Ok, let's start with one of my BIGGEST parenting pet peeves: anti
vaccination activists. 99% of anti vaccine activists that I have spoken
to spread nothing but misinformation and have no clue what they're
talking about, they just jumped on the bandwagon because it's the "in"
thing to do and are repeating whatever they were told by Google or their
neighbor or a Facebook page. If you're going to make a life decision
like that, AT LEAST do your research. And when I say research, I don't
mean some site written by a nutritionist who never went to medical
school, or by a celebrity or a therapist. I mean a real doctor or a
scientist.
These are some examples of reasons you SHOULD vaccinate your children, and also corrections to many anti-vaccine myths:
1. Vaccines do NOT cause autism. Autism is genetic, not related to
vaccines at all. The man who came out with the British study "proving" a
link between the two, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, was outed as a complete
fraud, and anybody who still believes that crap is a complete idiot. A lot of people like to say he was discredited on purpose and act like it was some big conspiracy, when in reality he went on CNN and admitted that he falsified results.
MMR vaccine and autism
CNN article calling British Study Linking Vaccines and Autism an Elaborate Fraud
2.When more and more people stop vaccinating, herd immunity dies, which
puts people who are immune compromised and can't get the vaccines at far
greater risk of developing infectious diseases that they would
otherwise have been protected from.
3. When people tell you all about the horrible "poisons" in vaccines,
they fail to take into account the AMOUNT of these chemicals that are
actually in the vaccines, which is SO miniscule that there is no way it
will actually "poison" you.
4. There is no link between SIDS and vaccines. Nobody knows the cause of
SIDS, if they did it wouldn't be called "Sudden Infant Death Syndrome".
The definition of SIDS is when an autopsy cannot determine the cause of
death in the SUDDEN DEATH of an infant. So people swearing that all of
this crap causes SIDS is ridiculous, because there's no way for anyone
to know that.
5. Doctors are not tricking you into vaccinating, they aren't lying to
you, and there is no secret hidden agenda to kill your kid and push
vaccines. My daughter is on Medicaid, do you really think her doctor
makes millions of dollars off vaccinating her? More like losing money.
Doctors are not paid by the number of vaccines they give or
prescriptions they write, so people who say that have absolutely no idea
what they are talking about.
6.Vaccines are so strictly regulated that it takes an average of 15
years and 800 million dollars of the manufacturers money to get a
vaccine licensed. Since 1990, the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) has
collected statistics from more than 7 million people in health plans who
have received vaccines. So after 800 million dollars, 15 years, and 22
years of collecting data, with vaccines still being strongly supported
by the medical community, I'm thinking I'll listen to somebody who went
to medical school over a celebrity or a facebook page, and you should
too.
7. Whenever anyone tells you there is Mercury in vaccines, laugh at
them. A lot. There was never mercury in vaccines, there was a
Mercury-based preservative, Thimerosal, in most vaccines until 2002 when
they started removing it, and as of 2011 the only vaccines that still
contain Thimerosal are multi-dose flu shots and tetanus shots. The
difference between multi-dose and single-dose flu shots is the
packaging, multi-dose is a vial that stores enough vaccine for 10 shots
and therefore needs the preservative to keep it from being contaminated
by bacteria after opening. Single-dose are just what it says, either a
pre-filled syringe or a small plastic container only holding one shot.
If you are really that concerned about the presence of Thimerosal, find a
clinic offering single-dose shots or just don't get a flu shot at all. CDC Thimerosal and Flu Shots
8. Just because somebody's kid happened to die of SIDS 2 days after
getting vaccinated, or developed Tourette's or Asperger's, that does not
mean the vaccine is to blame. That's like saying I ate grapes earlier
and now I have heartburn, obviously grapes cause heartburn let's put an
insert in every grape saying it might give people heartburn. Or hey I
watched a scary movie yesterday and now I have an eczema outbreak, scary
movies must cause eczema. It's ridiculous.
9. Just because the insert says it, that doesn't mean it has actually
been scientifically proven without a doubt to be caused by vaccines. The
FDA wants to cover their asses, and therefore anything that hasn't been
proven NOT to be caused by vaccines that MAY be linked to vaccines is
in the insert. That doesn't mean that when one of the 6,000 rare
possible side effects happens to your kid that the vaccine is definitely
the cause.
