Arguments For Use Against Anti-Vaxxers

Lately I’ve found myself getting into arguments with anti-vaxxers on social media. A tiring and unpleasant experience, it’s brought home to me just how cult-like the whole anti-vax movement is, and how closed-minded they are. You cannot reach them, and I certainly don’t argue with them with that in mind. Rather, I post in hope of reaching those who are undecided.

This can be a tricky call. Statistics are good, but too dry to really cut it. Not to mention the anti-vaxxers simply come back with their own stats and links that supposedly ‘prove’ their contentions. Never mind that these are either from contaminated sources (ie those of like mind, in a sort of circular argument), or, on closer inspection, really don’t prove anything of the kind they claim. [‘Vaccine injuries’ are a typical example.] We need something more.

So if any of you find yourself arguing with these people, and realise it’s not the anti-vaxxers you need to reach but those who might be wavering, I’ve realised there are two main points that are likely to appeal to them. I plan to use them myself, and if you’d like to use them too, feel free to link to this post, or to copy and paste, with suitable acknowledgement of the source, or a link back to here. Anyway, these are the points I’ve come up with -

1) EXPERIENCE. 

If you’re someone who’s not sure about whether to vaccinate or not, think back over your life, and ask yourself the following questions. 

a) Were you raised in a developed country? If yes, it’s likely you received whatever vaccines were common at that time. And if for some reason you weren’t, it’s likely that most of those roughly your age (what researchers call your ‘age cohort’) were. If however you grew up in an under-developed country, the immunisation record for your age cohort is likely to be far more patchy or non-existent.

b) Do you remember kids of your generation getting sick and/or dying of any of the diseases that can now be vaccinated against? I’m thinking here of diseases like TB, whooping cough, diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox. If you’re older, did you suffer through these diseases yourself, or remember them ‘going around’ as epidemics? And during these epidemics, did you hear your parents talking anxiously of who might be infected, and how (eg from attending a party with infected children)? Do you remember whole families being quarantined, or friends you weren’t allowed to visit for ages or never saw again after they got sick, or relatives who died young?

c) Did you grow up before or after the vaccines for these diseases were introduced in your country? Younger generations are far more likely to have been vaccinated for pretty much all of these diseases, if they grew up in a developed country.

If the answers for these questions are yes, yes and no, or yes, no, yes, or even no, yes, no, then that’s one powerful pro-vaccine argument right there. Some of these diseases are now coming back in Western countries of course – and, not-so-coincidentally, right in the very places where vaccination rates are dangerously low.

Just to give one example, my own generation grew up AFTER vaccines for whooping cough, diphtheria, TB, tetanus and scarlet fever were introduced, but BEFORE the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine came in. So we didn’t get the first group of diseases, but we did get the second. I know, however, that those as little as ten years older than me did commonly get whooping cough, while those only a generation younger didn’t get any of these diseases.

If that’s not enough to convince you, consider the following –

2) Rational Common Sense.

Anti-vaxxers frequently argue that these diseases are ‘still happening’, but are being mislabelled by doctors, researchers, scientists, hospitals and the government. This can only mean that either –

a) Doctors, nurses, etc, are so incompetent that they can’t recognise these diseases, even though the symptoms are widely known, and pretty unmistakable. It’s difficult to mistake whooping cough for ‘just a regular cough’, or measles for ‘just a rash’, for example. Yet the anti-vaxxers would have you believe that all medical staff etc are this incompetent. All of them. All of the time. Everywhere. In every clinic and hospital, everywhere in the Western world, and possibly beyond. How likely is this, you must ask yourself?

And yet, according to the anti-vaxxers, it’s either this, or –

b) That these same doctors, nurses, hospitals, researchers, government departments, etc, etc, are all in cahoots, conspiring to obscure and deny the truths, and keep the rest of the world’s population in the dark.

For what reason, you might ask? Good question. The anti-vaxxers never really answer that. Conspiracy theories abound, but tend, as do all such theories, to lack all rationality. They become an end in themselves, defying logic and plain old-fashioned common sense. We all know how difficult it is to get one or two people to keep a secret for long. How logical is it that hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions, from all around the world, are engaged in such an enterprise? For decades on end? Someone, somewhere, somehow, would start to spill the beans. And probably lots of them.

The anti-vaxxers of course claim that people already have, but weren’t believed. Firstly, these supposed ‘whistle-blowers’ invariably prove to be very few, and also part of the anti-vaxxer crowd, with the same confused and misleading ‘data’. Secondly, it still doesn’t explain WHY this was done. 

