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I don’t immunize my children. And before many of you start with the finger wagging, let me tell you: it wasn’t a decision I came to lightly. After agonizing and weighing the benefits and the risks, I decide against immunizing. Yep, there are a couple of vaccines that do I allow my kids to receive, but for the most part we are an immunization-free family.
For me, what it came down was the idea that I’m not willing to gamble with the health of my children. End of story. I’m okay with other people’s decision to vaccinate. I’m sure that they weighed their options the same way I did. And really, I don’t fault them for coming to a different conclusion than I apparently have. That’s the beauty of America — we don’t have to have the same ideas or practice the same brands of livelihood.
However, there is been a lot of debate as to whether or not the rise in autism has been spurred on by childhood immunizations. Most people seem to believe that there is no connection. But I think in some cases, there is. And I’m not the only one, either: perhaps the recent lawsuit against the federal government in which a family of an …
… autistic child earned a whopping 1.5 million may change a few minds on the topic of whether or not immunizations play a role — no matter how minor — in the childhood development of autism.
At nineteen months Hannah Poling was a normal toddler. At a doctor’s appointment, her pediatrician noted that she was alert and well-spoken. That very same day she received 5 different shots containing nine immunizations.
Hannah’s body did not react well.
“My daughter, who had been completely normal until getting nine vaccinations in one day, was suddenly no longer there,” said Terry Poling, Hannah’s mother.
Now, eight years later Hannah has permanent brain damage and autistic-like symptoms.
It appears that Hannah had an underlying cell disorder that her parents and doctor were unaware of. When coupled with the drugs in the immunizations she received, she was caused irreparable damage.
Though Hannah’s parents may be resenting the fact that they allowed their child to be immunized, it is a victory of sorts for certain people in that this is the first court case that has acknowledged a link between autism and immunizations. As for me? I’d say that this is some pretty heavy evidence pointing to the likelihood of the immunization-autism connection in some children.
I’m not arguing that people should stop immunizing — not at all. My hope and aim is that health officials find a way to diagnose underlying health risks similar to the ones Hannah had. That way children who are susceptible to having severe side effects from immunizations will be spared. I really believe this is the answer to avoiding future cases similar to Hannah Poling’s. No one’s saying to stop certain medical practices — it lies more with making educated decisions than anything else, and really, what’s more important than that?
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Apparently, then, you have a huge misunderstanding about herd immunity, as well as how vaccines work.
-Food allergies, germophobia, bleach, etc. Those are, yes, meant to kill germs, and therefore, in some schools of thought, prevent the immune system from ever encountering said germs, and becoming hypersensitive and overactive. Has nothing to do with herd immunity.
-Vaccines, on the other hand, contain the samples of the viruses that are going to be inoculated against. They exercise the immune system by providing a very controlled, specific quantity of a weakened pathogen for the body to learn how to fight against.
In other words, bleach and anti-microbial soaps don’t teach the immune system anything, providing no examples, and babying them and letting them get fat while the real action takes place elsewhere. Vaccines, on the other hand, educate the immune system via example, working and taxing the immune system, helping it learn tactics to cope with any actual, future infection of said viruses.
Why does this work against Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, Smallpox, Viral Meningitis and the like, as opposed to the flu and colds and bacterial meningitis? Well, unlike the flu and the cold, there are comparatively few strains of the MMR diseases, and they do not mutate very frequently. Flus and colds, on the other hand, are actually caused by a whole host of different viruses and bacteria, which mutate very easily, very frequently, and are actually caused by many different families of pathogens that aren’t necessarily related outside of the symptoms they cause. This is why flu vaccines change year on year, and this is also why the flu vaccines do not always prevent contraction of the disease (as the vaccines do not vaccinate against all strains of the illness), whereas MMR and the like don’t.
Additionally, because there are so many different kinds of germs that cause flus and colds, one actually ends up catching a *different* strain each time–which is why they’re so difficult to cure and so difficult to prevent. Measles and the like, however, don’t change nearly as often, so once the body learns how to fend them off, whether it be by natural infection or vaccine, generally there’s no cause for concern of re-infection.
I explain all this to lead to an explanation of herd immunity. The concept of herd immunity, which has been verified and explored in many different systems, from biological to synthetic, holds that once a vast majority of a population is inoculated against a particular disease (usually at least 80%), if a non-inoculated member of that population *remains* within that group, they effectively have immunity as well. It is not akin to a well-armed village: if a criminal knows that 90% of the homeowners have guns and the wherewithal to fight them off, they are unlikely to successfully steal from the community; thus, even the households that do not have guns are protected.
