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To Vaccinate or Not To Vaccinate Your Child: Three Guidelines to Help You Decide
5 Comments · Posted by Mark in Parenting/Family
I came to question the need for immunizations when I brought my new born to the doctor for the first time and was given an immunization chart. It looks like a maintenance schedule you get with your new car. There are approximately nine vaccines covering about fourteen infectious diseases. Most vaccines require a few dozes. So, by the time your child reaches two, he or she would have had 22 shots. Well, that seemed like a lot to me.
I am not a conspiracy theorist who believes there is a global conspiracy perpetuated by Governments, hiding behind pharmaceutical companies to systematically program, categorize and reference us through vaccines? Sorry X-Files fans. I just wanted to make sure the vaccines were necessary and won’t compromise my child’s ability to ‘naturally’ develop his immune system.
The research on the impacts of vaccinations are literally split down the middle – half says it’s the only way to go and there are no worries whatsoever; the other half says, whoa, it’s bad and can cause problems worse than the infectious disease.
Take the vaccination for mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) for example. One study says it causes autism in children and another says there is no proof it causes autism and it’s merely coincidence – as autistic behaviours generally rear its’ ugly head at around age 2, the same time you shoot your child up with the MMR vaccine. Or is this just the terrible twos? So, what do you believe? How do you make an informed choice?
As an involved father, my questions were: is it absolutely necessary to be immunized for all these diseases? Will being shot up with so much stuff, especially at such a young age; affect my child’s ability to develop his ‘natural’ immune system? Will these vaccines cause side effects or other problems worse than the disease? Are the vaccines 100% effective in immunizing against the disease it was designed for? How effective are the vaccines? Will these diseases kill my child? Why are we immunizing children at such a young age? Can’t some of these wait?
These questions led me to three guidelines in making a vaccination decision.
1. If it won’t kill you, it’ll just make you stronger. I had mumps, measles, flu and chicken pox and I lived. I remembered it was pretty uncomfortable but I got over it. So the decision was to vaccinate for the infectious diseases that could kill you or cause serious complications in adults. Although I had put chicken pox on the ‘no vaccine’ list originally, I changed my mind after my Doctor explained there hasn’t been much of an outbreak so the probability of my son getting chicken pox as a child is slim. However, the problem is if he gets it as an adult. This leads to shingles and that could have serious complications.
2. The amount of time the vaccine has been around and the clinical testing done. There are vaccinations that are created quickly and did not go through proper clinical trials i.e. H1N1 vaccine (this was actually in the pharmaceutical company report when it was introduced). The decision was therefore to immunize for diseases that could kill you where the vaccine has been around for awhile and has gone through proper testing.
3. Wait until as long as possible to get the vaccine. There is a point where physiologically, a child becomes an adult. For the ‘yes vaccines’, the decision was to wait as long as possible to give the body a chance to develop.
Immunization is definitely an important subject for an involved parent when dealing with your child’s health. I can’t tell you what your child should vaccinate for, because that would be irresponsible. I do hope these guidelines will help you make your decision easier. For more information on vaccination risks, check out this site.
children immunization · children's health · vaccinations
Debbie M · January 10, 2010 at 1:45 pm
I have different guidelines:
1) How bad is the disease?
2) How well does the vaccine work?
3) What are the side effects of the vaccine?
4) How widely available is the vaccine?
5) If the vaccine is not widely available, how high a priority does the person in question have?
6) Can I afford it?
I don’t look at how likely it is that the person will get the disease.
As far as I know, all vaccines greatly reduce or even eliminate the chance of getting the disease if you are exposed. As far as I know, no vaccines have side effects that are worse than the disease or, if they do, the side effects are extremely rare.
Therefore, I am inclined to get vaccines. There is nothing unnatural about the immunity they provide; they simply expose you to a weakened version of the disease and you build your own immunity the same way you would to a normal version of the disease without having to get sick.
I don’t get flu vaccines when they are not widely available because I am low risk.
