Child vaccinations - do you or don't you?

I was vaccinated for the biggies and any future children of mine will be as well. It's all fine and good for us now in 2007 to naysay vaccines because we didn't have to live through the huge deadly pandemics of years past. And why do we no longer have to worry about that? Vaccines and near-universal vaccination.

g33

Yep, Safari!!! LOL

 

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I have vaccinated my kids and my dog.

As for the "food for thought" link. It is dated ( the latest "scientific info"is from 1985, much is older) factually incorrect (The PDR from 1980?! lists things which were removed/changed in vaccines LONG ago) and IMHO written to scare people. What do you think about this blurb from that page: "Folks, anaphylactic shock is a nice word for brain damage."  PLUS the website is for a company that makes money selling health care products. Put that all together and I don't trust their information.

g33

We've been doing a lot of research the past several months and with all the junk that is in the vaccines, the risk of side effects (some permanent) often outweigh the risk that she would contract the disease by chance.

1."all the junk" could you be more specific? Are you referring to the list of stuff from the link? Have you read up on the most recent info. about what is in vaccines, why it is there and what it does?

2. "side effects outweigh the risks of getting it"  I find this argument against vaccinations interesting. The reason the chances of coming into contact with polio (for example) is small is because the majority of people have their children vaccinated against it. BTW Most reactions are pretty minor and mean some small swelling near the injection site. How many major reactions are there each year?

We have doctor friends who refuse to vaccinate their own children because of the vaccines that still contain thimerisol (mercury component).

So do they still use the vaccines that don't have Thimerisol in them? That would include the most common childhood vaccines MMR, DTaP, Varicella, HepA, HepB and IPV.

Our chiropractor has several dozen autistic children in his practice whose parents are sure that their kid was fine until they got a certain shot. It's just really scary.

Autism is tough because it isn't obvious. Children are diagnosed by age 3---but that doesn't mean that at age 6 months there was an obvious sign that something was different for them.

Obviously you make your own mind up about this---but I encourage you to keep researching and make your decision as educated as possible... I am not a fan of vaccinating against every single thing---but I think vaccines have made a dramatic and positive impact on the overall health of Americans and if we all stop taking them we are setting ourselves up for future health problems on a grand scale.

 Question, do we still vaccinate against polio?  I thought that since it was basically eradicated, they don't vaccinate (here in the US)?  Just wondering b/c before I went to Africa, polio was one of the optional vaccines so I assumed that meant my generated hadn't already had it, or maybe it was just a booster...

I got all of my shots as a child and Madison is getting hers too.  It's the law here.  No shots = No school.  Madison had very mild reactions after her  shots.  She was ill and fussy with a very low fever.  She was back to normal the next day. 

 

We still do polio vaccines as well as a few more now!  The reason we have such low incidence is due to keeping up the practice.  When you go to another country and you have all of your vaccines you will be protected from both transmitting and receiving these highly serious and historically prevalent diseases!

Education about diseases in many other countries needs attention. The WHO is a good correspondant and the CDC helps collecting medical data and disease cause and incidence and what is followed up...Some countries simply do not have resources to prevent and to care for these important things.

My sister did a lot of research when she was pregnant, and picked through vaccines for her son. I think he ended up with pretty much all of them (I know for a fact he didn't get chicken pox, and one...pneumacoccal maybe? she didn't get at first, but after more research ended up getting him).

I think it's really stupid NOT to question vaccines, even if you end up getting all of them. There's always exemptions for getting into school (my sister wasn't worried about school requirements since homeschooling is a possibility for them. She figured if the school system required a vaccine she didn't want to give Noah, she just wouldn't send him to school.), and I think school in five years is a ridiculous reason to inject things into babies.

I'm a long way away from kids, so will do plenty more research before deciding on vaccines, but my gut says give as few as possible, as late as possible. And not given all at once either.

Modern medicine is amazing, and no doubt has saved countless lives, but that doesn't mean it has all the answers, and doesn't mean we shouldn't question it. I think it's extremely smart of you to question vaccinations Gina. Don't do it just because everyone else does (if anything, that's a reason NOT to do it...why does your kid need it if every kid around her is vaccinated? ).

chelsea_b

I think it's really stupid NOT to question vaccines,

Well that was rather rudely put...I wouldn't use that phrase to classify myself, and I did get vaccines I was supposed to get, it had nothing to do with school and everything to do with my child's health, and that they may someday live in a world where the number of people not vaccinated rises to the point that viruses return that haven't been seen in decades. Go figure!

 

Mandatory to start school here, too.  In fact I just had to take DGS over to Kaiser to get something or other he wasn't up to date on before he could start a new school in Southern CA. I don't get flu shots because the last time I had anything even remotely resembling the flu was when I was in the 9th. grade. I really think vaccines are the reason we aren't having raging epidemics of things like TB and polio today.

Joyce

rwbeagles

chelsea_b

I think it's really stupid NOT to question vaccines,

Well that was rather rudely put...I wouldn't use that phrase to classify myself, and I did get vaccines I was supposed to get, it had nothing to do with school and everything to do with my child's health, and that they may someday live in a world where the number of people not vaccinated rises to the point that viruses return that haven't been seen in decades. Go figure!

