VACCINES

[Pat]

Discussion, references, inquiries, etc.

[Maureen]

Hi there. I am preggo with my 1st baby (due December) and I am looking for a doctor that will respect my choice to either skip some vaccines and definitely space out the other vaccines. Can anyone recommend anyone? I live in Matthews. Also, if you could direct me to some research to help me in my decision making regarding vaccines, that would be great! Thanks!!

[Gretchen]

Carolina Family Healthcare with Dr. Kanelos. He has offices in Weddington and Ballantyne. His number is 704.847.4000. We do not vax and he has no problem with that. He is also a family doctor - our whole family goes there. If you are looking for just a ped, I know that the doctors at Meridian will delay/no vax. I have no personal experience there though.

A great place to start researching is http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/

Hope this helps.

[Pat]

The best "reputable" information out there that can be used as a valid reason NOT to vaccinate, IMO, is the CDC's own "Pink Book" http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/default.htm and the pharmaceutical manufacturer's product inserts.
http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/package_inserts.htm#Top

Forget autism and thimerosal and all that. Just look at how vaccines were tested. Note the sample size of the "research" studies. Vaccines are tested before marketing, on very few children. Obviously, most parents are not willing to give consent to having brand new vaccines experimented for research on their own child.

Most testing is/was done on small groups of children in HMOs in California. Then they extrapolate the benefits and risks to the other 72,000,000 children receiving vaccines each year in the US. Look where "vaccine preventable diseases" VPD's were headed before introduction of the corresponding vaccine.
http://www.healthsentinel.com/graphs.php

Check how likely it is that you'll ever get any of these diseases.
http://wonder.cdc.gov/mmwr/mmwrmorb2.asp?mmwr_year=2007&mmwr_we...

But, if you are interested in autism and thimerosal.
http://www.homefirst.com/autism_dan_olmstead.html
http://www.homefirst.com/cal-oregon_unvaccinated_survey.html
http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/autismsp.htm

Autism Rates Drop After Mercury Removed From Childhood Vaccines:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/38784.php

Additionally, we are anal; and we actually did the calculations for each disease against which there is a vaccine. We calculated the risks, taking into consideration the risk of contracting the disease within the US population of 300 million, and the occurrence in our young son's age range, and then extrapolating the likelihood, by percentage, of developing the most severe complications (encephalitis, meningitis and death). And the risks were so, so minimal that the uncertain, but untested risk of the vaccines were outweighed by the facts of the disease's relative "danger".

The most damning source of information was the CDC's own site. (And their "Pink Book") Their documentation of the actual incidence of disease and the incidence of complications is minuscule for many of the diseases, despite the proclamations of all the dangers of the disease. And the product insert for each vaccine which lists the
ingredients, contraindications, warnings, side effects, etc. was informative (and disconcerting). And for those diseases with the most dangerous incidence, the vaccines are very *NEW* and under tested; and the system has failed too many individuals to place our son's life in the manufacturer's "post marketing research" trial. But the
manufacturer extrapolates "safety" based upon a short duration of follow up (30 days usually), and generally only healthy children are in the trial. And complications and reactions are notoriously under/unreported in the post marketing population. And, and, and....

Yes, you can contract the disease *from* some of the vaccines.

And you can contract the disease despite some (all/any) of the vaccines. Most outbreaks of VPD are in vaccinated populations.

***The most important thing, imo, if one does choose vaccination is to insist on single disease vaccines, and only one disease exposure at a time. (These must be special ordered, generally.

[Pat]

(apparently, I reached the maximum size limit for a post, lol)

Here is the corrected link about Autism and Mercury from NVIC: http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/Autism.htm


***The most important thing, imo, if one does choose vaccination is to insist on single disease vaccines, and only one disease exposure at a time. (These must be special ordered, generally. And may not be covered by insurance.) And insist on a minimum of 4 weeks after any viral/infections illness before any vaccination; and a minimum of 4 weeks between each vaccine disease exposure. And avoid live virus vaccines.***

"Post-marketing research" is what they call the collection of information of side-effects on children vaccinated in the general public. Your child. However, that is dependent upon pediatricians accurately reporting vaccine side-effects. All side-effects including a fever, sustained crying, disturbed sleep, etc. is required by law to be reported. MANY side effects are not reported, however.

Have you been to the government's own site regarding Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System? VAERS.org. Of course, correlation of injury or side effect after vaccination (within hours, days or weeks) "is not" an indicator of causation. It does when there are repetitive patterns of children having serious complications. And many, many "adverse events" are considered so "normal" they are not reported. And many more are dismissed as "unrelated to the vaccine" and therefore not reported as a "vaccine reaction".

By 2007, the *government* fund had paid out $1.8 billion in damages to
1500 individuals and/or parents for vaccine injuries, including death.

