PERSPECTIVE (Vaccine)
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Always Now | Climate | The Good Life | Gratitude | Healthy Life | Soul Mates | Twin Flames | Vaccine | Velcro
Take On Vaccines
The eradication of small pox and the control of diseases such as measles, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria and other infectious disease in the US and abroad is accounted as The Top great public health achievements of the century1. Vaccine proponents advocate that vaccines are fundamentally safe and that parents who choose not to vaccinate create a serious health risk for everyone. Proponents argue that the only reason why unvaccinated children are safe from disease is because everyone else around them is vaccinated. While the costs and benefits of vaccines do not even cross some parent’s minds, other parents feel that having their children vaccinated is a social obligation to the public.
As a mother, I have been in a room of women who have debated this issue, and the implications are clear: those who choose not to vaccinate their children should expect them to die. (OK, so no one was THAT ungraceful, but that was the mood of the room).
Dr. Robert Sears (son of William and Martha Sears of Attachment Parenting and The Vaccine Book) states that, “It is most often parents with a higher level of education choosing not to vaccinate.” He further elaborates on this being the case not because the parents are necessarily smarter, but that they question and research everything that has to do with their children2.
Dr Sears further comments, ”Vaccines are very important, diseases can be severe, and I’d say the benefits outweigh the risks, but you need to be aware that there is a very small risk of a sever vaccine reaction.” Dr Sears’ patients would rather take the small risk of their baby catching an infectious disease than to expose them to the risk posed by the vaccine.
The vaccination schedule for a baby’s 1st year of life are vigorous. Suggested regular shots are from the first moments of life until at least 18 months3:
Birth
Age 2 months
Age 4 months
Age 6 months
A yearly seasonal influenza vaccine, preferably given in the fall, is also recommended beginning at age 6 months. The first time your child is vaccinated for the flu, he or she will need two doses of the vaccine spaced one month apart. In the following years — or if your child has his or her first flu vaccine at age 9 or older — only one dose of the vaccine is needed. For infants, the flu vaccine is given as a shot.
Ask your child's doctor about a yearly H1N1 vaccine.
Age 12 months
Age 15 months
My husband and I fall into one of Dr Sear’s typical opt out category. We made the decision not to vaccinate our child when he was born at home. I made it through labor and birth without drugs in my system and wasn't prepared to inject a bunch of dead viruses into a prestine new baby immediately after giving him life. As a mother, I can attest that making this difficult decision was truly one of those “I’m an adult now” moments. Taking the responsibility for someone else’s health for the first time was part of a right of passage into motherhood.
Personally, I am not against vaccines. I have been vaccinated, and my husband has been vaccinated. The best research at that time suggested that vaccines could cause irrepairable damage to a rapidly developing brain. The safety and long term effects of vaccine's on a body's immune system is still unknown. In light of that, we chose not to vaccinate. On this issue - there is no way to avoid risk - those who vaccinate are at risk and those who do not vaccinate are at risk.
My husband and I both work from home and we plan to home school our child. If we were going to take a trip to a foreign country anywhere, we would definitely revisit the issue. (Rev. 11/2010)
1 Ten Great Public Health Achievements -- United States, 1900-1999. Center for Disease Control, 04/1999. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00056796.htm
2 Margulis, Jennifer. The Vaccine Debate, Mothering Magazine July - August 2009.
3 Ref: Vaccine Schedule for Children, Mayo Clinic, 10/2010. Available at: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vaccines/MY01013
Regarding chronic diseases from Dr Michael Odent: While the death rate in children has decreased dramatically since the turn of the century, that rate of disability and chronic disease is 3.7 times higher than it was in 1960. From 1960 to 1981, the number of chronically disabled chilren doubled and nearly doubled again in 1982. In 1960, the incidence of asthma, allergies, autism and other disabling conditions in children was 1.8%. In 1994, it was 6.7 %. The five most common childhood disabilities are: learning disability (29.5%), speech problems (13.1%), metal retardation (6.8%) , asthma (6.4%) and mental or emotional disorders (6.4%). Dr. Odents and his fellow European researchers showed that the incidence of asthma is 5 times greater and of earaches is 2 times greater in children who have received whole cell pertussis vaccine than those that have not. (Odent, M.R., Culpin, E.E., Kimmel, T., "Pertusis Vaccination and Asthma: Is There a Link?" Journal of the American Medical Association, 272, 10994).
