Anti-vaxxers would choose death over autism

Let’s pretend for a moment that the anti-vaxxers are right—that vaccines are linked with autism. Then their repeated exhortations to avoid vaccines suggest that autism is actually a fate worse than death. That autism is the worst thing that could happen to a child—worse even than the suffering and death that can accompany measles, mumps, polio, and diphtheria.

I have no idea how an anti-vaxxer quantifies the risk of getting autism from a vaccine versus the risk of dying from a communicable disease. After all, the risk of getting autism from a vaccine is none and the risk of suffering and death from vaccine-preventable outbreaks is small but some.

For example, measles, if the sufferer is privileged to live in a developed country, has a death rate of 0.1 percent (0.3 percent if the sufferer is under 5 years old). For diphtheria, the death rate is 5-10 percent (up to 20 percent if the sufferer is under 5 years old). Currently, outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses are limited in scope. The more anti-vaxxers are successful in winning people over to their cause, though, the more likely their kids will get a vaccine-preventable illness.