Benjamin Franklin on Vaccines

[CaffeineDiary]

We've probably all read the (heart-rending) letter written by Roald Dahl about how he lost his beautiful daughter to measles.  But this piece by Benjamin Franklin was a surprise to me, so I wanted to share it here. 

 

"In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen."

 

 Source: Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: With Selections from His Other Writings, page 163

[Slartibartfast]

Several of the Founding Fathers wrote about inoculation partly because the British were spreading smallpox deliberately.

 

http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/inoculation

 

The first person to order our troops be inoculated was George Washington.

[Hope44]

Here are 17 reasons to not vaccinate your kids...http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/please-vax-your-kids#.exlaAJOgWp

[Tanaqui]

LOL, Hope44. That link was not what I expected. Well played.

[Reefgazer]

Interesting...mostly smallpox and polio pics.  I wonder if the rate of vaccination of polio are higher than for measles? 

Here are 17 reasons to not vaccinate your kids...http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/please-vax-your-kids#.exlaAJOgWp

 

[Hope44]

Several are measles, as well. That is a good question about polio.  I would imagine with the general increase in anti-vaccination, fewer percentages children have received this vaccine than perhaps fifteen years ago.  

[EndOfOrdinary]

I am curious why the extreme dichotomy of completely no vaxing and complete vaxing. We delayed vaxinations, giving my son two every six months starting when he was five (he had a very short stint in preschool of less than two months). It was not the onslaught of insanity (nine were strongly suggested within a day of Ds' birth, all to be given at once). The delayed vaxing meant he got all the big ones, opted out of over seven due to aging out of the "worry zone," and had a much lesser chance of complications.

 

Why so all or nothing?

 

I am not meaning you guys are all or nothing, but more are curious if anyone knows.

[Dory]

I am curious why the extreme dichotomy of completely no vaxing and complete vaxing. We delayed vaxinations, giving my son two every six months starting when he was five (he had a very short stint in preschool of less than two months). It was not the onslaught of insanity (nine were strongly suggested within a day of Ds' birth, all to be given at once). The delayed vaxing meant he got all the big ones, opted out of over seven due to aging out of the "worry zone," and had a much lesser chance of complications.

 

Why so all or nothing?

 

I am not meaning you guys are all or nothing, but more are curious if anyone knows.

 

Up here it's hard to be in the middle. I would've been a delayed/selective vaxer but they won't allow me to split up any of the shots or take them further apart.

[EndOfOrdinary]

How can they not allow you to take them farther apart? I would just tell them which to give him and they could recommend (and did with a rather lot of gruff), but they couldn't exactly say no and give him anything I would not let them. They were told that they could either give them on the old schedules (those of twenty five years ago) or not give them. Do you mean ye refuse to vax if you do not do it their way?

 

As far as I know, vaxing is Federal law. If I walked in tomorrow and could show I never got an MMR, they would have to provide it free. I find this intriguing. It would definitely explain the extremes of the spectrum.

 

ETA: They would not split the DtaP here. So Ds got that one by itself for each of the four rounds.

[IsabelC]

I am curious why the extreme dichotomy of completely no vaxing and complete vaxing. We delayed vaxinations, giving my son two every six months starting when he was five (he had a very short stint in preschool of less than two months). It was not the onslaught of insanity (nine were strongly suggested within a day of Ds' birth, all to be given at once). The delayed vaxing meant he got all the big ones, opted out of over seven due to aging out of the "worry zone," and had a much lesser chance of complications.

 

Why so all or nothing?

 

I am not meaning you guys are all or nothing, but more are curious if anyone knows.

 

Because if you do it all, you get accused of being a sheep, being ignorant and stupid, and callously poisoning your child with murdered fetus and mercury juice.

If you don't do any, you get accused of being insane, trying to kill your child, and willfully endangering the lives of every other child in your country if not the world.

But if you go selective, you get accused of all of the above.

[bettyandbob]

I am curious why the extreme dichotomy of completely no vaxing and complete vaxing. We delayed vaxinations, giving my son two every six months starting when he was five (he had a very short stint in preschool of less than two months). It was not the onslaught of insanity (nine were strongly suggested within a day of Ds' birth, all to be given at once). The delayed vaxing meant he got all the big ones, opted out of over seven due to aging out of the "worry zone," and had a much lesser chance of complications.

