Finally- a pro vaccine article. Kudos! Herd mentality ends up killing children. After all, if autism is what you fear- isn’t a dead child even scarier?

Vaccinations aren’t a magical force field that instantly kills any virus or germ that comes into contact with a vaccinated person. You can still carry any spreadable disease without succumbing to it. I’m not anti vaccination nor pro, just some people seem to think that they are magic, which they are not. Just something to consider…

“You can still carry any spreadable disease without succumbing to it.” So where exactly is this coming from? Two different people on the other vaccination thread this week said this, and here’s a third instance. Is there some kind of widespread belief that people who are vaccinated are only protected from the disease themselves, and that they become secret carriers of disease to others because only the symptoms are suppressed, or they can carry it without catching it, or whatever?

@azalea, I think it’s possible for a vaccinate person to possibly carry germs, say on their hands if they have come in contact. But I really do not believe if a vaccinated person who comes in a close proximity with someone with the measles, that they would somehow become a secret carrier of the disease. If you have a source on that info, I would love to see it!

@MadelinePetersen: No, I’m not saying this (people who are vaccinated become “carriers”) is true! I’m saying I’ve seen three different people in vaccination threads here this week who think it’s true, so I’m wondering where people are getting this idea. I absolutely do not think it’s true. With most diseases, some of the people who get it are asymptomatic and may be able to pass the disease on without symptoms, but multiple people seem to think this is really common when people are vaccinated, and I have no idea why.

@Diera, No worries! Thanks for commenting.

@Natalie, Excellent point! Thanks for that clarification.

I’m pretty sure that not that long ago, historically speaking, the life-saving effects of widespread vaccinations would have been considered magical — though I don’t think there’s anyone out there naive enough to believe that vaccinations are some “magical force-field”. I think we’re so lucky to live in a day and age where we can MINIMIZE the risk of contracting some of these scary diseases. I have a hard time believing that our generation, which seems so obsessed with hand-sanitizer and lysol, is the same generation shying away from vaccinations.

Great article and much needed!! Thank you!

Yay for vaccines! Please get your flu shot too. I know it seems futile since you might get sick anyway with some other type of flu virus, but it does save the lives of babies and the elderly who can’t get a shot, and it keeps me out of the hospital since I can’t get the vaccine due to an allergy. All I can do to stay healthy is ask those around me to get their shots, and that’s all of you!

the only thing that sceeves me out is what is IN vaccines… formaldahyde, chicken/bovine serum, monkey liver, MSG, and mercury to name a few of the creepies that are found in our tots vaccines… I personally get what is required for Aerie to go to school, but other than that I believe “less is more”. (( you can look up vaccine ingredients on CDC website if you don’t already know)) i’m am niether pro (or) anti vaccine and more pro-education.

My daughter is 4 months old. She is not currently vaccinated. When she is around 2 or 3 we will start to vaccinate her. I do believe that vaccinations help and I want her protected. I just do not want to pump all of these chemicals and drugs into her when she is at such a sensitive age.

My spouse and I are both chemists (not saying that to brag, only that we both work in research and are moderately well read in various forms of scientific literature) and are totally planning to vaccinate once the little one comes in to this world. I am also a total earth mama planning a home birth. So yes, you can want an unmedicated home birth and still vaccinate your kids, they are not exclusive from one another as so many in the anti-vaccination camp would have you believe. I think that the vast majority of people vaccinate their kids because IT MAKES SENSE and is LOGICAL but don’t get all vocal about it BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO (sorry about the caps, I just wanted to yell there). You don’t brag about washing your hands after going to the bathroom, why brag about vaccinating your kids? It is only the people going against the scientifically proven norm that have to yell and scream about their choices

Funny I should read this post today. At a mom/baby “support” playgroup I belong to I mentioned that my son was not feeling himself today as he had his 6 month vaccines yesterday. The moms launched into a discussion of vaccines and as it turns out none of them vaccinate their children (one is a pediatric nitse who admits to seeing the bad effects of pertissis in young children, and another is vaccinating on a delayed schedule, which is better than never!). Another mother said, and I quote, “I vaccinated my first daughter as reccomended. Then I became more educated and my second daughter received no vaccinations.” Needless to say I really felt like she was calling me stupid for choosing to protect my child.
It’s because of children like ours that are vaccinated that so many of these unvaccinated children are healthy – we essentially create a cushion around them. We are lucky to have many of these vaccines available to us. So many less fortunate people in other countries do not have such a luxury.

I love you, Madeline. The end. :-D
Side note: Terrified that I will give my kids pertussis, because I can’t be vaccinated due to allergies. Thank you to all of you who DO get the immunizations since I can’t!

