officials in the state say is not borne out by data. He said: "They had a problem and they asked me to help."

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USA: Andrew Wakefield - How a disgraced UK doctor has remade himself in anti-vaxxer Trump's America

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Andrew Buncombe, Source: The Independent It has been 20 years since the gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield co-authored a now notorious and debunked medical paper that claimed to have found a link between autism and the use of a common children's vaccine.

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This article covers an anti-vaccination link to a mumps outbreak in Ohio that infected more than 100 people. It states potential complications that can be caused by mumps like infertility and deafness. The section below the article features a comment by an anti-vaxxer who challenged that the photo used for this article this was not mumps, but smallpox.

Red flag, reasons for belief:
Red Herring; The anti-vaxxers comment gears the articles intention in another direction by stating that the image used for it was misleading.

Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotion):
By the commenter assuming that the image for the article was basically used to mislead, they are also biased towards the subject. This article was about the important mumps outbreak but was interrupted by a red herring.

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(Reuters) - The number of mumps cases from an outbreak in central Ohio has more than quadrupled over the last two weeks, to 116, mostly students at Ohio State University or people connected to the school, authorities said Tuesday.

The outbreak had been limited to the university and those connected to it initially, but health officials said in late March it had spread to other parts of the Columbus, Ohio, area. The reported cases stood at 28 two weeks ago.

Four people have been hospitalized in the outbreak, which includes 93 students, staff members or relatives of students at the school, the Columbus Health Department said.

At least three of the infected people are confirmed as not having received vaccinations for the mumps, said Jose Rodriguez, a Columbus health department spokesman.

"If even one person is unvaccinated we are all at risk," he said.

Rodriguez said 10 to 20 percent of the population is vulnerable even if they have been fully vaccinated for measles, mumps and rubella. Potential complications from the mumps can be permanent, he added.

There have been four reported cases of orchitis, a swelling of the testicles that can lead to infertility, and one of potential deafness among the infected, he said.

Mumps is a contagious disease that causes painful swelling of the salivary glands. It is considered rare in the United States. Franklin County, which includes Columbus, typically sees one reported mumps case per year.

The number of mumps cases reported annually in the United States has dropped 98 percent since a vaccine was introduced in the 1960s, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A multi-state outbreak in 2006 led to nearly 6,600 reported cases with more than 80 percent of the people saying they were attending college.

(Reporting by Kim Palmer; Editing by David Bailey and Leslie Adler)

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Anti-vaxxers linked to huge mumps outbreak in Ohio

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(Reuters) - The number of mumps cases from an outbreak in central Ohio has more than quadrupled over the last two weeks, to 116, mostly students at Ohio State University or people connected to the school, authorities said Tuesday.

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This video follows the anti-vaxxers as they reveal what their movement is actually about, which is personal freedom. They state that parents control the rights to their children help and if they should or shouldn’t vaccinate them.

Red flag, reasons for belief:
Ideological support; anti-vaxxers believe it’s their moral and political right to have the freedom to choose if their child should be vaccinated.

Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotion):
There are so many flaws with the content of this video. An important flaw is that the main reason for the anti-vaxx movement, which is personal freedom, not vaccination itself. Anti-vaxxers care more about their rights than their child’s health because of their belief that the liberty of rights is higher than the liberty of safety.

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Anti-Vaxxers In Texas Would Rather Have Liberty Than Safety (HBO)

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A nurse, who was treating an unvaccinated toddler for measles, posted about him on an anti-vaccine page on Facebook that she was a part of. She stated that even though this was happening, she was still anti-vaxx.

Red flag, reasons for belief:
Confirmation bias; As a nurse, she learns what vaccination is for and how it prevents things like measles. However, even though she learned this, she still biased about it.

Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotion):
The most flawed thing about this is how can a medical nurse be anti-vaxx? Not only that but she also invaded that family’s privacy and posted about the toddler online.

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Nurse stirs up emotional reaction over anti vaccine stance

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A video that captures the before and after of a child after she got vaccinated at 13 months. In this video, it includes that she got a virus the day after getting vaccinated then shortly after, she lost all abilities to communicated verbally and walk. The babys parents claimed she got vaccine induced autism.
Red flag, reasons for belief:
Simplicity & Emotional Connection; The coincidence that the baby started portraying symptoms of autism after getting vaccinated is the simplest explanation along with emotional connection to this belief because it is someone’s child.

Limitations/flaws (mistakes, fake evidence, assumptions, bias, emotion):
This video has many assumptions that the vaccination caused autism. it is scientifically proven that symptoms of autism can surface when a baby is between 12 to 18 months old.

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Madison: Before & After Vaccine Induced Autism

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By Cassandra Kanhai