 

Why so all or nothing?

 

I am not meaning you guys are all or nothing, but more are curious if anyone knows.

The recommended vaccine schedule used to be slower, not as slow as your route, but slower.

One reason why is because more parents make it to well child checks during the infant/toddler years. Then they start missing appointments. So, by speeding up the schedule you can make sure the child gets them all. Under the old schedule kids still got most of the shots before school age. With the new schedule there's less of a scramble for schools to deal with unvaccinated kids at age 6.

[CaffeineDiary]

I am curious why the extreme dichotomy of completely no vaxing and complete vaxing. We delayed vaxinations, giving my son two every six months starting when he was five (he had a very short stint in preschool of less than two months). It was not the onslaught of insanity (nine were strongly suggested within a day of Ds' birth, all to be given at once). The delayed vaxing meant he got all the big ones, opted out of over seven due to aging out of the "worry zone," and had a much lesser chance of complications.

 

Why so all or nothing?

 

 

Betty's answer is a good one, but there's also that in order to selectively vaccinate you have to be willing and able to answer the question "I would rather my child die from pertussis than have my child die from measles", or vice-versa, which is fundamentally irrational.  Once you make the medically correct decision ("Vaccination for disease X at age Y statistically saves lives, therefore I will do it"), delaying past that doesn't make sense in the absence of medical evidence that it does.  

 

Imagine meeting someone who said "I only buckle my children into seat belts on the car trip TO grandma's, but then on the car trip from grandma's I leave her un-seat belted, to avoid irritating her gentle torso too much and give it time to recover."  The entire point is that the negative outcome from not vaccinating is so many orders of magnitude worse than any proven harm from vaccinating that that is what should be dominating the decision.

[regentrude]

The recommended vaccine schedule used to be slower, not as slow as your route, but slower.

One reason why is because more parents make it to well child checks during the infant/toddler years. Then they start missing appointments. So, by speeding up the schedule you can make sure the child gets them all. Under the old schedule kids still got most of the shots before school age. With the new schedule there's less of a scramble for schools to deal with unvaccinated kids at age 6.

 

Which, according to our ped, is also the reason they have moved things like Hep B into the child schedule. The young child is not at risk yet, and the vaccine could be given in the teen years - but parents are much less likely to have their teen see a doctor for checkups.

 

[SKL]

Why haven't they come up with a non-vax solution to problems like measles encephalitis (mentioned in the Roald Dahl link)?  We can clone mammals for Pete's sake.

[FaithManor]

Due to a history of serious, and at times, life threatening vaccine reactions in my extended family, we stretched the schedule, and did not budge. Oh, the pediatrician didn't like it, but he was happier with them getting them on my terms than getting none. It is very doable, but the parent has to be committed to the extra visits or to arguing with county health nurses if one goes to the health department, but they know they can be sued BIG TIME if they give the child a shot you did not consent to so I just dictated what could and could not be given at each visit.

 

It took longer to get it done. But all of my kids were caught up by six years of age and without the near death experiences of some of the children in my family.

 

I do not understand the all or nothing, and suspect that those that are cautious about vaccines are not anti-vaccination, but actually in the middle ground going at it slowly but surely. The only non-vaccinators I know at all are from religious sects such as the Amish and they do get plagued with outbreaks of chicken pox, measles, etc. the difference is that it is hard to track because they use the local doctors and hospitals so very rarely again due to their religious beliefs. So the CDC doesn't have any accurate numbers on them.

 

Given that the schools here tell most parents that there are no waivers for any reason whatsoever (not true, there are religious exemptions as well as medical waivers), the vast majority of kids are vaccinated by four or five whether the parents like it or not because they send them to school.

 

The media, in their usual pandering for ratings which they get for creating a crisis where there is none, makes it out as though there is a massive epidemic of unvaccinated children. While there may be pockets, again such as the Amish, or possible the children of illegal immigrants who are trying to remain off the legal authorities line of vision, it just isn't true. There may be a fair number of parents in the middle ground going at it slowly, but going at it nonetheless. But, very few ZERO vaccinators. There are also only a handful of "I don't care about the health and well being of your child so get them vaccinated now or have them taken away by the government" kind of rabidly pro vaccine parents either. Those extremes are not represented in great numbers. Of course, if one wants to get ratings, then one goes out and finds the only one or two extremists one can find in the neighborhood, interviews them, and then writes a myth claiming something about each side that really isn't accurate, touts it as the God's honest truth, and is satisfied that once again, they've got the public frothing at the mouth.

