Check out this very thoughtful summary of the current vaccination debate. Here's her conclusion: Not vaccinating your kids is sort of like not voting: it might not make much of a difference, but you're betting on most everyone else making a different choice, and the outcome is one everyone has to live with. So it's not surprising that some refer to non-vaccinating families as freeloaders (or, in Amanda Peet's more incendiary language, "parasites"). But unlike those who fail to vote, parents who opt out of vaccinating their children are doing so for the very best reasons: they love their children and want the best for them. The question is, how fair is it to "protect" your children from vaccines if it puts other kids at risk?
Read the whole article here, then voice your thoughts in comments.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 2)
1. >Not vaccinating your kids is sort of like not
>voting: it might not make much of a difference,
>but you're betting on most everyone else making >a different choice, and the outcome is one
>everyone has to live with.
Uh, no. Not voting doesn't directly harm anyone else. If anything, it makes other people's votes "count more" than they otherwise would, or in practical terms gives the power to those people who care enough about the results. Not
vaccinating your kids is just the opposite: your irresponsible decision puts your kids *and others* at greater risk. The only possible effect that's similar to not voting is that their kids will miss more days of school than mine, so mine will get a better education. But even that's questionable, as the teachers will have to waste time helping the unvaccinated absentees get back up to speed.
>parents who opt out of vaccinating their
>children are doing so for the very best reasons:
>they love their children and want the best for
>them.
Even that's a stretch. If they "want the best" for their children, why don't they do the responsible thing and *find out* what's the best?
Based on real research, not rumors and nonsense.
dr jay at 12:19PM on Sep 16th 2008
2. I am an RN with almost 30 years maternal-child experience. Ignorance plays a huge part in this - people have forgotten the horrors these childhood diseases brought upon American families. Go and visit an old cemetery and observe that some families buried several children; sometimes all at once, sometimes over several years. My grandfather's 3 year-old twin sisters were killed by measles in 1905.
I have heard many people say "I'd rather my child have the mumps (or measles, or whatever disease) than to have to get shots." Some people aren't even afraid of autism - they just use all this controversy to have an excuse not to make their child "get the shots." They feel like better parents because their kids are happy they aren't getting stuck with a needle. I wonder how great they would feel if their child's throat closed up with diptheria and died. I've worked in a pediatrician's office - I've seen this mentality.
I'm confident that the vaccines given in our office today are safe - although it is possible for any child to have a reaction. And those reactions are not ususally life-threatening, just a little fever and localized pain and swelling that you put ice on. There is no mercury in routine vaccinations today, and hasn't been for years. My 6 year-old nephew never had a vaccination, and he has severe autism. Autism occured before there were vaccinations, and children are children like him who were never vaccinated but are autistic. Despite all the hoopla, I'll never be convinced that immunizations are linked to autism. Autism has a genetic link (chromosome #16).
I think families who refuse to vaccinate and live off herd immunity are wrong.
Sarah at 12:59PM on Sep 16th 2008
3. How is it putting other children at risk? The child at risk is your own as they are the one that is not vaccinated. People are working to make their own decisions in reference to the care of their children. So much is not known about the "after effects" of the chemicals and medicines injected into these kids that parents fear making a poor choice.
Sue at 12:07AM on Sep 17th 2008
4. If two kids are in school; one is vaccinated and one is not. How would the non-vaccinated kid harm the vaccinated kid, the vaccinated is supposed to be protected right? What about resistant flu's?
Pope Cack IV at 3:12PM on Sep 16th 2008
5. 1. If vaccines do the trick... and are totally safe... and provide immunity from these life threatening diseases... why are parents of vaccinated children afraid of non-vaccinated children?
2. Assuming that someone is making a decision based on ignorance, simply because it differs from your personal opinion is asinine at best.
3. Remember who pays for vaccine research... until we have multiple studies done by totally unbiased parties (i.e. people who have nothing to gain by promoting vaccines...) you will be wrong to assault parents with charges of "skepticism". Looking at a list of politicians who are shareholders and board members of drug companies was a little disturbing.
Jami at 3:14PM on Sep 16th 2008
6. oj was vaccinated...
fred at 3:52PM on Sep 16th 2008
7. Jami - I totally agree.
If you read the reports about the newsworthy outbreaks, a large percentage of those outbreaks are mutated forms of regular illnesses - mutations that are not included in your immunizations.
I speak from the perspective that I used to work for a drug company, so I am familiar with vaccines, their manufacturing process and the racket that is "the recommended immunization schedule". There is really no reason for your kids to get as many shots as they do, other than the fact that the drug manufacturers rake in obscene amounts of money over them. Why do you think they keep expanding the "recommended group" for flu vaccines every year?
This hype is manufactured from drug companies that are afraid that their sponsored studies will be questioned, and their scare tactics for making people get shots for things they don't really need will stop working. There is a reason our soldiers come back with so many health issues - they are vaccinated with a soup of things that no person in their right mind would submit to knowingly.
