Are You An Anti-Vaxxer?

Just to be clear, I am NOT an anti-vaxxer.  

What I AM is a SAFE-vaxxer.

When I was leaving the town hall meeting yesterday, a woman stopped me when she saw my "Utility Meter Choice" name tag.

"Are you an anti-vaxxer, also?" she asked.

"No, I'm a safe vaxxer...  You're not the first person to ask me that.  Why do you want to know?"

"Well, because anti-vaxxers believe in pseudo-science, and I wanted to know if you believed in pseudo-science", she said.  "Are you a scientist?"

"No."

"Well I am, and vaccines save lives."

"I'm sure they do!  I just know that when my daughters were babies (in the 80's) they received just a handful of vaccines, and did just fine..."

"This is supposed to be a dialogue between two people", she interrupted.

"Yes, and I'm trying to tell you my experience, but you interrupted me.  Children never got more than three vaccinations at one time, and none that I know of had issues, and I knew a lot of mothers with small children.  Today, maybe half a dozen vaccines are given at a time, and some children don't do so well.  In fact, I once heard an ICU nurse say that when preemies come in for vaccinations, they prepare a room because they know the preemie will need to be admitted."

"They don't vaccinate preemies", she insisted, "and the amount of toxins in a vaccination is minuscule.  Babies are more likely poisoned by the environment than by vaccinations.  And besides, nurses don't have much education."

Ha!  Try telling that to an ICU nurse.  

At this point she mentioned the flu vaccination.  I told her that I'd never gotten a flu vaccination, and it had been maybe 20 years since I had the flu.

"Well you could be carrying the virus and infecting people.  You could have killed babies!"

"Killed babies?!?  Aren't you more likely to infect another when you have the vaccination and are then carrying the virus?"

"That's it", she said, "you ARE an anti-vaxxer!"  She then turned around and stomped off.

I was stunned.  Dumbfounded.  And a touch amused by this exchange.

Later in the day, I relayed my experience to one of my daughters.

"You know, mom, they sometimes plant shills and trolls at those types of things."

Hmm... I may have met my first, live, town hall troll.