please please please take some time to read up about vaccines before administering into your baby's bloodstream....it was so hard for me to regret vaccinating my firstborn. Even if you decide to vaccinate, or partially vaccinate, you have the right to vax on a delayed schedule so that your child is less likely to experience adverse effects (adhd, seizure, allergies, ear infections, digestive problems, even death---see the vaccine adverse effects reporting (VAERS) website at http://vaers.hhs.gov/

I know this isn't a debate thread but don't take my word for it, for the health of your family, look into it! Most parents would do internet research regarding a simple diaper rash or teething pain-- look into this health option, too!

Also of couse don't passively accept your doctor's word for it either--they don't even know that the "safety studies" don't compare a particular vax to a placebo to assess the health of the babies. Rather, the new vax is compared to another vaccine with a "known safety profile"--double-blind, placebo controlled studies are the foundation of all research science and most docs are shocked to discover this. also see

http://www.nmaseminars.com/files/VACCINES.pdf

Oh, SHUT UP with the unsolicited advice already. First the preschool, now this. Refusing routine vaccinations for your kids while living in the US or Europe is stupid - refusing vaccination in China, where vaccination rates are lower and there are many more endemic diseases, is pathological.

Bashful

believe me, it has been a really difficult and at times painful process to question long-held and totally unquestioned beliefs...

that vaccines are safe
that the instutute of modern Western Medicine knows how to keep people healthy
that if those crazy non-vaccinators were right, how come the government recommends those vaccinations if they'd hurt anyone?

sorry if I irritated you, no, on second hand I'm not.

If one single person reads my post and then looks into vax and decides against the MMR...well, theirs could just be the one child who STAYS a normal healthy child, rather than getting the MMR, and 2 days later suddenly turning uncommunicative and autistic. Yeah, there are LOTS of real families' stories out there and they are heartwrenching.

Ever wonder why China has also gone from a 1/10,000 autism rate to a 165/10,000 autism rate since vaccinations have become commonplace? (You don't see these kids too often, since they have been abandoned by their parents and live in orphanages). I hope my #'s are right, it's off the top of my head.

China (and other Asian and 3rd world countries) get handed the botched vaccine batches that are deemed "not good enough for the West".

Plus they're still administering Oral Polio vaccine here which, among other problems, can CAUSE polio since the live virus is shed intact in the stool of every single person who gets the OPV (just see the outbreak in Amish community in Minnesota.) Furthermore, in the Western hemisphere the authorities consider wild-type polio to have been eradicated (so nobody should need the vaccine anymore, right?)

really, there are so many different vaccines (if one vaxes according to the US chart, it's 77 organisms) each with their own risk/benefit ratio...people should really get educated before taking this leap.

At the risk of feeding a troll....

I have read the literature on vaccination, and there is no convincing evidence that vaccination causes autism. That crap has unfortunately been perpetuated on the internet by a lot of nutty moms who seem to think they have become medical experts.

I'm glad you think you've avoided autism for your children - I hope they don't die or become crippled by polio or diphtheria or tetanus or hepatitis. Even assuming your conclusion about autism is true, I'll take those statistics over the risks of infectious diseases (which killed a LOT more children back in the days before routine vaccination than those autism stats you cited) any day.

Apparently you would like to return to the days of 30% infant mortality, but you'll have to excuse the rest of us if we disagree. Of course, your kids probably don't face that level of risk, because all of the other stupid parents are protecting your children by vaccinating, which reduces the chances that your children will be exposed to polio, measles, or diphtheria. Of course, while they are assuming the risks of vaccination to protect your children (and everyone else's) you are selfishly putting all of our children at risk, by allowing your precious little crotchfruit to serve as potential reservoirs of every nasty disease they come into contact with in China. So thank god you don't believe in preschool - please keep them the hell away from our children. Vaccination is a population-based effort - vaccinating your own child helps to protect them individually, but widespread vaccination is needed to actually eradicate diseases.

If you're worried about "botched vaccine batches" here in China, I'm sure one of the many excellent Western hospitals (WorldLink, Shanghai United) would be happy to import a few doses for you from the States. And yeah, it's too bad that they're still using the oral polio vaccine in many parts of the world, and all the more reason for you to vaccinate your kids. Let's see... your kids are living in China, where you believe everyone and their brother is shedding polio virus from the vaccine - so you've concluded that it's a good idea NOT to vaccinate your kids. HELLO?? Is anyone home??

