If there is one thing anti-vaxxers love it is an insert. Also known as patient information leaflets, vaccine inserts are pamphlets included with vaccines. They cover the important information for the clinician and patient about the vaccine. It is the tightly folded paper with the tiny font that comes with most medications detailing when and how the medication should (and should not) be administered. It also details information about potential side effects and adverse reactions which have been reported following receiving the vaccine. It is the last part of that which get antivaccine folk hot under the collar.
The leaflets have to state everything that has been reported after the vaccine has been given to a patient. The thing antivaxxers don’t get is that they are legal documents rather than scientific documents. In the adverse reactions section every adverse reaction during the trial from every trial carried out on the vaccine must be listed. Which sounds good on its face. Here’s the mistake that antivaxxers make however, the leaflet isn’t actually saying the vaccine caused the negative outcomes. It is just saying the outcome occurred during a trial.
This is what I mean by the leaflet being a legal document rather than a scientific one. There is no attempt to establish a causal link between the events of the patient being vaccinated. The leaflet isn’t even saying there plausibly could be a link between the events. It is simply fulfilling the legal requirement of stating all adverse reactions that occurred during testing of the vaccine. This doesn’t stop countless antivaxx websites and facebook groups claiming that the insert provides proof that not only do vaccines cause autism, asthma, type 1 diabetes and many others, but that the manufacturers are aware that they do.
That last part highlights a particularly great example of sloppy thinking by antivaxxers. They are claiming that drug companies know that vaccines cause autism but there is a massive conspiracy to cover up that fact. Now, if there was an international cabal of evil sociopaths poisoning kids, is it really likely they would admit to knowing they were doing so? What epic hubris would be required to carry out such a massive conspiracy and then advertise it on bits of paper distributed with every dose of the vaccine? That’s before even getting into why they are doing it in the first place.
Studoscience 