This post was written in response to “Growing Up Unvaccinated.” It seemed only fitting to have an opposing viewpoint, so I have provided one for your viewing pleasure.
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I am the 80’s child of the typical American family. My mother was a registered nurse and my sisters and I were vaccinated (on what was then a much lesser schedule). I was brought up like any normal American girl. I was the product of a natural birth and I went to all of my well-checks (plus some). I didn’t eat a lot of sugar growing up and my mom always made sure there was a vegetable on my plate. Once in a while we splurged and got Schwann’s or take-out Chinese. It was a real treat.
I was an active child. I played basketball, took dance and gymnastics, ran track, and was in the marching band where I walked for endless hours and twirled a stick around my wrist while I daydreamed of boys and training bras. I also lived an outdoor lifestyle, as I am part of a huge agricultural family. We had hundreds of rabbits, goats, chicken, geese, cows, horses, and cats – I could list their names for you, but who really cares?
My mom never packed my lunch for school, but she never let me eat Lunchables either. My teeth were always brushed, my clothes washed, and I had to take a bath…every single night. After bath I was forced to get a full night’s sleep. We ate a mostly local diet, which is bound to happen when your father deer hunts, your cousins raise pigs and cows, and you dress your own rabbits. My mama never made us smoothies but she never let us drink soda either. I still feel deprived.
Despite my normal American upbringing, I was a sick child. No, I didn’t get the temporary, common childhood illnesses like measles, mumps, rubella, whooping-cough, or chicken pox, but I was plagued with constant sinus infections, ear infections, respiratory issues, pneumonia, and gastrointestinal problems – all very possible adverse reactions listed on the vaccine package inserts. My mother always took the doctor’s advice and I was placed on antibiotics for 10 months to prevent the ear infections I always got after receiving my vaccinations.
We now know that antibiotics wipe out the gut flora that is essential to a properly functioning immune system and makes one more susceptible to contracting illnesses whether they are vaccinated or not. So, if you have a “crunchy” unvaccinated friend who regularly takes an antibiotic and can’t figure out why they get sick all the time...this could be it.
Luckily, my ear infections went away after I moved past the prime of the CDC’s vaccination schedule but I continued to get boosters against diseases I no longer have immunity to. Instead of enjoying chicken pox as a child and getting lifetime immunity, I get the privilege of being exposed to it as an adult (where side-effects are much more severe) either through children who have chicken pox or children who are vaccinated with a live varicella vaccine, which sheds for up to six weeks. This I’ve been told isn’t good for the immunocompromised or those with autoimmune diseases.
Oh yeah, an autoimmune disease – just a little somethin’ I picked up after my last vaccination. Crohn’s disease is a debilitating, chronic disease for which there is no “medical” cure. A person with Crohn’s is plagued with bowel obstructions, abscesses, fistulas, excessive bleeding, excessive pooping, inflammation, a significantly increased risk of colon cancer (if you’re lucky enough to keep your colon), and a 75% chance of getting a first-class trip to the operating room. People with Crohn’s disease are placed on immunosuppressive drugs and they get their guts cut out piece meal until there’s nothing left but a poop bag hanging from their waist. Yes, this is every teenage girl’s dream…a poop bag.
It turns out that I had the gene associated with Crohn’s disease and that this gene can be “turned on” by vaccinations. (It’s called epigenetics and using nutrition to turn it off is known as nutrigenomics.) Genetic testing is not routinely done when a child is taken in for their routine shots and it was not done for me. I was lucky though; other children got severe neurological damage and polio from their vaccinations.
I would love to give you the play-by-play of my stint with Crohn’s disease – the times I spent in the hospital, the woes of losing complete bowel function, having to learn how to do an enema every two days at the age of 19, my love/hate relationship with the toilet, the other health problems I got as a result, the procedures, the miscarriages, and the vast amount of time I spent lying on the floor wishing I could die, but that seems a bit anecdotal don’t you think?
Let’s face the facts, those of us who have chosen not to vaccinate did so on the basis of an informed decision after a thorough evaluation of the science (or lack thereof), common sense, and reasoning…not anecdotal evidence. This is the reason why emotional arguments are not effective in convincing us to vaccinate.
So the persistent fear mongering over common childhood illnesses and the continual downplay of the chronic diseases that result from getting vaccinated with a vaccine that provides temporary immunity at best, just doesn’t cut it for me. My mom did everything she was supposed to do. She listened to her doctor and vaccinated her children on schedule, and I got sick.
My mom wasn’t crunchy but lets face it, crunchy isn’t the majority. The “typical American family” is and that’s exactly what we were. I was forced to embrace a crunchy lifestyle as a result of getting a chronic disease. It just so happens that we chose to continue that crunchy lifestyle and not to vaccinate our children.
Our unvaccinated children are never sick. They’ve never needed antibiotics and have never taken a medication of any kind. The physician at the one well-child check we took them to told us not to come back because they didn’t need to see “healthy children.” My other two children were vaccinated before we adopted them and they are always sick. I just hope that the accumulation of toxic ingredients and the effects of mutated viruses attacking their immune systems don’t affect them down the road like it did me.
Let’s get real though, whether you live a crunchy lifestyle or not, whether you vaccinate or opt out, your children will at some point experience sickness. Some believe this isn’t a bad thing when it occurs naturally. These simple childhood illnesses challenge and prime the immune system giving one protection against more serious diseases as adults. This doesn’t mean you should go looking for measles, it just means you shouldn’t be terrified of it. Others feel that sickness is a huge deal, unless it’s the sickness caused by injecting something unnatural into the body in an unnatural way…that kind of sickness is perfectly okay. Wait, vaccinated children don’t get sick right? Wrong.
I often find myself wondering why adverse reactions to vaccines are so common, yet the complications of these common childhood diseases are so rare, and then I thought back to middle school when we learned about the industrial revolution and how our living conditions changed and improved – better housing, hygiene, and improved access to clean water, food, and indoor plumbing. My grandmother, who is 100-years-old, has seen this first-hand. We no longer use the outhouse…but it’s still there sitting on that same old mound of poop. You can faintly get a whiff on a windy day.
I am young, so I only hear “stories” about infectious diseases and the propaganda used to get people to sign on but I have a hunch that the same tactics used against us today were used back then. Unfortunately, this generation has the privilege of witnessing first hand, the insanity of the CDC’s vaccination schedule (now 49+ vaccines by age six) and the rise in chronic disease in this country, now affecting almost 50% of our population. I am a statistic of this “real” epidemic.
I have several friends whose children have suffered severe neurological damage due to Dtap. I know someone who became blind after getting the MMR vaccine. Babies have died after Hep B, Dtap, and MMR. I know warrior mammas that dedicate every waking minute to their children who have autism because of a vaccine. Their children will never grow up to live a normal life and will never be able to do the things we all take for granted like wearing underwear, holding a conversation, or having coffee with friends. I know a mama whose child suffered from brain encephalitis, eczema, and acquired a deadly peanut allergy post-vaccination. Her child could die because your child ate a peanut butter sandwich last night and forgot to brush his teeth.
I don’t know of anyone who has died from meningitis but I do know that meningitis is something I don’t want my child to get and is a listed possible adverse reaction of several vaccines. I don’t want my children to get any of the diseases for which we vaccinate for but I do know that the vaccines can cause the very diseases they are designed to prevent, are largely ineffective (whooping cough, mumps, and tetanus, to name a few), increase my child’s risk of getting more serious diseases as an adult, do not provide lifetime immunity, and have absolutely not been proven safe.
I may be stating the obvious here, but if a child’s immune system is not strong enough to fight off a common childhood illness like chicken pox, then why would it be strong enough to fight off the live viruses combined with neurotoxins, hazardous wastes, carcinogens, animal goodies, and aborted baby proteins, DNA, and cells in multiple vaccines? Has the CDC’s vaccinations schedule even been tested? Let me save you some time. NO.
If anecdotal evidence (non-factual information based on someone’s experience) is nothing to base our decisions on, then the mainstream media should stop reporting one-sided propaganda…like yesterday; and you should throw out “Growing up Unvaccinated“ right now as it too is based entirely on “personal experience” and anecdotal evidence. Oh wait, anecdotal evidence can be used, but only if supports the pro-vaccine agenda. Bring on the tear-jerkers and the stories of the extremely rare side-effects of contracting chicken pox and let’s see some more pictures of a kid who actually didn’t have polio in and iron lung and that measles rash. Just don’t mention SIDS, rheumatoid arthritis, or (a-u-t-i-s-m).
I know, there are immunocompromised children in our country that we need to consider, but according to the CDC, the immunocompromised can be vaccinated and those who can’t, shouldn’t be around vaccinated children either. I would love to tell you the story about how my husband wasn’t able to get live vaccines because his father had leukemia but that’s more of that anecdotal evidence we don’t want to hear about if it doesn’t support a pro-vaccine point of view. Regardless, at the end of the day, I’m going to make the decision that is best for my child, not someone else’s…and let’s be straight, so are you.
I understand, to a point, where those with pro-vaccine advocates are coming from. Back in the year 2010 when I was a concerned 22-year-old mother I almost believed the propaganda too. I actually thought the herd immunity A.W Hedrich observed in populations exposed to wild measles applied to the artificial immunity (if any) given by vaccines. I was perfectly comfortable basking in my ignorance of hazardous wastes and carcinogens.
My mom was a nurse. My husband was in medical school. None of us had reason to question. I still, to this day, have no agenda; but I just so happened to have an obsession with needing to validate the decisions I was going to make for my child, so I read the scientific papers, pored over the data, and thankfully, my husband did too. I also had a background in law and political science so I could understand the politics behind big pharma and big government (they’re married). I would like to say God factored into our decision, but we weren’t really tight then. Our family made a decision not to vaccinate based on data and common sense. That’s it.
Whoever told you that Christians don’t vaccinate because they think they are blessed with personal healing abilities was wrong…wrong…wrong. Please, don’t insult my people. Here’s why I, a Christian, do not vaccinate.
Whoever told you people who believe in natural medicine automatically believe in witchcraft was lying or had a serious misunderstanding of all things natural health. Yes, I was studying nutrition, herbology, homeopathy, and aromatherapy, but my husband was studying immunology, toxicology, microbiology, epidemiology, and pharmacology, and neither of us ever bought into that new agey woo woo stuff like crop circles, aliens, and witchcraft. I’ve never even had my palm read.
But go ahead, call me a cruel parent for playing Russian Roulette with my children. I personally think it’s completely disrespectful, inappropriate, unprofessional, and out of line to judge someone’s parenting based on their child’s vaccination status, but that’s just me. Are we not all weighing the risks and benefits and tossing the ball in the direction we think will give our kids the best outcome? Have we forgotten that those who are dealing with vaccine-injured children made the “right” choice to vaccinate?
You should know that you are potentially exposing your child to an illness if you don’t vaccinate. It’s rare but there is a chance your child could get measles, mumps, chicken pox, whooping cough, or any of the rest. However, you could also be exposing your child to an illness if you do vaccinate. These illnesses include but are not limited to:
Meningitis, chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella, SIDS, gastrointestinal disease, brain encephalopathy (which can cause autism), gastrointestinal disease, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, panniculitis, fever, headache, dizziness, malaise, irritability, vasculitis, pancreatitis, diarrhea, vomiting, parotitis, nausea, thrombocytopenia, purpura, regional lymphadenopathy, leukocytosis, anaphylaxis, arthritis, arthralgia, myalgia, encephalitis, measles inclusion body encephalitis, subacute sclerosing pan encephalitis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, seizures, convulsions, polyneuritis, polyneuropathy, ocular palsies, paresthesia, aseptic meningitis, pneumonia, pneumonitis, sore throat, cough, rhinitis, Stevens-Johnson syndrome, erythema multiforme, urticaria, measles-like rash, nerve deafness, otitis media (i.e. ear infections), retinitis, optic neuritis (i.e. blindness), papillitis, retrobulbar neuritis, conjunctivitis, epididymitis, orchitis, and death. (Read the inserts for more possible adverse reactions.)
It may not be pleasant to experience the itch associated with chicken pox or the rash that accompanies measles, but judging by that list above, I highly doubt that any of those adverse reactions are a walk in the park either. Just ask the parent of a vaccine-injured child. Unlike the beliefs of some, I think the stories of vaccine-injured children are important and I have chosen not to ignore them. It’s these stories that prompt us to do our own research in the first place.
As educated parents, we made the informed decision not to vaccinate our children because vaccines have not been proven to be safe or effective and we will not utilize any method of disease prevention that could put our children at risk. That’s not cruel. That’s smart parenting.
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Photo Credit: JoeysPhotos via Morgue Files
Thank you for a great article. We also decided to not vaccinate our kids, born in 1998 and 1999. When I was pregnant with my first, I just assumed we would vaccinate, as per the standard. Only when someone asked me when I was about 6 months along did I ever even HEAR that there was an option, and of the autism connection. I then learned of family friends whose girls both became (a version of) autistic after their 2-year-old scheduled shots. Went from walking, talking, and potty training to locked in their own worlds. I did a LOT of research. I couldn’t medically prove the connection, but I felt there was one, based on the chemicals involved. At the minimum, we decided to wait until our kids were two and delay the schedule.
