Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Do you vaccinate?

With all the H1N1 craze going around it seems like all people are talking about are vaccines. So, do you vaccinate and why or why not?

Kylie was fully vaccinated up until 18 months and has not received any boosters. Kaydence was vaccinated until 12 months but did not receive her MMR. Emeric had his 2 month shots and has had no more.

I wish I'd been more informed when my girls were young and I would not have vaccinated them. When Emeric was born I felt much more informed and decided I was not going to vaccinate him and then my doctor pressured me into having him vaccinated. Two days later he had his first seizure. Now sure it may seem coincidental but I can, off the top of my head, think of at least 10 children whose seizures were triggered by vaccines. A lot of the ingredients in the vaccines including aluminum and formaldehyde(among others) are known neuro toxins. It's unclear whether the vaccines themselves triggered Emeric's seizures or fever caused from the vaccines.
Whatever the cause, none of them will ever receive another vaccine.

So, with that said I'd love to hear your stories and opinions!

12 comments:

Rachael said...

Hey Nicole-
All of my kids have had their vaccines, and all of my daycare kids have had theirs as well with no incidencents. From what I have seen, vaccines seem like that can act as a trigger for an underlying problem. It does seem like there can be adverse side effects from vaccines, but when you consider the large amount of children who have recieved them, a relativley small amount of chilren have had adverse side effects from them. Every drug has a side effect, and we dont know how they will react from person to person because every one is a little different. Hinds sight being 20/20, I think I might have done a delayed vaccination, only because I think there is no harm in spacing my kids vaccinations, and having 4 at one time seems like alot for anyone. I would much rather my kids not get whooping cough, polio or the meseals, or even the flu and vaccinate them. Thats just my opinion, I have done some research on vaccines and that is the conclusion I came too, I know it is a very personal desicion and there are alot of different opinions than mine.

p.s. My spelling and punctuation suck in this reply, my keyboard is acting up and being crazy, sorry guys!

anna said...

What are you trying to start here, Nicole?? Here is a link to the latest Dr Mercola article:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/27/Obama-Declares-Swine-Flu-Emergency.aspx

That's all I will say on the subject. I think I have exhausted my brain posting on this already!!

Nicole said...

I am trying to start a full fledged war on the subject.

Kidding. ;)

Mostly I'm just wondering what people's reasons are for vaccinating or not vaccinating.

I have tried opening that article before and it was really slow. I finally got it to open so I'll have to read it in full when I actually have 5 minutes!

Jess(ica) said...

I don't have kids so hopefully my opinion is somewhat valid anyway... but if/when I have kids they will get vaccinated. I like the idea of a delayed vaccine but what I think that people who don't vaccinate their kids fail to consider is that the reason we don't have polio, whooping cough, etc is because many of us have all been vaccinated for so many years. Now there is this craze of new moms who are not vaccinating and it's scary because it opens up potential for those diseases to come back hard. If I have kids, I would rather vaccinate than subject them to something potentiall way worse. I get that there are concerns, but unless "they" are not saying something, it seems like there are lots of theories as to what vaccines actually cause (autism, etc) but no concrete evidence (because if there was concrete evidence then I'm sure we'd hear about it). And with the H1N1, that is a known virus that really is killing people so why not protect our children? To me, it's not even a choice. Vaccinate. Protect.

Nicole said...

I don't dispute the fact that vaccines do provide some immunity and have prevented some cases of the diseases they are for. However, certain diseases like Pertussis(whooping cough) wax and wane naturally despite the vaccine. There was a huge outbreak in whooping cough last year and it was blamed on those that do not vaccinate. The problem with that theory is that when kids are vaccinated for pertussis they're also vaccinated against Diptheria and Tetanus, two diseases we did not see a rise in. So, if pertussis came back why didn't Diptheria and Tetanus?

The thing about the diseases is that they do not have to be scary. Sure people used to die from measles but people used to die from strep throat too. Better sanitary conditions and better health care prevent deaths now that would've caused death years ago.

Parents now are vaccinating against Chicken Pox and diarrhea both which 20 years ago were considered typical childhood illnesses that no one was scared of. Back when everyone got the measles it was the same thing. But over time we've been led to believe these things have to be deadly. There's a reason that they are "childhood" illnesses and that is because if you get them as a child you are given life long immunity. Getting any of these diseases as an adult are much worse than getting them as children. The vaccines do not give life long immunity. Most of us as adults do not have immunity to the diseases we were vaccinated against.

I believe the diseases we see, while they CAN be scary are meant to give a huge boost to the immune system. Because we are not allowing our children to be sick(vaccinating, giving Tylenol frequently, etc) we are not allowing their immune systems to function in the way that they were designed.

When we had Influenza 2 years ago it was HORRIBLE but we have never been healthier than we've been in the last 2 years! I know that isn't a coincidence.