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Mark Reply:
January 11th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Thanks Debbie, I think we pretty much asked the same questions, other than availability and cost. I do think vaccines are unnatural. If it were just the weakened version of the disease, then I’ll give you that. But with the weakened version comes a ‘whack’ of other things like mercury, MSG, beta-propiolactone, latex rubber and the list goes on. These things are not natural.
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Debbie M · January 10, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Oops, didn’t finish yet!
It bothers me to see someone as thoughtful as you coming to conclusions such as “The research on the impacts of vaccinations are literally split down the middle” and “If it won’t kill you, it’ll just make you stronger.” The research is almost entirely pro vaccination. And really, it’s the stronger people that things don’t kill–actually getting a disease is much more likely to make you weaker than stronger. Just ask someone who’s had polio. Oh, you can’t, because they’re all dead now.
Your son is much less likely to get most of these childhood diseases now than in the past, but this is because so many other people have been vaccinated that they are less likely to catch the disease and expose him to it. However, that’s going to change if it’s not just the paranoid people who don’t get their kids immunized, but also the thoughtful parents.
If your child is well, it’s good to get him vaccinated. Something may happen to his health later that would make it more difficult to handle these generally mild diseases or even the vaccinations.
Regarding adult issues, most of these diseases are really bad for pregnant women to get because fetuses don’t handle them well. And many jobs and colleges require vaccinations.
Here’s another interesting fact. In some ways, all flu vaccines are “experimental.” The flu virus evolves very quickly such that it usually changes so much from one season to the next that last season’s vaccine will have little if any effect. The vaccines we get are based on guesses of what will be here once the vaccine has been created, distributed, administered, and had time become effective. Sometimes the virus has changed so much that the vaccine is almost completely ineffective. Usually it is at least partially effective, and sometimes quite effective. My only problem with flu vaccines are that most are unnecessarily made with tiny amounts of mercury just to save tiny amounts of money. This is the one vaccine I do think it might be unwise to give to most children.
But then, I am biased. I trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention more than I trust the Vaccination Risk Awareness Network. I met someone who had polio and lived much, much longer than expected, even having three kids. She used an iron lung and a wheelchair to make her life easier. I know someone who had measles as a kid and then got shingles on his tongue as an adult (both painful and expensive–he was a DJ at the time and couldn’t talk). I know people who got many of the childhood diseases at the same time (at ages 1 and 3, respectively) and were below normal weight and height for the rest of their childhoods.
As a parent, you never have all the information you need ahead of time to make the best possible decision about most things, but I do urge you to reconsider early vaccinations. At the very least, talk to some people who were already adults during the 1960s when many of these vaccines were first being developed and can better compare life with and without these vaccines.
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Mark Reply:
January 11th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Thanks Debbie for your comment. The topic of immunization is definitely widely debated. My stance is pro vaccinations. I’m just not pro shoot-up-whatever-the-doctor or CDC tells you to. The research information I found affected my ability to make a clear decision on what to do. For example, there are scientific studies out there that says the MMR vaccine causes autism. Others say its not the MMR vaccine; but rather, the thimerosal (preserving agent) in the vaccine. And another says its the mercury in the thimerosal. My point is there are so many ‘reasonable’ information (scientific studies) out there that it makes it difficult to make an informed decision. The decision I am trying to make is not whether to vaccinate, but what to vaccinate and when. My comfort is in vaccinating my child over 8 years for 8 of the 14 infectious diseases. Some of the more serious ones were done early.
Like you, I don’t believe in the flu vaccine. What I hope you might clarify is what your concern(s) is (are) with the ‘tiny amounts of mercury’ in the vaccine? Flu vaccine is one immunization all health care professionals recommend, especially the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Given you said you trust them, I am curious as to why you think its ‘unwise to give to most children.’
You are absolutely right you never have all the information you need ahead of time. I wish we did.
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Playstead · January 10, 2010 at 9:26 pm
The answer is to act like a baseball manager by playing the odds.
As a father, husband and employee I am a firm believer in playing the odds, which is exactly how I handled this decision with my wife. Your child’s odds of catching something really bad is a whole lot better if you don’t have them vaccinated than having a reaction to a particular vaccine. We also have a doctor in the family too and she is very much for vaccines.
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