Polio is still endemic in India and several other parts of the world, which is why Western countries are still vaccinating against it. If we don't vaccinate the population, it would only take ONE infected Indian child immigrating (or just coming for a quick visit) to start a new epidemic in the US. That's exactly what happened in the Amish outbreak - one person from abroad came to visit Minnesota (although they were likely shedding virus from vaccine, not a wild-type infection) and sparked an epidemic in the Amish community, because THEY DON'T VACCINATE THEIR CHILDREN. Are you getting the pattern here? Luckily, it didn't spread beyond the Amish community, because most of the rest of the community is vaccinated.

Good luck to you with your little game of Russian roulette, but please don't try to convince other parents of your pseudo-science crap.

Pseudoscience? Oh, right. Like Chiropractic used to be considered pseudoscience. And like just about all of the healing arts--like Traditional Chinese Medicine. Oh yeah, and those Greenhouse effect people, too...that was pseudoscience of course. Crazy out-there, save-the-whale, tree-hugging liberals!

you know, you sound a lot like me. 2 years ago I would've (and did, I think) write several position emails that sounded much like yours. Irritated! Outraged! How can you possibly say that vaccines are BAD when they are so obviously good? (Damn conspiracy theorists...) And where did YOU go to medical school, anyway???

But I've looked into it only a tiny tiny bit over the past few months and there are some real reasons for concern, way beyond autism.

I hope everyone I know will get ahold of Vaccinations: What the CDC documents and Science Reveal by Dr. Sherri Tenpenny. If I can find a way to copy DVDs without a dvd burner (like a store here in Beijing or something??) I'd love to send you a copy, bashful, and anyone else who wants one.

We have been hoodwinked in so many ways I don't even know where to begin. The infectious disease rate (of Polio, Smallpox and measles, anyway I have data for) had dropped dramatically in the years preceding the release of the vaccines, and beginning in 1972 the WHO dropped their mass vaccination campaigns in favor of quarantine and vaccinating only close family members.

And what's in vaccines? Aborted human fetal tissue is in MMR vaccine, smallpox vaccine and chickenpox vaccines. The viruses are grown on cultured monkey kidney tissues that are 40or so years old and carry their own viral contaminants (for the most dangerous virus see the recent book The Virus and the Vaccine by Debbie Bookchin&Jim Schumacher http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 0312278721?)v=glance) not to mention that cells that are grown (cloned) over and over and over and over and over again....what is that? That is what cancer is: a disruption of the cell's built-in density system which makes it keep growing.

And the Amish community. This is from Dr. Tenpenny's article about it.

First of all, there wasn’t an “outbreak of polio.” There was only the discovery of an inactivated polio virus in the stool of four children. The first confirmation was in a 7-month old Amish infant, presumably hospitalized, with severe immune deficiency. The “find” prompted screening of other children in the community; four children were confirmed positive. None experienced any type of paralysis.

Part of the panic can be blamed on inaccurate reporting. The virus that was identified was not “wild polio.” It was a virus that is found only in the oral polio vaccine (OPV). Oral vaccine-strain viruses are inactivated with formaldehyde (liora adds, formaldehyde is a known carcinogen that cannot be used in any type of food or beauty product even) and are generally considered by the CDC “too weak” to cause disease. Even though the OPV is still used extensively in Third World countries, it has not been used in the United States since 2000. How did children in an isolated Amish community, with no exposure to foreigners, become exposed to vaccine-strain polio virus? That remains a mystery.

So, My bad...the OPV that is given here isn't a risk really at all. I could keep going but baby is waking up...although I am passionate and 100% firmly stand my ground. Even though I am really not qualified to make all the arguments there are many many doctors and journalists who do very well. In 20 years this will be common knowledge.

for reference, there is an online discussion forum that delves further into this topic. http://www.mothering.com/discussions/fo ... y.php?f=47

lioralourie wrote:And where did YOU go to medical school, anyway???

Yale

I feel sorry for you - there is an incredible volume of crap on the web about certain subjects, including this one, and you have obviously been captivated by it. I do not have time to address all of the scientific misstatements in your post, so I will pick one:

lioralourie wrote:not to mention that cells that are grown (cloned) over and over and over and over and over again....what is that? That is what cancer is: a disruption of the cell's built-in density system which makes it keep growing.

