Vaccinations and my daughter

[specsaregood]

I have spoken to a few pharmacists that I know peronally and they all agree that they would personally hold off on vaccinations until almost age 3 or older.

I also know a few families with autistic children and they all unanimously agree that the vaccinations had something to do with it.

I'm not against vaccinations, just against pumping our children full of them at too young of an age.

 

[thuja]

i am glad pinkmandy is here. listen to her.
meanwhile, i am tying to get around canine vaccines, and it's awful. in case you wish to travel and etc...dogs are sicker and sicker, and dying way too young.

 

[thuja]

how about www.nvic.org?

 

[bbartlog]

Again, I am begging you to reconsider. This is not fun and games. This is important for your daughter's well being as well as the people she will come into contact with in her life.

And by implication, those who refuse vaccines hate their children and other people. There is an older thread on this forum on the topic of vaccine safety; browse it and you'll see dozens of academic citations from the anti-vaccine crowd, and hysteria and thinly-veiled accusations from the pro-vaccine people. It is worth remembering that the studies done on vaccine safety have a pro-vaccine bias simply because they don't look at long term effects. I also think listening to the CDC's advice on vaccines is rather like listening to the advice of military generals on our Iraq policy: yes, they have a ton of domain-specific knowledge - but they also have an agenda and are embedded in a culture that strongly encourages certain beliefs and conclusions.
One thread (of many) that you can follow up on if you're interested in doing your own research : vaccine advocates will claim that the link between thimerosal and autism was academically debunked. This is based on proceedings that took place at Simpsonwood; a paper was pubished, after experts had looked at a bunch of data, that affirmed that there was no evidence for a link. However, two things happened there that should make you very suspicious: first, they published a second, private report which reached somewhat different conclusions. Second, they took the data which they had used to reach their conclusion and assigned ownership to a private entity (so as to avoid having to release it under FOIA). Sound like credible behavior to you? It doesn't to me; it seems more like someone is trying to avoid a billion dollar lawsuit.
Anyway, there is a lot of information online. Anecdotally, I have three children (ages five, three and one), none of whom have been vaccinated at all. And they're extremely healthy - never had any ear infections, never had to go to doctor or hospital, neurologically normal or better in every aspect as far as I can tell.
My personal advice is to not vaccinate, period. But if you do feel you should, then I advise
- spacing out the vaccines
- only taking those you feel are important
- researching the benefits and drawbacks of each vaccine individually
- don't let anyone buffalo you just because they claim special authority (e.g., doctors), or let people intimidate you by insinuating you don't care about your kids' health

 

[Flirple]

...I have a nephew that was born perfectly healthy and was making all the expected advances and after having a DPT shot he started crying all the time and falling off in his development now he is called autistic...

Of course. The time that children start to naturally show signs of "Autism" (an umbrella term for a multitude of disorders) is around the time they are getting their vaccinations. This is the time when symptoms start to show up whether they get vaccinations or not. This is why so many people (despite no science to back them up) stubbornly continue to believe there is a link when all peer reviewed research (not research done by the autism advocates themselves) has shown that there is no link.

Parents, understandably upset at their children's disease then start looking for a simple cause and effect to blame things on. It's very common and understandable confusion of causation versus correlation. It happens all the time and is why we rely on controlled studies and not emotional personal antidotes in science.

 

[Flirple]

Just a quick primer:
The vaccines have never contained methylmercury (which is the heavy metal mercury that we know causes health problems in high doses). Rather vaccines used to contain a completely different (despite being similarly named) organic ingredient called ethylmercury. Ethylmercury was the main ingredient in the preservative Thimerosal which was used in vaccinations up until 1997 but was then removed as a response to irrational activism from the anti-vaccination crowd despite there being no scientific reason to do so.

But where the vaccination crowd is officially busted is the fact that autism diagnosis has not decreased since they got their way and the harmless and minute quantities of the safe ingredient of ethythmercury was removed in 97. If ethylmercury was a cause of autism like they claimed we would have seen autism rates decline in the last decade since it was removed.