I am one of those ones that don’t vaccinate my children. You may call me selfish, but maybe hold off on calling the 1,000 mother’s that have lost their babies to SIDS, all who received the pertussis vaccine within 7 days of their death, selfish for not vaccinating their other children. Vaccines alone are not the only cause to the decline in our health, but play a role. 90 % of all these diseases were already in a heavy and steady decline before the vaccines were actually introduced to the masses.We are trading diseases – Cancer, heart disease, neurological disorders, auto-immune disorders to skin disorders, allergies, ear infections, digestive issues and so on – all things connected to ingredients in vaccines and the other chemicals we are subject to on a daily basis. 1 in 6 kids have a neurological disorder ranging from learning disorders to Autism. And no Mercury has not been debunked. In fact 6 studies over the last few months show otherwise. And it isn’t just the mercury that is in the vaccines, but maybe look at all the other medicines that have mercury in them. They all stack on top of each other. And the scientists and doctors that are speaking out against vaccination aren’t ignoring facts, the are paying closer attention to what the data is saying. If you want the truth about vaccines, go to a source that doesn’t make anything from them. Call me stupid but I am not comfortable injecting formaldehyde, aluminum phosphates and sulfates, mercury, MSG, chick kidney cells, human serum, monkey brains and many other chemicals into my children’s bloodstream directly. And the other amazing thing, is my kids don’t get sick. Maybe a runny nose for a day in the winter and that is it. What it all comes down to is our health, what we are and aren’t putting into our bodies. And it is more than just “eating right and exercising” We have amazing access to what the body can do on it’s own given the proper nutrition and that is what is being ignored. I have been studying this topic for 4 years now, and I have yet to find any data showing me that vaccines are safe and completely do the job they say they do. It would be better if they were used the way they were created to be used – to be given only when someone HAD the disease. And remember – the creator of the live polio vaccine is the first to tell you it is the reason there is still polio cases. Atypical measles is only found in people who received the measles vaccine and is more dangerous. And those who receive the small pox vaccine and live virus swine flu vaccine are contagious for 21 days – defeats the purpose a little bit doesn’t it? But again, I am one of those that uses herbs and essential oils, natural methods to taking care of my family, we don’t get sick and enjoy our good health, where the majority of those that are vaccinated don’t. But that doesn’t mean anything to anyone I guess.

Thank you for this article. I am so tired of parents who are anti-vax coming down on people who don’t subscribe to the current trendy theory that vaccines are bad.

The difference between a 70% vaccination rate and a 90% vaccination rate is an epidemic in which up to 50% of the population gets sick. While it is true that you can carry and spread a disease while vaccinated, if fewer people have the disease to begin with, fewer people are carrying it around. Consequently, fewer people get sick.

Rhogam which is given routinely to pregnant women who are RH Negative in pregnancy is loaded with mercury in the form of thimerisol. There’s no statistically significant proof that these mercury injections are harming women or their babies, but vaccines–even vaccines that are now thimerisol free–are the Big Bad Wolf.

If Mercury were the culprit, we would have seen a huge spike in Autism in the 1970′s when the MMR became a widespread vaccine. And yet, even though vaccination rates are now falling, and even though longitudinal research in Denmark where vaccines are government paid and government tracked demonstrates no correlation between the MMR and autism, it appears that we have not yet seen the top of the spike in Autism diagnosis. Autism is becoming so widely diagnosed that legislation in schools regarding who gets services are becoming stickier and children who truly need services are losing them. They are now saying that 1 in 20 children is on the Spectrum. That means Autism is now falling nicely on the normal curve and people are being diagnosed right out out of a disability status.

It couldn’t be that we are recognizing intellectual diversity that we used to not see, and now giving it a label and a package of therapy services? Or that quirky people who might not interact socially now have more options to socially interact with others (internet) and their offspring are not only quirky but have clinical needs? Somehow people view it as more likely the vaccines that show no statistical correlation to the incidence or longitudinal data.

I agree–people have never seen an epidemic. They have never been quarantined in their homes for weeks, in fear that a loved one will die Unfortunately they are starting to see their children die–in my area its in the form of Pertussis that babies are catching from their parents who haven’t kept up on their boosters.

Maybe I would have an easier time with this issue if people who don’t vaccinate would keep their kids home with every sniffle. I can’t go to the grocery store without hearing someone or their child hacking up a lung. Moms send their kids to school knowing they have strep in fear they will lose their job if they stay home with them. If we can’t reliably practice good hygiene habits with basic illnesses like rhinovirus and strep, what makes us people think they can be responsible about something that could kill my infant or my grandma?

Pro-vac. All the way. I think the reason why people like me don’t comment on the
“anit-vac” sites or articles is that we just assume that the pseudo-science and made-up “facts” sound as ridiculous to others as they do to us, and I don’t make a habit of arguing with the idiotic.