There is no right or wrong choice - do the research and make your own decision. I, however, choose to immunize selectively and not submit my child as either a guinea pig or a cash cow for the drug companies. Do not criticize me or make me defend my actions because I make this choice. If vaccines are so infallible and necessary, then parents of fully vaccinated children should have no worries.
Ellasprk at 4:12PM on Sep 16th 2008
8. Vaccinated people and children are afraid of the unvaccinated because when the unvaccinated are infected with a disease that then mutates, the vaccinated are at risk. With vaccination, the disease does not have as much opportunity to mutate and became drug resistant. Think about the Midwest Mumps epidemic of this past year.
Cork at 4:38PM on Sep 16th 2008
9. Ignorant... Hardly. Parents who want the best for their families will not VACCINATE their children. The whole premise that vaccines are "safe" is a load of freaking rubbish and their is plenty of research and evidence to support that premise (and not the industry funded fudgepacked studies with obvious bias). (Obviously, something has to account for the massive increase in autism.. and a good deal of the blame SHOULD be placed on vaccines as if they are not a direct implicator, most definetly play a signifigant role). It isnt the governments role to dictate how health care is mandated to you or your loved ones.. anything less is healthy tyranny, which will not be acceptable and I would be willing to fight to the death for.
Kevin at 6:49PM on Sep 16th 2008
10. Some diseases do need to be vaccinated against. My son almost died from measles back in the 1950s. As a baby in the 1940s I had whooping cough and my lungs are scarred from it. I made sure my other kids got their "shots" in the 1960s. However I do not approve of the multiple shots that are given to little children nowadays. Too many shots at the same time for little children too young to handle it.
Susan at 7:32PM on Sep 16th 2008
11. Sarah at 12:59PM on Sep 16th 2008
I respect your opinion, Sarah, but I think you may be mistaken about the use of thimerosal (a mercury compound) as a preservative in a variety of vaccines. All influenza vaccines contain it, and while the American Academy of Pediatrics claims that all routinely recommended infant vaccines are now thimerosal free, Merck, Wyeth, and Aventis Pasteur all still use the substance to kill bacteria during the non-sterile manufacturing process. Between 12.5 and 25 mcg of thimerosal is present per dose in Hepatitis B vaccines. The amounts MAY have been reduced in the past couple of years, but there has not been a great deal of information made public on independent testing. The reason is pretty obvious. If a link can be legally established between thimerosal and childhood autism, the drug companies will face an even worse storm of lawsuits than even the tobacco industry faced. You are correct in suggesting that there is a genetic component in autism. Chromosome 16? Perhaps, but it may be more complex than that. My suspicion is that individuals who have a lower than average ability to process and eliminate heavy metals from the bloodstream face a significant risk of autistic development. There is a gradation of this ability which coincides with the severity of the autistic condition. Mercury toxicity is probably not the ONLY cause, and other metals (lead, for instance) can have similarly toxic effects on the human nervous system, but clinical autism is decidedly related to disruption and damage in the brain, and in brain development. Pre-natal chromosome damage is not the only - or even the primary - cause here.
Average White Guy at 8:19PM on Sep 16th 2008
12. I am a pediatric nurse in Ohio. I vaccinate many children daily. I DO understand the concernes that many parents have regarding the use of vaccines. I have read all the comments posted. It seems to me that most of those who oppose vaccine use are very guarded and defensive in their attitude. The government is not trying to control you in any way or tell you what to do. What happened to preserving the greater good for all??? YES...I believe that some have suffered from the use of vaccines..and Ive seen it. Mistakes have been made..such as with Rotoshield. However, vaccines are to HELP all peoples not to contract a disease that can have horrible consequenses for themselves and their children. What you call "herding"..is for the greater good. Risks coome with ALL things....
Some of you talk about preservatives in vaccines that are not good for our bodies???? Apparently you are not familiar with the MANY things we use every day that are not good for us.....things we are ALL exposed to every day....for instance....things put in the very food we eat. Why don't some of you research some of those things...would half of you begin not to eat??? Do any of you feed your children fast food?? Check that out.
Risks are an UNFORTUNATE part of this proscess, however, what about the effects of the actual disease??? For instance...even something as "simple" as chicken pox....yes...most american children contract this disease, however, have you ever seen a child die from the complications of varicella, and KNOWING this could have been prevented from the simple use of a vaccine someone thought was unnessecary???????? I have. I am in no way faulting the parents of this decision..really....but it was a shame, in fact. Let's say you are an adult and your physician tells you you need heart surgery for a heart attack....there are risks....MANY things can go wrong.....but your alternative is unneccesary risk( losing your life) Im sure most of you would not take.