 

Real journalism is going extinct!

[EKS]

I am not meaning you guys are all or nothing, but more are curious if anyone knows.

 

This is only a guess, but most people seem to gravitate toward black and white thinking, and this is just another example of it.

[SKL]

Interesting...mostly smallpox and polio pics.  I wonder if the rate of vaccination of polio are higher than for measles? 

 

Also, a lot of polio cases were caused by the polio vax (which is different from the one generally used today).  People don't separate out the polio cases that happened without the vax vs. because of the vax.

 

I thought we eradicated polio in the USA so, like smallpox, there may be a feeling of why bother.  On the other hand, I have not heard of severe complications of the polio vax generally used nowadays, so the risk-reward analysis will be different.  The CDC admits the Measles vax causes significant problems.

[SKL]

 Once you make the medically correct decision ("Vaccination for disease X at age Y statistically saves lives, therefore I will do it"), delaying past that doesn't make sense in the absence of medical evidence that it does.  

 

 

Except that the schedule is not based on statistical effectiveness.  It's based on maximum compliance.

 

[Amy in NH]

How Many People Aren't Vaccinating Their Kids in Your State? 

 

Interesting graphical presentation of a statistical analysis of numbers of unvaccinated kids (only pertussis represented?) in each state & ease of getting an exemption.

[Jane in NC]

Also, a lot of polio cases were caused by the polio vax (which is different from the one generally used today).  People don't separate out the polio cases that happened without the vax vs. because of the vax.

 

I thought we eradicated polio in the USA so, like smallpox, there may be a feeling of why bother.  On the other hand, I have not heard of severe complications of the polio vax generally used nowadays, so the risk-reward analysis will be different.  The CDC admits the Measles vax causes significant problems.

 

Could you please offer some statistics on the bolded? 

 

From the CDC:

 

 

Polio was one of the most dreaded childhood diseases of the 20th century in the United States. Periodic epidemics occurred since the late 19th century and they increase in size and frequency in the late 1940s and early 1950s. An average of over 35,000 cases were reported during this time period. With the introduction of Salk inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) in 1955, the number of cases rapidly declined to under 2,500 cases in 1957. By 1965, only 61 cases of paralytic polio were reported.

 

So what do you mean by "a lot"?  A significant percentage of the significantly lower number of cases?  Or are you saying that the increase of the number of cases in the early 50s was due to the vaccine?  (I am not a doctor nor well educated in public health.  I am simply trying to understand the current discussion.)

 

[brehon]

Also, a lot of polio cases were caused by the polio vax (which is different from the one generally used today). People don't separate out the polio cases that happened without the vax vs. because of the vax.

 

I thought we eradicated polio in the USA so, like smallpox, there may be a feeling of why bother. On the other hand, I have not heard of severe complications of the polio vax generally used nowadays, so the risk-reward analysis will be different. The CDC admits the Measles vax causes significant problems.

My uncle had polio as a young child in the late 40s. There was no polio vaccine then, at least it was not available where my grandparents were living. Although he did not suffer paralysis and continues to lead a relatively healthy life, he is suffering from post-polio syndrome now. It's hard watching an extremely active person become increasingly housebound due to the effects of PPS.

[Runningmom80]

We delayed because my oldest has lots of food allergies, and if he reacted to a vaccine, I wanted to know which one it was.  We continued to delay with my twins because of my older son's allergies, until we had a good grasp on their immune system. Our ped's office won't see patients that don't vax on their schedule, but made an allowance for us.  (They also run a large vaccine research lab so I do question the motives!) My kids were caught up at 3, it really wasn't that big of a deal.  I'm pro vax, but I think exceptions should be made, without judgement from other parents.

[albeto.]

Why haven't they come up with a non-vax solution to problems like measles encephalitis (mentioned in the Roald Dahl link)?  We can clone mammals for Pete's sake.

 

Because immunology isn't magic. It's bound by the laws of physics, and it takes time to learn how to navigate those laws to our benefit.

[regentrude]

Why haven't they come up with a non-vax solution to problems like measles encephalitis (mentioned in the Roald Dahl link)?  We can clone mammals for Pete's sake.