...Oh, and btw, the pharmaceutical manufacturers have no financial liability to make the vaccines safe, they are legally immune from being sued for the dangers of vaccines.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/462542_2

The sheer quantity of disease exposure was astounding to me. About 28 injections and 42 different disease exposures, most before age 2 when the immune system is immature and developing.
http://www.babycenter.com/immunization-scheduler?_requestid=130844

Issues to consider for an "Informed Consent":
http://www.naturalfamilyonline.com/go/index.php/118/how-why-to-rese...

Instead of an issue of *fear*, I made the decision based upon *Trust*. I trust our amazing bodies to address diseases which are acquired naturally, more than I trust our medical system to create a "solution" which is appropriate and safe for every body. I was a critical care nurse for too many years not to be aware of the fallibility of our medical system. I trust my body with reverence!

Pat

[Maureen]

Thank you for all of the information (I've spent a good portion of the day looking at some of these articles). I especially liked the homefirst.com pages and found that to be very useful. It'll take me a while to read the cdc's pink book. I know I'll need more information on how to make this "religious exemption" when it's time to start school, and possibly daycare (I really don't want to use daycare, but we may have to).

[Melissa Dudley]

Dr. Jack Anderson with South Charlotte Primary/Pediatrics. He is officially pro-vaccine BUT he has been seeing my 3 year old son since he was born and totally respects our decision to not vaccine. He also attends to my niece, who is also vaccine-free. 704.752.7000 The clinic is located near the fire station on Hwy 51 near Carmel Road, going toward but not past 485/Carolina Place Mall.

[Laura Anne Farley]

I have heard and read some on the anti vaccine movement. I do vaccinate my kids. Just wanted to get some input from this group. I would think (with my limited education on this) that vaccines would be the lesser of the two evils per say. My sister is a nurse and a lot of my family is in medicine in Europe. I heard that Measles are on the rise again and children are dying. Also, what about if someone brings something like the measles(spelling?) to a school and your child isn't vaccinated? Do you worry about that or not so much? I am just wondering how all that worked. I haven't looked much further into it because I also read that it was mainly in boys and I have 2 girls.

[Maureen]

Laura, I think for me, considering what I know so far, I plan to follow the vaccination plan from the 80's (so I will vaccinate for the diseases that people used to die from, such as polio, mumps and measles), and possibly wait until my baby turns 2 before doing any of these vaccinations. Check out some of the links that Pat posted on this vaccination page and you'll see why I don't want to give all the required vaccinations to my baby. The vaccines they require just are not reasonable-- such as the chicken pox vaccine, and vaccinating my newborn for Hep B..... I do understand that some folks are not getting any vaccinations, but at this point (and I might change my mind)I think I'm going to get some of them, just not all.

[Pat]

We've recently been discussing this on the national Holistic Moms Network. I certainly don't fear measles.

The risk of death is due to a complication secondary to measles, usually in children under age 15 months. Children are not given an initial MMR until age 12-15 months anyway. It doesn't work earlier, incompletely immunizes, therefore multiple doses given. Measles itself is not deadly.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=hstat6.section.1531
http://www.vaccinationnews.com/Scandals/Sept_13_02/Scandal33.htm

The risk of death, secondary to measles is 1-3 people per 1000 CASES of measles. With fewer than 100 cases in the US population, most over the age of 15 months, the risk of death is infinitesimal. http://aapredbook.aappublications.org/cgi/content/extract/2006/1/3.75
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/m/measles/stats.htm

The possibility that anyone in the US could even acquire measles is 0.00000033%. Basically, 1 CASE per 3 million people!

In the US, there are approximately 5 million children, age 15 months and younger. The risk for a child under age 15 months to acquire measles is 1.5 CASES in 5 million children.

Of those 1.5 CASES in children under age 15 months, 0.1% would die each year.

(to check the numbers: there are approximately 300,000,000 people in the US, 1.66% of them are under age 15 months.)

Back when we were evaluating vaccination, we did these calculations for each disease and vaccination.

We don't vaccinate based upon the media fear-mongering. Do the math.
Trust your body.

HTH, Pat

[Pat]

There is an increased risk of complications for most childhood disease if susceptible as an adult. However, with measles it is very clear that supplementation with Vit A will help your body deal with a measles infection. If there is measles near you - I'd get a bottle of Cod liver Oil, preferably without synthetic vit A (palmitate), and start taking a dose each day - and definitely continue if you do happen to catch measles.

Here is research showing Vit A as beneficial to avoid complications of measles. http://clinmed.netprints.org/cgi/content/full/2001010004v2
http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD0014...
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/113353866/abstract
http://www.docguide.com/news/content.nsf/news/8525697700573E1885257...
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/2/312

Here are a few links about the potential complications of measles and the likelihood of each:
(BUT, you have to actually ACQUIRE measles to have risks of complications. :-)) Basically, much less likely than getting hit by lightening, I'd extrapolate.

http://www.medinfo.co.uk/conditions/measles.html
http://www.whale.to/vaccines/measles11.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/measles/measles_general_info.htm

And there is no "Measles Outbreak" as per the back to school vaccination propaganda, in the news. That claim is not based in any statistical risk increase. There have been 131 cases of measles in all of the US this year. The average is 100 cases each year in 300,000,000 population. There were 4 imported cases which were introduced to small isolated populations, which were self-limiting. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm57e222a1.htm
http://www2a.cdc.gov/HAN/ArchiveSys/ViewMsgV.asp?AlertNum=00273


Additionally, there are many holistic alternatives to address measles. And Vit A, as a treatment, is easily available to many more people. It is mainstream treat: http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab001479.html Measles has historically been an ubiquitous childhood disease. The huge MAJORITY had no problems with measles, even years ago, when health care interventions were more primitive, less available.