10. Doctors do not make money off vaccines. They do not "push" vaccines because they want to line their pockets. Doctors make nothing off vaccines, and the companies that manufacture then actually LOSE money because insurance companies pay less than what it costs to make them. Doctors push vaccines to protect your child and keep them healthy, not to get rich. Immunize For Good Study posted in Pediatrics
11. Some people like to say that people who are vaccinated get sick more often than non-vaccinated people, but that is very untrue. The people who say this fail to take into account that way more people are vaccinated than aren't, and they look at numbers and percentages without figuring that part in. If you have 100 people, 85 of them are vaccinated and 15 are not. Say 10 of the vaccinated people got sick, and only 3 of the non-vaccinated ones did. That makes it look like vaccinated people are more likely to get sick, if you fail to account for the fact that there are 70 more vaccinated than unvaccinated, so if you look at percentages according to how many people there were, 20% of the non-vaccinated people got sick, compared to 11.8% of the vaccinated ones. CDC Common Misconceptions About Vaccinating
These are only a few of the reason why you NEED to vaccinate your
children. I'm going to post a few links below to reputable, informative vaccine sites.
VaccinateYourBaby.org (awesome pro vax site, very informative)
Immunize For Good
CDC
<3 you know I love how you don't beat around the bush with your beliefs :) I'd like to add, because this always comes up, that a CREDIBLE source for vaccine info tells both sides of the story. Vaxtruth.org (a very popular anti vax site) is the most biased website I have ever seen. A credible source gives the pros AND the cons, not just one or the other. This is why I refer to the CDC site so often. They do not deny that there are risks to vaccinating (which happen to be lower than the chance of dying every time you get in a car btw) and they elaborate on the pros and cons, giving charts and statistics. Whenever I see someone siting Vaxtruth.org I skip the entire post. :)
ReplyDelete-Brittany
I wholeheartedly agree. As a nursing student graduating in December (RN), I have been exposed to the parents who refuse to vaccinate their child because of these idiotic 'beliefs' they have. Big science is out to get your kids, eh? Just remember, its big science that is saving the lives of children, as well. Some parents don't want to prevent childhood illnesses by doing the right thing and vaccinating, but the minute their child gets sick, where do they turn? Exactly. There is a particular blogger I follow up on once in a while that is antivacc'er, and it would make your toes curl to read her blog.
ReplyDeleteI love this. I love how you even have links to back your information up properly. Thank you for posting this, I'm going to have to share this with my friends and family. And seriously? Vaccines cause SIDS? Wow, that's completely ridiculous. People really need to use their common sense, oh wait, I forgot, a lot of people don't have common sense anymore. But seriously, like you said, it's SUDDEN, not predicted and prolonged. Keep doing what your'e doing. I love this page!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I plan on updating this post and re posting it every so often.
DeleteDoctors make mistakes. Not long ago, doctors thought that cigarettes were heart healthy, just to find out they are, in reality, horrible for us. No, doctors, as a whole, may not be against us but to say that there have not been doctors that have made mistakes and have been in denial about their mistakes because contradicts their presuppositions, is wrong. Is it not? Have you never made a mistake and been in denial and tried to hide it? Is every single doctor in this world honest and just? Are all doctors simply a doctor just to help people and not for the money? Doctors are human. But there are enough doctors of both ends of this vax/unvax argument to say that something isn't right.
