PBA
“What doctor do you know who would engage on the topic?”
dozens and dozens. Both in person and online. In fact on ywn there are several such threads
I am not a pediatrician, but I have had several conversations on this forum on this subject. One went something like this
anti-vaxer: If vaccines are so safe why cant they just prove it with a study once and for all.
Me: There have been dozens here they are…
anti-vaxxer: No it needs to have x number of people
ME: heres one with those number of people
anti-vaxxer: No that was funded by a pharmaceutical company and they are suspect
ME: Here is one that wasn’t funded by companies
anti-vAXXER: but that was funded by the government they are worse than the big-pharma
ME: here is a study that wasn’t funded by government or big pharma
anti-vaxxer: That was published in a journal and journals are suspect because have advertisements from big pharma.
(I’ll dig up the thread later. OF course this isn’t a verbatim recap but it is the gist of it)
Granted Doctors don’t have these conversations with every single anti-vaxxer but it is clear that most are not interested in discussing it. Take one simple specific example (Which perhaps unfairly tarnishes the entire “movement”) namely MMR and autism. IT has been studies over and over and over and there has been no link found. The ONE study that had linked the two was found to be fraudulent. Yet most anti-vaxxer/pro-diseaseer Ive encountered even if they don’t fully embrace that flawed study still has trouble letting it go. This is not a fact based argument it is one of emotion. Of course when parents make bad decisions based on emotion in opposition to all the research on the matter it makes pediatricians upset. I’d be more concerned by a pediatrician whose response was “oh you want to put your kids and others at risk based on some flawed studies and anecdotes you read online, Gezunderheit I have no problem with that In fact lets have a measles party in my waiting room so all the kids can strengthen their immune systems and who knows maybe if we are really lucky one of them will give it to his pregnant mother”
I am not sure where you stand on MMR and autism but the bottom line is there is a greater chance that internet use causes autism (since as internet use picked up autism picked up, and unlike the MMR, to the best of my knowledge a link between the two has not been studied)