Re: David Oliver: Vaccination sceptics are immune to debate
For several years of my working life, I immunised babies and toddlers in Child Health Clinics, until that task was diverted to GP surgeries by financial incentives. I was not sorry! Nevertheless it was still part of my job to encourage vaccinations, since enquiring is part of a full paediatric history.
My impression was that many parents who had strong anti-vaxx views were more interested in converting me to their opinions than in listening to anything I could say. Some people seemed to believe that nothing free could be of any value, in comparison with cranial osteopathy (which can cure allegedly, everything from depression to dyslexia, growth hormone deficiency, as well as, more believably , the three-month colic in only three months), homeopathy, Chinese herbal medicines (with no English language labels, let alone a patient information leaflet).
In the case of autistic spectrum disorders, sometimes there are subtle signs apparent to developmental paediatricians before the child was immunised, and hints of sub clinical traits in parents.
Like ADHD, which only came to notice once all children had to go to school, ASDs belong, even more, to an age of prosperity and the expectation that our offspring probably won’t die in childhood.
And if the last remaining smallpox virus samples escape from their confinement in US labs, or are used as biological weapons, I’ll have to hope my immunity has lasted as long as the scar on my upper arm all bus pass holders bear.
Rapid Response:
Re: David Oliver: Vaccination sceptics are immune to debate
For several years of my working life, I immunised babies and toddlers in Child Health Clinics, until that task was diverted to GP surgeries by financial incentives. I was not sorry! Nevertheless it was still part of my job to encourage vaccinations, since enquiring is part of a full paediatric history.
My impression was that many parents who had strong anti-vaxx views were more interested in converting me to their opinions than in listening to anything I could say. Some people seemed to believe that nothing free could be of any value, in comparison with cranial osteopathy (which can cure allegedly, everything from depression to dyslexia, growth hormone deficiency, as well as, more believably , the three-month colic in only three months), homeopathy, Chinese herbal medicines (with no English language labels, let alone a patient information leaflet).
In the case of autistic spectrum disorders, sometimes there are subtle signs apparent to developmental paediatricians before the child was immunised, and hints of sub clinical traits in parents.
Like ADHD, which only came to notice once all children had to go to school, ASDs belong, even more, to an age of prosperity and the expectation that our offspring probably won’t die in childhood.
And if the last remaining smallpox virus samples escape from their confinement in US labs, or are used as biological weapons, I’ll have to hope my immunity has lasted as long as the scar on my upper arm all bus pass holders bear.
Competing interests: No competing interests