I’m a child of the 70’s, had all the basic shots, and had the Chicken Pox when I was about 10. Yeah, I was miserable. I survived. I watched a lot more tv than I was normally allowed, so I don’t really hold it as a traumatic memory. But most moms were still at home then. No one had to take time off work to take care of sick kids. I also had tons of allergies as a grade-schooler and was always stuffed up. No one knew to call it allergies then, though. Luckily I grew out of it, but developed an auto-immune disease (Rheumatoid Arthritis) in my 20’s.
So now my kids are 15 and 16 and are rarely sick. They’ve only been on antibiotics a couple of times each (when they were toddlers), before I researched the dangers of antibiotic overuse. They’ve now eaten the average (lower, I hope) amount of junk food, artificial colors and flavors, chemicals, pesticides etc. that go with school lunches and anything else mainstream.
Bottom line question–as adult-sized teenagers, would the vaccines hurt them or would the diseases they weren’t exposed to as children be more serious as adults? Any thoughts?
I must have been born a little before you in the 80’s , I was lucky to enjoy those chicken pox!!! It’s absurb to think chicken pox is now mandatory for school entry. I don’t remember it being so bad, sometime home from school some Nintendo and I was set. From what my parents have said who’ve had measles, it wasn’t that bad either. Like you, I have chronic sinus issues etc and now question whether it was caused by the vaccines. My wife has some of the most terrible allergies I’ve seen. our daughter has never had a vaccine and never will… We’ve skipped a wellness visit or two on the recommendation of our pediactrician “if she seems perfectly fine, skip the next one”… She is beyond alert and just perfect, probably like alot of unvaccinated kids.
Now on the other spectrum my cousins are so pro vaccination they’ve given everything under the son. Their daughter will be two in June and still barely speaks, is sick every other week with either ear infection/bronchitis/ cold/flu you name it (partially blame on daycare but also week immune system). It’s just night and day and you can see the difference between vaccineated and unvaccinated. It will be a real said day if they take away the parents right to choose.
You used an interesting turn of phrase, “Instead of enjoying chicken pox as a child…”
I had measles and chicken pox as a child. I don’t think my brothers and I ever got rubella, and I know we never had mumps. Anyway, staying home sick was great. Neither measles nor chicken pox caused much suffering. I know we slept more, were given broth and crackers for light meals. As we got better and stayed up, our mom read to us a lot. There is one thing I remember so well, which is how zingy alive I felt when I was all healed and ready to go back to school. Children are missing out on that physical resurgence you get, that upward spiral, with this overzealous hypochondriachal medicalization of childhood. I believe the hysteria over childhood diseases is manufactured in order to sell unheard of volumes of pharmaceutical products. Oblivious to mandatory vaccines for school kids, for many years I wondered why so many people were saying they had Crohns and celiac, why so many peoples babies had ear infections and asthma. I’ve only recently made the connection.
I hope you will be well.
I’m sorry Megan, but this is absolutely ridiculous. Along with the rest of your articles. You aren’t very good at producing scientific facts and you are also the reason I have lost faith in this world.
Myself and my brothers have all been vaccinated.
WE NEVER GET SICK .
My cousin whom is not vaccinated is constantly sick.
Just because you had sickness growing up DOES NOT mean that it was vaccination related…..
You need better arguments
There are plenty of studies backing Megan’s claim and showing that on average unvaccinated children are healthier then vaccinated children. This doesn’t mean unvaccinated children are superman, everyone/anyone could get sick. But studies show that unvaccinated children are sick far less on average then vaccinated children.
On side-note, we do not vaccinate our dog. She was recently staying at our trainers house for a week while we were on vacation. There were several dogs at that house who had an outbreak of kennel cough. If I was aware, i wouldn’t have sent her there. When we picked her up, she was perfectly fine and she never got kennel cough. She was the only dog there that was not vaccinated for it. Was it because she wasn’t vaccinated and as a whole healthier with a stronger immune system? Or was she just lucky?
More likely your dog brought the disease to them and you didn’t notice the symptoms.
The studies you claim back her up are pretty much proven false. I mean, epigenetics is a fairly new research field, we don’t know how it works or why it works, and the idea that nutrition can reverse the workings of how your genes express themselves is bunk. Chron’s disease connected to the MMR shot has been disproven. Recent studies point to a bacteria causing Chron’s disease, which they’re working on a vaccine to stop the spread of Chron’s.
Quite frankly, her agricultural exposure as a child is probably what caused Chron’s in her. http://www.crohns.org/
Please be aware that the adverse reaction list for vaccines and medications MUST include any negative event that occurred during the clinical trial, regardless of whether there is evidence that it was actually related to the vaccine or medication. Thus, if someone gets a stomach bug after receiving a vaccination, gastrointestinal upset has to be reported as a possible adverse reaction, even if that child was exposed to another child with the stomach bug and most likely caught it that way. There is always a risk for adverse reactions when you first try something, whether you are talking about a vaccine, medication, or food. Adverse reactions are rare and should be monitored. It would be fabulous if we had a way of detecting who is likely to react badly, but we don’t. In the meantime, it’s about weighing the odds of a negative vaccine reaction against a the odds of becoming ill (possibly mortally) with a vaccine preventable disease. In my estimate, the vaccine safety record wins out.
Hi Jennifer, we do have a way. Children could get genetically tested to see if they have gene mutations that make them suseptible to vaccine adverse reactions. (We have done this with our own children.) It would also be great if we had a system better than VAERS and physicians were trained and required to report adverse events. But as it stands, VAERS is all we have and opponents claim it is unrealiable because one can self-report but at the same time, it is designed that way so that manufacturers and the CDC can claim vaccines are safe or that there is no causal connection between any adverse event and a vaccine. If they had to set up a proper system there would be FAR MORE adverse reactions and there would be causal connections as well.
Also, doctors tell moms to introduce foods one at a time to see how the child responds. If there is a negative reaction we know it was from that food and we can eliminate it. Yet, we don’t use the same logic with vaccines. We give 8 vaccines to an infant at one time and we have no way of knowing which vaccine caused the adverse reaction, which also means we can say there was no causal connection between a certain vaccine and that reaction. This system puts children at risk.
It bothers me that vaccines are not only not properly tested for safety but aren’t properly monitored. Only then could we really determine which risks were worse – that of the disease or the vaccine. Just my opinion. Thanks for being respectful! 🙂
Just one caveat… I believe there has to be a certain % of test subjects affected for the reaction to be listed. I could be wrong but I do believe it has to be more than one
Megan,
This is a wonderful article and blog as well. I couldn’t even read through half of the comments and I have no idea how you have the patience to respond so respectfully to so many ignorant, uninformed and misquoted comments. I would have resorted to ad hominem, rude and probably horribly vulgar responses about 1/4 of the way down the page. Thanks for providing such great resources and insights, your work is truly appreciated by those who are willing to not only do their research but rely on their common sense as well.
Thanks Pat! 🙂 I so appreciate your comment.
I just discovered your blog today and admittedly started reading it with a huge dose of skepticism. I was initially pretty irritated by yours’ and other’s anti-vaccine arguments because I thought they were irresponsible and unfounded (the autism-vaccine link).
I’ve definitely softened my stance since doing a bit of reading, although I still take some issue with the anti-vaxxer stance.
Why? Because (to play Devil’s Advocate here) I believe that since herd immunity has been well established, isn’t an anti-vaxxer’s personal decision potentially putting others at risk? The same can’t be said for a pro-vaxxer’s decision to vaccinate their child; they may be putting their own child at risk but not anyone else. And in fact if herd immunity IS a thing, they are actually helping others. So unless I’m wrong about herd immunity, this line of thinking makes sense to me – thus I find it all a bit of a tough pill to swallow.
Regardless, I understand that you and others like you are only doing what you strongly believe is right for your children and I have to respect that. I think it should always be up to the parent/individual to decide.
I’m just struggling to reconcile someone’s right to personal freedom and freedom of choice, which I feel very strongly in favour of, with the detrimental impact on others that choice brings.
So…while I haven’t exactly changed my mind, I do appreciate the information that you’ve provided here, links and all. I’ve always thought of myself as open-minded so I think if the time comes when I have to make a decision about vaccinations, I’ll be sure to do my research and that includes reading the information you’ve put out there. Who knows, I might even be convinced that I’ve been wrong!
I think rational and informed debate is healthy, so long as it remains respectful and you seem to be doing a good job with that. 🙂
Anyway, I wanted to post because I read someone’s comment below that brought up the potential link b/w autism and vaccines, citing the Somali community in Minneapolis.
I watched a fascinating documentary awhile back about scientists exploring the link between autism and gut flora, using a Somali community in Canada as ‘research subjects’. Not sure if you or others have seen it, but I thought I’d share:
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/autism-enigma
Hopefully it can be viewed from outside Canada; it’s definitely worth a watch.
There have been studies done on the Amish communities, in general as a people they dont vaccinate, their Autism rate is extremly low, virtually no autism amongst them.
I feel the need to address the herd immunity concept. I, respectively, believe this to be a myth. In all honesty, I don’t believe we have ever truly established herd immunity. Maybe among children, but that is all. I don’t know many (only a few) adults who are up to date on their immunizations. As a whole, taking both children and adults, it is my belief that herd immunity has never exsisted.
It was interesting to learn from my pediatrician that the whole concept of HERD immunity is false. After hearing him explain the why’s in which it is false, I’ve since done a lot of research into it to see other’s take. Basically the whole idea of herd immunity is that a when certain percentage of the population is immune to said disease, they confer protection on the rest of the population. But the whole key premise of herd immunity was the fact that people contracted said diseases naturally and healed from these disease naturally thus provided lasting lifelong immunity. The herd immunity concept doesn’t apply to vaccine induced immunity because the two are vastly different. I.E. we now know that a single dose of MMR (which use to be the case) doesn’t confer the long lasting immunity as previously thought. A second dose was added to the schedule and as we hear in the news now, a second does does not seem to be sufficient to provide last immunity and they want to introduce a third dose. But all this is going to do is cause more problems. We know that vaccine induced immunity can only illicit a small specific immune response and not the typical full on assault of an immune response that naturally acquired disease would provide. Add to this that for up to 6 weeks after receiving these kind of vaccines (live viral) children/adults can shed said virus and infect others. We can see this in places where vaccination rates are 99% yet there are still plenty of outbreaks
See this article for a detailed description of herd immunity:
http://business.financialpost.com/2014/06/19/junk-science-week-vaccinating-the-herd/
I told myself the last time I would stop reading/commenting on anti-vax articles but here I am again!
I just have to say my dad was one of the sickest people I know, constantly sick with sinus infections, pneumonia, and colds from the time he was a kid. I’m sure he never was vaccinated as a child born in 1935 on a farm. I know at some point in time he was innoculated against smallpox as evidenced by the scar on his upper arm. He did join the military in the 1950’s so he was probably vaccinated at that time. My dad’s family is rife with autoimmune disorders and illness, most of them not being vaxxed or vaxing in the 1960’s. Honestly, I think we have crappy genes but I also believe my dad’s problem had something to do with breathing dust working on the farm and his tobacco use. No breastmilk either, raw milk warm from the cow.
My mom’s family has no problems despite drinking Carnation milk and Enfamil formulas and being not vaccinated and vaccinated.
My husband’s family have all been vaccinated and every last one of them is healthy. No cancer, no chronic disease. All of them drank formula except a few of the younger kids.
My three (now adult) children were all vaccinated. They were all breastfed; my son nursed til he was almost three. My son was very slowly vaccinated only because with three kids born in 2 1/2 years, it was next to impossible to go places alone with them and I had no help. Our insurance didn’t cover vaccines, so I had to make a special trip to the free health dept. which was difficult with three babies in diapers. My two daughters who were vaccinated on schedule were very healthy and my son was always sickly. He takes after his grandpa, I guess.
My point in the mini-family-history is that IMO it means nothing, just like your personal and family history means nothing. It is anecdotal and is not relevant. Studies and research are what’s relevant and all over the world they say vaccines do not cause Autism.
I came to this article thru your CDC article on circumcision. I think it’s great except for one thing. I was trying to figure out what you were inferring with your vax comment in that article, and now I know. It is one of the problems that I have with the intactivist movement (and I have been one for over 20 years!); hearing people crazy talk about vaccines makes no sense to me. We want to believe the scientific data about circumcision (you know, like why no medical organization in the world recommends circumcision?) but anti-vaccination people will completely disregard the data out there about the benefits of vaccinating.
You don’t want to trust the CDC, fine! Trust Sweden. Nobody is circumcised there. They have a similar vaccination schedule as ours EXCEPT THEY VACCINATE AGAINST TUBERCULOUSIS?! Look at any other European country. (do a search here: http://vaccine-schedule.ecdc.europa.eu/Pages/Scheduler.aspx) Vaccinations are promoted! Have fun with this one: they even recommend boosters to adults every 20 years in France!! http://www.vaccinestoday.eu/vaccines/england-and-france-launch-new-vaccine-calendars/
Are there people who shouldn’t be vaccinated? Absolutely! If one of my kids would have reacted I probably wouldn’t have taken a chance vaccinating them any more.
I wasn’t vaccinated and got German Measles, Mumps and Chicken Pox as a child. My poor brother even had Mumps twice! He’s never had children so for all I know it rendered him sterile. I know how sick I was with these diseases and at 50 years old still bear the pox scars. I have ADHD and for all I know it is the result of one of these illnesses. Or it could just be the crappy genes I feel I inherited from my dad’s family.
I really have to stop reading this stuff. It’s making my blood pressure go up but who knows, maybe it’s because of the oral polio vaccine I had back in grade school.