We are really lucky - neither I nor my hubby has any known allergies. Our baby also doesn't have any known allergies. I had a natural birth - he is intact and uncircumcised, an has an intact immune system (not vaccinated), and has been breastfeed way longer than the recommended year. He loves greens and veggies - so I'm really counting my blessings, ya know? I don't know if our boy would be as healthy as he is now if circumstances weren't the way they were...was it genes? was it because we went out of our comfort zone to investigate how the prenatal enironment would affect the baby? Was it thelack of drugs during childbirth? Was it because we decided not to opt in on the unnecessary curcumcison? Was it our crazy relentless insistance that he eat his veggies? I don't know - nature? nurture? As parents, we do the best we can with what we've got, and for me - live and let live. What's right for me may not be right for someone else.
I trust the antibodies in the breast milk has helped him build him immune system while he was an infant. My understanding is that the immune system matures at two years of age...he is now three. If we were to send him to public school, I wouldn't be opposed to looking at each individual vaccine again and re-evaluating the information that is out now. A lot can happen in three years and one of the most important things to me is to make the best decision possible with the most current facts so that we are not making a decision based on unreliable data.
I'm a real big proponent of preventive health - practicing preventive medicine to keep my (our) immune system strong and better able to fight off disease. I remember the advice my naturopath gave me at the time when we had to make our decision:
STAT SUMMARY
Soreness, redness at the site of injection, possible low-grade fever: these are some side affects of vaccinations. On occasions – there are more serious injuries. For this reason as you shared, The NVICP (National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program) was set up in October 1988. This program is to remediate compensation to people who have had injuries from taking these vaccines. This law was passed in response to a growing climate of increasing lawsuits against vaccines manufacturers to continue making them and thus, the decreasing supply of vaccines.
Statistics for this program is available at: http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/statistics_report.htm
Just for the year 2010, the reports are the following (keep in mind that 2010 is not complete):
Filed: Injury: 12468
Filed: Death: 1044
Injury: Death: 13512
Compensated: 2529
Dismissed: 523
Number of Awards: 154
Petitioners' Award Amount: $153,177,539.36
Attorneys' Fees/Costs Payments: $5,425,911.22
Number of Payments to Attorneys: $4,133,463.97
Total Outlays: $162,736,914.55
So, just the fact that the government has a federal program set up to handle injuries and adverse effects means that there are injuries and adverse effects from vaccines. It is an acknowledgment that the vaccines could in fact do harm.
I can see the “I told you so’s” if a child caught hepatitis because he or she wasn’t vaccinated against it (Hepatitis is blood borne, so we must ask, how a child contracted this in the first place?). But, what if your child is one of those “few” in the statistics that had a really bad reaction to a vaccine and is NEVER the same?
The ability of our bodies to be able to mount a vigorous immune system response to an acute infection of any sort is indicative of the strength of our immune system. Our bodies have a natural immunity and artificial immunity. One gets natural immunity when one recovers from an acute illness such as chicken pox - the risk of reinfection is practically zero as it is a lifelong immunity. Artificial immunity is acquired through vaccines - vaccines produce no massive immune system response. The body is less likely to respond acutely to acute chicken pox because it is already fighting off chronic chicken pox on an ongoing basis when one is innoculated. (Rev. 11/2010).
As a mother, I have been in a room of women who have debated this issue, and the implications are clear: those who choose not to vaccinate their children should expect them to die. (OK, so no one was THAT ungraceful, but that was the mood of the room).