 

Becasue it's a viral infection. medicine has a lot in its arsenal against bacterial infections, but viral diseases are very difficult to treat.

Viruses have no cell metabolism that we can disrupt with medications. They live within human cells, which limits the effectiveness of our immmune system. They mutate rapidly.

[Jane in NC]

Why haven't they come up with a non-vax solution to problems like measles encephalitis (mentioned in the Roald Dahl link)?  We can clone mammals for Pete's sake.

 

Because immunology isn't magic. It's bound by the laws of physics, and it takes time to learn how to navigate those laws to our benefit.

Adding to the bolded:  and chemistry!

 

Government research funding has declined.  Corporations fund research if they see a profit motive.  As I understand things, encephalitis arises as a complication of various viruses.  Is encephalitis always the same?  You got me. Seems that having a non-vax solution might be a pricey proposition.

[ktgrok]

I delay vaccines, and selectively vaccinate in the sense my kids haven't had certain ones as children, aka gardisil. Not because I want them to get HPV more than I want them to get polio, but because they currently are not at risk for the disease, so I'm holding off for now. And I delay simply to spread them out more. I come from veterinary medicine, where there are well done guidelines and studies showing that the more vaccines you give at once, the higher the chance of reaction. So we split them up. We also start with the ones they are most likely to catch, like pertussis, vs say, polio. The chances of my child being the first kid to catch wild polio in the western hemisphere in decades is pretty darn low, but pertussis is still fairly common. so we start there. We do varicella towards the end, because it is less serious than say, measels, so I'm comfortable having that risk longer. 

[milovany]

There may be a fair number of parents in the middle ground going at it slowly, but going at it nonetheless. But, very few ZERO vaccinators....

 

I think you'd be surprised, FaithManor.  It's not like people go around asking, "How about that vaccination schedule, is that working for you?" or "Oh, are you a non-vaccinator?"  It's certainly not something that non-vaccinators would bring up in casual conversation.  I'm fairly certain the number is a lot larger than you're thinking.  We have been non-vaccinators in the past, due to a religious conviction that we held to at the time, and there's no way I would tell that to people in casual conversation; I rarely mentioned it to anyone.  It's too explosive of an issue.  

[EKS]

On the question of how many people don't vaccinate at all--I have this experience.

 

My children used to go to a public school program for homeschoolers.  The school required every family to fill out a form that stated which vaccines the child had had or to check a box indicating that they had declined vaccinations.  This was required of all students in the district.

 

Every year we came in to sign up for classes and update our information.  One year, they had the binder filled with the vaccine information out for people to rifle through to find their child's form to see if it needed updating (major violation of privacy laws, I know).  In looking for my children's forms, I found that about half (I'm not exaggerating) of the students had not been vaccinated.

 

I realize that one explanation might be that people were checking the decline box because it was easier than filling in the vaccine information.  But the other alternative is pretty frightening to consider.

[Dory]

How can they not allow you to take them farther apart? I would just tell them which to give him and they could recommend (and did with a rather lot of gruff), but they couldn't exactly say no and give him anything I would not let them. They were told that they could either give them on the old schedules (those of twenty five years ago) or not give them. Do you mean ye refuse to vax if you do not do it their way?

 

As far as I know, vaxing is Federal law. If I walked in tomorrow and could show I never got an MMR, they would have to provide it free. I find this intriguing. It would definitely explain the extremes of the spectrum.

 

ETA: They would not split the DtaP here. So Ds got that one by itself for each of the four rounds.

Last time I tried to get a few select vaccines, they gave me a proposed schedule to catch the kid up. When I said I didn't want all of those right now they told me to wait then and call them when I was ready to book them all in. When they were babies, I told the health nurse I didn't want some specific vaccines and she said that she would take me off the vaccine list completely then until I was ready to do them all.

[MomtoCandJ]

Both girls have been vaccinated but our health department doesn't have a problem if you choose to opt out or delay certain ones. You just need to sign a paper saying that you did. I always opt out of the regular flu vax for the girls. I don't get talked down to or anything like that for my choice. As far as Gardisil, my girls are not of that age yet but I'm also waiting for more studies regarding it, I'm just not sure about that one.

