I think it would be okay to say that everybody have seen a bunch of scary stuff in the internet. These people are trying to scare you with Alzheimer's dezease, autism, cancer and dozens of other unproven holy cows of anti-vaccination movement.
http://time.com/5175704/andrew-wakefield-vaccine-autism/They're frequently using statements like "we need" and "we should", adding some scary statement to these, therefore trying to usurp your right to have your own point of view. They're replacing facts with agenda, logic with nonsense and common sense with a political propaganda. While claiming openness for alternate opinions, they're simply ignoring any kind of logic. Just for example, if you say something opposing their agenda, like "vaccines saved millions from smallpox", you're getting a piece of unproven "research" claiming the opposite. Unlike them,
you need to know that in order for research data to be of value and of use, they must be both reliable and valid.
What is reliability and why should you care about that? Reliablity of any study comes from an ability to get the same results by using the same methodology, i.e. possibility to reproduce it. It doesn't rely on authority, sponsorship or whatever. If a referred study contains either no consistent methodology or missing some valuable points, like how selection of test subjects was performed, then it's neither reliable nor valid. It's not even a stydy, but merely a manipulation.
I suppose you need some examples... Well, there is an article "Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated: Guess who is Sicker?", which is frequently referred by antivaccination propagandists:
http://info.cmsri.org/the-driven-researcher-blog/vaccinated-vs.-unvaccinated-guess-who-is-sickerIf you read it, you may fall into a false conclusion that it's a study committed in a scientific manner. But it's not.
- It is definitely plagued by a selection bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias
- It's based on the person's memory, without checking the medical records for real.
- It tries to distract your attention by using inspirational statements with a lot of big numbers, which are not even related to the study itself. A general purpose of real study is to focus the people on its subject, these guys are doing the opposite thing.
- It doesn't rely on reproducible methodology. This means that nobody can repeat it step-by-step, and therefore nobody can verify its results. If something can't be verified, then it's not a scientific research.
What are results of anti-vaccination propaganda? How can this activity to affect you and why should you care about that?
Myth: I'm vaccinated so I shouldn't care about them. They can't harm me anyhow.
Fact: They can harm you and your relatives in a dozen of ways. Ranging from making noise to infecting you with vaccine-preventable desease. Collective immunity is a Holy Grail of vaccination, because it wouldn't be effective without a certain level of vaccination coverage.
Myth: Vaccination will protect me unless my immune system is compromised by AIDS, starvation, chimeotherapy or whatever. Only these people are dying from vaccine-preventable deseases.
Fact: If an individual is surrounded by unvaccinated people then even vaccine-preventable deseases may eventually bypass his immune system. The reasons are well known: virus mutations and a law of large numbers, more people to infect means you have more variants of the same virus around you.
Myth: Anti-vaccination propaganda doesn't work because the common sense is prevalent.
Fact:
That is not the case.
This means that unvaccinated peaple are dangerous for you. Even more, they're dangerous for your parents and children even if they're vaccinated. Do anything to prevent spreading their deadly nonsense. Their actions are not only destroying the collective immunity, they're making vaccination itself less efficient.
P.S. This is a self-moderated topic, just for case. I'm not here to create a false impression of openness so I don't care about this kind of things. Any sane person is welcome here.