Myth busted!

Autism so far has only been linked to genetics and there is some scant research evidence that thalidomide when present during the first 8 weeks of gestation can cause chromosome damage similar to that found with folks with autism.

And autism doesn't appear to be increasing at all. What is increasing is diagnosing of it and expanding the use of the term autism to include conditions which used to be called other names.

 

[Kevlar]

Sorry, but you're completely full of it, Flirple.

New study links mercury to autism:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49094

CDC concedes that vaccines have a link to autism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV2WVbXEFWY

The doctor at the end of that clip said, before vaccines, 5000 people got brain infections from the measles each year, but there are 300,000,000 people in the United States. That would give you a 0.0016% or 1/60,000 chance of getting a brain infection. Is that worth poisoning our ENTIRE population?

40,000 people die in car crashes every year. That means you have an 8 times better chance of dying in a car crash than you do of dying from the measles.

This fear-mongering crap is freaking ridiculous.

-

 

[yongrel]

There are a lot of arguments against vaccination, from what I've seen. The link to autism, while not definitive in my mind, is certainly cause for worry. However, you have to remember that vaccines are not given arbitrarily. They are meant to protect the child from various devastating diseases.

So go ahead and skip the vaccines. You have your reasons to. Just be prepared to face the potential consequences of that decision.

 

[soapmistress]

The US Government has now acknowledged a link between autism and currently used vaccines. In a recent case, they are paying damages. The sealed case has been opened and reported on here:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/99826.php

The problem is not vaccines, it is unsafe vaccines. They have stopped putting thimerosal (the mercury) into them, but will NOT pull the old ones out of stock. The Drs are supposed to use up the old ones and then start using the safer ones. Does that make any sense? It makes good money sense.

 

[Kade]

Hi there Christagious,

I am begging you to not take any medical advice from the "health freedom" section on this message board. The vaccination propagandist are perhaps the most dangerous and deliberately prevaricating of all the pseudosciences. By denying your child the vaccinations you will not only be putting her life/health in danger but others in your community as well. The anti'vaccination crowd lies. And they lie big.

Do not confuse the science issue with the liberty issue. Of course the government shouldn't be allowed to mandate vaccines. Just like they shouldn't be allowed to prohibit people from killing themselves by overdosing on drugs.

But that does not change the fact that vaccines save lives and are overwhelmingly safe. You should allow your kid to get them because they work, are safe, and protect your kid from contracting and then spreading diseases to others in your community, not because the government requires you to do so.

Your daughter is not being poisoned by vaccinations. Vaccinations do not put your daughter at risk for getting diseases (autism, flu, etc.). If you have specific questions about specific concerns please let me know and I will do my best to answer them with established science, not myths and deliberate obfuscation that is running rampant within the anti-vaccination crowd.

Again, I am begging you to reconsider. This is not fun and games. This is important for your daughter's well being as well as the people she will come into contact with in her life. Please don't believe propaganda that has been debunked exhaustively.

Wow, what an absolutely refreshing voice of reason.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

 

[soapmistress]

I would suggest The Vaccine Book by Dr Sears

more info:

About the book:



It is not an Anti-vaccine book. Why? He said because Anti-Vaccine books only reach a limited target audience. He wanted a book that gave a balanced look at the discussion so that more parents who need to make educated decisions will have the info they need to do so.
Discussion of problems with current vaccine schedule.
If you choose to vaccinate he tells you HOW to do it in the safest possible manner. The book includes: Safest Complete Vaccination Schedule (which means all vaccines are given, just not at the suggested time frame and no more than 2 shots given at a time to avoid Chemical Overload), and he includes a Selective Vaccination Schedule for parents who don't want to vaccinate at all but are worried about a few diseases specifically.
This book will help you pick and choose which shots to get if you choose to only give some vaccines and not others.

