We often hear all about anti-vaxxers from the perspective of parents. Either it comes from the anti-vaxxers themselves spreading their "messaging" or from pro-vaxx parents who are completely against the anti-vaxx movement. We rarely hear from the doctor's perspective, so one curious Redditor posed the question:
"Doctors of Reddit, what are some of your anti-vax parent stories?"
The query resulted in over 6,000 comments, detailing how doctors have dealt with anti-vaxx parents in their own practices. And the responses? They. Are. Savage.
As a medical student, one Redditor recalled an exchanged he witnessed between his attending physician and an anti-vaxxer mom.
Even though a 4-year-old patient clearly had pertussis (whooping cough) the mother refused to let him get a vaccine. The doctor gently ripped into her, but even after their exchange the mother still didn't budge on her stance.
The doctor treated the son as best he could and effectively fired her and her son as a patient and referred her to a different pediatrician.
One doctor retold a tale of when a mother was baffled that no one in the entire county would see her unvaccinated child.
The doctor had an epic response.
"I kindly stopped her and said 'if I was one of a few that refused to treat your child, I would understand your frustration. But don’t you think there’s a message that not a single doctor in the entire county (save for ONE doctor who did some really questionable practices, think essential oils and stuff) will treat your kid? That maybe there’s a valid reason behind it?'"
A pharmacist who deals with travel vaccines had a bizarre encounter with a family.
Basically, the parents vaccinated themselves but not their kids.
What the heck?!
Once, a parent tried to convince a physician to do an alternate schedule of vaccines, which she read as a recommendation in a book written by an MD.
The attending physician had a savage response:
"'Is that the book written by Dr ___? Yes? Well, then you should know that I was in the same medical school class as Dr ___ but I got much better scores than he did.'”
B-U-R-N.
But not all of the stories were harrowing. Once a medical student treated a patient under 1 who was due for vaccines, but the parents were hesitant.
After taking the time to explain and address all of their concerns about them, the parents decided to go through with the vaccines.
"As it turns out, most people are just scared," the former student wrote. "And who can blame them? With all of the misinformation in the world, it’s easy to see how parents get to that point. But they also are human, and when you sit and talk to them like the people that they are (intelligent and able to understand your points) they respond in a positive way."
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