What screws up herd immunity, however, is when those non-inoculated members of the population leave temporarily, entering a non-immune population before returning; because they lack immunity, they are much more likely to contract and carry the disease, which then, upon returning to their normal home, spreads to other non-immune members, and then, if a critical point is reached, starts striking even the previously immune members under the sheer weight of their assault. To continue the previous analogy, in this case, the criminals have a traitor on the inside, who informs them who else is susceptible to them–and once enough places have been struck, the defended houses quickly find themselves stretched too thin to adequately defend themselves all the time.
In short, vaccinating the crud out of the entire population actually helps boost immune systems, unlike bleaching things and anti-microbial treatments. As far as your cavalier attitude towards the deaths of *other* children, all in the name of a vague concept of stronger immune systems (of which you seem to have many misconceptions)… well, if you can live with the “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” logic, then how about I flip it around? Not immunizing leads to death of a few. Immunizing has no causative relation to the problems people attribute to it, but all of those problems are still comparatively less *fatal*.
If and when I get to the point of having my children, you can bet I will immunize them. If, then, they catch something like Pertussis, or Measles, or something that is actually very preventable, and suffer greatly? I would destroy everything the person whose inconsiderate, irresponsible, and anti-scientific behavior causes my child to suffer holds dear. Any monetary rewards would, of course, go directly to vaccination programs, an appropriate, worthwhile cause.
“The rejection of science in this country is absolutely crazy to me sometimes.”
This. If I come across as nasty or tactless, it’s because I’m fed up with this.
So. Angry.
To Alzaetia
I haven’t studied American law, but it it works similarly, malicious intent is not needed. In criminal law, you must prove both the crime and the intent, but in civil law, you must merely show that harm was done – it doesn’t matter whether or not the person meant it.
I still don’t think it is valid. I think it is dangerous for people not to vaccinate – for their kids’ and the population’s sake, but I can’t sue someone for passing on to me the flu, even if it manages to kill me, and I can’t do that about a vaccinatable illness either.
Then again, you can sue for contraction of some STDs, can’t you? so perhaps this IS getting blurry. What standard are they using, ‘transmission of things is only wrong if they are likely to kill’?
Yay to anem0ne for an excellent piece by piece explanation. ‘Herd Immunity’ is about the vaccinations, and has nothing to do with any other anti-illness issues.
Also, herd immunity protects the people who aren’t able to be immunized. but it only works when the immune percentage of the population is sufficiently high. As long as it is, disease doesn’t go anywhere. Once it drops below a critical point (the exact number is currently up for debate), the herd protection ceases to exist, and every man (or infant) is on his own.
This is happening in the United States right now.
So many people have such a poor grasp on statistics, reasoning, the scientific method, logic, and science in general. this keeps showing up in the Western World, and the United States worst of all.
It’s terrifying for the future.
It’s why I defend logic, and take issue with minor points in arguments and such.
Science matters.
I understand the theory behind vaccines but what I don’t like is that we’re still “dumbing down” our immune systems. I’m not against the vaccine for polio or MMR, etc, which I’ve posted before on this thread but I fully don’t expect you to have noticed that as this is turning into an epically long list of responses. I however take issue with vaccines for the flu and for chicken pox and the fact that we inundate tiny bodies with so many at once. I also take issue with vaccines that have been around for less than 5 years, only 1 year in commercial use, that are already becoming mandatory for girls under the age of 13 in a number of US states. Looking at you HPV.
I used to get the flu vaccine since I was 8 and every year I would get the world’s worst cold. I mean literally the underside of my nose and my filtrum would gush blood and I’d have to go to bed with desitin on it. Then I started to get suspicious that it was because of my flu vaccine. I went without it one year. Turned out to be the best decision of my life. Every year my cold was less intense until now, I don’t even get that cold anymore. My theory, as is my doctors, is that I was being exposed to a virus strain different enough to the ones I was vaccinated for so that my vaccination-generated antibodies couldn’t squash it and my training-wheeled immune system couldn’t completely deal with it either.
To date, I’ve never gotten the flu. I have been exposed to people with the flu. I have taken care of sick kids with the flu because their working parents couldn’t be home with them (no, I didn’t give it to them I was called in after the kid got sick). I’ve never known anyone who’s gotten the flu who didn’t also have the vaccine.