Explanations about ‘Big Pharma’ wanting to make a profit etc, etc, don’t really meet the logic test. Doctors, pharmaceutical companies, etc, don’t actually make that much on vaccines, on the whole. Not to mention that pharmaceutical executives, doctors, scientists, etc, live in the same world we do, after all, and by and large want the same things as we do – a safe world for their descendants to grow up in. 

Yes, there are ‘rotten apples in every barrel’, and a few might be corrupt, selfish, greedy creatures only in it for the money, but it defies logic and a basic understanding of human nature to think they are ALL like that. I’ve met some of these supposedly terrible people, and they’re human beings, just as we are. (It’s also worth noting that one of those truly ‘rotten apples’, who was struck off after having found to have faked his research for financial gain, is none other than Andrew Wakefield, yep, that’s right, the ‘guru’ of the anti-vax movement himself. Hmmmmm….)

Put simply, conspiracy theories about vaccines belong in the same category as ones about alien anal probes and Elvis still being alive.

So, if you’re reading all the screeds of supposed ‘facts’ the anti-vaxxers post everywhere at every opportunity, turn to these two things to test their claims – experience and logic. The anti-vaxxers fail spectacularly, on both counts.

Why I Empathise With The Deaf

As someone with both Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Aspergers Syndrome, I empathise with all my fellow disabled. However I'm finding the group I empathise most with, next to my fellow aspies of course, are the deaf.

There are lots of reasons for this. They start with the personal, such as my having known a deaf woman for many decades through a family connection. I've also had a slight hearing loss since my 20s, and, like many on the spectrum, I almost certainly fit the criteria for Auditory Processing Disorder as well. People's words frequently come across as sort of 'mushed together', and I have to unscramble or 'decode' them. It's hardest when speaking on the phone, and I've realised recently that face-to-face I do quite a bit of lip-reading – and so know how difficult-to-impossible that can often be, eg if someone has an accent, or a moustache over their lip, or turns their head away or mumbles.

But beyond these personal reasons, I find many similarities between the autistic and the deaf.

We've both have had our conditions 'medicalised', seen as pathological. We've been told that the Best Thing that can happen for us is some sort of 'cure', whether it be cochlear implants, learning to imitate speech and lip-read, or punishing rounds of 'therapy'.

We've both been taught we are 'lesser than' or inferior. Our natural states have been cast as 'lacking' or 'deficient' in some way, and we’ve been treated as though we’re somehow less than other human beings. We've been taught that to be hearing/NT is better, and that They Know Better Than Us, about all sorts of things, most especially how we should live our lives.

We've both been seen as 'stupid'. We've been called 'retards' or 'dumb', held back in education or given a lesser education, assumed to be non-intelligent if non-speaking, and often had it assumed, or even specifically been told or taught, that we ‘can’t do’ a lot of things, and so generally not given the same chances in life.

We've both been kept ignorant. Both groups have often not been informed of a lot of basic stuff about the world. Neither group 'just pick it up' - the deaf because they don't hear it, autistic because they don't 'see' it. If the deaf don't learn and communicate in sign language with their parents as children, and the autistics are undiagnosed, then the likelihood of this is increased. Both groups suffer lifelong consequences from this.

We’ve both have problems with communication. Sign language was suppressed for many years, and even now, few people outside the deaf community and their immediate families and teachers know sign language, and interpreters are still thin on the ground. Non-verbal autistics are still too often seen as ‘not having anything to communicate’ - even if they have communication devices, they’re still sometimes not listened to. Even if an autistic is verbal, they can also have difficulty communicating their needs to others.

We've both experienced forced normalisation. There’s been so much pressure on us to be or at least pretend to be ‘normal’, whether it be the tyranny of oralism for the deaf, or 'indistinguishability from their peers' for us. The over-riding message has been that ‘not normal’ is bad, that we must not sign, or flap, or show any obvious sign of our ‘defectiveness’, that we should aspire to be normal, or to imitate it as closely as we manage, no matter what the personal cost to us.

We've both have been punished for doing what comes naturally. This is of course sign language for the deaf, and stimming and other autistic behaviours for us. This follows on from that forced normalisation – all our natural behaviours and means of communication have been suppressed “for our own good”.

We've both been victims of various kinds of maltreatment. We've been beaten up, bullied, abused, yelled at, laughed at, scorned and jeered at, rejected, ignored, etc, etc, ad nauseum. We've been excluded from professions and jobs because other people tell us we aren't capable of them, we've been discriminated against, jailed, put in mental institutions, or even killed. The list is a long one, and it ain’t over yet.

