Because Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Are Scary

Before anyone can determine whether vaccines are necessary, or if the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks, they'd have to assess how serious the diseases a vaccine aims to prevent are first. The diseases currently vaccinated against include diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, tetanus, pertussis, poliomyelitis and rubella.

Anna Kata, from the paper above, found that anti-vaccine campaigners did not acknowledge the possible complications of vaccine-preventable diseases. Ironically, first-world vaccine rejectionists are able to claim that most VPDs are trivial and can be treated with alternative medicine because they have rarely seen them first hand, thanks to vaccines.

It is possible to get through polio or tetanus and survive. It is also possible to get through measles or mumps without any long-term consequences. But vaccines were developed for vaccine-preventable diseases because these diseases can kill and cause permanent damage, even with the assistance of modern medicine and even in countries where the majority of the population has been immunized.

Any parent who is considering not vaccinating their child should read up about the normal symptoms and complications of any given VPD instead of assuming their child would be the one to walk away from a disease without complications, or that their child won't be infected anyway. Vaccines can kill, and vaccines can cause permanent damage in some. But the risk of that happening is far, far lower than it is with the actual disease.

Both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide details of vaccine-preventable diseases, and represent better sources of information than vaccine rejectionist websites that claim smallpox wasn't very contagious and could be cured with homeopathy do. Anyone can access these sources of information. Just to give you a taste:

• 10 to 20 percent of tetanus cases are fatal, even with the intervention of modern medicine.

• 95 percent of polio cases are asymptomatic, and fewer than one percent of cases lead to permanent paralysis. Of those who are paralyzed, 5 to 10 percent will die from paralysis that affects the respiratory system. Death rates increase with age.

• 1 in 20 children with measles will get pneumonia. One or two in 1000 of children infected with measles will die from it, in the United States. 8 percent will develop diarrhea, something that doesn't sound serious but can kill in developing nations.

• Hepatitis B can life-long liver problems. No, your toddler doesn't need to use IV drugs to acquire it — what if an infected child bit yours at the playground?

• 1 in 4 children who get pertussis will have pneumonia, and 1 or 2 in 100 will have convulsions. 1 or 2 in 100 will die.

How likely are vaccines to cause an adverse reaction or death? Much less likely than the diseases are, and the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a good place to start looking into the actual numbers.

Because Most Vaccine Rejectionists Don't Know What They're Doing

And you could be one of them. You don't want to believe you're all educated about vaccines, only to rush to your computer the moment your child gets a rash, a fever, or a cough. Does your child have measles, mumps, or just an allergy? Your child appears to have whooping cough. What was the natural treatment again? Can a wasp sting cause tetanus?

In order to find out more about vaccine rejectionists, I followed several internet discussion boards where they come together to discuss their choice. The above questions are incredibly common on these boards — curious, really, for a group of people who claims to know more about vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases than doctors do.