I've been wondering about the safety of vaccines ever since over five years ago I learned that a friend was delaying vaccinating her children. That mother gave me a book to read.
Then we had our son. I asked my doctor about the safety of vaccines, and he had nothing to say about them--except that we would want to protect our children and society from infectious diseases.
Then I met another friend and another friend and another friend--all choosing to not vaccinate their children.
Then we had our daughter. And I asked our new doctor about vaccines, and he said that giving her the vaccines now would allow her to not have to get them in the future like if she went on an overseas missions trip. Yeah, I could understand that. OF COURSE she would need to be vaccinated before going overseas. So we vaccinated our daughter.
At least eight different vaccines given 2-4 times each have been given to my children.
Then I had a friend with a son who has autism. And I thought about all the kids I know with ADHD. And I thought about my son's food allergies and the rise in all these disorders. Could vaccines be causing them? Are vaccines causing more harm than good? It would be a logical fallacy to simply look at when they are given and say that one caused the other, but it would be worth studying, don't you think?
Today, I FINALLY got around to watching a very long but interesting video that was sent to me back in the middle of February. YES. I AM SLOW. BUT in my defense, it was two and a half hours long. Granted I could have watched it in pieces, and I did throughout the day, but it was so captivating that I wanted to finish it.
Anyway, the video asserts that the toxins in vaccines are/may be the cause for the rise in autism, Crohn's disease, asthma, ADHD, and other neurological and autoimmune disorders.
Then I'm also reading my food allergy books. The latest author/doctor referred to the studies on autism and vaccines as "junk science".
So seriously, who should we believe? I'm deeply confused and torn on this issue. I'm a mama who just wants to protect her children.
I think that both of my children have received all their vaccinations until they start school. Henri starts next year, which will require him to receive more vaccinations, unless we opt out. So should I opt out? I'm undecided.
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This is a tough topic. I was just talking with a friend about it the other day. We vaccinate and probably will continue to do so with our children and children to come. I think that autism, etc. caused by vaccines is very rare. I'm not 100 percent certain of anything though...we researched some, but not a lot when Jeneva was born. We as well hope to do missions someday and would rather have this out of the way now. We are blessed to live in a country with good medicine. I trust the doctors. Maybe to a fault? Who knows, that's just what we've chosen to do. Good luck!
wow, really tough issue. We have vaccinated, but now with Judah we're using a delayed schedule.
One wife of a doctor told me that the unspoken medical consensus is that spreading vaccines out over the first three years is most likely safer than juicing your newborn up with like 15 shots it the first 6 months, but the reason they schedule them all together is to make sure all babies get all the shots. Especially mothers from low-income areas are unlikely to get all the vaccines in a delayed schedule, i.e. come in for so many appointments.
As to which vaccines to get, we are opting out of vaccines for diseases that aren't likely to be a huge risk for our children, like chicken pox. You're actually more likely to be immune if you get the actual disease than if you get the shot, and the risk of dying from chicken pox is very low. Whooping cough (pertussis) however is very much a risk for babies, so we're vaccinating against that.
Anyway, it really is a difficult thing to sort out. Everyone just wants to do what's best for their kids! But what is best?! I think it's something that as Christian parents, we can prayerfully reach different conclusions, and that's okay.
Good question! We:
1st child) Vaccinated on schedule.
2nd) Wanted to delay vax, but was too chicken.
3rd) We're delaying, but our goal is to have him fully vaccinated by the time he starts school.
It's tough. I liked Bob Sears' book. (The Vaccine Book).
This is a tough-y and at times sensitive topic. I just read Dr Sears Vaccine Book this past spring and liked it alright. Eric's still not sure.
That being said, we opted out for some vaccines with Joshy. For Mari, we delayed them all (in fact, she still has yet to get them) and will opt out of some. We believe it's better to wait and to spread them out.
We have a wonderful doctor who is just fine with us doing this and told us the reason they do vaccines so young is because it lines up well with the well-child visits. Truthfully, she told us, it's very much a convenience thing. After hearing that, I had no trouble making my life more inconvenient to come in at other times just for shots. It's called a "nurse visit" and sometimes may be a little extra $$ since it's not coupled with a regular check, but we think it's worth it.
Also, by spreading them out, if your child does react to the shot, you'll know exactly which one.
One thing I did appreciate about Dr Sears' book was the listing of the ingredients and why they were controversial. He kinds of lets you decide for yourself, but gives you a bunch of info.
And one more opinion, one shot we gave Joshy but don't plan on with Mari is the MMR. We found out that the rubella portion is created using fetal cells from aborted babies. We are planning on having Mari tested to see if she's immune to rubella (the R in MMR), something that's not usually done but done easy enough with a blood test.