Dr. Robert Sears (son of William and Martha Sears of Attachment Parenting and The Vaccine Book) states that, “It is most often parents with a higher level of education choosing not to vaccinate.” He further elaborates on this being the case not because the parents are necessarily smarter, but that they question and research everything that has to do with their children2.
Dr Sears further comments, ”Vaccines are very important, diseases can be severe, and I’d say the benefits outweigh the risks, but you need to be aware that there is a very small risk of a sever vaccine reaction.” Dr Sears’ patients would rather take the small risk of their baby catching an infectious disease than to expose them to the risk posed by the vaccine.
The vaccination schedule for a baby’s 1st year of life are vigorous. Suggested regular shots are from the first moments of life until at least 18 months3:
Birth
- Hepatitis B vaccine
Age 2 months
- Rotavirus vaccine
- Diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP)
- Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine (Hib)
- Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV)
- Inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV)
Age 4 months
- Rotavirus vaccine
- Diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP)
- Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine (Hib)
- Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV)
- Inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV)
Age 6 months
- Hepatitis B vaccine
- Rotavirus vaccine
- Diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP)
- Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine (Hib)
- Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV)
- Inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV)
A yearly seasonal influenza vaccine, preferably given in the fall, is also recommended beginning at age 6 months. The first time your child is vaccinated for the flu, he or she will need two doses of the vaccine spaced one month apart. In the following years — or if your child has his or her first flu vaccine at age 9 or older — only one dose of the vaccine is needed. For infants, the flu vaccine is given as a shot.
Ask your child's doctor about a yearly H1N1 vaccine.
Age 12 months
- Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine (Hib)
- Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV)
- Measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR)
- Chickenpox (varicella) vaccine
- Hepatitis A vaccine
Age 15 months
- Diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP)
My husband and I fall into one of Dr Sear’s typical opt out category. We made the decision not to vaccinate our child when he was born at home. I made it through labor and birth without drugs in my system and wasn't prepared to inject a bunch of dead viruses into a prestine new baby immediately after giving him life. As a mother, I can attest that making this difficult decision was truly one of those “I’m an adult now” moments. Taking the responsibility for someone else’s health for the first time was part of a right of passage into motherhood.
Personally, I am not against vaccines. I have been vaccinated, and my husband has been vaccinated. The best research at that time suggested that vaccines could cause irrepairable damage to a rapidly developing brain. The safety and long term effects of vaccine's on a body's immune system is still unknown. In light of that, we chose not to vaccinate. On this issue - there is no way to avoid risk - those who vaccinate are at risk and those who do not vaccinate are at risk.
My husband and I both work from home and we plan to home school our child. If we were going to take a trip to a foreign country anywhere, we would definitely revisit the issue. (Rev. 11/2010)
1 Ten Great Public Health Achievements -- United States, 1900-1999. Center for Disease Control, 04/1999. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00056796.htm
2 Margulis, Jennifer. The Vaccine Debate, Mothering Magazine July - August 2009.
3 Ref: Vaccine Schedule for Children, Mayo Clinic, 10/2010. Available at: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vaccines/MY01013
Regarding chronic diseases from Dr Michael Odent: While the death rate in children has decreased dramatically since the turn of the century, that rate of disability and chronic disease is 3.7 times higher than it was in 1960. From 1960 to 1981, the number of chronically disabled chilren doubled and nearly doubled again in 1982. In 1960, the incidence of asthma, allergies, autism and other disabling conditions in children was 1.8%. In 1994, it was 6.7 %. The five most common childhood disabilities are: learning disability (29.5%), speech problems (13.1%), metal retardation (6.8%) , asthma (6.4%) and mental or emotional disorders (6.4%). Dr. Odents and his fellow European researchers showed that the incidence of asthma is 5 times greater and of earaches is 2 times greater in children who have received whole cell pertussis vaccine than those that have not. (Odent, M.R., Culpin, E.E., Kimmel, T., "Pertusis Vaccination and Asthma: Is There a Link?" Journal of the American Medical Association, 272, 10994).