You obviously have never read a vaccine package insert. Enough said. Vaccines cause autism. The truth doesn’t change because you lack the ability to do proper research.
“Absolutely! If one of my kids would have reacted I probably wouldn’t have taken a chance vaccinating them any more. ”
*THIS*
Thank you, for admitting this. My son had a reaction a half hour after a vaccine when he was tiny, and he stopped breathing, i saw his lips turn blue. i took him straight to ER, but he had started breathing again by the time we got there. The DR’s were more concerned with making sure i wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened, than they were with looking at my child. This is why i have questions about the safety of vaccines
Yes, yes, and yes. My child had reactions to vaccines, numerous times, and the dr flat out refused to report it. Not only is that illegal, but highly unethical. I’ve heard of many others who have had this reaction from drs as well. If that doesn’t speak volumes on it’s own!
That was scary. And I thought I was missing out for not taking those free vaccine shots when I was a kid. I think I was the only one who didn’t move from my seat at that time. Funny how I can still remember that.
My entire family has issues with vaccines – from autism caused by encephalopathy to high fevers that led to seizure disorders, to severe gastrointestinal disorders. I was hospitalized within 24 hours of BOTH MMR vaccines I received as a child.
Naturally, I was concerned about vaccinating my son. I expressed my concerns to his doctor and he seemed very understanding and agreed to a very delayed schedule. Unfortunately, he retired a year later. When my son was 1 1/2 I had to find a new pediatrician and I really liked her – even though she is a CLEAR vaccination proponent. Posters on the wall and everything. But, she came highly recommended and she reluctantly agreed to the schedule we had been on with our previous doctor.
I was off my mothering game one day, I don’t even remember what was going on with me that day, but I was kind of beaten down for some reason. Unfortunately, it was the day of my son’s 4th well child check up. That day, the nurse was a real piece of work and shamed me HEAVILY for not vaccinating fully. Then she made it worse by going out in the hall and saying – loudly, so I could hear her even with the door closed – “that poor child, his mother is abusing him by letting him walk around unprotected, this should be worthy of a call to CPS, too bad it isn’t”. I felt HORRIBLE. Like, really really bad. Worst. Mother. EVER.
In that moment of weakness and feeling so ashamed, I agreed to two vaccinations that day. One polio and his 4th DTaP. I tried to tell him (and myself) that it was for the best, that the shots can save his life, and I gave him a lollypop in the car.
Later that day, my son said he couldn’t walk. One leg was in such bad shape that it would just collapse under his weight. Within a few hours, he developed a very high fever. It jumped to 105 within minutes and I had him in the car heading to his doctors office. Even though they knew he was PERFECTLY fine a few hours earlier, they tried to blame a virus. I was broken.
But, I wasn’t going to let it go. I put my son in the car and headed to a great Urgent Care clinic where an amazing doctor is usually working the day shift. By the time we got checked in, my son’s fever had hit 105.4. I had tried Tylenol but he vomited it up. It was in the clinic that they gave him – and I found out about – FeverAll and what a lifesaver, because at that point my son was delirious and I was beyond terrified. My son who had a perfect well child checkup 4 or 5 hours earlier was limp in my arms. The FeverAll lowered his temp to 102 and he started waking up.
The doctor did a thorough exam and determined it was not a virus – he was 100% sure it was a vaccine reaction. He couldn’t understand why the regular doctors office ruled it a virus, and he wrote a long letter demanding that they update my son’s chart. This was critical because a severe adverse reaction means you never have to have another DTaP or Tdap ever again. Apparently, according to the CDC info, the 4th DTaP has a much higher incidence of adverse reactions than to the previous injections.
My advice to all mothers who choose to not vaccinate, or, who choose to vaccinate on their own schedule is this: HOLD YOUR GROUND. Do not let anyone shame you into doing something you are uncomfortable with. DEFEND YOUR CHILD. When my son was limp in my arms, the horror I experienced is something that is making me get weepy writing this. It is a feeling no mother should ever have to have. If you have a gut feeling that tells you to do something, then DO IT. You know best for your child. And, finally, FIND A SUPPORTIVE PHYSICIAN who won’t let someone shame you, who will work with you and support the choices you make. I am not saying shun physicians, I am saying find the good ones. They are out there. They are saints.
My son, thank God, is ok. At least once a week I look at him – my heart filled with gratitude and joy – and I think, “never again”.
Let it be known that vaccines are very harmful.
I came back to see if you had responded to my comment about the CDC but you did not even approve it. I’m not sure why, you are not being honest with your followers if you do not allow criticism of your claims to be seen.
I’m pretty concerned that you sneeze at all the work the CDC does. It has been around a long time, and has a distinguished history of being at the top of their field in the world. The professionals that work for the CDC, and do all the work and make all the recommendations they do, regularly put themselves in harm’s way to save lives, and they do it for way less recognition than your little blog receives. The CDC does not have an “about me” section, and they have saved an immeasurable number of lives. They do the hard work that actually saves civilization, and you demonize them.
Please appreciate that if a new life-threatening disease breaks out in the US, it will be the CDC that saves the world, not the supplement aisle at Whole Foods.
Also, I’m not sure why you linked to this article:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/02/25/peds.2013-2365
It discredits you as it points out that anti-vax people, when presented with actual scientific data, will still believe the contrary of the data.
I’m very sorry that you suffered so many illnesses as a child, but honestly, the evidence for all those illnesses being linked to vaccines is shaky at best. There is no evidence that unvaccinated children become ill less often than vaccinated.
Also, I would like to point out the Slate article you linked to was a personal story meant to illustrate the reality of the diseases vaccines prevent. It is not propaganda.
I digress, please keep in mind that when vilify the CDC, you belittle the very hard-working people who are the reason why disease is able to be contained. People who risk their lives for you.
” They do the hard work that actually saves civilization, and you demonize them. ” Lol, their “hard work” concerning ebola is stellar, isn’t it? Wonderful containment and treatment system they have set up – for a international corp (Because that is what it is, make no mistake.) in bed with Big Pharma I wouldn’t expect any less!! (or should that be, “any more.”?) Sure, after the fine work they have done through the years, ending with their recent amazing work containing ebola and eradicating it, after the astounding feat they’ve pulled off the past few weeks in the U.S., containing victims of the disease and preventing it’s spread, I’d trust them with my kids ANYTIME!!!
*If you cannot hear the notes of sarcasm playing through my post let me assure you they are loud and strong. The CDC is a Death organization bent over getting rammed by those it serves. It has become completely useless except as a blind to prevent people from realizing it has no idea really as to what needs to be done and as a mouthpiece for Big Pharma to push BP’s agenda.
Sounds like this troller has a personal problem with Miss Megan! Your ‘little’ blog? Wow, that’s condescending.
It is wonderful to read this blog post and I really believe it to be well informed. Immunisation is such an emotional topic because it concerns those we love most, our children, our family. I do not tell anyone anymore about my decision to not vaccinate my kids because it tore my (ex) husbands side of the family apart, and friends/colleagues etc can actually change their entire opinion about you on this one issue, more than any else from experience, so I thank you for your courage.
Just to let you know that my kids have both had whooping cough, and you do question your choices when this happens, naturally. It began with my mum. She was never really sick with temp, feeling unwell etc, except this cough persisted. I had my 2 year old son and 2 month old baby girl around her and then I noticed my son coughing. I began researching. He didn’t’ really get “sick” either except these coughing fits where often I would have to support him. I took him to 4 doctors before any of them would listen to what I had to say about him having whooping cough (remember I’m not the one with a “medical” background here). Then my girl began experiencing whooping cough followed by my husband. To be honest, my husband out of them all was the worst and my baby girl the least. I looked after all three, and they were never hospitalised. Interestingly I never became sick either. Could I have passed a form of natural immunity onto my baby girl through the milk (maybe I should have been making milkshakes for the whole family haha) is what I began thinking, but who knows?
We do not want our children to be unwell, for whatever reason. It IS horrible to see, you cannot take that away. But I do sometimes stand back and look at the big picture. I think illness is a way for mother nature to keep things in balance. At the moment our global population is at exploding levels. Vaccinations have probably contributed to this. But where we may not see the amount of short illnesses we once did, we see increases in these long term chronic illnesses. We are meant to get sick. It is the way it has always been – certainly not what we want to hear – and probably the way it should always be. In the whole scheme of things, immunisations as we know them today really are a blip on the history of human kind. We do not know the type of effect they will have in 100 years or even 1000 years down the track etc.
I also just want to point out how financially healthy businesses like McDonalds are today. What I can’t understand is when we are so concerned about our children’s health, why we continue to make these food decisions that are clearly so unhealthy. We are so impassioned about getting our kids immunised, but that same level of emotion is not there or acted upon when it comes to what we put in our kids mouths? Nutrition is seriously important when it comes to healthy kids, it does not make sense and I feel these a double standards.
I do however think vaccinations generally work how they were intended. Sometimes they don’t either. And sometimes they can have devastating results. It is not purely black and white. You have a right to question, and should, all vaccinations, the schedule amounts etc. Even if you believe in them or are on the fence. And if you don’t believe in them, you should also question that decision too. Otherwise we can become sheeple for either side of the argument.
Regarding, “We are meant to get sick. It is the way it has always been – certainly not what we want to hear – and probably the way it should always be.”, referring to different viruses, NOT chronic illness.
*sigh*
I truly am sorry about your health issues. That must be incredibly difficult.
However, it is still scientifically supported that vaccines are an important part of maintaining public health. I become so frustrated when I hear people say they “feel” like vaccines cause a certain harm, or they don’t “believe” they are safe. The good news about science is that it is true whether or not you believe it.
Thank you for sharing your story, Growing Up Vaccinated.
I have no idea how we can pretend that vaccines have not contributed to the rise of allergies and autoimmune diseases in our country. We inject our children with food proteins and human DNA and cells and then incite the body to attack them. Charles Richet was awarded the Nobel Prize 100 years ago for discovering that you can make an animal allergic to a protein by injecting it with that protein along with an adjuvant and then injecting it with the same protein again. He invented the term anaphylaxis. I agree with you Megan, vaccines are not the only reason our children have chronic diseases, but they are certainly contributing to the quickly rising numbers of them.
I know people quote all the time that we should all vaccinate our kids to protect the immuno compromised and those who cannot receive the vaccine. Well, my child is one of those and I believe that the vaccinations he did receive have some bearing on that. Thank goodness I was vaccinating him on a delayed schedule, or he may have received the MMR before we received his allergy diagnosis. Because of his allergies I have to be worried every day that he could die just from eating something.
Is the risk really worth the benefit? The millions of people with allergies and autoimmune diseases may disagree with that. And rightfully so.
These alway represent a challenge about where to start. First of all, the overuse of antibiotics is indeed a problem, and may contribute to some of the problems you mention by altering the microbiome of the gut.
However, common problems like otitis media (ear infections) aren’t caused by vaccines (despite whatever jumble of misconstrued facts Joe Mercola would put together to assert this). In fact, vaccination against pneumococcus reduce the visits to the pediatrician to get antibiotics.
Here’s a few links: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/761127_3, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12544402
As far as Crohn’s goes, it seems pretty unlikely that Crohn’s is caused by vaccines since it was identified prior to the era of mass vaccination. Here’s a link: http://www.annalsgastro.gr/index.php/annalsgastro/article/viewFile/743/551
I always try to illustrate that chronic diseases existed before vaccination, and also before antibiotic use. This is why the syllogism of chronic diseases are bad, I think vaccines are bad, there are chronic diseases present in our society, we have mass vaccination, therefore vaccines= chronic disease is clumsy and ignores most of the constituents of causality.
There is a key point that you bring up in your article: “I have never seen meningitis.”
I think that this is key. All throughout this blog, you dismiss the effects of infectious disease : “Measles is just a rash (it’s not)” “The flu vaccine is more dangerous than the flu (not by any stretch of the imagination)” This lack of acquaintance with infectious disease has led you (in this blog) to question the existence of the germ theory, and promote a theory that was its competitor 150 years ago, before most of the benefits of our technological society.
Meningitis is real. The very article you yourself wrote about the harmlessness of a “good old fever” in a child is only not frightening (and you really should amend it BTW), because of the reduced incidence of meningitis that correlates VERY strongly with vaccination.
I am I going to tell you to go out and vaccinate? No. I’ll leave that up to you. But what I would encourage any anti-vax person to do is to really learn how vaccines work, and about the fundamentals of their biology. Most of the mistakes that I see are from a misunderstanding of the basic biology, and then a misinterpretation of statistical data about disease prevalence. In our fragmented education system, it is easy to become a very knowledgeable person in many areas and not know anything about one important field. It is OK to be ignorant, but it is not OK to be willfully ignorant and choose to not to learn about the basics.
Best,
Andy
Thanks Andy. I appreciate your thoughts as usual.
Megan
You are welcome, Megan. I apologize about the caustic tone of that response, not at all my intention. Thank you for riding it out with grace and equanimity.
The overuse of antibiotics is a serious issue, thank you for bringing it up. Many physicians feel bullied by parents into prescribing them when they are not necessary (and in the long run, may be harmful). It is much easier to say no to an opioid seeking adult than it is to a crying child and their imploring parent.