[flyingiguana]

And then this comes out suggesting that delaying vaccinations actually results in more problems for the child: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/delaying-vaccines-increases-risks-with-no-added-benefits/

 

"Concerns about vaccine safety have led up to 40 percent of parents in the U.S. to delay or refuse some vaccines for their children in hopes of avoiding rare reactions. Barriers to health care access can also cause immunization delays. But delaying some vaccines, in addition to leaving children unprotected from disease longer, can actually increase the risk of fever-related seizures, according to a new study...."

 

 

[Mergath]

Also, a lot of polio cases were caused by the polio vax (which is different from the one generally used today).  People don't separate out the polio cases that happened without the vax vs. because of the vax.

 

I thought we eradicated polio in the USA so, like smallpox, there may be a feeling of why bother.  On the other hand, I have not heard of severe complications of the polio vax generally used nowadays, so the risk-reward analysis will be different.  The CDC admits the Measles vax causes significant problems.

 

Link?

[flyingiguana]

Interesting, and it might be correct. However, I do have to wonder if those who delay do it because their child is already prone to reaction/seizures/etc. If so, then wouldn't it make sense that data shows those who delay show more reactions when they get the shots at a later time? Kwim?

 

I'm pro-vax, btw.

Yeah, I'm in the process of trying to figure out where the original paper is to check on what they did to control for that.

 

The one article they did link to is also interesting in this regard: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23831326

They are pointing out that increased GI problems in infants getting vaccinated may not be due to the vaccine, but to the fact that kids who visit the dr tend to come down with GI illnesses at an increased rate just following their appts.

 

 

ETA: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/133/6/e1492.long

ok, so I don't have time to do an exhaustive reading of the paper, but this comes up : "For each vaccine and exposure group (exposures were receipt of vaccine on time or late), we calculated the incidence rate ratio (IRR) of first-time seizures in a postvaccination window using conditional Poisson regression.³⁰ The IRR represents, among children with a first diagnosis of seizure, the incidence rate of seizure in an exposed time period (risk window) after vaccination versus the incidence rate of seizure in unexposed time periods (control window)"

 

So if that says what I think it says, they're confining their data to those kids who had not had a seizure before.

[CaffeineDiary]

The CDC admits the Measles vax causes significant problems.

 

Link?

 

SKL is misrepresenting the CDC's position here quite badly.  This is the relevant portion of their statement, from http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/mmr.html

 

"A vaccine, like any medicine, is capable of causing serious problems, such as severe allergic reactions.

The risk of MMR vaccine causing serious harm, or death, is extremely small. 

Getting MMR vaccine is much safer than getting measles, mumps or rubella. 

Most people who get MMR vaccine do not have any serious problems with it."

The CDC indicates that the problems classified as "severe" "…are so rare that it is hard to tell whether they are caused by the vaccine."

 

Frankly, just saying the Pledge of Allegiance is capable of causing significant problems.  That's a far cry from saying that it causes significant problems.

[SKL]

You all can and should do your own research.  I got my information from the vaccine info sheet that the ped gave me before attempting to force multiple vaxes on my kids at their first US checkup (ages 13mos and 16mos).  It was backed up by web research I did around that time and since then.

 

I think usually the question on parents' minds (if they give it any thought) is not "should I vaccinate" but "which vaccines and when for my individual child?"  I don't understand why so many people have difficulty accepting this as a rational consideration.

[mom31257]

One difference we have today is that we can treat side effects of these diseases much better than they could years ago. The deaths from measles were already dropping dramatically before the vaccine was even introduced. Yes, there were a lot of cases but not nearly as many deaths as 20, 30, 40 years before that.

 

How many of the cases of measles in the US this year have died or been hospitalized?

 

 

 

 

[ChocolateReignRemix]

One difference we have today is that we can treat side effects of these diseases much better than they could years ago. The deaths from measles were already dropping dramatically before the vaccine was even introduced. Yes, there were a lot of cases but not nearly as many deaths as 20, 30, 40 years before that.

 

How many of the cases of measles in the US this year have died or been hospitalized?

 

The last number I saw was something like 25-30% of the cases were hospitalized.  Not an insignificant number by any stretch.

[CaffeineDiary]

The deaths from measles were already dropping dramatically before the vaccine was even introduced. Yes, there were a lot of cases but not nearly as many deaths as 20, 30, 40 years before that.

 

You and I read this graph very, very, very, very, very differently.

 

[albeto.]

