- 12 minutes ago
10 or 15 people from diverse backgrounds stand in a room and get educated about Vaccinations. After deciding if a statement is Fact or Fictions, an allergist and immunologist, gives them straight answers to common questions and misconceptions.
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00:00The flu shot can give you the flu.
00:03Fact or fiction?
00:04Come on over. Don't be on the island.
00:07It's time for another Fact or Fiction,
00:10and today we're talking about vaccines.
00:17Hi everyone! Hi!
00:19My name is Michelle Yasharpour.
00:21I am an allergist and immunologist.
00:23I've been in practice for about eight years.
00:25So the rules are, I'm going to be reading off a series of statements.
00:29If you think it's a fact, you're going to go over to my right side, the blue side.
00:34If you think it's fiction, the left side, the pink side.
00:37I think that there are so many different social media outlets that discuss vaccines
00:42and unfortunately a lot of misinformation.
00:45Vaccines are one of the things that have kept us from seeing some really devastating diseases.
00:51In the last couple years we're, you know, seeing a lot more measles,
00:54we're seeing a lot more of these diseases that we haven't seen in over a decade.
00:59To create this communications dialogue about vaccinations is really, really important
01:03because so many people hold such hard opinions on it.
01:05I always have a government conspiracy type of attitude to vaccinations,
01:10but my knowledge is actually very limited, so.
01:13I think this is going to be a fun challenge.
01:14Alright, is everyone ready?
01:16Yes!
01:17Statement number one. Vaccines are the oldest known medical treatment. Fact or fiction?
01:25So why do you think it's a fact?
01:26I never thought about what's the oldest medical tradition, so I don't know if vaccines wouldn't be.
01:33Anybody want to say why they thought it was fiction?
01:35Well, they used to use leeches, so that's pretty old.
01:39And a hot rag.
01:40Yeah, yeah.
01:40Just put on it, just to feel better.
01:43This is a fact.
01:47Good job!
01:49So I think, you know, cold rags and water, they're not technically a medical treatment.
01:54Vaccines are actually even older than antibiotics and anesthesia.
01:58What we've seen in the 7th century, monks in India were using snake venom and drinking it
02:04to protect themselves against being bitten by snakes.
02:06People in China inhaling small particles in order to prevent themselves from getting smallpox.
02:12See, I almost walked across, too, because I wanted to be a follower, but you've got to stand in your
02:16convictions.
02:18The next statement.
02:20Once you're vaccinated against a disease, you're protected for life.
02:24Fact or fiction?
02:27I've never gone to get any other vaccines, like, since I was a child.
02:31So I figured...
02:33Because you got it that you're protected for life.
02:35Right.
02:37This is actually fiction.
02:40They lose their effectiveness after a certain number of years.
02:44It was one of those things where, yeah, that makes sense. Vaccines work once and you're good for life.
02:49But your body does grow. Your body does change. Different things affect you.
02:53The viruses are smart. They change.
02:55A lot of time when the vaccines are being developed, they go to market without understanding the full durability.
03:01And over time we realize that, you know, it has worn off and that we need to do a booster.
03:06So our next statement. Vaccines have only eradicated one disease in humans.
03:13Fact. Fiction.
03:15Eradicated means we haven't seen one case of it in the entire world.
03:20Polio, right?
03:35Polio.
03:36So eliminated.
03:37So eliminated means that a vaccine has basically removed something from a certain region.
03:41And the only disease that's been eradicated is actually the smallpox.
03:45Well, I was thinking polio. I stood on the right side, but technically I got it wrong. So...
03:51For a long time we didn't see measles, mumps, rubella, polio, but we for sure can't say that they've been
04:00eradicated because there was just five new measles cases in LA in the last month.
04:04Next statement. Vaccine for the chicken pox also vaccinates for shingles.
04:10Fact. Fiction.
04:12I want you to explain to me what shingles are.
04:16Why do you guys think that that's not true?
04:18Because I had chicken pox and then later in life I got shingles.
04:23And that's embarrassing to tell everybody, but I know that it's not true.
04:31It's actually fiction.
04:34And part of it is because of what you said.
04:36The vaccine for chicken pox does not protect you against shingles completely.
04:41There's actually two different types of vaccine for shingles that you can get to protect against the shingles itself.
04:46Shingles is, and you were like, I don't know what shingles is, shingles is that virus that sits and sleeps
04:52and hangs out in your nerves.
04:54And in certain occasions, for example, if you're super stressed out, haven't slept, you know, you're just run down, it
05:01can get reactivated.
05:02It can reduce the risk of it because if you have that live attenuated virus, it's going to be a
05:07smaller chance of getting shingles.
05:09Next statement. The flu shot can give you the flu.
05:15Come on over. Don't be on the island.
05:17No, no, no.
05:18I'm holding. I'm holding.
05:20So to our lone ranger here, do you want to tell us why you think it's not true?
05:24I feel like whenever you get the flu shot, they say you could get flu-like symptoms mildly, but you
05:30don't get the flu from it.
05:33Okay.
05:33Because that's the whole point of a vaccine. You don't get the actual thing, right?
05:36I feel like I got really sick after a flu shot once, and I blamed it on the flu shot.
05:40I don't know if that was the actual case.
05:42So actually, this is fiction.