The other thing to consider is that what if NOT getting the vaccine IS protecting our children? What if not injecting mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, and other toxins into their bodies is the best thing?

The problem with "them"(the CDC, pharmaceutical co's, FDA, etc) are that they have an agenda, that is to make money. There is proof that they have covered up and hidden plenty from the public and there's also proof that adverse affects of the vaccine are not reported VERY frequently by doctors which makes the numbers highly in their favor.

Many children with underlying conditions, especially neurologically, have been negatively affected by vaccines in a very obvious way.

A little boy whose blog I follow started having seizures very shortly after his 2 month vaccines. They held off for quite a while and he went 354 days without seizures. They decided to try to catch him up and within 30 hours he was back to having daily seizures. The doctors deny the connection and tell his parents he must have "picked up a virus" in the clinic. This is only one example of many.

Anyway this is getting long and I'm very passionate about it because I just want to make sure that people realize that those that do not vaccinate are not uninformed(not saying you think that Jess, just that feeling in general) and that we too feel we have made the best possible decision for our kids.

So, with all that said I know you love debates and so do I so please don't take anything I've said personally, I don't either! :)

Elissa said...

I love this debate because I am on the fence. My kids have each been up-to-date with their immunizations. I didn't really think twice about it. But I strongly believe it is personal choice. What is best for one is not always best for another. On the other hand, we have never done the flu vaccine. Not the kids or the parents. I just never felt strongly about it.
The H1N1 shot terrifies me! I have been trying to read as much literature and research I can find to make an informed decision. From what I've seen, the clinical trials did not provide great results and the testing on humans has been limited. I am feeling strongly that my family will continue to go without the flu shots...all of them. But, I am open to hearing about it and making the best decision for my kids. Thanks for starting the discussion.

MJ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MJ said...

Oops forgot to spell check, revised version.

I think there is a very valid reason for not messing around with mother nature. It scares me to think what we are doing to the human species by manipulating our environment so drastically. Obviously introducing our bodies to massive amounts of man made chemicals is not what they are designed for. It is like a science project that will probably play itself out in the next few hundred/thousand years.

Unfortunately we live in the now and for our life times we can't avoid them. Formaldehyde is in everything, they spray it on your clothes, most compressed particle board wood has a high amount of formaldehyde, it is know to cause respiratory problems, including cancer. BPA in our plastic wear, known to be an endocrine disruptor, which disrupts our bodies natural hormones by mimicking them in our systems. Phthalates (pronounced tha-lates)is a chemical in all of our soft rubber stuff, bottle nipples, pacifiers, many of the plastic toys we give to our children. it effects the hormone that determines the amount of testosterone young boys testes produce. The less testosterone young boys produce before puberty has a huge effect on their sperm count and other sexual behaviors. These are just a few of the many man made substances we humans have added to the natural elements on the periodic table.

So my point being you can't avoid the chemicals there are in the drinking water, the food, the air. All you can do is deal with what you can control. The vaccines we give to our children are relatively safe these days, yes they do have small amounts of preservatives in them, but it is by no means as large a does as we are getting in many other ways. For the most part vaccines save lives. Back in the day when we all got these childhood illnesses it was also not uncommon for children to die from them and in many parts of the world this is sadly still true.

I live in a large city and there are a lot of people coming here from a lot of places. To not vaccinate my child would be a risk that could cost her her life. People get things like TB, the mumps,rubella or whooping cough. All it takes is one person coming off a plane from a country where these diseases are still prevalent to be a carrier and infect someone who is not vaccinated. We would like to think that modern medicine could save us or our own immune system would kick in, but what about those kids who have complications. Children born prematurely often times have lung problems for the first few years of their lives. Even though modern medicine could keep the child alive in infancy one bad respiratory ailment could easily cause them to die. This is the dilemma with knowing enough to save our lives with modern medicine and vaccines, but not knowing enough about how manipulating biology and our environment will effect us.

Nicole said...

Miranda, thanks for sharing your thoughts!! :)

You mentioned children with complications or underlying health disorders and I agree that those children, if they could be vaccinated safely, would likely benefit from the immunity. The problem I think is that many times they cannot be vaccinated safely. Many times the vaccines for these children bring on sometimes devastating side effects.

Coincidently the rise in many other childhood illnesses like asthma, Type 1 Diabetes, Autism, neuro-developmental disorders, etc. has taken place along with an increase in vaccines. So my concern is that we're trading protection from these diseases for all of these other conditions. Especially when we start vaccinating from birth before the blood brain barrier is even fully intact.

I do understand why people still vaccinate and I cannot say that vaccines do not provide some protection but I do think we're paying a price in other ways for the protection and to me, the likelyhood of an adverse affect whether immediately or years down the road is higher than the likelyhood of dying of one of these diseases. Of course that's just my opinion and many disagree.