Many, many cell types will continue to grow and grow in cell culture (or in our bodies, for that matter) as long as a certain cell density is not reached. This does not mean they are cancerous. For example, you are constantly generating new skin cells and sloughing off old ones, and you constantly generate new cells in the lining of your gut as well. In cell culture, you can get many cell types to grow and grow pretty much indefinitely by "passing" them periodically to keep them at a low density. When you say the cells used to make vaccines are "grown over and over" in cell culture - that is true - but that has NOTHING to do with cloning and does not indicate that they have overcome natural checks on cells growth as cancer cells do - they are simply being maintained at optimum density in cell culture. (Again, you sort of understand bits and pieces of the science, but then you head off into left field, I'm sure just something you've read on the internet.)

Okay, one more before I go:
You're right that none of the Amish children experienced paralysis - but that is simply because they were exposed to a weakened form of the virus (from someone sloughing vaccine virus) rather than the wild type virus. The fact that the virus was found indicates that THEY WERE INFECTED. The severity of their symptoms (or lack thereof) are irrelevant to my argument. The point is that if they were infected this easily by one form of the virus, they could have just as easily been infected with the real thing by exposure to a traveler from India or Nigeria (two hotspots for polio right now). The fact that they were infected proves that they are not protected against the disease - and if the get infected with the wild type virus, they have the usual chance of developing serious symptoms, paralysis, death, etc. They are only protected by the fact that virtually everyone around them is vaccinated, reducing the chances that they will ever be exposed to the virus. But if everyone followed your advice, no one would have protection, and that one infected person from India could spark a massive epidemic. This is very basic epidemiology - I don't know why this is a mystery to you. If you are the only one not vaccinating their kids, your kids are pretty safe. If everyone follows your advice, we are back to the pre-vaccine disease statistics.

Perhaps you are not old enough to remember the days when virtually everyone lost siblings or cousins or friends to measles or polio or diphtheria or whooping cough, and perhaps your grandparents didn't tell you the stories about the people they lost, but these diseases are not some myth invented by the vaccine industry. And they are not gone for good - there are numerous examples of local outbreaks of weird diseases in areas where vaccine rates have dropped.

Perhaps you should make an effort to do some of your internet browsing on sites not connected to the anti-vaccine hysteria:
http://www.immunize.org/stories/story39.htm
http://www.immunize.org/stories/story77.htm
http://www.immunize.org/stories/story11.htm
http://www.immunize.org/stories/story76.htm
http://www.immunize.org/stories/story74.htm
http://www.immunize.org/stories/story63.htm

Oh, and Tenpenny doesn't even have an M.D. - she is hardly respected by members of the mainstream medical community. She is someone who has made a lot of money by feeding into the vaccine hysteria, and she spends a lot more time on paid speaking engagements and promoting her book sales than she does actually practicing medicine. You need to consider the source before falling for this crap.

Again, I truly hope your kids are ok, but please don't try to recruit others to your cause. You are putting all of us at risk by not vaccinating your kids, and we certainly don't need more parents following your path.

Thank you, bashful. I ran into a mom back at home who's the anti-immunization type and I really wanted to tell her to keep her child away from mine. You've stated what I want to say.

Interesting, how theses threads move away from the question asked.

I will not get into the vacinate or dont vaccinate debate.

One point, it is the oral poliovaccine that causes the spliing of viruses, not the INJECTION route.

Verochka wrote:I ran into a mom back at home who's the anti-immunization type and I really wanted to tell her to keep her child away from mine.

If your kids are "protected" because they had their immunizations, then, well, your kids wouldn't be at risk now, would they??

But your concern says it all...vaccines have, overall, about an 80-90% effectiveness rate. This isn't the compliance rate, this is the clinical effectiveness for vaccinated kids (which wanes anyway over time making the vaccinations even less effective.) Outbreaks of measles, polio, etc continue to occur in 100% or nearly 100% vaccinated populations.