Thank GOD for a blogger with some good sense! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Jenny McCarthy has been incredibly detrimental to public health. There’s a documentary called “Vaccine Wars” or something like that and it gets my hackles up every single time I try to watch it all the way through.

Some people might consider me borderline crunchy (although if they knew me better, they would also realize I love cheap beer, Facebook and I faithfully recycle my pop cans just for the money!) I use cloth diapers. I breastfeed. I make my babies food. I have a garden in my backyard. I do these things because I think they are best for my family. And never did I ever consider not vaccinating my baby!
In my pre-babe life, I was a kindergarten teacher, and in my pre-kindergarten teaching days, I worked for FSCD (Family Service for Children with Disabilities) and I have been to many oh many OH MANY a conference regarding children with autism. And guess what, folks? The man who did the study linking vaccines to autism admitted that he MADE THAT UP. That’s right, MADE THAT UP. So now we are all supposed to freak out because some man DIDN’T prove that vaccines cause autism? Right.
In my last year teaching, we had a chicken pox outbreak in our school. Of the 52 kids I taught, almost a quarter of them had never been vaccinated. What?! Why?! Since I was all fatted up and pregnant, surrounded by wee ones contagious with the pox, my principal kept sending me home JUST IN CASE something happened and it harmed my baby. Were the odds of me contracting chicken pox as an adult who has already had it slim? You bet. But could it happen? Yep. And wouldn’t I feel like a douche for not doing EVERYTHING I could to prevent it.

Good for you for posting this blog.

Kerissa and Kellan, thanks for being so strong and for being the only ones to put an anti-vaccine voice on this thread. It’s people like you that remind me of why I made my choice not to vaccinate my son, and build my confidence in my decision. and like you, i have seen all the other 6 months old who have been vaccinated be CONSTANTLY sick with something or another, and my son had one runny nose for 2 days….

Vaccines are a tough one for me. My daughter, who is my first baby, has gotten all the vaccines so far (she’s 14 months). After every vaccination, she was a little clingy, pretty sleepy, but for the most part, there were no real side effects. When she went in for her 12 month check up though, she got her MMR, her varicella (chickenpox) and her Hep B. Almost exactly a week later, she was sicker than a dog. Luckily, her fever never rose above 103, but for 3 or 4 days, I did nothing but rock her and watch movies. She was so miserable. No matter what the doctors kept telling me, I know that it was a side effect from the vaccines. My only concern with vaccines is that doctors try to give them too many at once. I wish they would spread them out so that those poor little bodies aren’t exposed to so much so fast. Other than that, I think vaccines are a good thing that protect against illness.

I mostly read your style blog, but I clicked on this link with joy to see that you had written it.

I always knew I liked you ;) Fight the good fight.

Dear Kerissa and Kellan and Chelsey,

Since arguing with you would be like arguing with someone who is trying to tell you they sky is purple I will just say this…YOU ARE IDIOTS. Obviously you three are completely uneducated. At least be wise enough to keep your kids away from others.

Thank you so much for this article! One thing I’ve really struggled with is that fact that most people my age (early 30s) were vaccinated with very little issue. My sister in law has chosen not to vaccinate her children. There was a measles outbreak at the school they attend and she was very lucky that her kids didn’t get it. My first baby is due in a couple weeks and my husband and I plan on the normal vaccinations, however, I’m very nervous about having my baby around my unvaccinated nieces and nephews until she’s old enough to be fully vaccinated. I think part of the reason this is such a sensitive topic is that parent’s that don’t vaccinate their kids don’t just risk their own children’s health, but those around them that are too young to be vaccinated or who have compromised immune systems.

P.S. Kellan’s article is from the NIH, about as peer-reviewed and reputable as it gets, folks.

First of all, do your research. Not all parents who have seen vaccines destroy their child can be wrong. I watched it happen. How do you know that an unvaccinated child is the “one” who is spreading the disease? Do you even know what is in the shots you are giving your children? How bout parts of human cells from aborted babies? Or formaldehyde? Oh, what about the parents that have lost their children by death after a vaccination? Why would they have a place to report these incidents if they did not really happen? Also, we live in a drug world here in America…do you really think they are going to slice their own life line by telling you the dangers or ingredients?

Coming up on 4 month shots (1/10/12). I don’t want my little Sweet Pea getting any serious illnesses this head clod is more than enough for us.

Whether you are pro-vaccine or not I think this is a really great article that covers both sides & why parents need to be better educated before their baby is born. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=straight-talk-about-vaccination&offset=2

You are knowingly putting others in danger if you don’t vaccinate…plain and simple.