Again, I apologize about being snappish about your perception of infectious disease. The dismissal of infectious disease by the American public has bothered me of late. I am about a decade older than you, and grew up in a time when AIDS was a death sentence. Now it is a manageable chronic disease, which is the result of the combined hard work of activists, scientists, physicians, and the legions of people who died in the process of bringing this disease to the public eye. All this effort has made it a lot less scary for some people, who dismiss it as something “you can take a pill for”, which I fear will lead to complacency, non compliance, and resistance of the organism, undoing the hard work and suffering of people a decade or two earlier. Furthermore, salesmen like Mercola promote AIDS denialism in one hand, and offer their own brand of nutritional supplements in other to “fight AIDS”. But I digress…
The issue is that we as a culture too quickly forget how awful these diseases can be. I urge you and your readership to investigate the real history of disease. By this I do not mean spending hours on the internet reading historical revisionism conspiracy theory sites like whale.to or reading the promotional materials of salesmen like Mercola or Tenpenny, but actually reading medical journals from the last century, or if that fails, reading textbooks on immunology and infectious disease.
Best,
A
Andy, I do appreciate the fact that you debate respectfully and without name calling. I think everybody would be a lot better off if we could all agree to do that.
I am truthfully curious what your opinion is on the fact that vaccines *could* be contributing to allergies and autoimmune diseases in our children and general population. When we are injecting human DNA and cells as well as other animal blood and cells and other proteins into our bodies along with the disease we’re vaccinating for and then inciting the body to produce IgE antibodies, does it not seem like a logical conclusion that we might also be producing antibodies to the other components of the vaccine? Charles Richet was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1913 for his research on anaphylaxis. He invented that word to “designate the sensitivity developed by an organism after it had been given a parenteral injection of a colloid or protein substance or toxin. He showed that the parenteral injection of a protein substance modifies profoundly and permanently the chemical constitution of the body fluids.” (http://www.nobelprize.org/…/laureates/1913/richet-bio.html) His Nobel lecture is fascinating. (http://www.nobelprize.org/…/1913/richet-lecture.html) I know that there are other ways for the body to develop allergies and Richet also acknowledges this. But might be we seeing such an increase in these chronic diseases because of vaccination?
The current whooping cough epidemic is blamed on parents who won’t vaccinate their children, but there are several studies that show that this may not be the case. The acellular pertussis vaccination actually increases colonization of B. parapertussis which also causes whooping cough.
http://www.cidd.psu.edu/research/synopses/acellular-vaccine-enhancement-b.-parapertussis
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20200027
I am not cavalier about infectious diseases and would never wish for any child to die from one. But I am saying that we have children who are suffering with chronic diseases and research (not just Mercola) does indicate that we may have unknowingly contributed to this rise.
This study about gelatin allergy is very interesting and shows that we can possibly create allergies in children through vaccination.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14624794
Again, I appreciate your respectful tone and the ability to debate without name calling. I am interested to hear your thoughts.
Sure Lisa,
I would be happy to. It will take me a little while to do a thorough job of it, since the issue is a complex one, and I have a lot of research to do this weekend for my day job. I think it is a good question though. Which chronic diseases are you particularly concerned about? It makes an easier research target. Regarding the parapertussis article, I think it raises some interesting questions, but do note that it is conducted in mice, not humans, which keeps it from being directly clinically transferrable.
I too appreciate your tone. I’ll get back to you on this.
Cheers,
A
Hi Andy,
Thanks for being willing to look at the stuff I sent. Take your time. I guess personally I am most concerned with allergies as I have a child who has several food allergies, and many of them are anaphylactic. The work of Charles Richet seems to me to point to vaccines as a very plausible way to induce allergies. There is also a study that was done in mice on the different ways to sensitize to a particular allergen. They were able to achieve sensitization only in conjunction with a cholera toxin. They were not able to achieve sensitization without the cholera toxin. I’ll include the link below. Again, it was a study done in mice. Although I have a question for you about that. And I truly am not trying to be difficult, I just want to understand… If we conduct experiments on mice not only because of their size and the economic benefits, but because their genome is 99% similar to our genome, is it really that big of a jump? Do we only do experiments on mice so that we can then re-do the experiment in humans?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3197891/
My other concern with autoimmune disease stems from the fact that we are using human cells, DNA and protein in vaccines. If the definition of an autoimmune disease is when the body produces antibodies that attack its own tissues, doesn’t it seem like this is one way to induce an autoimmune disease in the body? By injecting human cells along with an adjuvant and inciting the body to produce IgE antibodies? I’m pretty sure there aren’t going to be many studies that look at the effect that process has on the immune system, simply because the majority of vaccines contain them and we don’t have a big enough pool of unvaccinated people to do a cross study. And I really don’t think that simply saying autoimmune diseases existed before vaccines, therefore vaccines can have no role in the acceleration of these diseases, quite works. There is more than one way to skin a cat. We know a very small number of people had allergies before vaccines, but we have seen quite an increase in the number of those affected since the advent of vaccines. Since injection has always been a way to be sensitized to an allergen, even before the invention of the hypodermic needle, i.e. bee or wasp stings, we know that is a way to induce allergies.
I hope most of that made sense. 🙂 I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks, Lisa
I really like your response Lisa, and I would like to add further information to help push your theory as to how vaccines can contribute to allergies.
You made a lot of claims that vaccines contain human cells and DNA. These cell lines that are used as a cell substrate were obtained back in the 1960’s…. and somehow they were able to keep them growing.
I don’t have proof of this, but knowing cell biology, cells have a limited number of replications before they die, but they’ve been able to keep these cell lines growing for over 50 years now… hinting that these cells are part of the immortal cell lines… or in other words, tumoregenic cells.
The FDA held a vaccine advisory meeting regarding the use of cell lines obtained from human tumors for vaccine manufacturing in 2012 here:
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/BloodVaccinesandOtherBiologics/VaccinesandRelatedBiologicalProductsAdvisoryCommittee/UCM319573.pdf
The advisory meeting talked about how using these cell lines can induce cancer in vaccine recipients, pay attention to section 4.2
I didn’t bring this article up to talk about how vaccines can cause cancer though, but rather, the advisory meeting hosted at FDA says “Small amounts of residual cell substrate DNA unavoidably occur in all viral vaccines as well as other biologics produced using cell substrates.”
People may deny the fact that cells/DNA make it into our vaccines, but I think it is key to establish that is is unavoidable that cell substrate contamination occurs in all vaccines to a greater or lesser degree, probably dependent on the the vaccine lot.
The second point I want to make for other readers out there is how the immune system forms memory. Most people I come across seem to believe that the immune system magically knows what is a bacteria and what is a virus in a vaccine and know how to mount a response to it.
The fact is, the immune system doesn’t care, whether it is a virus, a bacteria, or something else. When it detects cellular irregularities or damage, that’s when it is brought into action. Oftentimes our vaccines are deactivated, killed, acellular, or subunit vaccines. If these are benign, then how is the immune system brought into action?
The adjuvants, of course, as they are the “immune system enhancers”. One of the most common adjuvant is aluminum salts.
A study was done to show how it “stimulates” the immune system:
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v17/n8/full/nm.2403.html?WT.ec_id=NM-201108
“Here we report that, in mice, alum causes cell death and the subsequent release of host cell DNA, which acts as a potent endogenous immunostimulatory signal mediating alum adjuvant activity. Furthermore, we propose that host DNA signaling differentially regulates IgE and IgG1 production after alum-adjuvanted immunization”
Aluminum is cytotoxic, killing host cells and releasing it’s DNA. This signals to the body that something is killing host cells, and that action stimulates the immune system.
The immune system memorizes the protein patterns of the antigen, but as I said earlier, it is non-specific, so as long as it senses irregularities/damage. It could be the bacteria and virus from the vaccine (which is the intended goal and often the case), but it could ALSO be the human cells/DNA that were injected, or the chick embryonic cells, or it could be oelic acid which is used in the preparation of vaccines (which also constitutes almost up to 50% peanut oil), or perhaps squalene (naturally occurring in your body, but auto-immunity to this can cause GBS), etc.
The fact of the matter is, the immune system CAN be misprogrammed, and the mechanism for it to happen can be EASILY caused by vaccines. The argument that food allergies and hypersensitivities are caused by environmental toxins with no proposed mechanism for how this happens feels empty and not well-researched (if there are proposed mechanisms on how other environmental toxins can contribute to altering the immune system more readily than vaccines can, I would be interested to read).
A misprogrammed immune system can cause food allergies, hypersensitivity to other environmental allergens, it can cause auto-immune disease, such as arthritis, eczema, lupus, paralysis, etc.
Anyways, great post Lisa!!
The concept that vaccines have protected us from 150 years of infectious diseases makes a lot of very big assumptions.
First off, there is not a singular vaccination policy that covers the world. The USA does far more vaccines than any other country, especially compared to first world nations. If it has been the vaccines that made the difference, why does it work with widely varying schedules of vaccines and recommended ages?
In fact, what we see when look at the Infant Mortality and autism numbers, that states that have shorter vaccination schedules do better (i.e. lower IM and autism rates) than those with higher vaccination rates.
We can cherry pick studies all day long, what matters in the end are results. If vaccines improve health you should see a general correlation between the number of vaccines given and better health indicators, when we in fact see the opposite. What we so-called “anti-vaxx” people want to see are cross-comparative studies between vaxxed and unvaxxed (or lower vaxxed) populations. The FDA won’t allow this, but it is easy to look across our borders to many other nations and see that the USA vaxx schedule does not appear to be beneficial.
As for the assertion that correlation is not causation, which often comes up when vaccine health outcome correlations are discussed, I will add that in science, when you find a large correlation you need to have an explanation for it if you are going to ignore it.
Awesome! GREAT article 🙂
Megan, let me start off by saying I love your website and very much enjoy reading what you have to say. Many of your arguments sound, verbatim, like things I say to people who try to force me into believing their spoon fed ideas about vaccination. My only beef with you is that you don’t write daily! Haha
keep fighting the good fight!
Thanks Michelle for the kind words and encouragement! I wish I could write daily but it takes me hours (and hours) to crank out a post and I would say most of the time it’s more stressful than enjoyable. 😉
Thanks for reading!
Can I ask why I have never heard or seen anyone who has a vaccine injury until recently? I grew up in a smaller town (20,000) population with many connections to other communities just like mine in the surrounding area. Growing up in the 80s, most people just got vaccinated. I realize that the number of vaccines have gone up now, but why were there so few cases of vax injuries then, and so many now? And please don’t say it’s because there are better means of reporting injuries now than in the 80s because that’s just like me saying that autism is diagnosed more now because of greater diagnosis guidelines (which you would disagree with). So, I’m asking, why was this problem not around for my community growing up? We were close enough as a community that we would have heard about vaccine injury after vaccine injury at church and take fresh baked meals and care packages to the families to show our support for their now mentally regarded child. But, instead, we celebrated babies and young children and watched them grow in church and school. We aren’t cleaner now than in the 80s……
Vaccination Schedule:
1940: 2 shots- Smallpox & DPT
1980: 8 shots before the age of 2, no more than 2 per visit
2012: 49 doses of 14 vaccines by the age of 6.
-1960 It is estimated in 1960 that over 1,000,000 children have vaccine-caused disabilities, including learning difficulties and school behavioral problems, behavioral disturbances, allergies, speech difficulties, visual problems, and problems in adjustment and coping.
-1980 Estimated 2 million American children with vaccine-caused disabilities.
-1990 U.S. Claims Court, as of October 31, 1990, indicates that ‘several thousand claims for compensation from injuries or death caused by vaccines have already been filed.’ National Vaccine Information Center.
-1990 Estimated 3 million in US with vaccine-caused disabilities
From: History of Vaccination
In addition to the listed vaccine disabilities you can add to the list Sudden Infant Deaths, Autism, children who were labeled Mentally Impaired/Retarded, Asthma, Diabetes, Neurological Disorders, Allergies (peanuts, shellfish, and other foods), Eczema, Autoimmune Diseases such as Chrons Disease, IBD, Lupus, Hyperactivity, ADHD, MS, Seizure Disorders, Polio and the list goes on.
Prior to 1980 the connection between vaccines and the increase in chronic childhood illnesses were just being closely examined. The correlation between the increase in the number of shots children received and the increase in the above illnesses became more apparent. The public was not informed of the damage that came as a result of vaccinating even though on the package vial insert it clearly stated many of the adverse reactions. The propaganda of the CDC/government was pervasive, just as it is now and as Hitler stated:
-By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.
-Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.
What made the average person look towards vaccines for what was happening to their children-the internet. Vaccine damaged children are all over the world and in the1980’s evidence was just beginning to surface. Anyone who lost a child to crib death-that directly connected to the DPT. Anyone who was slow, mild retarded, had neurological issues-that’s connected to the MMR, DPT, anyone who developed mild paralysis with fever and respiratory symptoms-that’s connected to the Polio shot, unexplained rash like eczema & psoriasis or the Drs favorite diagnosis-contact dermatitis. Illnesses that came out of nowhere. Vaccine related. Recommended book:
Fear of the Invisible by Janine Roberts. Once you read this book you’ll no longer wonder why the vaccinated population suffers from rare and unexplained diseases. The CDC and big pharma knows.
This response is 100% the reason why I do not believe you. I read opposing sides to stay informed. I read both sides of research and I observe the world around me and trends that I’ve experienced. Not vaccinating has some great arguments, I follow this blog because I think Megan has some good points and some credible sources, but I just can’t quite be swayed because of exactly what you wrote and what other people write that is just like your response.
Saying that, “Anyone who lost a child to crib death-that directly connected to the DPT. Anyone who was slow, mild retarded, had neurological issues-that’s connected to the MMR, DPT, anyone who developed mild paralysis with fever and respiratory symptoms-that’s connected to the Polio shot, unexplained rash like eczema & psoriasis or the Drs favorite diagnosis-contact dermatitis. Illnesses that came out of nowhere. Vaccine related.” makes you lose all credibility in my mind. You honestly think that every single thing like what you listed was caused by vaccinations?? Sooooo many things have changed, specifically starting out in the 80s: more processed food, more chemical additives in food and water, BPA in plastics, more chemicals in hygiene products, higher use of asphalt and petroleum in products (the asphalt used in road construction has shown to genetically modify fish through rain run off that comes from asphalt roads), less exercise due to urban sprawl, etc. The list is endless. For you to say that allergies (which were around in my grandparents and great grandparents’ day) and dermatitis and ear infections are all caused by vaccines sounds insane to me. There are so many other factors out there to account for that could have a correlation to any of the diseases.
You cited “History of Vaccination” as one of your sources….what does that mean? Is that a book? A TV show?
Based on your listing of how vaccination schedules have increased since the 80s, I’m assuming you are saying I am hearing and “seeing” much more vaccination related injuries now because of the vaccine schedule, but aren’t the vaccines that most people are against the same vaccine (MMR) that I got when I was a kid? I’m not saying “if I wasn’t injured then no one can be.” I’m simply stating that I understand the vaccine schedule has gotten larger — that’s your argument for why everyone is injured nowadays? If that were the case, then why aren’t we fighting to just go back to the 80s schedule? You state that so many people were still injured in the 80s but doctors just didn’t know yet………that’s the exact argument I asked you NOT to post. I can say the same exact thing for autism: so many people are autistic nowadays because doctors can diagnose it more — not because of vaccines. Please don’t use that argument because I would not be able to use the autism argument on my side.
Thanks for this.
I was born in another country, moved here when I was two, but before that age I received a good lot of those childhood diseases the good ole fashion way (passing it around between my two older brothers). And I survived. Gasp.
And so did my brothers.
Could you provide the links to the scientific papers (not websites/blogs) that show Crohn’s and autism can be caused by vaccines? The original paper that found a link between autism and vaccines was found to be fabricated. Also, you mentioned “Oh yeah, an autoimmune disease – just a little somethin’ I picked up after my last vaccination.” What exactly was that last vaccination? Also, why have you been getting varicella (chicken pox) boosters? Right now there is no consensus about the duration of immunity provided by varicella.
Scientific articles refuting the link you are making between vaccines and autism/Crohn’s:
http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2004/Immunization-Safety-Review-Vaccines-and-Autism.aspx
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11735650
Mike,
The article you linked to about Crohn’s only discusses measles vaccination. I’m not sure from that one article, we can definitively say that vaccines do not contribute to Crohn’s disease at all.
That’s because there are no studies that have found any connection between vaccines and Crohn’s. People in the past claimed that the MMR vaccine caused Crohn’s, but no studies have found this. You’re right. We definitively can’t say vaccines don’t cause Crohn’s. We also definitively can’t say a lot of things. For example, we can’t definitively say vaccines prevent the development of Crohn’s. Additionally, we can’t definitively say there aren’t aliens out there, but I personally don’t sit around worrying about aliens.
Still waiting for your reply, Megan. You have said in multiple replies that doubters should read your citations. Most of your citations are links to tertiary sources (first being original scientific articles, secondary being review articles, and tertiary being these blogs/ random websites you have links to). Not trying to be mean, but if you’re going to cite sources, please do make sure they are credible.
I challenge you to rewrite this and back up each conclusion with a medical or scientific source instead of just “I heard” and “I read.” I further challenge you to take this:
“Let’s get real though, whether you live a crunchy lifestyle or not, whether you vaccinate or opt out, your children will at some point experience sickness. Some believe this isn’t a bad thing when it occurs naturally. These simple childhood illnesses challenge and prime the immune system giving one protection against more serious diseases as adults. This doesn’t mean you should go looking for measles, it just means you shouldn’t be terrified of it. Others feel that sickness is a huge deal, unless it’s the sickness caused by injecting something unnatural into the body in an unnatural way…that kind of sickness is perfectly okay. Wait, vaccinated children don’t get sick right? Wrong.”
And tell it to anyone who has ever lived in Africa.
By the way – the idea that we can beat vaccine-preventable diseases through natural exposure to … them … or to colds or GI bugs or whatever you’re trying to say here … doesn’t square with your thought that “better sanitation” was what actually got rid of them.
Lisa – This post was written as a response to “Growing Up Vaccinated.” I am curious, how many medical or scientific sources did she use to back up her post? Secondly, this is my personal blog but my posts are always very well-referenced. You’ll see that my links are in blue/green font. I recommend starting with the vaccine package inserts. Third, I can tell you first-hand what people in Africa care about and it’s not vaccines. Fourth, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say in your last paragraph. However, if you want incidence and mortality statistics before and after vaccine licensure, references to the CDC are in my prior posts.
Respectfully,
Megan
Megan,
Your link to the package inserts links to a broad page that includes vaccines not even on our schedule. Let me ask you this: Exactly which vaccine causes pneumonia?
Here’s a much better link on package inserts. You should know that the list of their side-effects includes everything ever reported to have happened after a vaccine. So if I got vaccinated today, and got a stomach bug tomorrow, I could call in and report that I had “GI issues” after a vaccine and it would go on the insert. The claims are not investigated – at ALL – for any sort of causation:
http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/vaccine-package-inserts-debunking-myths/
The CDC’s website lists, for each vaccine, *actual* side-effects. They are about one per million at most – often one per 3 million – and unlike the potential side-effects of *not* vaccinating, they do not include death:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm
This would explain why someone like my dad can have a 35 year career as a pediatrician and professor, oversee over 40,000 babies having their vaccines, and never witness a single adverse reaction – not one! You know what he has seen though? Back when he was first starting, he saw a few babies die of HIBS. He hasn’t seen a single HIBS death since we started vaccinating.
Here’s my take on it. I cite to over 28 sources, and they’re all legitimate – doctors making honest livings, rather than making millions running websites with 1-800 numbers and supplements:
http://bostonwed-murakami.blogspot.com/2013/09/vaccination-laypersons-perspective_26.html
Another side-note: Did you know that chicken pox can be fatal in kids, but not to adults? A girl died of it last year in the UK. Before the varicella (chicken pox) vaxx, we used to see between 100 and 150 chicken pox deaths annually – and they weren’t “just the weak kids,” or kid with other underlying health issues; it was pretty random:
http://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/surveillance.html
I’m sure you mean well and I’m sure you’d like an easy answer for the cause of your various health problems, which are undoubtedly frustrating and impairing. Unfortunately vaccines isn’t that. Nor do they cause autism as you imply above. I can give you multiple studies not just out of the US but out of other nations, where healthcare is nationalized so there is no financial incentive for a big conspiracy (quite the opposite actually) and every single one of them has found that vax’d children are at no higher risk for autism than unvax’d. The fact is that we diagnose it more now. Back in the 1980’s and even into the ’90s autism was thought of as only kids with really extreme cases, cases where they didn’t communicate with other human beings, for example. Now, even people who are nearly 100% normal are considered “on the spectrum” as children.
Hi Lisa,
I wish I had time to address your comment in detail but this will have to suffice:
1. I link to the package inserts main page because many of the adverse reactions are listed on multiple inserts and for the sake of making my entire paragraph one giant link, I trust that my very intelligent audience can go to that page and click whatever vaccine package insert they want to read.
2. For Pneumonia, see Merck’s package insert on the MMR vaccine (to name one): http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf
3. No, the vaccine INSERTS list the “actual” possible adverse reactions. As a former attorney you know how important these inserts are. When you buy a car, you read the manual. When you buy a new food processor, you read the manual. When you take a drug, you read the insert and the notice attached to it from the pharmacy. When you buy your child a car seat, you read the manual. Consumer Reports is great but that doesn’t excuse one from reading the manual that comes with the product right? Vaccines are no different. The CDC has been wrong on many things which is why it is so important for us to do our own research. And I quote from your link:
However, a vaccine, like any medicine, is capable of causing serious problems, such as severe allergic reactions. In order to discern the exhaustive list of possible serious events, we have to read the package inserts. Side note, did you know that people died after receving the MMR vaccine during the trials (according to the inserts no one is supposed to read) and people have died since? Why is this not on the CDC website? Maybe it’s because Merck and the CDC are kind of in an incestious relationship? At least that’s what I call it when the head of the CDC takes a job as the head of the vaccine division at Merck. This is just one of many reasons I don’t think anyone should turn a blind eye to what they are spoon fed by the CDC.
4. Sorry, Skeptical Raptor is not a credible source. I will not even go to that website. You shouldn’t either. If I concede your point though, wouldn’t you have a problem if the claims post-vaccine weren’t investigated “at-all” for any sort of causation? How do we know vaccines are safe if they aren’t properly tested pre-licensure and claims aren’t properly investigated “at all” post-vaccine? This is a big deal when it comes to the safety of our children…at least to me. Going beyond the vaccine inserts, I think you should peruse the PubMed database. You might be surprised.
5. Your dad sounds like a great man but I am sure, like many physicians, he does not recognize or acknowledge vaccine injury. As you know, this is not something they teach in medical school. Secondly, I do not link to “doctors with 1-800 #s who make money with supplements” either, though to see my opinion on this you should read my “Big Alterna” post. I haven’t looked at all of your citations in the post you linked but I am guessing the physicians you mention do not recieve reimbursements for vaccinating via insurance or otherwise? Wait, you have Offit listed as a source at LEAST twice. He holds the patent to the rotavirus vaccine made and distrubted by Merck AND has a financial stake in this company that is dependent upon whether or not you vaccinate your child. How are you not doing the same thing you’re accusing those who cite Mercola of (actually citing Offit is worse) and how is this not a biased source on vaccines? Side note, I have read Offit’s book because I like to be informed on both sides. Have you read Dr. Suzanne Humphries’ book “Dissolving Illusions?”
6. Do you know the stairs can be deadly too? About 2,000 people die from falling down the stairs each year in the U.S and the U.K? http://www.nsc.org/Documents/Injury_Facts/Injury_Facts_2011_w.pdf
Not downplaying death here, just putting your statement into perspective. Do you know if that child in the UK had an underlying disorder? That aside, your statement regarding chicken pox is false. Reactions are more severe in adults. From WEB MD (which I’m assuming is an acceptable source to you) http://www.webmd.com/vaccines/chickenpox-varicella-vaccine-guidelines-for-adults). However, while we are talking about the UK and chicken pox. Despite that one death, have you read the UK’s classification of chicken pox…which they don’t even consider traumatic enough to vaccinate for?
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Chickenpox/Pages/Introduction.aspx
7. Autism may be diagnosed more now but I hope you are not saying that this accounts for the entire increase in autism incidence as this is just denialism. Even the CDC recognizes this is a huge deal which is why they’re doing their best to find any other cause but the vaccine. Have you seen hearthiswell.org? None of these parents would agree with you, nor would Hannah Poling’s father…an M.D., PhD., neurologist.
I am sure you mean well also. I happened across your blog a few months ago and was very excited until I saw that you were so negative against those who hold a differing viewpoint than your own. I happen to believe there are very educated people on both sides of the debate but I choose to respect all parents and individuals regardless of their decision on this issue and recognize that most of us are truly doing what we feel is best for our children. I do not agree with your stance on vaccinations at all but I appreciate your passion on the subject and hope that we can both be respectful towards each other and those who hold differing points of view.
I am sorry it took me a day to moderate this comment. I wanted to respond to it though I probably will not be able to respond in this detail should you decide to submit a comment in the future. You can read my other posts on vaccines under the “vaccines” tab above.
Respectfully,
Megan
Here’s just one example of the issues I take with what you’re posting:
How do you know whether or not physicians “study adverse vaccines reaction in medical school”? Have you been to medical school?
Yes, in fact, not only do medical students study adverse and alleged adverse reactions to vaccines in medical school but physicians are constantly required to take CME (Continuing Medical Education) courses and conferences, and read all the recent literature on all issues relevant to their practice, including vaccines. When new studies come out on adverse reactions, or for example on vaccines and autism, whether those studies originate here in the US or in other nations – which they do – physicians are made aware of them in their daily updates (like the AAP smart brief) as well as the journals to which they subscribe – most of which require a paid subscription and cannot be found online.
Yes, as a lawyer I know all about package inserts for medication. The reason for which the inserts simply list ever reaction ever alleged, without any causal inspection or verification, is that the drug companies are trying to protect themselves from all law suits, even law suits that are NOT valid at all.
As far as whether there are actual “educated people” on both sides of this debate, this is a case where there are SO few physicians who are anti-vaccine that it simply cannot be characterized as a debate. Find me a pediatrician in your town who doesn’t vaccinate his own children – a single one – my blog includes a study of how physicians vaccinate their own children and it’s over 98% who do. Education in other areas is really not compelling to me. Personally as a lawyer I would never disagree with whatever construction technique 98% of contractors use in building their own homes that their children live in, because of something I read on the internet. Doctors have every bit of internet access that we do and their patients bring in all the seemingly reliable anti-vaccination propaganda they find online, and still over 98% haven’t changed their minds on how they vaccinate their own children. Nor is a single health organization in the world anti-vaccine. Not the World Health Organization, not any Western European national health organization – they are all pro-vaccine and we all follow identical or nearly identical schedules if you compare.