05:47So if I had a dollar for every time somebody said that I'm not getting my flu shot this year
05:53because every time I get my flu shot, I get sick, I'd be very rich.
05:56I remember them saying, you know, you might feel a little bit uncomfortable, you might have flu-like symptoms, but
06:01you're not going to really get the flu.
06:03And if you get it, it's because you already were susceptible.
06:06Getting any sort of vaccine is going to stimulate your immune system.
06:11So anytime your immune system is simulated, you're going to get all of these different weird side effects.
06:16You're going to feel a little run down. You might have a low grade temperature.
06:19It's just your immune system working to fight against that vaccine so that it can build immunity against the actual
06:27flu.
06:28Scientists in a lab will sit and try and predict what the flu is going to look like that year.
06:33And then they basically formulate the different proteins that they think is going to be in the flu virus.
06:38So every year there's a new flu shot to try and protect against that year's flu.
06:43So you can't get the flu from proteins.
06:47Alright, so the next statement. Vaccines can help prevent cancer.
06:52Fact. Fiction.
06:56Why not?
06:56Cancer can come at you in so many different forms, like smoking or, you know, you can eat healthy and
07:02still develop breast cancer or a lump out of nowhere.
07:05There's no vaccines for that.
07:06I think that's legit.
07:10Why'd you switch over?
07:11Because he liked what I was saying.
07:12Yeah.
07:13Why do you think that that's true?
07:14Because HPV, you can get cancer and you can get a vaccine for that.
07:18So in order for that to be true, I thought you just needed one example.
07:21We're speaking to this.
07:22So basically it's a fact.
07:24And it's because there are vaccines.
07:27So in particular, HPV is a very great, it's a great example.
07:32We vaccinate, you know, young, like adolescents before they become sexually active to prevent them from getting the HPV strain
07:39that can cause cancer.
07:41And another example is actually hepatitis B.
07:43So with the hepatitis B vaccine, we know that chronic infection and chronic liver disease predisposes somebody to getting cancer.
07:52And so if you can prevent hepatitis B, you can actually prevent liver cancer as well.
07:57The next statement.
07:58Vaccine induced immunity is more effective than actually contracting the disease.
08:05Fact or fiction?
08:07And I just feel like if there is a vaccine for it, like why, why wouldn't you just do that
08:13rather than like living through the disease itself?
08:16Like, I would rather not suffer, so.
08:19So this is a technicality question.
08:22Just because something is more effective doesn't mean necessarily that it's better.
08:26It might sound great to be able to get the natural disease and then be protected for the rest of
08:30your life.
08:31You're putting other people at risk.
08:33And so that's why preventing the disease itself with a vaccine is better.
08:38Preventing a disease and not having to live through it and risking dying from it, we think that that's better.
08:45And when you have everybody vaccinated is that you actually get to protect not just you and not just your
08:51family, but the concept of herd immunity.
08:54When you get a bunch of kids sick and they're walking around and you're taking them to, you know, whatever
08:59market you're going,
08:59there are a lot of people there that can't get vaccinated either because they have an immunodeficiency.
09:07Last question.
09:08Studies have shown that vaccines can cause autism.
09:12If you think they cause autism, stay here.
09:14If you don't think that they cause autism, stay here.
09:17So tell me why you guys think that that's true.
09:20I have heard a lot of it being really high mercury and so really bad for young, young children.
09:26Well, there have been studies that I've even seen online.
09:31I believe it was one study by a guy who lost his medical license.
09:34I don't think you can get autism post birth.
09:37I do feel like vaccines kind of have just become like a scapegoat.
09:41Like it's very easy to just be like, oh, it's the vaccine.
09:44If your child was already going to have autism, you would still blame it on the vaccination.
09:48It seems like a false correlation to me.
09:51So, fiction.
09:56When studies are published, we believe them because they're supposed to be evidence-based.
10:01All of this started in 1997 when Andrew Wakefield published an article claiming that this was true.
10:09He actually lost his license and the article was retracted because it was shown that a lot of the data
10:17was falsified.
10:18I used to be a behavioral therapist.
10:19I worked with a lot of kids on the spectrum.
10:21I worked with a lot of kids who have autism.
10:25So I definitely did a lot of research.
10:27If this is kind of like the one article a lot of people are saying is, oh, this is truth.
10:32We're basing everything on this.
10:33A bunch of other articles span off that to create this other like wave of thinking.
10:37Like that's not good because it wasn't legit.
10:41The problem is once that notion is out there, it's really hard to change people's ideas.
10:48And just like you said, you know, the time that we vaccinate is also the age where we start noticing
10:53little signs
10:54that can indicate that a child might have autism.
10:58Any time things happen around the same time, it's very easy to try and put the blame on something
11:05because it's not easy to digest that sort of diagnosis.
11:09And it's much easier to blame something like a vaccine.
11:13We actually have had studies recently that have showed that autism developed in utero.
11:18They've done specific studies looking at thimerosal and looking at the mercury levels in kids that have autism
11:25and kids that don't have autism.
11:27And the levels were the same in both.
11:29And so they can't say that the mercury is more likely to cause autism or not.
11:34Thank you all for being here. That was great.
11:40Any medication that you take, any vaccine you take, of course there's going to be a risk of a side
11:45effect
11:46or there's going to be a risk of a, you know, local reaction.
11:50Taking that small risk is worth it because you're protecting yourself against something much worse.