 

[espot]

Good thread, i have been asking myself a lot of the same questions. Thanks to all

 

[yongrel]

Just a quick primer:
The vaccines have never contained methylmercury (which is the heavy metal mercury that we know causes health problems in high doses). Rather vaccines used to contain a completely different (despite being similarly named) organic ingredient called ethylmercury. Ethylmercury was the main ingredient in the preservative Thimerosal which was used in vaccinations up until 1997 but was then removed as a response to irrational activism from the anti-vaccination crowd despite there being no scientific reason to do so.

But where the vaccination crowd is officially busted is the fact that autism diagnosis has not decreased since they got their way and the harmless and minute quantities of the safe ingredient of ethythmercury was removed in 97. If ethylmercury was a cause of autism like they claimed we would have seen autism rates decline in the last decade since it was removed.

Myth busted!

Autism so far has only been linked to genetics and there is some scant research evidence that thalidomide when present during the first 8 weeks of gestation can cause chromosome damage similar to that found with folks with autism.

And autism doesn't appear to be increasing at all. What is increasing is diagnosing of it and expanding the use of the term autism to include conditions which used to be called other names.

Wow, I didn't know most of that. It makes a ton of sense. So chalk the anti-vaccination hysteria up to ignorant paranoia. Lovely.

 

[soapmistress]

Again, thimerosal was removed from manufacturing the vaccines but not taken out of stock. So you literally have to ask the Dr for the vaccine packaging and lot number and informational insert to find out if you have old stock or new stock. How many parents are gonna do that?

 

[Flirple]

Sorry, but you're completely full of it, Flirple.

New study links mercury to autism:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49094
-

Lol. I'm sorry but that doesn't qualify as real scientific research (see the last sentence I wrote in the first paragraph of post #25 in this thread). The study in your linked article was done by AAPS (Association of American Physicians and Surgeons) which is nothing more than a front for the anti-vaccination crowd who were tired of not being able to point to any peer-reviewed research that supported their rejected theories. Instead of changing what they already believed to reflect the science (the cornerstone of the scientific method) they decided to simply form a fake review journal to produce "science" that supported what they already believed. This is the quintessential "red flag" in pseudoscience detection and you missed it. I know it is tempting to Google search in attempt to data mine for research headlines that support what you already believe. But the "Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons" is not a scientific journal despite the official sounding name and academic looking website. You've been hoodwinked. Furthermore, why are you choosing to ignore the nearly unanimous choir of real scientific research and journals (JAMA, Nature, etc.) that is emphatically shouting that there is no link? The term confirmation bias comes to mind.

I know it can be intimidating to try to weed out the junk science from the real science especially when the MSM does everything they can to promote the junk science due to thier complete ignorance of scientific issues. For those who are interested here is a helpful little article which gives a list of fake science research institutions and journals (including the AAPS) and also gives you 9 questions you should ask before deciding if it is credible or not: http://www.quackwatch.com/04ConsumerEducation/nonrecorg.html

The problem with all this is that the average person doesn't have time to keep up on all this and to sift through all this deliberate disinformation. And even though the anti-vaccination crowd is wrong on all fronts they continue to win in the court of public opinion. But why? Part of the reason for this is that the more the science community engages the anti-vaccination crowd in discourse it seems to lend credibility to the notion that there is a controversy with all this despite the fact that the science is OVERWHELMINGLY on the side of vaccines.

A perfect example of this phenomenon is this very thread. The more I respond to these pseudo-scientific claims the more I raise the profile of this thread and this non-controversy. And no matter how well I articulate that there is nothing to the vaccine militia's claims, the mere act of a back and forth debate gives the impression to people on the fence that "both sides have legitimate points" when the anti-vaccination crowd is simply wrong and often deliberately misleading the public. And since logic isn't necessarily what leads people to believe junk science in the first place I am fully aware that logic alone is not going to get people to stop believing in the junk science that the ant-vaccination charlatans are selling.

