2023 Author: Jessica James | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 03:31
Sergei Butriy is a Russian pediatrician, author of the blog "Notes of a Pediatrician" and the author of books on childhood diseases and vaccinations. Last year, his first book became a bestseller and there is no doubt that the new work “Modern Parents. Everything Dad and Mom Should Know About Baby Health from Birth to 10 Years”will break sales records.
The editorial staff of BeautyHack risked publishing an excerpt from Butria's new book on vaccinations: yes, he is FOR doing them. And answers all the uncomfortable questions about cause and effect.
- Oh, how often parents associate vaccination with any troubles of the baby! Inactivated vaccines can cause fever in the first days after vaccination, live ones - 1-3 weeks after, and, apparently, this fact confuses parents and makes them think that it is the vaccine's fault, and then something else. But children as a whole are "unreliable" creatures: they are going on vacation - the child fell ill two days before departure, they were preparing for a karate tournament for six months, fell ill the day before, etc. That is, they often fall ill at the "most inopportune moment", why should they just don't do it after vaccination? Without any connection with her, just catch the virus.
I will tell you two particularly illustrative cases "got sick from vaccination", both about baby roseola (read about it in the blog or in my first book). I have others: about otitis media, about diarrhea and even about a fracture, which parents managed to associate with a reaction to the vaccine, but they are not as indicative as these two.
The first. At that time I was just starting to work in a private clinic, I had no regular patients, I was completely inexperienced, my record was only a third full, and sometimes I took home calls from the clinic. I come for one such, a child of ten months, fever, nothing else. Yesterday in our clinic (from another pediatrician) we received Pentaxim. Three hours later from "Pentaxim" the baby's temperature rose to forty, he gets off badly, rises again after three hours.
I examined, found nothing, the child is not heavy, not counting the fever. He began to talk about the fact that either ARVI starts without catarrh, or roseola, that you only need to water and restrain the fever. Then a flurry falls on me: “We thought that you would shield your own! It's all from your vaccination! We will never be vaccinated again. " As far as I could, I tried to convince and reassure, told what roseola is, that it could be her, what to expect, and left. Two days later, another call to the same place. Nothing changes, he has a fever, the temperature is forty to six peaks a day, it decreases badly, there are no other complaints, the weakness has increased, but in general, outside the fever, he is cheerful. No changes at the site of inoculation. I again to them: "I think it's roseola, we are waiting for a rash." Again a flurry of mistrust, criticism and emotions on the verge of hysteria. Again: "Well, admit, this is from Pentaxim,prescribe antibiotics already! " and so on. Under pressure from my parents, I prescribed blood and urine tests, ordered me to send them to Viber in the evening: they sent the ideal ones. He also calmed them down in Viber under the caustic remarks and constant mistrust.
The next day, the temperature did not rise more than 37.4 ° C, by the evening it was sprinkled with roseola. I turned out to be right, my parents were convinced that the vaccine had nothing to do with it, and then they were vaccinated with "Pentaxim" without any reaction.
Second. Twins, four months old, I think. This time I have a good credit of trust from my parents, they have heard only good things about me, they read my blog, communication is much easier.
I give both of them the first dose of Pentaxim, the next day one has a fever of 39 ° C. Examining: locally at the injection site - nothing, with a general examination - nothing, out of fever - vigorous. Mom is very afraid, on the verge of panic. How can I reassure, I say that for sure roseola, that the maximum, than the vaccine is to blame, got infected in the clinic; from treatment only drink and antipyretic. The second child is healthy.
For two or three days of big worries, heart-breaking messages in "Viber", my mother does not find a place for herself, I calm down with varying degrees of success. Finally, the temperature drops, a roseola rash appears. We are all happy. The second child never got sick.
Six weeks later, these twins are brought to me for the second dose of Pentaxim. I'm giving both of them a dose, and what do you think? The second girl has a fever without catarrh immediately after vaccination. Everything points to roseola. And in my "Viber" Groundhog Day begins, everything is like last time, everything is like with the first child. After several days of high fever, a roseolous rash also appeared. No, well, what is the probability, eh ?! I would not have seen it myself, I would not have believed it.
Six weeks later, they come for the third "Pentaxim" … Yes, my parents and I also joked about "Well, I immediately sign you up for an appointment tomorrow?" But everything worked out, there were no reactions or coinciding diseases.
