An anti-vaccine group called the "Crazymothers" recently uploaded a post on Twitter to make a statement on how the rest of the world refers to them. They claim the term "anti-vaxxer" is a derogatory way to refer to them and that they'd much rather be referred to as "vaccine risk-aware." To any sane person, what they stand for just doesn't make any sense. We can make fun of them and give them new names like "pro-diseaser," but ultimately that doesn't accomplish anything. This just increases their contempt for people who don't think the way they do. We should be constantly trying to teach them the scientific evidence behind vaccinations.
The sad part is that most of these individuals in these anti-vaccination groups are grieving mothers whose infants seemingly died out of nowhere. And it seems that it was just convenient to blame something that they don't know too much about. To them, the vaccinations caused their infants' sudden deaths, but in reality, the vaccines are what prevents their child from contracting dangerous diseases that killed millions in our history.
One mother, Catelin Clobes, experienced the loss of her infant daughter Evee 36 hours after getting vaccinations. It seemed like that was the only possible explanation for her daughter's death, and this is simply because she was not informed of the other dangers associated with infants. In Evee's case, the local medical examiner ruled her cause of death as suffocation from co-sleeping with her mother (you can learn about safe co-sleeping habits here). Many people don't realize the dangers that arise from co-sleeping and the idea that the caretaker was inadvertently responsible for the death of the child in a case like this is something that is far-fetched in the minds of people who are against vaccinations. They ultimately want to use this chance to "prove" that vaccinations are the cause of all that is wrong in the world.
It's truly terrifying to know that infants will continue to die because the true cause of their deaths isn't being addressed, and that uninformed people are the ones who are caring for them.