So my question is, to those who believe the anti-vaccination propaganda, what would make you believe that vaccinations are safe?

 

[yongrel]

Lol. I'm sorry but that doesn't qualify as real scientific research (see the last sentence I wrote in the first paragraph of post #25 in this thread). The study in your linked article was done by AAPS (Association of American Physicians and Surgeons) which is nothing more than a front for the anti-vaccination crowd who were tired of not being able to point to any peer-reviewed research that supported their rejected theories. Instead of changing what they already believed to reflect the science (the cornerstone of the scientific method) they decided to simply form a fake review journal to produce "science" that supported what they already believed. This is the quintessential "red flag" in pseudoscience detection and you missed it. I know it is tempting to Google search in attempt to data mine for research headlines that support what you already believe. But the "Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons" is not a scientific journal despite the official sounding name and academic looking website. You've been hoodwinked.

I know it can be intimidated to try to weed out the junk science from the real science especially when the MSM does everything they can to promote the junk science due to thier complete ignorance of scientific issues. For those who are interested here is a helpful little article which gives a list of fake science research institutions and journals (including the AAPS) and also gives you 9 questions you should ask before deciding if it is credible or not: http://www.quackwatch.com/04ConsumerEducation/nonrecorg.html

The problem with all this is that the average person doesn't have time to keep up on all this and to sift through all this deliberate disinformation. And even though the anti-vaccination crowd is wrong on all fronts they continue to win in the court of public opinion. But why? Part of the reason for this is that the more the science community engages the anti-vaccination crowd in discourse it seems to lend credibility to the notion that there is a controversy with all this despite the fact there is not.

A perfect example of this phenomenon is this very thread. The more I respond to these pseudo-scientific claims the more I raise the profile of this thread and this non-controversy. And no matter how well I articulate that there is nothing to the vaccine militia's claims the mere act of a back and forth debate gives the impression to people on the fence that "both sides have legitimate points." And since logic isn't necessarily what leads people to believe junk science in the first place I am fully aware that logic alone is going to get people to stop believing in the junk science that the ant-vaccination charlatans are selling.

So my question is, to those who believe the anti-vaccination propaganda, what would make you believe that vaccinations are safe?

I was never terribly worried about vaccinations, but I assumed that there were some actual issues being raised by them. Your posts have caused me to investigate the matter, and I have found that you are absolutely right. Thanks for bringing this tomfoolery to light.

 

[Flirple]

I was never terribly worried about vaccinations, but I assumed that there were some actual issues being raised by them. Your posts have caused me to investigate the matter, and I have found that you are absolutely right. Thanks for bringing this tomfoolery to light.

I sincerely appreciate that. And I love the word "tomfoolery".

 

[Man from La Mancha]

Am glad there are so many of you that are willing to experiment with your children's and your bodies. I will wait 50 or more years to see how you do before I will subject my children and myself to poisonous agents the medical gods deemed safe. (how many times they have been wrong?). Thanks so much for being the Guinea pigs. The body can take care of itself if feed right of foods unprocessed and manly raw. There is no proof that small pox vaccines worked in fact every time they were used the cases of small pox went up.

http://www.informedchoice.info/cocktail.html..... Vaccine Ingredients

http://www.relfe.com/vaccine.html .... Vaccination Myths

http://www.naturodoc.com/library/bio-war/smallpox_outbreak.htm .... Smallpox Outbreak

http://www.educate-yourself.org/vcd/index.shtml ....Vaccine Dangers Links

.

 

[yongrel]

There is no proof that small pox vaccines worked in fact every time they were used the cases of small pox went up.

Wait.. WHAT?!

No proof that smallpox vaccines worked? You mean besides the total eradication of smallpox, right? Right?!

 

[ItsTime]

1/150 chance of autism be from themarsol (sp) or just the out right bombardment of the childs body and mind with chemicals.

0/300,000,000 chance of getting small pox
0/300,000,000 chance of getting polo