Not to mention the vaccine is a LIVE virus.
"FIVE vaccines (measles, mumps, rubella, polio, and varicella) are LIVE virus vaccines. Live virus vaccines can sometimes infect the recipient and can even sometimes infect those in close contact with the recipient. These vaccines are given to young children, and vaccine immunity sometimes wears off for adults. This can put a pregnant mother or immunocompromised adult at risk by being around a recently
vaccinated child with live virus vaccines."
http://www.vaccineinfo.net/immunization/vaccine_facts.shtml


I'll tackle polio separately. Another myth...


Pat

[Pat]

Regarding polio. There are 0 cases of polio in the US, since we stopped the oral polio vaccine. Prior to utilizing the inactivated polio vaccine, approximately 8 children each year in the US were ACQUIRING polio from the LIVE VIRUS vaccine! "We" knew of this risk of oral polio vaccines for 40 Years, before changing to a slightly more expensive vaccine...

What is the actual incidence of measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, or diptheria?

You can check the CDC site. But, here are the hard numbers for 2006. This is for the last week of the year..... this is the total amount of cases reported to the CDC for 2006.....(copied from another source)

Total reported cases to the cdc:

Disease Cases

Diptheria 0
Measles 51
Mumps 6,439
Rubella 8
Congenital rubella 1
Tetanus 32
Hib (under 5)
Sero b-9
Non sero b-94
Unknown b-230


Out of a population of 295 million people in the United States!!


Here is a link to the 2005 stats, see page #38.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5453.pdf

Or any year you prefer to examine. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/summary.html


No polio in the US.


Pat

[Pat]

Informed Consent for Vaccination

7 vaccines (polio, hepatitis A, varicella, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, and haemophilus influenzae b) have NOT been "evaluated or tested for their carcinogenic potential, mutagenic potential, or for impairment of fertility" or "reproductive capacity" according the vaccine manufacturers' own product inserts.

3 vaccines (varicella, hepatitis A, and rubella) were cultured in human diploid cells (eg. human embryonic lung cell cultures and human diploid cell cultures WI-38 and MRC-5). The Chickenpox vaccine contains "residual components of MRC-5 cells including DNA and protein."

6 vaccines (polio, hepatitis B, hepatitis A, pertussis, diphtheria, and tetanus) contain formaldehyde - a highly noxious and carcinogenic preservative.

5 vaccines (hepatitis B, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, and haemophilus influenzae b) contain thimerosal, a mercury derivative preservative BANNED by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in over-the-counter (OTC) drug preparations because of questions over safety. (Federal Register: April 22, 1998 (Volume 63, Number 77)][Page 19799-19802]
(In 1999, they started to decrease the thimerosal, but there are still minute amounts in several vaccines.)


5 vaccines (hepatitis B, hepatitis A, pertussis, diphtheria, and tetanus) contain aluminum as an adjuvant. Aluminum accumulates in brain, muscle and bone tissue and can be linked to causing fibrosarcomas (cancerous tumors) at the injection site.

5 vaccines (measles, mumps, polio, varicella, and diphtheria) are developed from animal ingredients including cell cultures of chick embryos, monkey kidney cells, fetal bovine serum, and embryonic guinea pig cell cultures. There has been a moratorium in this country on animal organ transplants in humans because of concerns of people contracting latent animal viruses. Despite the history of unscreened animal viruses infecting humans from injectable products like vaccines [monkey cells and SV40 virus and bovine serum and "Mad Cow Disease" (bovine spongiform encephalopathy)], this practice continues with vaccines.

5 vaccines (measles, mumps, rubella, polio, and varicella) are LIVE virus vaccines. Live virus vaccines can sometimes infect the recipient and can even sometimes infect those in close contact with the recipient. These vaccines are given to young children, and vaccine immunity sometimes wears off for adults. This can put a pregnant mother or immunocompromised adult at risk by being around a recently vaccinated child with live virus vaccines.

For ALL 11 vaccines there have been NO long term studies on the cumulative effect on the child's developing immune system of combining all these vaccines together.

For ALL 11 vaccines the biological mechanism for why some children react to a vaccine is not understood.

For ALL 11 vaccines there are no genetic or other lab screening tests available to determine which children will react to a vaccine.

More at VaccineInfo.net
http://www.vaccineinfo.net/immunization/vaccine_facts.shtml



Pat