That's more than you probably wanted, but hopefully it's somewhat helpful!
Thanks again for letting us crash in on you all last Sunday!
elisa
And by the way, HEAR HEAR to what Melissa said about Chrisian parents prayerfully coming to different conclusions and that being ok. God gives us all different convictions at different times and He's the only One we need to listen to.
elisa
Declining or delaying vaccines needs to be coupled with the commitment to manage your own health with research, nutrition and lifestyle.
By the way, pertussis is the most dangerous for babies under two months, before they get the first vaccine.
Katie
I agree - it is such a tough decision. Sam has all of his shots, but Julia only had some of them up to her 2 month visit. The thing that's hard for me is deciding if I can believe any of what the doctors tell me about vaccines when some of what they say has been proven to be false (examples given above about why kids get them on the schedule they do not having to do with the NEED, but ease of administering them).
Knowing that Sam didn't react helps me feel better about possibly getting Julia vaccinated with some of the shots (NOT MMR or Chicken Pox), but I've decided to wait until she's two to research in full force again.
One thing that bothers me is the amount of time the companies who make the shots actually spent researching with trials. If my memory serves me correctly, it's something like weeks of monitoring, not months or years that the data comes from. That's not ok with me.
I'd love to hear about more books on the subject if you or any of your readers could suggest some.
Dr. Joseph Mercola has some strong opinions on the subject at mercola.com if you are looking for some alternative medicine/holistic ideas.
Hey Yvette! I just discovered your blog the other day - so fun to read about your mommy adventures:)
Just wanted to post a comment on vaccines since this has been a "journey" for Jim and I as well.
We both were leaning towards non-vaccination before Rachel was born, but were not 100% sure about the whys of that decision, so we did alot of research in the two months after she was born (and chose not to have her vaccinated in the hospital right after birth). Rachel's doctor gave us a book called "The Truth about Vaccines" which turned out to be very pro-vaccine rather than "objective" like the doctor made it out to be and had a lot of what seemed to be faulty and "dated" reasoning (placing a lot of emphasis on the "thimerosal argument" which is now quite old and inaccurate). Ultimately after much prayer and agonizing, at Rachel's 2 month appt. we decided to go with a slow vaccination schedule, so Rachel had her DTaP as scheduled. For the next few days I was a nervous wreck, watching for any side effects and signs of vaccine aggravation (nothing happened, but I was convinced I couldn't go through these nerves with every subsequent vaccine) After more prayer and much research, we both decided this was not the route for us for a couple reasons.
The CDC website was actually one of the strongest reasons we decided to opt out of vaccines - if you go to their home page and then do a search on "vaccine ingredients" and look through those documents, you will quickly become familiarized with the lists of "minute chemical additives" in every single vaccine - wow, that was revealing!!
Other websites that brought us to this decision were www.informedchoice.info and www.nvic.org Yes, you can't just trust every website out there, but all of these backed up the vaccine ingredient info that the CDC provided which made them credible in my mind.
(I'm running out of room to comment, so I'll continue on another comment posting - sorry this is so long!)
(this is Michelle W. from nurseries btw:)
Hi again:)
After finding out that "minute" amounts of chemicals per vaccine wasn't just referring to trace amounts, but rather milligrams!! (There's a very helpful chart at www.windsorpeak.com/baby411/additives.pdf and then doing the math and adding up all the milligrams of these chemicals that go into a baby's body after the entire schedule of vaccines in the first two years, I was convinced to not continue vaccinating. Also, it was quite revealing to find out about the cell lines used in vaccines on the CDC's website (monkey, pig, cow, even human fetal extracts- called human diploid cells).
I'm sure you've read many testimonies of vaccine reactions - I think it's interesting that almost 100% of them were not recognized by the medical establishment as vaccine reactions. So I wonder, when pediatricians/doctors say that vaccines are very safe and have very few recorded side effects, is this because the medical establishment is refusing to admit/record that many adverse side effects/reactions are occuring?
Finally, it seems like there is such a conflict of interest in the vaccine world. After all, it is a million dollar (or more) industry for the drug companies. And when the AAP is convincing doctors and parents this huge vaccination schedule is "necessary" (and the schedule is lengthening every year) for all children and insurance companies quickly fork over the big bucks to pay for vaccinations, you have to wonder if there is a conflict of interest going on with the AAP/drug companies, etc... (See www.nvic.org and the "conflict of interest" link on the list that goes down the right side of the page) -very interesting methinks!
So, there's my soapbox - ha! Once again, sorry this was so long, but hope it gives you some more food for thought/helps with your decision:)
Blessings!
Michelle W.
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