ReplyDeleteEven if you think vaccinate children are as or more healthy than unvaccinated childen let's look at a couple of simple facts: getting a disease like diphtheria, pertussis, measles, mumps, and rubella will cause our bodies to build a life-long natural immunity. Vaccines, well they don't. Our medical community AND hygiene have both improved, thus making these diseases harder to spread - not impossible - but most certainly more difficult. We are also able to cure diseases better than we were even 10 years ago with the advancements we've had in technology alone. So why are we so scared of these diseases? Let's weigh the disease vs the vaccine for a moment. A disease, like the 5 mentioned above, makes us sick, our bodies fight off the disease either by help or with its own awesome ability, and then builds enough immunity to remember that disease was in our body and keep it from entering our body again. We've now built up our immune system... score, one disease stronger. Then, what's even more amazing, we pass off those anti-bodies to our children (especially if we breastfeed). So, what happens when they get that disease? They get a lesser version. Well, one more point for their little immune system, they will never get that disease again, and then they pass on that antibody on to their children. Continue this trend and we've created a civilization (with the help of good hygiene and proper medical care, of course) full of disease fighting super immune people. We saw this trend before vaccines were first introduced. Now, of course, if you look at a little graph, after vaccines came along, it appears that they have eradicated the disease from 10 to 1. However, keeping what I just said in mind, it appears as though our immune systems were getting stronger and we were keeping off the diseases on our own, considering the amount of vaccines that were actually able to get around the whole world in such a short period of time was obviously very little given the means of transportation, communication, technology, and product availability. This is not deniable. This is shown in a graph (for those of us that need a visual). So, let's look at vaccines. You can prove that there are more vaccinated people than not... and yet somehow these diseases are on the rise again. If this is the case, then that proves that vaccines have, in fact, not eradicated the disease, especially given that the CDC itself has said that the declines of the diseases (from the vaccine) did not show up in their graphs until a few years after the vaccines were introduced. So, if vaccines were actually as amazing as they claim, then how can these diseases be on the rise if there are so many vaccinated people vs unvaccinated? Does this not show that our bodies actually have the ability to keep of a disease, with time? And how come we can trust our doctors to protect us from a disease (that has the ability to build our immunity naturally) and not trust them to cure the disease when we get the infection? Doesn't this help us in both ways - build immunity creating amazing antibodies and then using our medical marvels to keep the disease from harming our children? Win-win! Looking at the disease graph, and looking at these simple facts, proves that doctors make mistakes.
(continued...)
Now, let's look at chemicals. Yes, there are chemicals in our vaccines. The entire vaccine is make up of a slew of junk, stuff that shouldn't be in our body. If you put all these chemicals into a fragile, weak newborn the day they come out of a healthy mommy (of course little baby fetus is going to have chemicals if he/she is coming from a less than healthy mommy), add in air pollutants, Monsanto Round-up ridden vegetables, processed food, high sugars, chemicals in soaps, cosmetics, sprays, shampoos, detergents, cleaners, bleach.... you have a gigantic melting pot of gross health. We know all these chemicals are bad. Another undeniable fact. Let's look at the HUUUUUGE and rapid rise in cancer, Alzheimer's, and the thousand of other scary diseases out there right now. Do these chemicals we are putting into our bodies from day 1 really not have an impact on this increase? How is it that so many children, younger and younger, are getting TERMINALLY ill from worse illnesses than just mumps?
ReplyDeleteLet's talk about your flu shot comment. All doctors I know push the flu shot like it's some sort of miracle vaccine, and you aren't following this? If you are questioning the reliability and trustworthiness of the flu shot then how can you believe all vaccines should be given?
Doctors make mistakes. They just removed Mercury in some vaccines because it has been proven, that maybe it doesn't CAUSE Autism, it does activate genes that cause mental disabilities. Just like sugar does not CAUSE ADD, it just may exacerbate the problem. They have admitted they made a mistake. One step in the right direction. But also proving that they are moving step by step, and that they could be completely wrong about vaccines all together! This is undeniable. People make mistakes. It's about accepting our mistakes and moving forward.
I do NOT vaccinate my children. My children will get sick, and when they do, I will be by their side. If need be, I will take them to the doctor, to use that doctor what he is good at, treating an illness. My children will build their immune system naturally. My children will pass on those antibodies to their children and their children will do the same. My children will be a few chemicals further away from cancer.
Weigh the vaccines vs the big picture. Doctors make mistakes. People make mistakes. We have the advancements in technology to understand. We have the technology to help us make better judgement calls and we ARE allowed to question our doctors.
Yeah I am so not going to read all that crap. You just spent way too much time and effort just to tell me how wrong I am.
DeleteI lied I read it and uh, your little theory that more kids are getting sick is ridiculous. No, we have the technology to diagnose more illnesses earlier. I'm sorry that you think it's perfectly acceptable to put everyone else's kids at risk just for your flawed belief system with your Google PhD. I'm so terribly sorry I plan on listening to somebody who went to medical school over some random person on the internet. It's kind of sad though that you would rather buy into a bunch of garbage than listen to somebody who has the education and expertise to prove all of that wrong. Yes, doctors are out to lie to us and kill our children, sounds legit. *rolls eyes* Give me a break. All you are preaching is conspiracy theories and telling me doctors are big fat liars. Ridiculous. And I will not take you seriously. So don't waste both our time.