“And tell it to anyone who’s ever lived in Africa”………….
Really? How about you visit the Somali population in Minneapolis and explain to them why, prior to coming to the US, they did not even have a word for Autism, and now their children are being diagnosed with ASD at twice the prevalence of the local population?
Note: Refugees get a massive amount of vaccines when brought to the US. Their children are vaxed according to the standard schedule.
This article has made me decide yo finally vaccinate all of my children. Because now I know that there is really nothing preventing ear infections and horrible bowl issues. I know this because you say that vaccines cause those. But my wholly unvaccinated child has had these horrible issues his whole life. He is almost three and has all of the things that you say you had wrong with you that we’re caused by vaccines. My first child was vaccinated. He has never had more than the common cold. So thank you for helping me realize that it’s NOT the vaccines that cause illness. But the child’s inclination to illness. I’d rather vaccinate and prevent any other horrible illness that may strike him.
Summers, I did not say vaccines are the ONLY cause of any disease our children may face or that all vaccinated people are guarenteed to get sick. Vaccines are just one of many factors. Instead of basing a decision off my post, I suggest reading the package inserts (hyperlinked in this post) and perusing the PubMed database at your leisure. And yes, if a child has an inclination or predisposition to an illness I personally believe the science shows that vaccines can exacerbate that.
I have lived a long time. I sat in class through 2nd and 3rd grade with a girl who had polio and she missed a lot of school. She died before we started 4th grade in 1946. No other classmates got polio in spite of not being vaccinated. There was no effective vaccine for polio at that time.
I was vaccinated for small pox before I started first grade. That disease is nearly extinct world-wide now due to successful vaccination programs. I had measles and chicken pox before I began 5th grade and whooping cough before 7th grade. I’ve never had mumps in spite of many exposures.
My husband suffered dreadful earaches from the time he was three years old until he was in college. His parents hadn’t the money for antibiotics, if there were such things available during the Forties, nor would they have been able to provide funding for inoculations if there had been effective ones widely available.
All of our children were vaccinated against whooping cough, tetanus, diphtheria and polio, all the vaccines that had been approved for use when they were old enough to be vaccinated. They all had a small pox vaccination before entering first grade as well. They had no ill effects from any of these.
I believe that as Americans we live with the idea that there’s nothing we can’t do. Because of that I think we bought into vaccines too readily after the first few proved their effectiveness. We approached the eradication of infectious diseases with the attitude that of course we could accomplish that task. Unfortunately we sought to cover too much ground in too short a period of time.
My grandchildren have received as many as 11 vaccines in a single doctor’s visit, some were under three years of age. Small bodies haven’t the tolerance for such a chemical onslaught I’m afraid. Slow down folks and let’s think things over shall we. There’s value in each position perhaps if we are thoughtful in our use of available resources.
Linda, Thanks for your comment. I am so sorry to hear about your friend. Before the polio vaccine anything with 24-hour paralysis was diagnosed as polio including aseptic meningitis, coxsackie, syphillis, enteroviruses, GBS, hand foot mouth, DDT, arsenic, and lead poisoning, etc. After the vaccine licensing criteria was changed to make it look more effective so someone who might have been diagnosed with polio in the 1940s may have been diagnosed with aseptic meningitis in 1956. Polio was also caused by the vaccine. It’s called vaccine associated paralytic polio and it constituted the only known cases for 2.5 decades when they FINALLY removed it from the schedule in the United States. Research the Cutter incident and SV40. The polio vaccine (in my opinion) has the most clouded past.
Vaccinations do not prevent ear infections – they contriute to and cause them. Antibiotics are useful in very rare situations but they have severe consequences when they are not used appropriately, which we now see in this society.
Small pox was eradicted by the quarentine program – not the vaccine. The last known case was caused by the vaccines and the vaccine also caused tuberculosis which is quite brutal in and of itself.
I am glad your children survived the vaccination schedule untouched. I’m sure it was a much lesser schedule and many were not so lucky. Of course, vaccines can manifest consequences years down the road like the SV40 virus (which causes cancer) that infection people who got the polio vaccine.
I completely agree with your last two paragraphs. I believe that the intentions of some* of the people who originally pushed vaccines were good and I think some doctors today truly believe they are doing what is best for your children but I agree with you. Would we have this heated of a debate today over a handful of vaccines? Maybe not. But I think 49+ (and growing) vaccines before age 6 is very hard to wrap our minds around. At the end of the day I advocate for the freedom of choice and I wish that politics and money could be taken out entirely so what’s best for our children could come to the forfront but that is really just wishful thinking I suspect.
Just my two cents. Thanks for yours! 🙂
Megan
Thank you thank you! I have many many reasons to not vaccinate and hours and hours of research, It is nice to hear other people’s opinions that agree. Also, everytime my children have gotten rosella, hand foot and mouth, etc, it was from a vaccinated child. When my children got rosella, they had a fever of 101, and got better, the vaccinated children where in and out of the hospital for two weeks with fevers of 104. Why vaccinate if they get sick anyway, and then have no immine system to fight said sickness?
You blame a lot of your problems on vaccines with no evidence whatsoever of a causal link.
I didn’t blame vaccines for anything though they were most definitely a factor in my health conditions and I have the medical evidence to corroborate that. However, this post was written in response to another post written by someone who blamed their sickly childhood on not being vaccinated. I simply raised the alternative viewpoint though, there will never be enough evidence to prove a “causal link” between a vaccine and any disease. I’m sure you can understand why that is.
I was fully vaccinated and never had problems, nor did anyone I know. Funny how they never tell you how many people never have any issues, only the bad experiences. That’s like saying we should stop driving for fear of accidents. The good outweighs the bad by a very large margin.
This is ridiculous. We are all saddened when a child gets sick or develops any kind of long-term condition, but to blame vaccines for everything bad that happens is completely baseless. Correlation DOES NOT equal causation and one personal anecdote means exactly nothing in the big picture of medical statistics and trends…no matter what you think you believe.
Relying on blogs or personal anecdotes for your supposedly informed opinion is a fantastic way to get terrible information. Go read original scientific literature to be truly educated – becoming a parent does not qualify you as an immunologist.
Anna, I did not blame everything a child gets on vaccines, unlike the opposing article in which the author blamed her sick childhood on not getting vaccinated. I agree. We should not rely on personal blogs or anecectdotes (also like the opposing article) but they should encourage us to do our own research. I also agree that we should read the scientific literature which is why my posts are very well-referenced. I suggest we start with the package inserts (also linked in this post). Finally, no…becoming a parent does not qualify one as an immunologist but being an immunologist does not qualify one as a parent and it is the parents who make the decisions and have autonomy over their children. Speaking of immunologists though, I highly recommend reading “Vaccine Illusions” by Dr. Tetyana obukhanych (PhD in Immunology).
Respectfully,
Megan
Good article… I was the first born in my family of 3 other siblings…and I was the only one vaccinated. I had a severe reaction to a vaccine and almost died… Our doctor at the time advised my mom to never vaccinate me or my siblings again. I am now the only one of my siblings that has had learning disabilities, I have very poor concentration and add like symptoms… My other siblings have gone on to become drs… I couldn’t even make it through community college… Now I’m sure there is more to why I couldn’t get through school… But I do believe vaccines were a factor in my learning disabilities.
I, too, have Crohns disease…since the unusual early age of 7. Add in numerous other health issues through the following 27 years…mostly autoimmune…allergies included. It wasn’t until I started working with autism families that I became aware of vaccine injuries and the types of problems the vax cause for some people. I’ve read quite a bit, talked with many people and started going over my medical records and discovered some interesting information. I definitely can see a connection to my vaccines and illnesses…no way it’s coincidence. I now have a 2.5 year old son and we are extremely cautious with what is put into his body in order to avoid him dealing with the hell I have been through being sick.
Thank you for this article!
I didn’t read your entire article but do you think the reason your unvaccinated children don’t get sick is because the people/children they are exposed to ARE vaccinated? I don’t think it is a coincidental that areas of the country that percentage of unvaccinated, are also areas in which the incidence of whooping cough are higher. And, i’ve not heard of people/children getting polio from the polio vaccine but I am open minded enough to do some research from reputable sources (I have been educated on research and statstics so I can ascertain a good study).
I have worked in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit for 13 years and I have to say that I have seen far more kids with profound permanent neurological devastation and/or illness from NOT being vaccinated (confirmed by lab testing), than children who come in with a reaction perceived or questioned to be by an immunization.
I’m also open minded enough to believe that reactions can occur. I believe my mom just had one from the flu shot and pnuemonia shot (in the same arm). It is my opinion that just like any ‘product’ there can be bad lots. Just like when when ‘fresh’ food get contaminated (i.e. spinach a couple years ago). I just don’t think it justifies putting a large population at risk. People don’t always die from the illnesses that they choose not to get immunized against and may have some immunity after, but when they have the illness, they put a large population (immune compromised, very young and elderly) at risk of death from transmitting it. It is well known that symptoms often do not become apparent until well after the person has been contagious.
I don’t have time right now to post all of my thoughts in response to this comment. I’ll try to come back soon to do so. I just want to know what “lab tests” are used to “prove” a person’s vaccination status, and how someone can be neurologically devastated by not being vaccinated.
Thank you for your explanations, which I anticipate to be forthcoming.
This is an easy one: The lab test that confirms vaccination status is called an antibody titer, and a vaccine preventable disease that can eave someone neurologically devastated is called meningitis.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!! You think an antibody titre proves whether or not someone has been vaccinated? Seriously?
Here’s some basic immunology: antibodies are present when a person has been exposed to a disease and had an immune response. They are one of the body’s immune responses, not a direct result of being vaccinated.
Not all people who have been vaccinated will have antibodies.
Not all people who have antibodies have been vaccinated.
A titre does NOTHING to prove vaccine status.
Well Wendy, actually, yes it does. A titer is a quantitative measure of antibody response to antigen, so yes, you can have a vaccination that didn’t take, which would not demonstrate a measurable titer, or you could have an exposure to an organism with the antigen in question, and have generated antibodies after exposure. It is a sensitive test, but not specific. If you obtain another titer to an antigen that is not present in the vaccine, but is present on the organism, then you have your answer.
HepB is a good example. The vaccine has the surface antigen, the virus has that and the core antigen. If you find that someone has the surface antigen, but not the core, it is a good measure that they are responding to their vaccine, and have not been infected.
Glad to hear that you have at least opened a book on basic immunology. Keep reading.
Oh, and meningitis is not a specific disease, but a physical response to many different infectious agents and irritants.
A person who is not vaccinated does not automatically get meningitis, and receiving the “meningitis vaccine” doesn’t guarantee a person won’t get meningitis. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even mean the person won’t get the strains of meningitis they’ve been vaccinated against.
So, the way I look at it is that one can choose to forgo vaccinations, and take the chance of their children or themselves contracting the diseases, or they can choose to accept the vaccines, and take the chance that they will suffer a vaccine reaction, and still have a chance of getting the disease.
Well Wendy, meningitis is an inflammation of the meninges, the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord. The vast majority of times, that inflammation comes from an infectious source, be it a virus, or bacterium, and in horrific cases, a fungus. In a few cases, people can develop a chemical meningitis, usually irritation from blood, most commonly from a subarachnoid (one of the meninges) hemorrhage.
The most common organisms to cause an infectious meningitis are Streptococcus pneumoniae, neisseria meningitidis (not a coincidence in the name), and staph, followed by herpes and echovirus, and fungi that we don’t want to talk about. Strep pneumo has been routinely vaccinated against for many years, reducing the rates of bacterial meningitis significantly. There is a vaccine for Neisseria, but it is not part of the vaccine schedule, it is offered to teens and young adults, who are most vulnerable to it.
Obviously, you don’t automatically get meningitis if you don’t get vaccinated. That is a silly statement.
In other news, I don’t really appreciate the patronizing tone “here’s some basic immunology for you” and “HA Ha ha ha ha” which I take to be a derisive guffaw, with the intent to ridicule.
It may make you feel superior in the short term… But honestly, it’s not the best way to convince people that you know what you are talking about.
Thank-you! Great post. I am so tired of people NOT questioning science, pharma or health care practices.
That was awesome! lt felt like you were writing this about me! Wonderful job! Thank you!!!
There wasn’t a vaccine for chicken pox until 1995, just one of the many problems with your “story”. Why don’t you use the real facts that are available? It would help the cause.
I’m sorry. I’m not following. What’s the problem? It was licensed in 1995. Did I say otherwise in my post?
I got the chickenpox in 85 but for some reason I was given the vaccine in 92. probably some trial to prove its effectiveness. although I was already immune.
You grew up in the 80s and got vaccinated for chicken pox? The vaccine was first available in 1995. If you didn’t have chicken pox as a child, it’s not because you were vaccinated. This story is fabricated. By lying you have hurt the case against vaccinations. Tell the truth – there’s plenty of facts to back it up.
I would have turned 8 in 1995 Jullie…My mother kept copius immunization records if you would like a copy.