You all can and should do your own research.  I got my information from the vaccine info sheet that the ped gave me before attempting to force multiple vaxes on my kids at their first US checkup (ages 13mos and 16mos).  It was backed up by web research I did around that time and since then.

 

I call shenanigans that your doc gave you information that goes against standard medical protocol (unless it wasn't a standard medical doctor you referred to). I think it's far more likely you misread the standard paper s/he gives every parent and patient. It's mind boggling to me to see people think a few hours (or weeks) following links on google will give them as good, or better understanding of immunology and physiology in general than a trained medical professional who spends years studying details, and is going by the recommendations of established, trusted research by those who are specialists in various fields of science and medicine. That this king of thing would be promoted on an educational board is astounding. It's like promoting the idea one can study engineering though Google University and then expecting to fly a rocket to the moon.

 

I think usually the question on parents' minds (if they give it any thought) is not "should I vaccinate" but "which vaccines and when for my individual child?"  I don't understand why so many people have difficulty accepting this as a rational consideration.

 

It is a rational consideration. What's not rational is to divert authority and knowledge to a supernatural entity that has no track record of reliability, much less can be identified concretely (religious exemption). Val Kilmar and his throat tumor being a perfect example of an irrational response to a concrete problem for which conventional standards of protocol exist (for a reason). Same thing with vaccines. What's not rational is to defer authority to people like Jenny McCarthy and naturopaths and homeopaths and chiropractors in lieu of research that uncover and expose the details of the reliable process (biology, microbiology, chemistry, immunology, physics, etc, etc, etc). What's not rational is to consider there's a conspiracy out to get the poor sap who doesn't know they're being taken for a ride because there is profit in pharmaceutical research and sales. What's not rational is to compare numbers of unrelated injury and death and determine that being unvaccinated isn't a risk because it's more dangerous to take a bath at home. What's not rational is to ignore the history of the disease and discount the effects because one's personal experience doesn't conform to the stories of old.

 

There are standards of protocol for a reason. They work reliably, and predictably because they've been thoroughly studied over and over by specialists who know the subject in detail. It's not rational to dismiss standards that work to embrace instead standards that are assumed to work in spite of the lack of evidence or evidence to the contrary.

[mom31257]

You and I read this graph very, very, very, very, very differently.

 

measles.jpg

 

I'm talking about the number of people who died from measles. Yes the number of cases went down a lot, too, but so had the number of people DYING from measles before the vaccine was ever introduced.

 

Look at this graph of the mortality rate.

 

http://business.financialpost.com/2014/04/16/lawrence-solomon-the-untold-story-of-measles/

[mom31257]

I believe vaccines helped but I think improved healthcare, water, nutrition, etc., would have helped as well and significantly reduced the number of cases, deaths, and complications from it.

[merry gardens]

And then this comes out suggesting that delaying vaccinations actually results in more problems for the child: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/delaying-vaccines-increases-risks-with-no-added-benefits/

 

"Concerns about vaccine safety have led up to 40 percent of parents in the U.S. to delay or refuse some vaccines for their children in hopes of avoiding rare reactions. Barriers to health care access can also cause immunization delays. But delaying some vaccines, in addition to leaving children unprotected from disease longer, can actually increase the risk of fever-related seizures, according to a new study...."

 

While that's very interesting, I wonder...

 

did the increased problems with delayed vaccination happen because the vaccinations were delayed

 

OR

 

where they simply observing that children who where at greater risk for complications from vaccinations more likely to receive their vaccinations after a delay?

 

 

Was this a double blind study?  Probably not.  Perhaps those families who may be at higher risk for vaccination complications are also more far likely to delay vaccinations, either intentionally or unintentionally. 

[Luanne]

My question to people who say "my child isn't at risk of getting that disease"... how do you know that?  Do you keep your child at home and never let them go anywhere and don't let anyone visit them just to make sure they don't come in contact with something they aren't vaccinated against?  If you take them to the store with you, you have no idea who in the store has a disease your child could contract. 

[cjzimmer1]

I've had more than one doctor tell me the whole reason behind the chicken pox was that 2 income families (which are that vast majority of families), had a hard time taking off of work to care for a child with chicken pox.  So the motivation for the vax was financial.  The doctors even said that chicken pox was not that dangerous of a disease for the majority of kids (yes I know there are exceptions but I'm talking about the majority here).    However, because of the vax, it's rare to have wild cases of chicken pox.  So now people who didn't have it and/or vaxed or the vax didn't take or they are the rare ones who don't become immune the first time etc as a child are now catching it when they are older teens or adult and at that point it IS more dangerous.  I'm not sure the vaccine is really doing anyone favors.