DeleteRefer back to Stephen's comment on your last post. There are plenty of credible experts that also do not believe vaccines are the right thing to do. Dr. Tenpenny is a very credible doctor, just to name you one, since you didn't like Dr. Mercola.
DeleteI'm definitely not preaching conspiracy theories or saying doctors are liars. Just simply that doctor's make mistakes. Nothing about covering anything up in some elaborate conspiracy. My girls have a wonderful doctor (who also has studied pharmacology) and supports non vaccination. She is not a natural doctor or a chiropractor... she is an MD. If I believe all doctors lie and are all a part of a conspiracy, I would not take my children to one to cure them of their sickness when needed. I do not believe in Dr. Google... I, too, listen to real doctors.
I'm protecting my children from getting harmed by something bigger than a small mumps or measles disease. My friend is immuno-compromised and cannot be around vaccinated children because both the flu and MMR shed, causing her to catch those illnesses. She is also anti-vax. Also, the vaccinated should not be scared of the unvaccinated, because they are vaccinated from the disease...correct?
Incorrect. My daughter is an infant, too young to have gotten all her shots. Now you are SERIOUSLY wasting my time. This isn't a debate, it's a blog post. Don't agree, then don't comment.
DeleteBabies under 12 months have an immunity, ask your doctor.
DeleteOMG. No they do not. Stop commenting my blog and filling it with your stupidity. How many times do I have to say I don't give a crap about anything you have to say before you get the point and shut up? I tried to be nice about it but damn dude, get the point already.
DeleteUm babies DON'T have a natural immunity which is why moms breastfeed to BUILD their immunities! Also if it was true then there wouldn't be any cases of infants dying from diseases...
DeleteWell good for your kids. They may get well again but I hope for your sake they don't infect a baby too young to get a vaccine. That will be on you. You spent way too much time on a response lizz will not take seriously. I am pro-vaccination not only because it protects my kids, but because It helps protect other children as well. The choice to not vaccinate is much bigger than just your child. Maybe you'll remember that next time someone gets your child sick.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I'm leaving since lizz doesn't want drama on her blog. <3
If you want to live in the same society we do, then you should do your part & get your kids vaccinated. Its all flowers & peaches until your child comes up with a really nasty disease, like polio (God forbid, but anything is possible). Do you know the degree that polio can progress to if treatments don't work? Do you really want to take the chance of seeing your child not being able to breathe because their diaphragm is paralyzed? Common sense is obviously not common in this day and age. It seems like you are saying to hell with everyone else's kids, I'm not vaccinating. What if your child had pertussis & you didn't know it, and was around a baby too small to have the vaccine? Your unvaccinated kid JUST spread pertussis to an innocent baby. Yet, all you can blubber is that you are protecting your own kids from 'something bigger' than measles.
ReplyDeleteAnd, FYI, vaccines -usually- work. Doctors don't titer for things like TDAP. The vaccine schedule that works for one child doesn't necessarily work for another one. When they are researching vaccines and trying to find an immunization schedule, they titer and usually stop vaccinating when 97% (I believe its 97%) of kids show a titer. There are a small percentage of kids who have had the vaccine, but are not immune. That is why you hear people sometimes say that their child got the chicken pox but was vaccinated. So, in reply to your pathetic post saying 'the vaccinated should not be scared of the unvaccinated, because they are vaccinated from the disease', before you spew any more of your granola mom crap, do your research. People like YOU are the reason herd immunity is dying off. Idiot.
It disgusts me that so many women have no problem endangering not only their children but everyone else's as well. Sad.
DeletePlease look a mother who has lost a child too young to be vaccinated for whooping cough in the face and tell her that her child had natural immunity. That the fact her child died from a totally preventable disease is all in her head. I've had a newborn THAT sick (not from whooping cough, but from something else almost as serious) and thankfully he recovered. But it was touch and go for a month and it's had lasting effects even 3 years later. I think some of these anti vax people may change their minds if they're ever stuck in a hospital with their little one, waiting and watching for their little bodies to recover from some terrible disease. It's the most terrifying thing in the whole world and I wish it on no one.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could like this comment. Anti-vaxxers seem to forget that measles is not the worst thing that can happen from not vaccinating. I wonder how she would feel is her kid got a horrible disease that could have been prevented and died or was permanently disabled, I'll bet she wouldn't be anti-vax then. Sad that people have no problem endangering their children as well as everyone else's for some ridiculous belief in conspiracy theories and "facts" that are completely unfounded.
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