Respectfully,
Megan
I got chickenpox vaccine in 92 then got the chickenpox fyi I have a copy of my records too
Explain this one- I am 51 and never had the chicken pox vaccine. I was the fourth child of four and was exposed to chicken pox many times. Never got it. Then at 41 (2005), my friend’s seven-year-old son, who was vaccinated, came down with the disease, three years after he rec’d the vaccines. His dad and I caught it from him. Not fun, but I am alive, what a miracle. Then, half of his grade (approx 100 kids) contracted the disease about a year later. Will you explain this away with the fabrication accusation?
Chickenpox vaccination (like all vaccination) does not confer 100% immunity. However, 500 lesions) is greater at ~95–98%.”
http://www.ncirs.edu.au/immunisation/fact-sheets/varicella-fact-sheet.pdf
My apologies, the quote should have read “One dose of varicella vaccine (in children up to 13 years of age) will prevent varicella in ~80–85% of cases. The vaccine effectiveness against severe varicella (defined as >500 lesions) is greater at ~95–98%.”
Not sure what happened there. The link is working though.
This was a great article!!! I read the other side and it frustrated me. I’m glad one was done on the other side.
I have three children. 1 fully vaccinated, 1 partially an 1 unvaccinated and one on the way who will also be unvaccinated. We have a pretty healthy diet with lots of organic foods. ALL of my children are very healthy. Although my unvaccinated child has been the sickest out of all of my kids. He got the chicken pox at 5 months, pertussis at 8 months (from a vaccinated child mind you!) He’s been the first one to get stomach bugs too.
Vaccinated or not, everyone is bound to get sick at some point. Its not whether kids are vaccinated or whether they aren’t, but a LOT of it has to do with immune system. Sometimes its just weaker than others.
I’m overly annoyed with this debate on both sites because in the end… IT DOESN’T MATTER! Some kids are just healthier than others. Vaccinating wont make your kids healthy and not vaccinating wont keep your kids healthy. Its SO Much more than that.
~~ yep — great post. You can also get chickenpox from contact with somebody who has shingles, which is becoming a common affliction in this, our age.
FWIW, HTH, IMHO, and all those things, as always….
I was also an 80s kid and got my vaccines and got ear infections every year until I was 18, never thought the vaccines may have been the cause. Thanks so much for the article.
I recently took a look at my pediatric charts. It was so easy to see the pattern. Vaccines made me a cash cow patient for my doctors. Without them, I would have been well. Healthy. I lost 15 good years of my life to chronic illness. Thanks to big pharma and big ignorance.
But my 4 children have all been fully vaccinated, and I have had to take them in to the pediatrician for one sick visit – that’s it. One sick visit between the 4 of them. And my oldest is 14. So much for the cash cow.
Just because it didn’t work in your case doesn’t mean it didn’t work in mine!
In Russian Roulette, you put one bullet in the chamber. In Vaccination Roulette, you load the chamber, but each round contains a random amount of gunpowder.
Thanks, Megan. Again.
Loved this! It all is common sense, it makes you wonder how so many people still don’t get it (especially so many health “professionals”). My heart hurts for those poor babies being injected with neurotoxins against their will from the day of birth!
i am so torn! I have a doc appt for my 14month old tomorrow and she is due for her MMR. I really don’t want her vaccinated anymore but I am so scared that something could happen to her if I don’t. With all the research I have done I know all these vaccines r just so much but I get so confused because, we have no choice but to live in this crazy soviety so do you just go with the norm or actually spend ur life telling ppl to shut it! I’m strong enough to do that but am I making the right dec for my daughter? What if she does get those diseases? Will she survive, how r they treated nowadays and what happens later if she is in college and has to get vaccinated for a career like in the medical field? Wouldn’t it be horrible if she has never had vaccines growing up. I am sooooooo all over the place with this! And my husband unfortunately is no help, he just goes with the flow and I’m the one whose Brain is going to explode because I don’t know what to do tomorrow! HELP!!!! Anyone!?!?
Hi there, I know the feeling as I am a mother of 2 little boys. The reality is is that your child is at risk for vaccine preventable disease with or without vaccines. Plenty of children get the illnesses they have been vaccinated for. You can always choose to wait it out some more while you continue to research. Asks ears.com has some great tips for making vaccines a bit safer although I have chosen to avoid all vaccines I always believe in encouraging parents to research for them selves. I hope you make the right decision.
I was the same way, my daughter got 2 vaccines when she was 2 months then we stopped cold turkey, she is now 16 months, never sick , not one ear infection. Just think you can always vaccinate later but you can never unvaccinate.
Please reconsider! I would do anything to have that chance again. MMR has triggered so many cases of autism. Google “MMR and Autism”. You should know that you can choose to vaccinate her at an older age, the way previous generations were vaccinated. My autistic son’s younger siblings were vaccinated with fewer vaccines and beginning at age 4 instead of 12 hours old. It is a personal decision that every mother must make for herself, but you are having second thoughts for a reason. You can never un-vaccinate her, although many parents spend years and thousands of dollars trying. If you have a gut instinct about it, WAIT. Don’t let your doctor talk you into it if you’re uncomfortable. Ask him if he will be responsible for any reactions she might have. He won’t agree to that in a million years.
I would just add, to find out about MMR and autism, just Google for #hearthiswell
You will be able to watch more videos of afflicted children’s mothers than you can stomach in one sitting.
I linked to the Hear This Well website several times in my post also.
I am not going to take one side or another on the topic of vaccines. I will, however, challenge the idea that vaccines “cause” autism.
First, there is a difference between “cause” and “influence” (sometimes referred to in the scientific world as determinism and relativism, respectively). Many toxins can trigger symptoms associated with autism, however to be diagnosed with autism, just having a few symptoms doesn’t cut it.
I would like to clarify for those who do not realize- there are two “types” of autism. Autism that one is born with, and “regressive”, where the child appears to develop normally until 15 or 30 months of age. While it is disputed whether regressive autism actually exists, or whether it is just part of the general autism spectrum, it is this type that people claim is caused by vaccines. If it is just a differently expressed version of autism that people are born with, which would be unrelated to vaccinations, then the claim that it is the vaccines that caused the condition is tenuous.
I would like to state the mantra of scientists conducting experiments: Correlation does not prove causation.
Backstory:
The link between autism and vaccines was “discovered” by Andrew Wakefield, a man who was a paid consultant for a lawyer trying to sue MMR vaccine makers (bias). His “research” was not replicated and included a ridiculously small, non-randomly selected sample group (12 patients) as is customary/required in scientific trials. Not all of these children actually even had autistic symptoms, and fewer actually had autism. Andrew Wakefield had his license revoked for unethical experimentation and fraudulent reporting of results.
Further, in the US and UK, people have pointed fingers at two different aspects of the MMR vaccine as the cause: thimerosal and the combination of the three viruses. The fact that Americans think thimerosal is the problem and use that to explain all the statistics and that the people in the UK blame something else also indicates that their arguments are not well established or well-founded. Then again, if both of these things turn out to be factors, then that only serves to illustrate that the affects our bodies display in any instance are the result of the influence and interaction of many factors, not a single thing.
Whatever your stance on vaccines, do not perpetuate the myth that it causes autism.
Sources and Further Reading—————
http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20110105/bmj-wakefield-autism-faq
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2014/01/10/vaccines-and-autism-first-the-scientific-hoax-and-now-revelations-of-a-key-misdiagnosis/
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/02/19/a-graphic-that-drives-home-how-vaccines-have-changed-our-world/
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/01/06/132703314/study-linking-childhood-vaccine-and-autism-was-fraudulent
http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2014/03/27/does-regressive-autism-exist/
Scientific articles
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3364648/
I can understand your dilemma. My advice: research as much as you can, as many studies as you can find that were NOT funded by pharmaceutical companies. This is hard to find, but some are out there. Secondly, no matter what choice you make–it is right because you made it as a concerned parent. Thirdly, if you do choose to vaccinate–find a doctor who will order you non-preservative vaccines and spread them out as much as possible. I had a surgeon tell me that vaccines are available without preservatives, it’s just tough to find a doctor who will order them, as they have no shelf life. Kudos to you for questioning what will be best for your child, and good luck in your decision-making!
Thank you so much for writing this article. I was given the rubella vaccine in 1992 after the birth of my son. It gave me arthritis. I wish I could go back in time and change what I did but of course that’s impossible. You cannot unvaccinate. I really feel for people like myself who have been injured by them.
Well written and thought provoking! Keep it up!
One person’s experience that is her observations based on nothing remotely scientific, does not justify not vaccinating. The numbers don’t lie. Are you looking for a perfect system? Well someone should have told you, there is no perfect system. Are you looking for the best system available to protect people from epidemics? Get frickin vaccinated. Spread ’em out, don’t get them all at once. Ask about what is in them and if there are different types of vaccinations. If your doc stonewalls and says, “oh just get the shots” get a new frickin doc.
The best system available for preventing epidemics is not vaccination. It is:
#1 Basic sanitation
#2 Clean drinking water
#3 Nutrition
#4 Adequate rest / stress management
#5 Quarantine
#6 Antibiotics, if applicable, and medical care if the above are not enough.
Or are you struggling with Typhus, Malaria, Bubonic Plague, and Cholera as you write this? ‘Cause you weren’t vaccinated against any of those.
THIS IS GREAT! i was just telling a friend who is dating a guy with crohns that i know vaccines cause it. I send her this
Love this article!! I too was fully vaccinated and GOT measles, mumps and chicken pox!!! I too battled many childhood problems such as chronic strep, migraines and constant stomach problems. Neither of my kids are vaccinated and beyond healthy, thank God. My daughter is 8 and never had an ear infection in her life, my son has had only 3. Neither one of them has asthma, allergies or autism. The debate will go on and on, the fact of the matter is if you vax or not all we can do is hope and pray to God that all our children stay healthy and happy!
there are so many thoughts I have after reading this but all I can say is thank you!
I was also an 80s kid who had all the vaccines….and all the sickness that came along with them. I had chronic ear infections. They would be so bad I would scream in pain. I still remember the pain 25+ years later. I was always such a sickly child. I know I will not be injecting my child with toxins. It just doesn’t make sense!
Beautifully written. I wish more people understood what you have just written, but I know that if I share this with my friends or family (who are pro-vaccines), that they`ll still turn their noses up at this and not even bother reading it. At least I know that I am doing the best for my daughter by choosing to not put toxins into her little body. It baffles my mind how people think that a little mercury or other toxins is ok, because it`s such a small amount. But really, who are they trying to kid? I mean, is a little rat poison ok to feed your child if it`s only a small amount? Sadly, it is the children who suffer from being vaccinated.
I have been vaccinated and am healthy with no adverse side effects. So wouldn’t my personal testimony negate the authors? Neither of us are doctors and get our information secondhand meaning we do not do the studies ourselves?
Are you under the impression that doctors do the research themselves? In actuality, the vast majority haven’t even read any research (beyond that provided by their med schools- courtesy of the CDC and pharmaceutical companies), much less done any themselves.
Most medical doctors do no independent research into anything after graduation, least of all vaccines. Why would they, when any doctor who has ever dared question the safety or effectiveness of vaccines has been raked over the coals and had their professional integrity questioned, at the very least.
The vast majority of those who question and reject vaccines, in contrast, do so after extensive research into both sides of the issue. Many of them come to the decision to not vaccinate after watching their precious children suffer vaccine adverse events, and the decline that often follows. In other words, they were once the accepted “good parents” who follow doctors orders…and learned the hard way.
Great article. I will be passing this along. I decided not to vaccinate my last youngest daughter 20 years ago and she turned out fine, now she has a two year old and has decided to not vaccinate her. I feel so fortunate to have clarity about this and I am very excited to see more and more truth coming to the mainstream these days for the benefit of all parents.
Thank you for your dedication and commitment to truth Megan.
Do you think the kids in college this year that were not vaccinated were excited and happy to get the mumps when they went around campuses this year? Tell your daughter and granddaughter to look out…
I could not fathom my infant needing a Hep-B vaccine at birth for a disease that’s supposedly spread from sexual activity and intravenous drug use. It just didn’t make sense..I too said No Thank You. My baby is 3, healthy and gets colds once a year.
Never had an ear infection or a round of antibiotics yet the Pediatrician worked diligently to make me feel less than a responsible parent for my distrust for a group of people PRACTICING all while disinterested in knowing. Responses to my “what’s in the vaccines” question was a frustrated “they’re safe”.
Worry and fear are ever present…Did I do the right thing? Thank you for this article as it reinforces my position that I’ve done the right thing for MY child.
Hep B is not only spread via sexual contact or IV drug use. Hep B can be spread by something as simple as sharing a toothbrush, a razor, or coming into contact with someone else’s bodily fluids.
Vertical transmission from mother to child – during birth – is also possible. (And the mother may not even know she’s contracted Hep B at the time.)
http://ideas.health.vic.gov.au/diseases/hepatitis-b.asp
Any chance my polite, two day old, factual comment might be approved at some point? ^^
But the HepB shot kills babies and is not intended for use on them. That serves your facts with a big, fat “SO WHAT?” I have a way to prevent people from ever driving off the road… but it kills some of them in the process. Whoops! Not gonna fly.
In order to make such an extraordinary statement, you really should provide good evidence. I look forward to reading your citations.
