Woman who developed lifelong illness from vaccine hits out at anti-vaxxers

A new report published by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) found that half of all parents with small children have been exposed to misinformation about vaccines on social media.

The most common reason not to vaccinate, the report found, is the fear of side-effects.

With this in mind, one woman whose life was devastatingly changed as a direct result of a vaccine is encouraging parents to vaccinate their children anyway.

A thread that made the rounds last year has been unearthed once more in light of the debate surrounding the importance of vaccines.

A woman called Tiffany Yonts received the tetanus and diphtheria vaccine as part of a routine check-up when she was 14-years-old.

However, she developed an untreatable autoimmune disease called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which is listed as a one-in-a-million side effect.

GBS is a rare disorder that makes the body attack itself, resulting in an immune system response that causes damage to peripheral nerves. This impacts a whole host of other systems in the body, and can disrupt movement, cause muscle weakness, paralysis and make it hard to breath.

Tiffany, who was a competitive swimmer and had to give up the sport after the painful diagnosis a year after she got the vaccine, experienced most of these symptoms.

She's still firmly pro-vaccines.

Read her story, below:

As her thread is once more shared across the internet, one person wrote:

Not all heroes wear capes, thank you for sharing your story!

Tiffany took to Twitter to answer more questions about her illness, and she wrote: