...Through all of this, Shannon rarely mentions the conversation she had with her pediatrician. In fact, she admits that her doctor was young and not very experienced. Shannon courageously accepts complete responsibility for the fact that she did not vaccinate her daughter. Today, she chooses not to focus on anger or fear. Instead, she is committed to sharing her story in order to spare others the grief she has endured. She is not bitter. She is not judgemental. She only wants to protect others.
Personally, I was happy to see that she was there in MN to share her daughter’s story…again. I’m sure not a day goes by that she doesn’t wish she could change the past, but for Shannon and other parents who have lost their children, the hope is in the future. This is not about fear. This is about trying to reduce the fear by better protecting the ones we love through vaccination.
http://shotofprevention.com/2011/04/29/moms-who-vaccinate-and-those-who-wish-they-had/
From Darlene’s Musings
http://muppetsmom.blogspot.ca/2011/05/moms-who-vaccinate.html
While I am very, very sorry for this woman’s loss of her child, words cannot even begin to properly express how very, very insulted and angered I was by this article. The article is full of incorrect information and complete, utter garbage. The author of the article continually displays throughout the article a complete lack of knowledge of vaccines, illness and disease.
http://shotofprevention.com/2011/04/29/moms-who-vaccinate-and-those-who-wish-they-had/
“… we must actively promote vaccines…most parents do not fear the actual diseases.”
That is false. Most parents that are educated about vaccines, and who choose not to vaccinate, are concerned about the possibility of their child catching any serious illness or disease, but are fully aware of how imperative and beneficial a strong, healthy immune system is.
“…people don’t… realize that children can still contract these diseases.”
Yes, children can in fact catch many diseases, and most non-vaccinating parents are very well aware of that. However, if the author of this article had actually read a little and actually researched what the hell she was talking about, she would have discovered that the majority of children that are contracting these “vaccine preventable diseases and illnesses” are the very same children who are receiving vaccines.
“…fear is … what motivates people to refuse vaccines. Fear of what most parents…don’t understand; the ingredients and the side-effects.”
The majority of parents that choose not to vaccinate are parents that have thoroughly educated themselves about vaccines and the very real medical concerns and risks associated with vaccines. Non-vaccinating parents do not act in fear, but in knowledge, sound medical knowledge. It is typically vaccinating parents that act out of fear. They will vaccinate their child simply because “the doctor advised it”. Parents that choose to vaccinate are led to believe that “good, responsible parents vaccinate”, and are lied to and convinced that “vaccines will keep their child healthy”. Has the author of this article even bothered to read any vaccine inserts to see for herself exactly what very severe, debilitating neurotoxins are in these “safe” vaccines? In all likelihood, my guess is that no she did not.
She states in her article, “While some may believe fear to be an effective motivator, it is not the only way to generate a response.”
No? Is her article not placing fear into parent’s minds? The fear of losing their child because the child is not vaccinated? That’s exactly what it does. The entire article presents the false belief that “vaccines save lives”, that “responsible” parents vaccinate, and that “choosing not to vaccinate your child puts them at risk of catching and dying from vaccine preventable disease”. The article is then accompanied by a very, very short clip of a grieving mother talking about losing her daughter, and a woman with a stethoscope around her neck….a doctor? Saying that you should vaccinate your child. There is no discussion or any mention of any type of medical statistics or anything to back up what they’re telling you. Yet in all reality, the likelihood of any child actually catching the illness this woman’s child caught and dying from it is statistically very, very low. It is however statistically much higher, and more likely that a child that does receive the vaccine can develop a very severe vaccine reaction, including the possibly of it resulting in death.
The author however did state, “… let me acknowledge the fact that…because someone is not vaccinated doesn’t…ensure that they will contract a vaccine preventable disease. Hardly the case.” EXACTLY! I notice that she does not state anywhere in her article the very real fact that vaccinating your child does not mean that they will be completely immune and not catch the disease or illness that they are being vaccinated for. She also makes no mention that most, if not all of the current outbreaks of illness and disease are occurring only amongst the vaccinated.
As for the author’s very ignorant comment, “The majority of unvaccinated people are fortunate enough, (due…to the herd immunity that is provided them by the rest of the vaccinated population), is complete lack of any knowledge on her part. Did the writer of this article even bother to research anything prior to writing her article? If she did, then she would have learned that the herd immunity theory was, in fact, about natural disease processes and had NOTHING to do with vaccination whatsoever! It was a theory that was introduced by a researcher named Hedrich, long before vaccinations even existed!
It was many years later that developers of vaccines adopted the phrase, and with no scientific justification as to why, stated that there had to be 95% vaccine coverage to achieve immunity. So, essentially, they took Hedrich’s study and manipulated it to promote their vaccination programs. (Monthly Estimates of the Child Population “Susceptible” to Measles 1900-1931, Baltimore, MD, AW Hedrich, American Journal of Epidemiology, May 1933-Oxford University Press.)
I find it so utterly ironic that parents will panic at the mere mention of any toy or item that may contain lead, even if the chance is very, very slim or even highly unlikely that their child will even develop any reaction or toxicity to the lead in that item or toy. Manufacturers and toy companies will always err on the side of caution as well, and recall any toy or item that may contain lead, for fear of the slightest possibility that a child could be harmed, and possibly develop lead poisoning.
Now, what exactly are the symptoms of lead poisoning? It depends on the child. A child could have a very high blood level of lead and yet may not exhibit any symptoms at all, or the exposure to the lead could result in any or all of the many symptoms of lead poisoning, including abdominal pain, constipation, and loss of appetite, agitation, lethargy, and even seizures.
You could easily argue as many people who advocate for vaccines do and say, “Well, what are the ‘safe’ levels of lead?” Since many pro-vaxxers will argue that vaccines and the toxins they contain are within “allowable”, “safe” limits. Yet every child is different, and what is a non-toxic level in one child, could be a level that is deadly toxic in another.
Okay, well to use that stupid argument, rather than throw any item away that may contain lead, simply have your child’s blood levels checked for lead, and not worry as long as your child’s blood levels of lead remain low, and the child does not demonstrate any symptoms of having lead poisoning. But no parent would ever do that and take that risk with their child’s health. And in all reality, there really is no defined level of lead which is said to be safe. And that is true for most, if not all of the additives/ingredients in vaccines.
However, erring on the side of caution, most, if not all parents will feel keeping an item or toy containing lead, no matter how small the exposure, is not worth the real possible health threat it could pose to their child, and will throw the item away. Yet, will not have this same rule of thought when it comes to injecting their child with vaccines that contain very real toxins and poisons, that primarily attack the brain and nervous system and can wreak far worse havoc than any exposure to lead ever could. And no one, not even your child’s doctor will know at what level these toxins in the vaccines will be lethal to your child, since every single child will react differently. Still, vaccinating parents continually take that risk.
The resultant damage, including brain death, from the toxins in vaccines can vary from mild enough not to be apparent, through to severe, and in possibly death. You cannot inject a living being with these toxins and poisons and expect there to be no adverse effect at all.
However, that claim is continually not supported by current research. Yet most, if not all people, whether they be doctors, pharmacists and/or the very developers of these vaccines that speak out against vaccines, or question their safety, become ridiculed by the big pharmaceutical companies. Any and all research or statistics gets discredited or destroyed. Their name gets slandered. Their credibility and reputation destroyed. Why is that? Why is it that any parent that questions vaccines, and chooses not to vaccinate because of the overwhelming evidence that vaccines are not effective and their safety not proven, is labeled “a quack”, or “irresponsible”, and their non-vaccinated child labeled “a threat to the vaccinated”.
1. How effective are they?
2. How dangerous is the disease?
3. How dangerous is the vaccine?
4. Are combination vaccines more dangerous?
5. What are the alternatives to vaccination?
Scientific literature is far from conclusive on the effectiveness of vaccinations. Reports vary, claiming anything from 20-90% effectiveness, depending on the vaccine. The fact is however, many epidemic diseases come in cycles, and have declined due to improvements in sanitation, as well as isolation of those people infected with the disease, not because of the vaccines.
A case in point is the 1870-1872 smallpox epidemic in England. The outbreak claimed 44,000 lives, even though most of the population had been vaccinated. During the next outbreak in 1892, the town of Leicester decided against vaccination on the grounds that it didn’t work, and instead relied only on sanitation and isolation. This outbreak saw just 19 cases and one death per 100,000. Compare this to nearby Warrington that had six times as many cases and eleven times the death rate, even though 99 percent of its population had been vaccinated. [Campaign against Fraudulent Medical Research Newsletter 2(3):5-13 (1995), quoting statistics from the London Bills of Mortality 1760-1834 and Reports of the Registrar General 1836-1896, as compiled by Alfred Wallace in The Wonderful Century (1898)]
And, despite the use of vaccination, the incidence of many infectious diseases still continues to rise and fall. For example, in the United States, the incidence of measles continued to rise all the way into the 1990s, despite the introduction of the vaccine in 1957. And in England in the 1970s, deaths from pertussis (whooping cough) dropped only after the vaccination rate dropped by 30%.
Measles, mumps, smallpox, whooping cough, polio, and meningitis outbreaks have all occurred in vaccinated populations. In 1989, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported, “Among school-aged children, [measles] outbreaks have occurred in schools with vaccination levels of greater than 98 percent. [They] have occurred in all parts of the country, including areas that had not reported measles for years.” The CDC even reported a measles outbreak in a population that had been 100 percent vaccinated. A study examining this outbreak found, “The apparent paradox is that as measles immunization rates rise to high levels in a population, measles becomes a disease of immunized persons.”
Finally, there is the age old false belief that the “success” story for vaccination is polio. Yet, during a 1962 U.S. Congressional hearing, Dr. Bernard Greenberg, head of the Department of Biostatistics for the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, testified that cases of polio not only increased after mandatory vaccinations-up 50% from 1957 to 1958, and up 80% from 1958 to 1959 — but that the statistics were deliberately manipulated by the Public Health Service to give the opposite impression.
