Candace Owens believes that a reasonable parent would prefer that their kids get a vaccine-preventable disease instead of a vaccine.

Candace Owens has healthy unvaxxed kids because they are hiding in the herd, free-riders among the rest of us who are vaccinated.

Anti-vaccine influencers have built an industry of their own, making money pushing misinformation that scares parents and leaves kids at risk to get sick.

Do you agree?

Is It Reasonable to Want Your Kids to Get a Vaccine-Preventable Disease?

To be fair, I'm guessing Candace Owens and other parents don't actually want their kids to get sick with these diseases, especially if they really understood a vaccine insert.

Candace Owens has healthy unvaxxed kids because they are hiding in the herd, free-riders among the rest of us who are vaccinated against diphtheria.

A doctor with the UK's Emergency Medical Team checks a child for symptoms of diphtheria in a makeshift clinic in the Kutupalong camp for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Photo Russell Watkins/Department for International Development CC BY 2.0 Deed

No one who has actually seen or taken care of a child with diphtheria, measles, pertussis, tetanus, meningococcemia or any other vaccine-preventable disease would wish that kind of suffering on their own kids!

Is it reasonable to want your child to get meningococcemia? Photo courtesy CDC/Mr. Gust.

Even if they survive, kids can lose fingers, toes, or even arms and legs to meningococcemia. Is it reasonable to want your child to get meningococcemia?

Would they?

A baby with a congenital cataract and blueberry muffin rash - classic signs of congenital rubella syndrome. (CC BY-NC-SA)

To be sure, they also certainly don't want to vaccinate and protect them either.

Is it reasonable to want your child to get chicken pox? Photo courtesy of Judith P. M. Schots et al.

This is a previously healthy 12 month old with a chicken pox infection complicated by a secondary Staphylococcus aureus infection leading to gangrene and sepsis. Remember this pic the next time someone invites you to a chicken pox party!

Can they have it both ways?

An unvaccinated child can get tetanus after a simple toe nail injury. Is it reasonable to want your child to get tetanus?

They can, like Candace Owens, try to hide in the herd, free-riding and relying on the protection of everyone who is vaccinated around them, but that gamble falls apart as too many people skip or delay their vaccines.

Candace Owens has healthy unvaxxed kids because they are hiding in the herd, free-riders among the rest of us who are vaccinated against measles.

This was the only thing Bob Sears got right in his book!

And it's a gamble that is not worth taking, especially since vaccines truly are safe, with few risks, and they are effective and very necessary.

Roald Dahl's daughter died of measles in 1962, the year before the development of the first measles vaccine.

So why do some parents go this route, leaving their intentionally unvaccinated kids at risk to get sick?

They are making this decision based on the principle of misinformed consent.

They are influenced by bad information, including propaganda that overstates the side effects of vaccines, downplays the risks of vaccine preventable diseases, and makes you think vaccines don't even work and aren't necessary.

Don't regret skipping or delaying your child's vaccines because you listened to some bad advice from an anti-vaccine influencer.

Is It Reasonable to Want Your Kids to Get a Vaccine‑Preventable Disease?

Is It Reasonable to Want Your Kids to Get a Vaccine-Preventable Disease?

More on Being a Reasonable Parent