[mikeash]

The one I hear is that polio was eliminated through improvements to public health, and the vaccine is just a toxic placebo.

Either way, it's not a matter of "I'd rather my child die of polio than be autistic." The autism thing is generally coupled with a belief that the vaccine doesn't prevent the disease anyway. They are woefully misinformed, but truly believe they're doing what's best for their children.

[buvanshak]

The AEFI with polio vaccines are often worse, and it is not autism that scare concerned people off. In India, the conditions in which these vaccines are administrated are truly pathetic. In most places these are Administrated by government pre-school teachers, who have zero medical aptitude. I have seen one being administrated by someone having sneezing/nasal congestion, with a hand towel one one hand, and take the vaccine from their hand purse, and administer the vaccine with zero concern of contaminating it...I mean, these are not stored in the recommended temperature or anything. They put these vaccine vials in their handbag and travel in open sunlight.

And I am not sure if it is contamination or something else, but the adverse effect often result in some sort of paralysis. If you take the kid to the doctors, first they will ignore you and say that vaccines cannot cause these effects. These are from the experience of another parent in India. You can see the interview here [1].

Government here is only interested in boasting the number of vaccinations given during their term. But have no concern about the aftermath, and things like this [2] often does not go anywhere. There are cases were a vaccine manufacture were able to provide vaccines that resulted in deaths of 4 kids, after the same companies vaccine was used in another campaign 2 years before that resulted in death of multiple children.

What I am saying is that, we should be careful.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E4WKDB-7pI&t=32s [2] http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/heath-ministry-to-st...