Because vaccinations for polio are for specific strains of polio microbes that are permanently evolving and changing, there’s no guarantee of protection. Infact, an outbreak of polio occurred in Taiwan, where 98% of young children had been immunized. [Patriarca, P.A. 1994. Polio outbreaks: a tale of torment. Lancet 344(8923):630-631]
In 1961, a polio outbreak in Massachusetts resulted in more cases of paralysis among those vaccinated than those who were not. [James, W. 1988. Immunization: The Reality Behind the Myth. Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT.] And another study found that three out of five Americans who had contracted polio during foreign travel had previously been vaccinated. [Strebel, P.M., et al. 1992. Epidemiology of poliomyelitis in the United States one decade after the last reported case of indigenous wild virus-associated disease. Clin Infect Dis 14:568-579
Arguably, some diseases are more life threatening, and more prevalent, than others. For example, measles and mumps are very common, yet are rarely fatal, except in poorly nourished infants with compromised immune systems. Therefore, if your child is optimally nourished, you can make a good case for choosing not to vaccinate.
According to medical studies, whooping cough is no longer a serious threat to the life and health of children. Among well-nourished children in the U.K., there were no cases of brain damage or death in any children during three different outbreaks in the country. However, more adults have contracted whooping cough since the introduction of early immunization, which may suggest that the vaccine is not suppressing the disease.
As well, the vaccine for whooping cough, accounts for more than half of all reported reactions to vaccinations. Since whooping cough is rarely deadly among well-nourished children, there is a serious question in regards to the benefits of the vaccine in view of its known risks. According to research, a child vaccinated against whooping cough is 50% more likely to develop asthma or allergies later in life. This may be because the whooping cough vaccine promotes an abnormally strong immune response to potential allergens such as pollen or gluten, and may disturb early immune programming
Tetanus is even rarer, and, when treated correctly, 90% of people recover. As well, tetanus can be easily controlled. You can massively reduce the risk simply by cleaning wounds properly.
Meningitis most often affects children between the ages of 6 to 12 months, with 75% of all cases occurring before the age of two. Lack of hygiene in day care centers is partly blamed for the spread of the disease.
More recently the focus was on a new form of meningitis caused by the bacteria Neissetia meningirides-meningitis C. While much rarer, it can be fatal about 10% of the time. Unfortunately, these vaccines are still so new, it is still hard to say how effective they are and what side effects they may have.
For example, most vaccines contain a germicidal compound called thimerosal, which consisted-in part-of mercury. Many vaccines also contain formalin, a 37% solution of formaldehyde, the main ingredient of embalming fluid! Many vaccines also contain phenol or ethylene glycol, the main component found in antifreeze! While all of these ingredients are disturbing, thimerosal is particularly concerning, not only because mercury is a highly toxic element, but many, many children are allergic to this compound.
A recent investigation into thimerosal and the neurological development of children found that the sum total of mercury an average child would receive from normally recommended vaccinations, far exceeds the Federal Safety Guidelines for orally ingested mercury, and is in fact correlated with a greater risk for neurodevelopmental disorders. Galer, M.R and Galer, D.A. 2003. [Thimerosal in childhood vaccines, neurodevelopment disorders and heart disease in the United States. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 8(1):6-11]
As for Combination Vaccines, no one yet really knows the combined risks of having a number of vaccinations. Two of the most common combination vaccinations MMR and DPT, were thoroughly investigated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In monitoring 500,000 American children after vaccination, 34 major side effects were identified, the most common being seizures. Researchers found that the day after a DPT shot, children were three times more likely to have a fit. After the MMR injection, fits were 2.7 times higher after 4-7 days and 3.3 times higher after 8-14 days. And that’s just seizures. In some cases, DPT reactions have resulted in permanent neurological damage (1 in 30-50,000 children vaccinated) and even death.
Meanwhile, the link between MMR and the risk of autism is growing. According to a statistical analysis published in a recent issue of the Lancet, the correct interpretation of the statistical data from currently published studies show an appreciable number of autism cases being triggered by MMR vaccination.
It only makes sense that a child’s developing, immature immune system is more likely to react to a combination of infectious agents delivered in one vaccination. Vaccinations also have the very real possibility of overloading an immune system, resulting in toxic damage to their nervous system and brain.
Really the best alternative to vaccination is to simply ensure that your child has a robust immune system. For infants, there is no better way to strengthen their immunity than through breastfeeding. While breastfeeding for at least their first year of life is most optimal; any breastfeeding your child receives is most beneficial in helping your child develop a healthy, strong immune system. As for an older child who is weaned, you can help to ensure immunity by providing an optimal intake of immune boosting nutrients found in a variety healthy, nutritious foods. .
Most importantly, use your common sense. The truth is, we do not have all the answers and do not know the long term consequences of mass immunization. This is why some pediatricians are opting against vaccinations. In the meantime, gather all the information you can, then allow the facts rather than fear or social pressure guide your decision.
http://muppetsmom.blogspot.ca/2011/05/moms-who-vaccinate.html