In the meantime: ‘Vaccine safety and adverse events
Hepatitis B vaccines are safe.2,7,33,34 Frequently reported adverse events following immunisation include pain/soreness at the site of injection (3–29% of vaccine recipients), fever >37.7°C (1–6%), headache, injection site swelling and redness (about 3% for each).35 The estimated incidence of anaphylaxis among children administered the hepatitis B vaccine is very rare (about 1 in 1.1 million doses).36 Other rare adverse events such as Guillain-Barré syndrome and arthritis have been reported following hepatitis B vaccination; however, there is no evidence of a causal relationship with hepatitis B vaccination. Multiple studies and review panels have concluded that there is no link between multiple sclerosis and hepatitis B vaccination.5,35,37,38’
(Taken from http://www.ncirs.edu.au/immunisation/fact-sheets/hepatitis-B-fact-sheet.pdf)
and: ‘A) Infants
A single birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine, using the monovalent paediatric formulation, is recommended for all newborn infants in Australia. The birth dose should be given as soon as the baby is medically stable, and preferably within 24 hours of birth, but may be administered within the first 7 days from birth. This birth dose aims to prevent transmission of HBV to the infant in the first months of life from the mother or household or other close contact who may have HBV infection. (All newborns of mothers with chronic HBV infection should be given hepatitis B immunoglobulin as well as a birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine, preferably on the day of birth.)
Studies on the extensive use of hepatitis B vaccine have shown that the birth dose of the vaccine is well tolerated by newborn infants. It does not interfere with either the establishment or maintenance of breastfeeding and it is not associated with an increased risk of either fever or medical investigations for sepsis in the newborn.20-2’
(Taken from the above document.)
You can read this fact sheet and others at http://ncirs.edu.au/immunisation/fact-sheets/index.php It’s an excellent site with well referenced articles and information.
“The NVIC has studied Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act covering the last nine years on hepatitis B vaccine adverse events — and in 1996 there were more than three times as many reported serious adverse reactions as reported cases of the disease in the 0 to 14 age group. Of the total 2,424 adverse event reports made between 1990 and October 1998 in children under age 14 who only received hepatitis B vaccine, there were 1,209 serious events and 73 deaths. Thus, one half of the reports for children under age 14 who received only hepatitis B vaccine were for serious events that required an emergency room visit, hospitalization, or caused life-threatening health problems or permanent disabilities.”
http://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/Hepatitis-B/michaelbelkin.aspx
There’s your citation. Happy?
“http://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/Hepatitis-B/michaelbelkin.aspx
There’s your citation. Happy?”
Well, no actually, mother hen. I’ve read your linked citation, and it’s not what you think it is. I would be pleased to hear that you’ve read mine, and the subsequent links attached to the actual research, and then hear your comments.
Firstly you’ve linked directly to the NVIC. I’ve seen a lot of stuff floating around here condemning apparent ‘biases’ – but the NVIC can’t possibly be considered an unbiased source – and that particular article is one that confirms its own bias within the text itself.
The author spends four paragraphs reiterating raw VAERS data (not analysed or case studied data, but raw data) and then the rest of the article, another four paragraphs, ranting about his personal circumstances – which are sadly tragic, and he is understandably upset. He has personally correlated the death of his own child to the Hep B vaccination.
BUT it doesn’t excuse misusing data.
Before quoting VAERS data, you need to understand that it is raw data and that anyone can put anything into the database. Before any apparent conclusions can be drawn from that data, each case must be followed up, and the information verified and then alternate explanations discarded. (Someone once reported that the flu vaccine turned them into the Incredible Hulk). Just because there are a certain number of reports, it doesn’t guarantee that each of the issues was actually related to the vaccine.
An analogy for you: Last night I went to the movies. This morning I woke with a headache. Therefore the movie caused my headache.
This explanation doesn’t take into account anything except the correlation between a movie the night before and a headache the day after. It doesn’t consider my state of hydration, the fact that I have a slightly stiff neck, or that the cat slept on my bed and took up too much room, or indeed another twenty or so possible confounding factors.
Real research involves investigating the raw data and then looking at it once any confounding factors have been excluded. That’s where we get real values, not vague supposes, upon which we can then base risk/benefit assessments.
I’ll also include a link taken directly from the NVIC which links to downloaded data (in this case gardasil data) and you can see from a number of the cases that some of the reports are not really reports.
Let me quote from one: “Write-up: Information has been received from a website concerning thousands of other young girls who on unspecified dates were vaccinated with a dose of GARDASIL (lot # not reported). The girls have experienced “life-destroying side effects” or death following their HPV vaccines. Life-destroying side effects were considered to be immediately life-threatening. This is one of two reports from the same source. No further information is available.” (http://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?EVENTS=on&PAGENO=7&PERPAGE=10&ESORT=NONE&REVERSESORT=&VAX=(HPV4)&DIED=Yes)
You can see how this is misleading – a report from ‘someone’ who read a website and decided to report what they’d read on the website about people they didn’t know. It doesn’t include any information that a researcher can use – no vaccination lot numbers, no numbers of deaths, no information except hearsay.
I’d appreciate a link to some real data or real research – I will read it.
Great article! We have chosen to not vaccinate our children and they are now 13 and 15, both very healthy and visit the doctor once a year for their annual check ups. We do get the lecture once a year when we are there that we are doing our children a disservice by not vaccinating them and we should be scared about what they could be exposed to. I always just nod my head and say “No Thank You” to the vaccines. My kids are the healthiest kids I know and if they get sick it’s just a cold that is gone in a couple of days. Their friends are the ones that are constantly missing school and parents taking them to the doctor’s office for antibiotics for a cold (when will people learn!).
What a blatant manipulation of facts and cheap demagogy. Complete lack of scientific factual information trying to appeal to all of those that believe in conspiracy theories and those that think that without any formal training on any relevant area still believe they know better. You all go on and believe it without getting informed properly. I will just ask you one thing. Since when does everything work 100% and provide a risk free environment or solution?
Youknowbetter, Thanks for your comment. Please read this post as you’ll see that there is no 100% risk-free solution (whether you vaccinate or not) and that I advocate becoming informed. This post was written in response to “Growing Up Unvaccinated” which was entirely based on nothing but anectdotal evidence. My posts despite being written by a parent for parents are always well-referenced.
Slate should post this article next to “Growing up Unvaccinated.” As you said, opposing viewpoints. I hope you submitted it. Nice job! Slate has been real aggressive against anti-vaxers.
My daughter chose not to vaccinate her baby who is thriving now at 7 mos. She was on the edge looking only to slow the schedule at first, but has decided to nix it altogether. This winter will be the tell-tale. I hope to hell she never has to deal with a deadly childhood disease. There will be guilt. I had measles, mumps and chickenpox growing up. No doubt about it, they were nasty. I also have allergies and asthma today. I was vaccinated. I commend you on your research. Thank you.
Please let me edit for spelling only… haunch/hunch; pour/pore.. are homonyms or near homonyms… but detract from how good your article is.
Corrected “pored” but I don’t remember using hunch/haunch. That aside, if missing a homonym is all people can ding my writing for, then I can live with that. Thanks again.
It’s in the paragraph beginning “I am young, so I only hear stories”
Got it. Thank you. Thank you.
Terrific article, by the way! Thank you for writing this.
I encourage everyone to read this book. It will open your eyes to the big-pharma lies.
http://www.conspirazzi.com/murder-by-injection-by-eustace-mullins/
uh-mazing!!! I wish I could memorize and spout off this entire article when I’m addressed by people who wanna shove the “benefits of vaccines” and “dangers of not vaccinating” down my throat. Arg. Thank u!
2 mins ·
As a vaccinated child,I was lucky and did not end up with any of the horrible adverse reactions but I did get some diseases I was vaccinated against!Some would argue I would have got them them worse had I not been vaccinated,we will never know.What has been proven over the last decade is vaccines gotten as a child in the 50 and 60’s did not provide life time immunity against said disease’s,so we had generations of (unprotected?) people walking around who survived and managed to not get the side affects of said vaccines this vaccinated woman and scores of other people have to live with or have died from! It’s your choice to vaccinate or not but to boot a seemingly healthy new born and up to 6yrs old with 48 toxic vaccines seems crazy knowing what we now know.I feel horrible for the children who are being made sick and die by vaccinations and unfortunately there is no cure or ways to un vaccinate.So read the inserts that come with them before you make the choice to vaccinate your healthy child or not
Thanks to Megan for the very well written post. I really appreciate it!!! :>
Some of us who were (fortunately) walking around in the 50s and 60s were vaccine injured. Most of us were not beset with a more extreme schedule. And we were probably not as visible. My parents seem to have forgotten, after I started talking and walking, that I had almost died after a DPT vaccination in 1949. I had suffered paralytic polio with vaccine encephalopathy and dysentary at 2 months old….autism diagnosis also. With physical therapy and some rewiring (I assume) no one could really tell what had happened. I skipped some vaccinations because I had already had polio. I had bouts of tonsillitis and strep throat; I was sick a lot in 4th grade. And then the bowel problems/pain started up at puberty. In my thirties and probably in conjunction with pesticide exposures (like 2,4-D) my polio damage flared up and I have to watch it and my digestive disorders by detoxing and avoidance (as much as it is possible). My diet is quite restricted, my supplement list is extensive and I spend a lot of time and money on some very effective alternative therapies and trauma therapy as well. I had a big setback with the swine flu vaccine in 1976…GBS, jaundice and fatigue. I was sick through much of my 30s and 40s while I started learning how to take care of myself. And I have seen a lot of what I went through was known about as vaccine reactions well before I had them.
Thank you so much again for your research and time blogging/ sharing. It supports and encourages me.
I have a family member who is a Dr./research scientist whom has literally called me a child abuser and murdered for not vaccinating my kiddos. Sometimes I wonder did I really read that? Am I (we – my husband and I) truly making the wise choice. And then you remind me. And give me some direction to read and research and some gentle rebuff for family members who think I have “lost the plot” so to speak. Really appreciate your journey – thanks for sharing!
Wonderfully written. So thankful for women like you who are able to say what we all are thinking and feeling. Wonderful point about anecdotal evidence and how it’s okay as long as it’s supporting the pro-vaccine option.
Love,
Audrey
Thanks again for a wonderful article Megan, keep up the AMAZING work! 🙂
This is a fabulous article!!! So well written… Thank you!!
The only reason you have the privilege of not vaccinating your kids without them getting diseases is because most of the rest of us do vaccinate and the diseases don’t spread. So you’re welcome
Danny, Please read this post. Also check out the other articles I have written under the “vaccines” tab above to read more about herd immunity.
You know what, I’m really sorry for that comment. It was rude and uncalled for and you have every right to make that choice for yourself.
Thanks Danny. I hope that even if we disagree, we can still respect each other rights’ as parents. We both are doing what we feel is best for our children.
Exactly
love it, but what does ‘crunchy’ mean?
This was fantastic…, thanks for writing it…
Love it! So glad I’m on a FB break which has probably saved me from seeing that other post circulating again. : )
Excellent!
You are amazing! You always sum up my thoughts exactly, thank you for writing this!
Very good article!!
A very good article!!!
I desperately DO NOT want to vaccinate my baby girl (4 mos). But getting pressure from Doc and husband – specifically bc we have to fly. Any advice on what to say??
I have MTHFR and I’m worried she does too. I was vaccinated and I’m thankfully healthy (so far) so I need a good argument… I’d so appreciate ANY advice! I’ve tried articles and studies :/
Hi Merle, I emailed you privately. 🙂
Hi Merle,
First off, a pat on the back to you for not blindly following what others want you to do! I recently wrote a “back-to-school” article for Health Choice, and it also ran on the Age of Autism blog. It is titled, “I Have Decided to Vaccinate My Child Because…”, but don’t be deceived by the title! Perhaps it might help your husband and doctor understand some of the beliefs they hold that don’t stand up under scrutiny. One of Megan’s excellent articles is hyperlinked in it, and 2 other articles I have written are also hyperlinked (one of which is “The Oxymoron of Safe Vaccines” which might also be helpful for your husband and doctor, it is the last hyperlink under point #7). So, here’s the link…I sure hope it helps! Hold your ground, trust your mother’s instinct, and protect the health, development and well-being of your precious baby girl!
http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/08/i-have-decided-to-vaccinate-my-child-because.html#more
Love it!
Keep going with this topic, Miss Megan, you are making a difference and turning heads. I predict a troll will appear in less than six hours…. Oh, Dorit, are you out there?? Probably preparing a post as we speak- explaining how it is just impossible that you got your Crohn’s because of vaccination. Can’t wait to read her hogwash or the drivel of the other bobbleheads.. repeat after me, “Safe and effective, safe and effective…” C’ching$$!!
Wonderful article!! It’s so frustrating when pro-vaccine people assume you are choosing to not vaccinate because it’s the new thing to do to be in the in crowd. I’m tired of people saying we need to vaccinate for the greater good…let’s face it, for their child.
I did vaccinate my first born. DPT led to a status seizure that lasted over 6 hours which left her with static encephalopathy (no not autism, encephalopathy or brain damage doesn’t always mean autism). The encephalopathy led to uncontrolled seizures that were made worse by seizure meds. We used alternative medicine to reduce her seizures by 80% which still meant many daily seizures. Eventually her encephalopathy became progressive and the atrophy reached her brain stem by the age of 9 resulting in her death.
So the people who said I should vaccinate to protect the greater good, where are you now? Your focus has and always will be to protect your child. I learned the hard way that I too should only be concerned with protecting my children. I sacrificed my first born child for pro-vaccine people…never again!! My next two are vaccine free!!
Yes ma’am, yes ma’am yes ma’am!!
Wonderfully written. Couldn’t agree more.