Answering myths

Sometimes you'll hear friends or family repeat myths or misconceptions about vaccinations. Here are some of the facts you can share with them. And feel free to point them to ImmunizeBC.ca for more information!

What they say

  

What you could say

"Vaccines have been linked to autism."

  
  • Repeated studies—many of them very large—show no link between vaccinations and autism.
  • One of those studies looked at more than half a million children in Denmark. The unvaccinated kids were just as likely to develop autism as vaccinated children.
  • The study people usually think of when they talk about vaccines and autism has been completely discredited. Most of the authors disavowed its findings, and a British Medical Journal concluded it was an "elaborate fraud" involving falsified data.

Worth sharing: Is there any link between the MMR vaccine and autism?

Even if the risk from a vaccine is tiny, why take it when a child's health is at stake?"

  
  • Because the risk of not vaccinating is so much greater.
  • Diseases like diphtheria, whooping cough (pertussis) and even measles can make children terribly sick, and even kill them.

Worth sharing: Evaluating risk

"Diseases like mumps, measles and chickenpox are just part of growing up."

  
  • Actually, those diseases can progress to something far more serious.
  • Mumps can lead to dangerous brain inflammations. Measles —especially in babies and adults—can lead to deadly lung or brain infections.
  • Even chickenpox can have rare but life-threatening complications such as strokes.

Worth sharing: Why we vaccinate

"It's better to get the disease and build up your immunity naturally."

  
  • Natural infection from some diseases can kill or seriously harm a child before their immune system can fight it off.
  • Vaccines have been so effective that we've forgotten how horrific many of these diseases can be.

Worth sharing: Is it better to get the disease "naturally" than to vaccinate?

"Why immunize my kids against diseases that aren't around any more?"

  
  • Actually, these diseases are still with us—some here in BC, some in other parts of the world. But as soon as we stop vaccinating, we're vulnerable.
  • When just a small percentage of the Irish population stopped vaccinating against measles, and the number of cases jumped by more than 800 per cent in a single year. 1,200 kids got sick, and several died.

Worth sharing: Aren't these diseases gone now?