 

 

[kiana]

As far as the "polio cases caused by polio vaccine" that I did not see an answer for, it is absolutely true that the oral polio vaccine can cause polio in a very small minority of cases (something about one in 750,000 when I last looked). However, the oral polio vaccine is significantly more effective, so in places (such as Nigeria and Pakistan) where wild polio is still a problem, we use the more effective vaccine with the very small risk of actually giving a child polio.

 

In places like the US where exposure is quite unlikely anyway, we use the inactive polio vaccine instead. Even though it is slightly less effective, it is still enough to keep enough of the population immune that any imported case would have difficulty spreading to become an epidemic. 

[Slartibartfast]

I am curious why the extreme dichotomy of completely no vaxing and complete vaxing. We delayed vaxinations, giving my son two every six months starting when he was five (he had a very short stint in preschool of less than two months). It was not the onslaught of insanity (nine were strongly suggested within a day of Ds' birth, all to be given at once). The delayed vaxing meant he got all the big ones, opted out of over seven due to aging out of the "worry zone," and had a much lesser chance of complications.

 

Why so all or nothing?

 

I am not meaning you guys are all or nothing, but more are curious if anyone knows.

 

My kids were on a slightly delayed schedule.

 

My son's vaccines were very delayed because for awhile it was  thought that he would need heart surgery and if they have heart surgery they have to start all over with the vaccines. Once we got the green light he was really behind but we just got them slowly and steadily. 

[SKL]

Once again a certain favorite poster has outright called me a liar.

 

The only reason the MD (normal mainstream pediatrician) gave me the flyer was because I told him I wanted to talk about it before he injected my kids.  He laughed at me.  Finally he gave me the flyers for all the shots and told me he would wait if I promised to get my kids those shots at their next visit.

 

(We never went back there.)

 

I know doctors.  They are just people.  They aren't any more likely to be experts in vaxes than I, a tax lawyer, am expert in every single area of tax law.  They don't all keep up on all of the latest information.  They do take the easy way out at times.  There are few things easier for a pediatrician than to give wee babies shots without letting their parents even think they have a say in the matter.  The ped I'm talking about had asked if my kids had eaten eggs, and I said no, and apparently he didn't remember that you can't give the MMR if there is a possible egg allergy.  (What was the big frickin hurry?  There hadn't been a measles case in this state in years.  But maybe this doc did not know that.)

 

There are also doctors who support parents' right to know and think and decide.  I guess those are the stupid rotten don't-care-if-children-die doctors.

 

It had been my intention to get those shots but space them out a bit.  I wanted an adult conversation with a doctor so I could form a sensible plan.  Instead I was disrespected and didn't take my kids back to a doctor until they were past 2.5yo.

[Reefgazer]

Because it makes for a more eye-catching and frantic-seeming press story.  :001_rolleyes:

I am curious why the extreme dichotomy of completely no vaxing and complete vaxing. We delayed vaxinations, giving my son two every six months starting when he was five (he had a very short stint in preschool of less than two months). It was not the onslaught of insanity (nine were strongly suggested within a day of Ds' birth, all to be given at once). The delayed vaxing meant he got all the big ones, opted out of over seven due to aging out of the "worry zone," and had a much lesser chance of complications.

Why so all or nothing?

I am not meaning you guys are all or nothing, but more are curious if anyone knows.

 

[SKL]

My question to people who say "my child isn't at risk of getting that disease"... how do you know that?  

 

I think they are talking about diseases spread by sexual intercourse and intravenous drug needles.

[Reefgazer]

The polio vaccine changed from an oral vaccine to an injected vaccine, which decreased the risk of contracting vaccine-related polio.

Also, a lot of polio cases were caused by the polio vax (which is different from the one generally used today).  People don't separate out the polio cases that happened without the vax vs. because of the vax.

 

I thought we eradicated polio in the USA so, like smallpox, there may be a feeling of why bother.  On the other hand, I have not heard of severe complications of the polio vax generally used nowadays, so the risk-reward analysis will be different.  The CDC admits the Measles vax causes significant problems.