Vaccine Injury Stories: the Sacred Cows of the Internet?

When I first started looking into vaccines, I had no idea that an anti-vaccine movement even existed. I came across claims that the vaccines were toxic and dangerous; the diseases, it was claimed, were not. I have some background in science, so I was able to dismiss those claims as inaccurate, but I couldn’t help but be drawn in by tragic, angry and deeply personal stories from parents who claimed their children were harmed by vaccines. I dared not question them, but I still couldn’t understand… If vaccine injuries were occurring on a scale like this, why wasn’t anybody doing anything about  it?  And why wasn’t the media reporting on them? I wanted to know more about these vaccine injury stories but worried it would be insensitive to probe or question their accuracy. I could hurt their feelings or worse, insult their child’s memory. After all, while I know what it feels like when my child is very sick, I can only imagine what it might feel like to lose a child. But something wasn’t right about these stories, and I started to squirm with the conflicting information and the inaccuracies. Let me be clear – I never want to tell a grieving parent how they should think, feel or behave, and I never want to diminish their feelings or experiences. Many of these parents were absolutely convinced that their child was injured by vaccines. But a lot of the information simply didn’t stack up. In these accounts, there were misunderstandings about dosage and toxicity, m...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Access Advocacy Publc Health Source Type: blogs