Children are being vaccinated and followed up with me, the trust of the family, it seems, only became stronger after these tests, and everything is fine.
Find your doctor and rely on him, even when you have a conflict of interest.
And do not get fooled by the idle gossip of anti-vaccinators, they are ready to call anything that happened after vaccination a complication, even a car accident.
Yes, vaccines are not always well tolerated, but even three days of fever and leg pain is a good price to keep from getting whooping cough, trust me. I have been administering ten to seventy vaccinations weekly for seven years in a row and have seen no more than five real complications so far (not to be confused with adverse events for vaccination), and the most serious of them is a shoulder abscess, which the surgeons had to open up and which then went away without consequences. If there were complications from vaccination as often, as the "anti-vax" say, I would have been behind bars for a long time for the ruined health of children (especially with our, forgive me, God, justice).
Doctor, if vaccines are almost always safe, why are there so many bad reviews about them on the internet and not a single good one?
I think the answer to this question is very simple, and I have written about it many times in my blog, in interviews and in books. But at the reception they continue to ask him, including those who "we are your long-time subscribers." Okay, let's go again.
1) Answer honestly, what is the likelihood that you will leave a kind feedback with gratitude about the cafe where you really liked? Will you write to them on the website, tell your friends on social networks, give them five stars on Google Maps? Have you answered?
And what is the probability that you will negatively comment on the situation when something was unpleasant to you in the cafe (the waiter was rude, a cockroach in the salad)? It's noticeably taller, isn't it?
Thesis number one: negative charges for action much more than positive
Takeaway: Vaccine harm is seen on the internet more often than benefit (be it real or perceived harm).
2) Let's go further. Imagine that you have come to fetch a child in kindergarten, and his palm is bandaged - he cut himself on a walk. Will you make an angry remark to the teacher? Well, of course, what a question. Can you tell your relatives and friends about this egregious case? I think definitely. And if your child, being at home with you, fell from the changing table or pulled the tablecloth and overturned boiling water over himself, then will you tell? Oh whether.
Thesis number two: we forgive ourselves for mistakes more readily than others
Conclusion: Parents whose child has suffered from lack of vaccinations will not write about it on the Internet. They are afraid and avoid being judged; but those whose baby became a victim of vaccination (again, whether it be real or apparent harm), will certainly inform - people are quick to condemn doctors.
3) In most cases, you have no way of knowing if the vaccine worked. If you are involved in a horrific accident and survived, your seat belts and airbags have deployed, this is obvious. And when you were vaccinated and did not get sick, nothing special happened, everything was fine and remained fine.
How many children have not survived otitis media, having received a vaccine against pneumococcal infection, only research will make it clear; a specific family has no way of knowing how many cases of illness and complications the pediatrician has prevented by administering all vaccines to the child. And we make a classic cognitive error, thinking that the world is fair, that good happens in it by default, and bad is always someone's fault, that it supposedly cannot happen just like that.
I had parents who told me that in the group of the kindergarten that their child attends, there was an outbreak of whooping cough, many got sick, but their baby did not. And even they said “we were lucky”, “our child had little contact with the sick, therefore he did not get infected” and were reluctant to associate the baby's health with timely and complete vaccination. I bet if he got hurt, they would not have thought that they were “unlucky” or that he “talked a lot with the sick,” but they would have run over me that my vaccine did not work.
Thesis number three: people are poorly oriented in the basics of epidemiology and immunization and are usually biased in their judgments
Conclusion: even if parents want to write good things about vaccines, they often have nothing to write about - nothing happened. You can say: “I gave my child all the vaccinations, and he did not catch anything,” but only a lazy anti-vaccine person will not rush to convince this parent that vaccines have nothing to do with it.
Well, the hype itself attracts people's attention. Add to this the ubiquitous fear of vaccinations (and thus the cognitive bias: "I knew there was one harm from these vaccines") and you get this picture:
on the one hand, people do not understand how vaccines work, do not have the opportunity to know how much benefit their child has received from the vaccines, and are wary of vaccination in advance;
on the other hand, they see and find fault with unwanted reactions (even the most harmless ones), tend to blame the doctor and the vaccine for all the troubles that happened after vaccination (even those that cannot have the slightest relation to it), and are much more willing to talk about pediatrician mistakes (real or imaginary) than their own.
An excerpt from the book “Modern Parents. Everything that dad and mom should know about the health of a child from birth to 10 years."
