Sadly, people will believe anything.
A friend of mine was considering not vaccinating her daughter because she'd read some bullshit about how vaccines 'kill babies' on some crunchy-power-mommie site. Her husband grew up in Africa, where he got to see first-hand what happened to babies that didn't get vaccines against common illnesses. A few horror stories later, and she was making the appointment. Now she says she can't believe she fell for that scaremongering crap, but some people remain absolutely convinced that vaccines are some kind of government/Big Medicine plot against them. I wonder if they'd feel the same way if their kid contracted polio like my mother did when she was little.
(louveciennes , Volvospotter, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 22:52, 1 reply)

exactly
if you hear the stories, the real stories, of kids dying or being sick for months or permanently disabled, it's a no brainer. Anyone who was a kid before the mid 50s would know of kids with polio. There's lots of examples of middle class families in the 19th century losing 3 children in one outbreak.
The problem is vaccination has been so successful, people don't have experience of what can happen when measles, chicken pox, or whooping cough goes bad.
And the unvaccinated coast along on the background protection given by the majority of the population that do get vaccinated.
( Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 17:23, closed)