 

 

I agree.  I got the vaccines I was told to get before going to Africa, no questions asked.  For the ones that were optional, I listened to the nurse's advice.  I don't think that makes me dumb and naive for not second guessing everything.  I'm not a doctor and I took the min. requirement for biology and chemistry in college, lol.  I do NOT feel comfortable making my own medical decisions and definitely would not feel comfortable making decisions for my children based solely on my own research.  I do not have the right education to even understand the abstracts of medical papers that outline pros/cons of various vaccines, let alone read them and think I know what I'm reading.  I definitely am fine with people shopping around for doctors (like I shop around for vets).  You should have a doctor for your child that you are in sync with as far as basic philosophies about health care, but geesh if I felt like I was always having to second guess my doctor or they were all out to scam me or get me poisoned by a vaccine (not saying that's what YOU were saying, chelsea, but some have this attitude) I'd just get another doctor! 

I will add that I am very leery to have Riley get the new "cervical cancer" vaccine...even though it isn't a cancer vaccine, but an STD vaccine.  The only reason is because I just don't feel it has been tested enough.  We won't have to cross that bridge for a while yet, but it just seems like they introduced it so quickly, do they really know the side effects?  How do we know that girls that get it won't have problems having babies later on? 

This happened to my cousin, one of my aunts was given something during her pregnancy with her daughter eons ago and now her daughter can't get pregnant and the doctor's are telling her it is because her mom took this specific type of medication.  That type of stuff scares me.

My sister and i were fully vaccinated as children. I also had to get a lot of vaccines for nursing school-no questions asked. I also have been getting gardisil (the HPV vaccine). I have never had an adverse reaction to any immunization.

mrstjohnson

I will add that I am very leery to have Riley get the new "cervical cancer" vaccine...even though it isn't a cancer vaccine, but an STD vaccine.  .

Are they giving that to babies?  I was under the impression that the target age was puberty or just before - trying to get girls vaccinated before they "might" become sexually active. You've probably got quite a few years yet for them to do testing before you have to worry about whether or not to get Riley vaccinated.

Joyce

What scares people is lack of knowledge.  Which is why it is important to be able to talk to doctor and perhaps a little researching although in respected medical periodical, not like a woman's day mag particularly- although sometimes you can get some info from those sources. But always check with your doc or nurse, who has current access to plenty of data.  You can find it on the web as well, looking for reliable medical journal type sites.  Not hype!  Way too much of that  to drive you wrong.

Immunizations do not carry on into the next generation born.  A medication that a mother takes during gestation had better well be cleared medically and after birth as it can pass through *** milk. A generation ago, there were some drugs not well tested and caused many problems.  Today, it is not so much a problem due to more vigilant testing and observations.   But don't rely on a dog site to tell you what you need to know, talk to that doc.  You are paying him for professionalism. 

STD's are just way too common today.  And although, we dislike being subjected to more medicine, it is far better than the alternative.  Talk to the doc about your concerns, how long was it tested for and what to expect.  I honestly do not think it is something to worry about, but you have every right to ask out!

Great discussion and I appreciate all the thought that went into these posts.

To address the question about the "junk" that's in vaccines - it's either the DTaP or MMR (Proquad) that has mercury as well as formaldehyde in the suspension. All the research - and this is even off the CDC website - states that for the amount of mercury that's in some of these vaccines, a baby would need to weigh 275 lbs for the mercury dose to be considered "safe". Yet we don't question injecting this stuff into our kids. Mercury is a proven neurotoxin so who knows what issues can crop up if its given to a child at two months of age. Yes, some of the vaccines out there DO still have Thimerisol in them. DTaP is new compared to the old DTP which had some problems, and now we don't give oral polio anymore because some folks actually did contract the disease from the oral version. Fact is that there are more injuries due to the vaccine reactions than the incidence of Diptheria, Tetanus and Pertussis in the general population. Mortality rates are really low for some of these diseases anyway. And Measles, Mumps, Rubella? Those don't kill people very often either unless the immune system is already compromised. I don't recall the last pandemic of either of these diseases so my feeling if she actually gets one of these is, so what? She develops a normal immunity out of the infection from then on.

I wish I could just pick the P out of the DTaP and vaccinate her for that, but unfortunately you have to do it all in order to get the benefit from one. No thanks. It's too much. I wouldn't do it to an 8 week old puppy and I certainly won't do it to my human baby.

I will consider the Age 14-15 meningitis vaccine since there have been quite a few cases of that in college dorms in the past few years.

No way on the chicken pox, no way on the gardasil. Better to be choosy about sex partners and that will be a conversation for responsibility with one's body as well as knowing one's partner when the time comes. I think it is better if you get the pox as a kid...if you get them as an adult you can really get sick. It's better to get them young.

I was also fully vaccinated as a child and we didn't have the chicken pox one, or the strep. I am personally naturally immune to strep and so I plan to have the doctor do a titer on her for strep immunity when the time comes. I turned down the Hep B vaccines for her in the hospital since her sole risk for getting that was through me, and I am Hep B negative.

I also thought that if she takes a trip to a country at risk for having a certain disease she can just get vaccinated then. You have to do them again anyway as an adult if you go overseas...the ones you get as a kid, don't last forever.