We are really lucky - neither I nor my hubby has any known allergies. Our baby also doesn't have any known allergies. I had a natural birth - he is intact and uncircumcised, an has an intact immune system (not vaccinated), and has been breastfeed way longer than the recommended year. He loves greens and veggies - so I'm really counting my blessings, ya know? I don't know if our boy would be as healthy as he is now if circumstances weren't the way they were...was it genes? was it because we went out of our comfort zone to investigate how the prenatal enironment would affect the baby? Was it thelack of drugs during childbirth? Was it because we decided not to opt in on the unnecessary curcumcison? Was it our crazy relentless insistance that he eat his veggies? I don't know - nature? nurture? As parents, we do the best we can with what we've got, and for me - live and let live. What's right for me may not be right for someone else.
I trust the antibodies in the breast milk has helped him build him immune system while he was an infant. My understanding is that the immune system matures at two years of age...he is now three. If we were to send him to public school, I wouldn't be opposed to looking at each individual vaccine again and re-evaluating the information that is out now. A lot can happen in three years and one of the most important things to me is to make the best decision possible with the most current facts so that we are not making a decision based on unreliable data.
I'm a real big proponent of preventive health - practicing preventive medicine to keep my (our) immune system strong and better able to fight off disease. I remember the advice my naturopath gave me at the time when we had to make our decision:
- Weigh the pros and cons of each vaccination, gathering information from both sides. If you really think about it, you can find information arguing for both sides and the trick to making an honest decision is to be honest with the research! (As opposed to being one sided)
- Seek out medical providers that have the same philosophy as you. There are practitioners that are ultra conservative and some that are extremely liberal - and everything in between. The key is finding someone who understands where you are coming from and shares your philosophy.
- Really important is to ask yourself those tough questions: If you don't vaccinate - would you be willing to nurse your baby to health if he or she gets "infected" or if you DO vaccinate and your child happens to be the small percentage who has been injured from the vaccine, would you be able to live with that? Clearly, the answers to either question poses a dilemma. There is no right answer to this dilemma except the one that is right for you and your family.
STAT SUMMARY
Soreness, redness at the site of injection, possible low-grade fever: these are some side affects of vaccinations. On occasions – there are more serious injuries. For this reason as you shared, The NVICP (National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program) was set up in October 1988. This program is to remediate compensation to people who have had injuries from taking these vaccines. This law was passed in response to a growing climate of increasing lawsuits against vaccines manufacturers to continue making them and thus, the decreasing supply of vaccines.
Statistics for this program is available at: http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/statistics_report.htm
Just for the year 2010, the reports are the following (keep in mind that 2010 is not complete):
Filed: Injury: 12468
Filed: Death: 1044
Injury: Death: 13512
Compensated: 2529
Dismissed: 523
Number of Awards: 154
Petitioners' Award Amount: $153,177,539.36
Attorneys' Fees/Costs Payments: $5,425,911.22
Number of Payments to Attorneys: $4,133,463.97
Total Outlays: $162,736,914.55
So, just the fact that the government has a federal program set up to handle injuries and adverse effects means that there are injuries and adverse effects from vaccines. It is an acknowledgment that the vaccines could in fact do harm.
I can see the “I told you so’s” if a child caught hepatitis because he or she wasn’t vaccinated against it (Hepatitis is blood borne, so we must ask, how a child contracted this in the first place?). But, what if your child is one of those “few” in the statistics that had a really bad reaction to a vaccine and is NEVER the same?
The ability of our bodies to be able to mount a vigorous immune system response to an acute infection of any sort is indicative of the strength of our immune system. Our bodies have a natural immunity and artificial immunity. One gets natural immunity when one recovers from an acute illness such as chicken pox - the risk of reinfection is practically zero as it is a lifelong immunity. Artificial immunity is acquired through vaccines - vaccines produce no massive immune system response. The body is less likely to respond acutely to acute chicken pox because it is already fighting off chronic chicken pox on an ongoing basis when one is innoculated. (Rev. 11/2010).