We’re both invisible to others. We’ve both been marginalized. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, deaf or autistic viewpoints are so rarely seen or heard, it’s like we might as well not exist, most of the time. And so our needs are rarely if ever taken into account when facilities are designed or events staged. A recent example is the lack of captioning for Rugby World Cup events on New Zealand TV. It’s like it never occurred to the Powers That Be that the deaf might be interested in watching rugby.

We’ve both had to find our own ways of doing things. For both groups, a lot of the aids we need are visual. Charts, lists, maps, social stories, teletext captioning, cellphone texting, AAC devices, computers, the Internet/email, etc, are of vital importance to us, yet often we’ve had to find, invent or insist on them ourselves. Others have been so insistent on normalising us that they’ve ignored or denied us what we really need.

We've both overcome all the above, to form communities of our own. We’ve rejected so much of all of this BS, to find each other, support each other, and form our own communities, where we can communicate, share, and socialise in our own ways, on our own terms. There is often a sense of relief and belonging somewhere, for the first time, when we enter these communities, plus a shedding of a lot of old worn-out ideas about who and what we are.

Things thankfully have changed and shifted for the deaf in recent decades, though I don’t doubt many of them would still say there’s a long way to go. We autistics are still stuck in the past in this regard, somewhat behind the deaf, a lot of the worst things are still happening for and to us. It fills me with frustration, but I remain hopeful that we will find ways to effect change. It’s certainly about time. Both groups deserve so much better than this.

Broken Bones and Handling Trauma

As some of you know, a few months back I broke my ankle. It was a bad break, requiring surgery to pin my shattered bones back together again. Three weeks later, my crutch slipped on the kitchen floor, and I fell and broke a bone in my hand as well. I spent weeks in a wheelchair, two limbs in plaster, dependent on others to do the most basic things, like meals and showering myself.

It's all been a huge thing to have to deal with, and has seen me out of action, both generally and writing-wise, for quite a while. However, I'm gradually getting my life back to normal, an inch at a time, and trying to get back to regular writing. So I thought I'd start by talking about how I, as an aspie, found this experience. While I can only say for sure what traumatized and overwhelmed me, I'm wondering if my experiences will resonate with other aspies. So here it goes - my list of what I found hardest to deal with.

Sensory Overload. I had heard that broken bones were the worst kind of pain, but I guess I didn't really believe it till it happened to me. Screaming, puking, hyperventilating, head spinning, the whole nine yards. The pain and shock, plus all the hustle and bustle of a busy emergency department, was overwhelming. And the sensory barrage didn't stop once my ankle was in plaster. There really isn't any low-sensory-stimulus time in hospital, even in the middle of the night there are lights, nurses walking up and down the corridor, voices talking, people crying out (or snoring loudly!), buzzers going, the brip-beep of blood-pressure machines or IV pumps... And the days were of course far worse. Not the ideal environment for an aspie used to spending large chunks of her time in peaceful solitude. I don't normally shout and scream when I'm in overload, but I did have quite a few sobbing sessions, then and later, and at times veered into shutdown, closing my eyes and just letting all the noises wash over me, till they echoed and blurred together and my mind blanked out.

Even after I was discharged, there was the ongoing sensory load of pain to deal with, one not easy to manage when you're sensitive/intolerant of many medications. There were also some things I had no idea about before - who knew, for instance, that you can get a muscle cramp underneath a cast? Or how painful it can be to have stitches under one? Or how blasted heavy and uncomfortable the damn things are, or how it seems every other muscle and joint in your body, at some point or another, complains of the extra weight and strain it has to take compensating for the ones you can't use? Nor is it just about experiencing pain in the moment. After each bad bout of it, I would be reeling, and dreading the next wave, and trying to think of ways to prevent it, and so on.

And then there's the sheer exhaustion factor, because even the most basic of daily living tasks takes so much longer and requires so much more energy than usual. Of course having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome didn't help things either. (Are you beginning to understand why I couldn't even THINK about writing for ages?)

There was also the noise and chatter of the various helpers coming and going during the day. Let me make it clear here for those NTs who might misconstrue this - it isn't about hating people, or rejecting them, or even wanting to totally avoid them, or anything like that. It's about being stressed by the inevitable noise that comes from other people being around (plus of course the social challenges, more on this below), when you're just not used to it.

I have to admit that some extra sensory load I put on myself, e.g. watching a lot of daytime TV, but then there really wasn't much else to do, when I couldn't even sit at my computer desk for long, because my ankle had to be kept elevated. I'm gradually trying to reduce all these sensory inputs, even foregoing watching TV at night some nights, just for the peace and quiet.