No one is sitting behind a desk in a dark room somewhere in our government getting his kicks on making us get vaccines for the heck of it....think back to why this was originally started...to rid us of terribloe diseases that kill our children and loved ones. I do vaccinate my children and I understand the risks.....let's not be so selfish with ourselves and our children.....there ARE real risks to others when we do not vaccinate against the "basics"..Some of you stated the incidence of these diseases have been reduced...WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS????? It is BECAUSE of the vaccine. Some of you are so busy "standing up to the government" you cant see this.
Health care workers who encourage the use of vaccines to parents do so with the good intentions of helping those they see and giving them the best healthcare possible. We are so spoiled in this country with everything we have and our free choices...recently on a trip to Africa, we saw, DAILY, 10-20 people die of Ruebella....and vaccine was availbale. But most people did not recieve the vaccine...not because they did not want it...most desperately do...but sadly they cannot afford the 85 american dollars it costs to recieve it. I knew no one there who was concerned about the "risks" of the vaccine because it was a real DAILY threat to the very children they loved and raised.
SOme of you say we give parents "5 minutes" to decide on what they wnat their child to recieve in the office?? This is somewhat of a ridicoulous statement!! Of course, I am here daily to answer ANY questions a parent should present me with..however...how much time shall I spend with each one??? 15...20...45 minutes??? PLease do not make us sound like "assembly line physicians" who could care less about our patients and simply dismiss all their concerns!! Some of you sound like you think everyone is out to get you....you know, you have the absolute right to believe what you wish and act on your beliefs! However, I ask of you to think about someone beside yourselves and put yourself on the other side of the deabte for a minute...there are other people living in this world besides you, and fortunately we must all find a way to live together and for the greater good for each other and mankind!!!
abrooks at 9:38PM on Sep 16th 2008
13. To the one who said.."obviously something needs to acount for the increase in autism"...look...just because there is an increase in cases cannot be justified with vaccine use. The reason we see an increase in autism is because of AWARENESs!!! We are actually in a place where we can accurately diagnose Autism now....years ago...no one knew what it was or how to diagnose it!! AWARENESS HAS HEIGHTENED...WE NOW KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR...IT WASNT THAT IT WAS NEVER THERE BEFORE, BUT WE DIDNT KNOW WHAT IT WAS. THESE KIDS WERE SIMPLY JUST DISMIISED AS MENTALLY ILL BEFORE.
ABROOKS at 8:37AM on Sep 17th 2008
14.
When the government pays the health care costs for me and my family, then I would be willing to entertain the notion that the government has the right to mandate certain aspects of health care.
Even then, I would take a lot of convincing to let the government make my health care decisions for me, but at least then they would have a leg to stand on to even begin the debate as to their right to have input.
Hands Off My Kid at 12:01AM on Sep 17th 2008
15. Thank you, Nurse Brooks. I have also seen children and adults die from communicable diseases that were entirely preventable if the patient had been properly vaccinated. Have you ever suctioned pox out of an endotracheal tube in an immune-compromised 6 year-old little boy? That's right, he was in remission for leukemia, caught chicken pox (this was back in the days before the chicken pox vaccine), it attacked his lungs and he died. I've had a baby die of diptheria (all the young pediatricians had to come around and see this little girl, as they had never seen an actual case of diptheria).
And, "why do they combine so many vaccines into a single shot?" some of you ask - because the parents complained about their babies having to get multiple sticks at the same well-baby visit, so they put them all in one. Every time a new vaccination comes out for a deadly disease, I shout "Hallelujah!" That's one less child in the PICU with Haemopholis B pneumonia. Now the drug companies have messed up with rushing things to market too soon, as with the Rotovirus vaccine, but most of these vaccines have been around for years and are proven to be safe.
I am well aware of the toxic effects of heavy metals such as mercury. I said the "routine" vaccinations don't have mercury in them; I know that some flu shots still have mercury-based preservatives, and that's not a good thing. The chances of your baby having a reaction to the miniscule amount of mercury is so much less than the risk of permanent lung or brain injury or even death from getting the flu. That's what I meant when I said "ignorance." Not that people are ignorant, it's just that we have lost the cultural reference of these potentially childhood diseases and people don't have the knowledge and experience in seeing both sides to make a sound decision. People have seen autism and are afraid of it, people haven't seen these childhood diseases in a couple of generations and have no fear of blindness, deafness, brain damage, heart damage, scarred lungs or death to their children. They think that even if their children are infected that modern medicine will have the cure - and it may not, for something that could have been prevented.
And, for every kid in the "herd" who is not immunized, you lower the resistance of the entire "herd." When one of the children finally catches Disease X, there is the almost certain chance that the virus will mutate to make itself more easily communicable and the vaccinated children (actually, the entire herd) are more vulnerable to a nasty strain of the disease that conventional medicine may not be able to contain. Now, will you all please take your kids to the health department to get your shots?
Sarah at 12:50AM on Sep 17th 2008