I also agree that the amounts of harmful chemicals in vaccines is small. But that's in one vaccine and our kids don't just get one vaccine. This was an interesting compilation of articles that talk some about the CDC's knowledge of the harmful affects of some of these chemicals and also touches on how the amounts of these far exceed FDA regulations after the course of so many vaccines.

http://www.autismhelpforyou.com/Simpsonwood_And_Puerto%20%20Rico.htm

Anyway, on another note do you think the government allowing these chemicals that are known to cause infertility to be put in so many things we use could be population control? Just a conspiracy theory I heard about recently! LOL

Again, thanks for sharing!

anna said...

The other thing about chemicals being in everything is that we can't control the chemicals that are in water, for instance, or many other things, but we CAN control the chemicals that are in vaccines. Just because there are chemicals in many other things does not justify injecting even more into our bodies. It's scary to think of all the things our kids are exposed to and for me, I would rather try to keep that at a minimum. If I can control how much processed foods my kids eat, then I will. If I can control the types of toys my kids play with so that they aren't exposed to nasty chemicals, I will. If I can control not injecting my kids with even more chemicals, I will.

Manmade things are all around us and we cannot avoid all of them. But does that mean we should just forget about it and let our kids eat McDonalds and Hamburger Helper and Kool Aid every day, because what the heck, there are chemicals everywhere? No! Most people try not to eat a lot of processed foods because we know that they are not good for us in large amounts. Most people avoid toys with lead paint on them because we know that it could harm our kids if they suck on them. Most people try to avoid using harsh cleaning products around kids because they could harm our kids. But yet we inject 32 vaccines into our children by age 2 that are full of harmful chemicals. Sure the CDC and FDA say that the amounts are not high enough to cause any harm, but that is in 1 dose. How much is there in 32 doses? Is it still only a "trace amount"? I doubt it.

So why not just feed our kids processed foods, pop, McDonalds, and use some nasty cleaning products because we can't avoid the chemicals anyway. Sorry, but that is not a good argument.

MJ said...

As parents we weigh the risks versus benefits of so many things in regards to our children. We risk their lives every time we put them in the car, to minimize the risk we put them in car seats. Vaccination to me is much the same. There are risks involved with vaccinating and with not vaccinating. Each parent has to make their own decisions and live with the consequences either way.

The threat of these diseases is not so far from home for me, I have seen children with whooping cough. Two young girls who live not far from where I am raising my daughter died from the flu last year. I have seen adolescents and adults suffer from TB, rubella and the measles. These are people I have met and personally been in contact with. The chance of me passing on one of these diseases to my unvaccinated child is far to great a risk. Not to mention the crappy insurance we have and the thousands of dollars I would have to pay if she were to get ill and require hospitalization to survive one of these diseases. Risk management is not just about knowing what is bad and avoiding it, sometimes it comes down to picking the lesser of the two evils.

If you were in a natural disaster and you had to survive on bottled water for a few weeks. Would you not give your child the water since it would more than likely be loaded with the toxic chemicals that leach out of plastic bottles. The amount of chemicals you would then be exposing your child to would be far greater than probably all of the vaccinations combined. Yet we would still take the risk, since with out water we would die.

We are fortunate in this country that so many people do get vaccinated, thus reducing the risk for those who choose not to. Many parents might feel differently if they lived in a country where these diseases are making a come back and they saw first hand the devastation it causes when people die from diseases that can be prevented.

As far as the conspiracy theory that the chemicals have been invented to control reproduction, I am not so sure. I think the fact is that the chemicals do cause problems with our hormones and that in turn has the effect of causing reproduction problems. Take birth control pills, they were invented for the sole purpose of preventing pregnancy. Now with so many women taking them there is a huge demand for certain hormone chemicals to be made in laboratories. These chemicals don't just end up in a pill only women who take them are exposed to, they also end up in our environment. With each pill a women takes it not only changes the hormone level in her body, but also in the amount of hormone her body excretes. So yes we end up with more hormones in our pee. The pee in turn goes down the toilet, where the water is then sent back into the earth. Depending on where you live your water can be treated, go back into the ground or pumped out to a stream or large body of water. What all this excessive amount of hormone in our environment does to us, is not entirely known and it seems to me the more they look into these things the more they realize oh yeah that really isn't good for you. Risk versus benefits, the benefit of being in control of our reproduction versus the risk of changing the natural way our bodies chemistry is designed to work.

These sort of debates can go back and forth and really there is no right answer. There are valid points on all sides and what little we as individuals can really control about what we are exposed to is also debatable. Having all of this information or pieces of information does not always make the decisions we have to make easier, in fact so many times it does just the opposite, making things more complicated. I will have to plan a trip out there so we can actually sit down and have a real conversation rather than commandeering your blog!!

Robbie Leigh said...

Well, my comment isn't going to be very long. But simply put, we're not vaccinating because there is so much crud in those vaccines!

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