Emotional Overload. All the physical pain and shock was bad enough, but I feel the emotional shock was and is in some ways worse. I wince now at those TV shows - "Funniest Home Videos", etc - when they show people taking a tumble. I am terrified of another fall, especially since I broke my hand. I am also terrified of steps and slippery floors, ultra-cautious on the crutches I've only just started using again, and I suspect that even after I'm long healed, I'm going to move very differently to the confident stride and pivoting I used to have. The emotional shock goes deeper than mere physical fears however. It has something to do with losing my independence, of which I'll say more below, but also to do with a sense of violation, or loss, perhaps, of the person I was before. Sometimes, especially when I'm massaging my still-tender ankle, I want to just sit and shake and cry, as though I'm still processing what happened, all the pain and fear and helplessness and so on. I don't think I'm going to be "over it" any time soon either.

I know NTs experience shock on many levels too, I'm not saying they don't, nor am I saying their pain is any less real, just that I feel I, and perhaps all aspies/auties, somehow take these things in deeper, and/or just can't seem to let them go as easily as NTs do.

Social Overload. The last few months have necessarily seen me interacting far more with other people than I'm used to - nurses, doctors, physios, OTs, X-ray technicians, social workers, other hospital staff, ACC staff, more physios, homecare workers and their supervisors, Outpatients staff, yet more physios... the list is a long one. This increased social contact, often when I've been feeling at my worst, and hence least able to 'behave nicely', has been a strain, and has taxed my ability to communicate and get along with others. So while I'm glad I live in a country where we have a national health system and all these services in place, and I know that I couldn't have managed without them, couldn't have achieved even the degree of independence I've reached so far... still, I will be glad when I no longer need all these services and people in my life. I crave peace and quiet and solitude even more than I used to. It has left me with an increased conviction that a huge amount of interaction with the world is not for me, that I'm simply not emotionally equipped to handle it.

Communication Problems. I may be fluent with the written word, but orally I've always struggled to produce the right words when put on the spot, all the more so when stressed. In those first few hours, people kept asking me questions I couldn't answer coherently. (I was so thankful to my sister, for answering for me!) Struggling to frame coherent sentences, or just to find the right words to, say, instruct others as to what I want ("put the thingy on the thingy, no, there!"), has been a continuing pattern. My brain is predominantly a visual one, and I then have to 'translate' my thoughts into words, and I just can't do it instantly.

It isn't just about being able to string words together either - it often feels like even when I do produce a coherent sentence, people seem to take it to mean something different to what I actually meant. I've struggled to re-frame my thoughts in ways acceptable and understandable to others, ie NTs. Or, sometimes, I realise I need to explain my thought processes, as they don't know what's going inside my head, why I'm asking that particular question! (Theory of mind, anyone?)

Other times I feel I'm not heard at all, as though I must not be talking loud enough, or maybe they weren't really listening. More interaction with others has meant much more of these problems, more struggling to make myself and my needs heard, or to communicate more exactly what I mean, or just to get the attention of those around me, all at a time when I've been feeling at my most exhausted and least able to get my mind round the 'right' words to get my meaning across, the socially acceptable ones that is - the rude ones unfortunately come all too readily to mind!

I did tell some of the people I deal with I'm aspie, but there have simply been too many, and too many of them fleeting, to tell everyone. And even those I have dealt with, I didn't feel they really understood what having AS means, or what effect it has on my responses to them. They do often seem a bit bemused by some of my reactions! Thankfully, no-one seemed to get annoyed or pissed off with me, perhaps health professionals expect people to behave strangely when they're in shock or pain, or undergoing treatment!

Losing control of your life - like I said above, I am glad I live in a country with a national health system, social services, etc, in place, and I know I'm going to need at least some of these services for some time to come, and I truly am grateful for them, I shudder to think how I'd have managed (or not) without them, not to mention the support of my family... BUT. But there's an inevitable loss of control of your life with them. You become dependent on these services, both physically and to some extent emotionally as well. People do things to you, for you, or with you, but you're not really in charge of any of it, you don't pay the bills or call the shots, you don't really have much power over any of what's done or who does it or when or how. You can complain of course, or ask lots of questions or make requests, but the ultimate power, it is soon clear, lies elsewhere.

When I got this sorted out in my head recently, what I want suddenly became very, very clear to me - I want my life back. I want the life I used to have back, doing the things I used to do, on my own, totally independently, and without anyone looking over my shoulder and approving or disapproving. Without anyone even around, period! I've always been stubbornly independent and private, at least partly because I hate being criticised by those who don't understand me and my life. I want that life back. I want me back.