What you may see as malicious and irresponsible in me not having vaccines I make up for in common sense and decency that I see a lot of my fellow man lacking when it comes to germs. For example, what if: Parents actually kept their sick kids out of school and daycare. People sneezed into their elbows instead of their hands. Public and private companies were less stingy with their sick days and people actually stayed home when they were contagious. People stopped going to their doctor at first sign of a cough or cold to keep contagious germs out of places frequented by others with compromised immune systems. People stopped using antibacterial hand sanitizer and actually washed their hands!
How many more lives could we save then?
As I stated in my post, I was using the bleach example as an ANALOGY for how we are willing to blindly do stupid and sometimes risky things in an effort to make ourselves feel safer and think we’re doing something good. When in fact, in the long term we may be shooting ourselves in the foot.
Did you know that the swine flu ended up killing just as many people as the regular flu did? Did you know that 70 millions doses of swine flu vaccine have expired because they weren’t used? That’s over $400 million that could have been used to save infants, children, adults and the elderly from starvation, thirst, abuse or exposure. Thank god we went through all that to preserve the herd. Can’t wait to see what this years pandemic event will be and how crazed the media will make us all feel and act.
I’m late to the party, but: this seems to me to be a selfish decision. As anem0ne lays out very well, choosing not to immunize your children takes advantage of the herd immunity while simultaneously undermining it. Eventually, if enough parents make this choice, the herd immunity will be compromised. It’s not really an individual choice at that point.
I understand the motivation behind it, but honestly, it’s just bad science; no link has been proven between the MMR vaccine and autism (http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c655.full?fmr. And the correction: http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c1294.full)
I think this argument could go round and round forever. It’s nice to see that people are so passionate about this topic. I just want to clear up one thing, if you took the time to read this post you’d notice that I wrote “There are a couple of vaccines that I do allow my children to receive.” The pertussis vaccine was one of those. Fear not, my kids will not be giving your kids whooping cough.
H1N1 turned out to be not overly of concern. That simply shows that there’s always chance involved. No-one could have known which way it would go, and it was appropriate to take precautions. If governments had chosen not to worry about it at all, and done nothing, it could have been no big deal. Or it could have been a terrible pandemic, and killed many more people. and THEN people would be castigating the government for not doing enough. It’s a no-win situation, and I believe in erring on the side of caution. If nothing else, it was a good practice run for when the next killer-flu DOES come. It’s a normal cycle, and it’s bound to happen sooner or later.
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On the other hand, if it ended up killing the same number of people as a regular flu AFTER all the educating and quarantining and treatment and flu shots, that says that it definitely was worse, and again deserved concern.
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I am not saying that everything needs to be vaccinated. some things are likely and some are not. There is no good reason at all to make an HPV vaccine mandatory, since it is not something that can go around by casual contact. A parent may decide it is something they want, but there is no reason for the school to care. Things that can be passed easily they have reason to get involved with.
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Personally, I don’t get flu vaccines. I have not had influenza in my working memory – which includes pretty solidly anything beyond about eight years old. The chances of me getting it seem pretty low, AND the risks if I do get it don’t seem very high – for me or others.
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I have nothing against reasoned changes to scheduling, or deciding not to skip some lesser ones. But not vaccinating due to fear of autism, or other unscientific unpossibilities is stupid.
Here is another story on a disease supposedly eradicated by immunizations
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhealth/measles-outbreak-how-to-protect-yourself
People will never learn.
I can understand people not wanting to get their children vaccinated. My son will not have the MMR or the whooping cough one. After doing my own research into what goes into a vaccination not sure he will be getting any more either.
In 1978, a survey of 30 States in the US revealed that more than half of the children who contracted measles had been adequately vaccinated. (The People’s Doctor, Dr R Mendelsohn)….so do they work??
http://www.wellnesschiro.com/physicians_group_end_mandatory_vaccines.htm….these aren’t crackpots!…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-388051/Scientists-fear-MMR-link-autism.html
I have three older children, they didn’t have the whooping cough, measles or rubella vaccination. I now have a little one and the same goes for him. Two of my older children had whooping cough and yes it was awful, but one little one that I knew had the vaccination still caught it and ended up deaf through it..yet she was vaccinated! All three of my older ones have had measles and rubella…they are now supposed to be immune for life..unlike the vaccination which only gives lifelong immunity to about 95% of the population.