BC vaccine re-education sessions won’t change parent’s minds: A parent’s point of view.

BC’s new vaccine reporting registry is now in effect for this coming school year September 2019.  Like Ontario’s requirement of parents to participate in a re-education session so will BC parents if they have chosen to skip all or some vaccinations for religious reasons or reasons of conscience.  Many choose reasons of conscience after one of their children suffer from an atypical adverse event to a vaccine as it is the only option they have. The re-education sessions in Ontario did not change parent’s minds.  There has been minimal to zero conversion as reported by Ontario Health Authorities.
An article written for the National Post blamed the lack of conversion on a phenomenon called confirmation bias.  Suggesting that the “new information” provided in the re-education sessions was the first time parents had seen or heard it and misinterpreted it to fit their beliefs.  Even Brian Koberlein is quoted in saying that “good parents don’t put their children in harm’s way” and “the more you hear the facts the more they stick with you”.   Except that if you actually have an open and honest discussion with these parents you would know that one, they are good parents and two, the information in the re-education sessions is not new to them.  These parents, mostly, were at one time in support of vaccinations until one of their own children suffered an atypical adverse response to a vaccine.  The reporting process for a vaccine adverse event in Canada is inadequate at best and significantly under reported too.  It often results in parent’s concerns and the adverse event itself being dismissed by health professionals which creates mistrust for the health authorities and pro-vaccine rhetoric.
These parents search for answers and understanding on their own knowing that they cannot rely on the medical system to provide them with the answers they seek.  Most often “is it safe to vaccinate my child at all or again”?  The parents are often ridiculed and shamed with memes passed around on social media saying, “don’t confuse my medical degree with dr. google” or directly from healthcare professionals themselves, implying that these parents lack any sort of ability to educate themselves with respectable and accurate sources.  Ironically parents tend to use google to find published vaccine research and read themselves.  These parents are very pro science learning to critically think and identify poorly done studies very quickly.  In this steep learning curve these parents also learn that most medical professionals are not informed enough to answer their questions satisfactorily which more than often leads to medical professionals verbally abusing these parents to hide their own ignorance.
Together these parents have collaboratively put together 1000’s of vaccine research papers in order to inform themselves.  They have read reports published from the BCCDC and CDC.  They have downloaded product monographs from vaccine manufacturer websites.  They have crossed referenced known ingredients in vaccines with WHMIS.  They have read about immunity, vaccine physiology and how certain ingredients in vaccines work already.   They read data on disease occurrences, morbidity and infant mortality rates before and after mass vaccinations.  They have read the science discussing primary and secondary vaccine failure that ultimately crushes the theory of herd immunity when put into perspective of the fact that the adult population are more essentially unvaccinated.  They take all this information into account and weigh it against what health authorities are telling them, add the fact that one of their children suffered an atypical adverse event that the medical system denied to exist but were able to confirm it in their research of scientific papers.  And pro vaccine advocates are confused about why they would be insulted to be re-educated with information that they know to be misleading?
These parents are not misinformed, they are tired of pro-vaccine advocates trying to convince them with pro-vaccine rhetoric that they have personally read in research papers to be refuted.  Ontario’s re-education session video does not acknowledge that Dr. Andrew Wakefield was exonerated because he didn’t commit scientific fraud.  Yet there have been several published research papers confirming the findings of the 1998 study in vaccines having gastrointestinal and neuro-developmental implications.  Or that Merck, a major vaccine manufacturer, has been in court for committing scientific fraud involving their MMR vaccine.
The pool of evidence is not conclusive that vaccines are safe.  Yet, health authorities continue to cherry pick evidence to support a pro-vaccine agenda that claims they are perfectly safe.  Perhaps the definition of safe needs to be dissected and redefined to reflect exactly what parents mean by the word safe in reference to vaccines.  For these parents safe means that there will be no atypical adverse events, injuries or deaths following a vaccine, or development of chronic illness following vaccines.  And if there are, medical professionals will acknowledge it without hesitation, report it and provide care on how to manage it or treat it.  These parents need these assurances from health authorities and policy makers when they feel they are being coerced into consenting to a medical treatments that they have experienced to be unsafe and where the makers have no liability.
If health authorities and policy makers stand any chance in reaching parents through education then they will have to buck up, check their bias, get informed on the entirety of the vaccine research/evidence pool, be transparent and implement an adequate vaccine adverse event surveillance and reporting system.  Remember, the majority of these parents started questioning vaccines AFTER one of their children had an atypical adverse response to a vaccine that a medical professional chose to ignore.  Parents need to know that they have some sort of recourse if their child is injured by a vaccine.  Currently they have zero recourse or support.
The re-education sessions will likely be designed to convince parents to vaccinate, not to provide them information to make an informed choice.  In Canada the right to informed consent is a law.  In BC vaccines are considered preventative healthcare and are subject to the criteria of informed consent.   If these re-education sessions are designed with the same content BC health authorities currently use to educate the masses on vaccines, then people’s rights to informed consent will not be honoured.
Informed consent must provide information on all the risks and benefits of proposed healthcare, all the risks and benefits are not receiving proposed healthcare and any possible alternatives.  Informed consent must be obtained without misrepresentation of information or coercion.  Refusal must be respected.  Informed consent is explicit not implicit, despite nurses in BC believe that if a child is at school during an in school vaccine clinic that is implied consent for the child to receive a vaccine.  NOT.
Let us not forget that data on disease occurrence and morbidity in Canada in the decade leading up to mass vaccinations need to be considered when weighing on risks vs benefits of vaccinating or not.  People might be surprised to learn that in many cases the majority of vaccine preventable diseases were not killing people in the numbers health authorities claim.  Instead they use global stats that include areas of the world where people still don’t have access to clean water, sanitation, adequate nutrition and live in poverty.   Anyone living in those conditions is more susceptible to complications and death by disease whether it be vaccine preventable or not.  This is a gross abuse of misinformation to influence people to consent to healthcare.
The article written for the National Post suggest the imagery in the Ontario’s re-education video do not depict the realities of what vaccine preventable diseases can do to a child.  Suggesting that if parents are reminded of how horrible these diseases can be with visuals that will change their minds.  Of course in order to honour informed consent laws then pictures depicting babies and children who have died or been seriously injured by a vaccine must also be shown.  These images are just as horrendous to look at with the only one exception; the latter children’s lives don’t seem to matter to health authorities or policy makers.
~ A BC Parent