So, as soon as I possibly can, I want to take over the tasks others are doing for me, one by one, till I no longer need their services. (Actually, I kind of have to, as my support hours have been reduced! But I am wanting to do it anyway.) I also want to make sufficient progress with my healing that I no longer need treatment of any kind. I've made some headway with both of these things, but there's still a long way to go, and I feel I'm straining towards health and independence like a dog on a leash.

And I need to be careful I don't overdo it at this point - something I already have done a bit, I must admit. I've only just been allowed to drive again, and only recently started walking on crutches again (one of them padded). Nonetheless, I decided I needed to go to the supermarket 'just for a few things', though I can't even push a trolley or carry a basket, and haven't walked any distance in months. To say I was exhausted afterwards is something of an understatement. I overestimated my abilities, or underestimated the task, or maybe both. This bull-at-a-gate thing, not stopping to really consider what I'm doing, is very much, I feel, a product of my AS, and something I have to work on moderating, for my own sake.

The flip side of that is having gotten settled into certain routines, I'm now scared to change them and do something new or different, especially on my own - even when it's something I used to do, and always on my own! Fear of the can-I-do-it and should-I-do-it variety grips me, and I can hang back from even trying. I tend to flip-flop between these two states, of fear and recklessness, neither of which is really helpful. I am, like many aspies, a creature of extremes.

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So that's it folks, that's what's been happening for me, and where I'm at right now. Does any of this resonate with you? Have any of you ever -

a) broken a bone, or had some other health crisis

b) had some ongoing health situation or physical disability, temporary or otherwise, and/or

c) had to deal with health/social support services, for yourself or a loved one?

What has been your experience of them? How do you feel they've dealt with you as an aspie/autie? Did you tell people you were on the spectrum, and did you feel heard, understood, accepted, etc? Or - what? How much do you feel your experiences differed from those not AS? I'm curious as to how others on the spectrum have experienced trauma, and whatever health system you have in your country. I feel surely I can't be alone in being overwhelmed by all this sort of thing.

ASD Reactions To Drugs

A recent discussion at my local aspie gathering, and a lot of anecdotal evidence, suggests that we on the spectrum react very differently than NTs do, to a lot of medications. Sometimes we don’t react at all to a drug. Some drugs we react strongly (and negatively) to, and with yet others our reactions are totally different, even the reverse of, what’s ‘expected’, eg drugs given to calm us, making us more ‘hyper’ than ever. We often require much lower amounts than what is considered the ‘normal’ or ‘standard’ dosage.

Some doctors and psychiatrists, those who specialise in or have experience dealing with those on the spectrum, are apparently becoming more and more aware of this, and take it into account. But your average GP, especially if they have little or no experience with or awareness of people on the spectrum, will often express disbelief or even scoff at the idea that a particular drug could cause a certain reaction, or need to be lowered in dosage, simply because the patient is on the spectrum.

For instance, one man, used to taking a very low dose of a particular anti-depressant overseas, found when he first moved to New Zealand and asked his new doctor for a similar prescription, the doctor expressed disbelief and amazement that such a low dosage could have any effect at all – it being half what he considered the ‘absolute minimum’. Yet this man had found through experience and the support of a former doctor, that this was all he needed to keep himself emotionally stable.

Yet when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. It’s now a proven fact that we have a different neurological pattern, our brains work differently to those of NTs. More often than not, we have a high degree of sensory sensitivity, and many of us have multiple food sensitivities or allergies, and highly sensitive digestive systems. In short, our brains, our bodies and biochemistry, are different, so why shouldn’t we react differently to what’s put in them?

My own list of ‘no-no’ drugs is moderately long – aspirin, morphine, Tramadol, anti-histamines, codeine, prednisone, amitriptyline, sleeping tablets, Lipex (for high cholesterol), and the anti-inflammatory Diclofenac, aka Voltaren. All of these I have had negative, sometimes extreme, reactions to. Others report even longer lists, and even more extreme reactions.

So please, those on the spectrum, and/or who have children who are, don’t let doctors or indeed any so-called ‘expert’, bulldoze you into accepting dosages of any medication, for you and/or your child, that you don’t feel are ‘right’. If you can educate them, do so. If you can’t, stand firm anyway. You know yourself/your child best, not them.

And doctors/psychiatrists, please listen to your patients on the spectrum, when they tell you that a particular drug doesn’t work for them, or a parent of an autistic child tells you this. Consider prescribing much lower doses than usual, and proceed with caution. Be prepared for some medications not to work at all, to have the opposite effect to that intended, or to have ‘side-effects’ way beyond or different to ‘the norm’. It might be a good idea to record the different reactions you encounter, for future reference.

In short, everybody take care. Medication is a minefield for those on the spectrum.