
‘My mum didn’t vaccinate me – this is what happened next’ - mjlee
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-48667811
======
deogeo
> They tend to believe that the body naturally heals itself. If I had a cold,
> growing up in New Zealand, I was told, "Eat a cucumber," or, "Have a drink
> of what the neighbour made."

Well, the body _does_ heal itself, most of the time. But her description of a
cold puzzles me - is it normal to take medicine (as opposed to just tea or
soup) for an ordinary cold? Because taking drugs for something as minor as a
cold is utterly alien to me.

~~~
Firerouge
DayQuil/NyQuil (acetaminophen, antihistamine, cough suppressant) are fairly
commonly used to address common cold symptoms.

~~~
deogeo
I have to say this reeks of overmedication.

~~~
mikeash
Having a cold sucks. These medicines make it suck less. Why not take
advantage?

~~~
Arnt
Erik Naggum used to say something along the lines of "if you dull your ability
to feel sick, you also dull your joy of feeling well, and your ability to spot
the difference".

~~~
mikeash
Does Erik Naggum go lick the armrests in the local clinic if he hasn’t had a
cold in a while?

~~~
Arnt
No. He's dead. Ten years ago, and there were five obituary threads on HN, with
about 200 comments.

He knew a lot about being ill.

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imtringued
Prevention makes problems and their solution invisible. People then start
believing that the problem never existed in the first place and that the
solution is actually harmful or wasteful.

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PaulAJ
If you ever find yourself arguing with an anti-vaxer, point them at this page.
One personal story beats a thousand medical statistics.

~~~
braythwayt
_Good luck with that._ \--Georges St. Pierre

When someone has a closed reasoning system, even an emotional story will not
sway them. It will be waved away as a rare outlier, or something God wanted to
happen to that person, or fake news ginned up by Big Pharma, &c.

People like anti-vaxxxers don't just have strong beliefes, strongly held, they
have integrated their beliefs into their personal identity, they have
integrated their beliefs into their tribal membership, and they have converted
them into a persecution complex.

Those three things--personal identity, tribal membership, and persecution
complex--brush truth aside like chaff in the breeze.

~~~
sysbin
Basically like a person following a religious ideology?

~~~
braythwayt
Yes, except I am not "just" talking about someone following an ideology, I am
talking about someone who engages with others who follow the same ideology,
and thus gets emotional support from "belonging to the tribe."

This is why the internet changes everything about radicalization: It makes it
nearly frictionless to find a critical mass of other people who share your
ideology and engage with them all day long.

------
sysbin
Society owes it to children for laws to be made protecting children from
parents being medically negligent. Children should be able to communicate
freely to medical professionals and receive treatment if healthcare favours
the outcome. Humanity is failing when it comes to morals if we cannot even
have a child reach adulthood in good health because of negligent parents.

------
caymanjim
Sorry, but if you're 36 years old and you don't have a tetanus vaccination,
you don't get to blame your mother anymore. You're supposed to get a dip-tet
or TDAT booster every ten years, and if you're 36 you've only failed yourself.
This article is full of examples of failure by the subject. Contracting
whooping cough in her 30s as well? And that wasn't enough motivation to get
the tetanus vaccine?

It's fine as a cautionary tale, but the subject is still a walking disease
vector as she is taking her time getting vaccinated.

~~~
imtringued
This person was taught to fail herself by her mother. Only when the problems
actually start did she realize that her mother was the one who failed her.

~~~
Gibbon1
I also think 'poorly attached' to healthcare. Which is in part a system
failure. Healthcare in the US tends to fail the single point of responsibility
principal.

If you want tasks accomplished coherently then someone has to be in charge and
have authority. In US healthcare we've decided that person is the 'patient'
despite their lack of knowledge, skill, training and authority.

FA's experience is the direct result of that.

------
jnbiche
I agree that the author's mom did a horrible thing to him by not getting
vaccinated. But the whooping cough and tetanus are on him -- he describes
being aware of the importance and need for vaccines well before he contracted
those diseases. And even after contracting whooping cough, he _still_ failed
to get his tetanus vaccine, which would have saved him from his painful and
life-threatening case of tetanus he contracted soon afterwards.

~~~
Digit-Al
> but eventually Meredith (not her real name)

The subject is a she not a he.

------
tomohawk
We all have to survive our parents to grow up. And our schools. And even our
own government.

As great as vaccines are, they are not perfect. I've had a few conversations
with people who are frightened of vaccines or don't trust them. One perception
I've come away from those conversations is that vaccines are touted in a way
that is too good to be true. This actually lessens the ability of many people
to trust the authority doing the touting. It makes them wonder what other
agenda the authority has.

~~~
amazingman
Vaccines actually work in a way that seems too good to be true. And yet they
still work, imagine that!

------
DanBC
This article is a bit all over the place.

>When I was 11, the school gave us MMR vaccinations. When any injections
happened, the school typically sent out paperwork and parents would fill in
the permission slips. Mum would always send back, "No, choosing not to."

MMR vaccination is for young children. At 11 it's probably TB?

> Despite the pain, I felt angry towards my mother, because she deliberately
> didn't get me vaccinated.

Tetanus isn't a routine vaccination. You have it if you need it.

~~~
jnbiche
> MMR vaccination is for young children. At 11 it's probably TB?

If the child hadn't had any of his/her MMR series, a doctor would absolutely
want to get the child started on the series if possible, regardless of the
age.

> At 11 it's probably TB?

Few countries routinely administer the TB vaccine. It's too low efficacy.

> Tetanus isn't a routine vaccination. You have it if you need it.

In the US, and in most western countries, a series tetanus vaccines is
_absolutely_ given as part of the TDaP/DTaP childhood combo series, and then
boosters are administered later as needed. In the US, it's a series of 5.

And indeed, it appears as it's given routinely to children in the UK, as well:

[https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/)

In New Zealand as well:

[https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/preventative-health-
well...](https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/preventative-health-
wellness/immunisation/new-zealand-immunisation-schedule)

------
etrautmann
Wrd

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hagreet
my mom told me about clickbait titles - this is what happened next