Each vaccine carries its own risk/benefit profile and there is not a one-size-fits-all one answer (all vaccines are good, all vaccines are bad). A good place to start with one's research should be the HepB vaccine. To me it makes the lease sense of all-vaccinating newborns against HepB, a blood-and-body-fluids borne disease? And immunity is gone by age 12 anyhow? Why not just give it once during the teenage years? Makes NO sense and there are definite risks from the vaccine (like death, in a very small percentage of infants)

I don't understand why so many people REFUSE to take their health into their own hands and become educated consumers by looking into

A) the real risks of not having the vaccine (much, much less scary than you'd think) vs.
B) the real risks of the vaccine itself. Short-term and long-term problems in the form of repeated ear infections (and subsequent gut problems due to the antibiotics) We are experiencing epidemic proportions of childhood cancer, severe asthma, allergies, auto-immune dysfunctions...within our generation, in a clean modern society, could it be that we've traded one form of diseasse for another? Maybe vaccinations play a role since the rates of these childhood illnesses began their rise at the same time mass vaccinations become recommended.

Unvaccinated kids are livelier, healthier. They have an intact immune system, uncorrupted by aluminum, mercury, all those nasty foreign species' cells in vaccines. Unvaccinated kids are strong. They can weather a measles infection, pertussis, etc. no problemo. I stand my ground...

G-d didn't make a mistake when He created us!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let your body live naturally & heal naturally and don't tamper with our wonderful delicate design!!!!

Yeah, I remember when I lived in Holland there were those people who on religious grounds did not vaccinate their kids. There were nasty polio epidemics, which left lots of kids crippled for life.
Denying your kids the protection of vaccination is not only daft, it is criminal. Nuff said.

http://www.aapsonline.org/press/nrvacres.htm

Nov. 2, 2000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: Kathryn Serkes (202) 333-3855


DOCTORS’ GROUP VOTES TO OPPOSE VACCINE MANDATES
A leading national physician organization is calling for a moratorium on all government mandated vaccines and has passed a resolution to that end at their annual meeting.

Members of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) voted this week at their 57th Annual Meeting in St. Louis to pass a resolution calling for an end to mandatory childhood vaccines. The resolution passed without a single "no" vote. (Resolution and mandatory vaccine fact sheet posted at www.aapsonline.org)

"Our children face the possibility of death or serious long-term adverse effects from mandated vaccines that aren’t necessary or that have very limited benefits," said Jane M. Orient, MD, AAPS Executive Director.

"This is not a vote against vaccines," said Dr. Orient. "This resolution only attempts to halt blanket vaccine mandates by government agencies and school districts that give no consideration for the rights of the parents or the individual medical condition of the child."

Forty-two states have mandatory vaccine policies, and many children are required to have 22 shots before first grade. On top of that, as a condition for school attendance, many school districts require vaccination for diseases such as hepatitis B -- primarily an adult disease, usually spread by multiple sex partners, drug abuse or an occupation with exposure to blood.

And yet, children under the age of 14 are three times more likely to suffer adverse effects -- including death -- following the hepatitis b vaccine than to catch the disease itself.

Just last week, students in Utica, NY were sent home from school, and told they could not return until they had been forced to receive hep B vaccinations. Further, parents were threatened by Child Protective Services with possible seizure of their children based on "education neglect."

"It’s obscene to threaten to seize a child just because his parents refuse medical treatment that is obviously unnecessary and perhaps even dangerous," said Dr. Orient. "AAPS believes that parents, with the advice of their doctors, should make decisions about their children’s medical care -- not government bureaucrats. This Resolution affirms that position."

(Note: AAPS is a professional association of physicians dedicated since 1943 to the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship.)

Check out the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System

http://vaers.hhs.gov/info.htm

no vaccines are required. They are recommended by the CDC; however it is perfectly legal and acceptable to delay or even decide not to vaccinate.

There is a growing community of doctors and health professionals who are seriously concerned about this issue.

As bashful pointed out, Dr. Sherry Tenpenny, who I referred to, is a DO which means she is a Doctor of Osteopathy (although she was way involved with mainstream medicine for most of her career...she is a board-certified ER physician and ran the ER unit for years. She now runs a wellness clinic near Cleveland, OH). She is one of many, many voices out there and just happens to be the one who caught my ear recently.

Well, I'm glad I took the time to respond specifically to your posts, since you just decided to ignore me once you couldn't actually answer the arguments.

My grandparents all lost perfectly healthy, unvaccinated siblings, friends, cousins, neighbors and classmates to measles, pertussis, and polio. I guess god just made a mistake when he "made" them, eh? They just weren't made quite "perfect" enough? Give me a break. Thousands upon thousands of people died of these diseases every year in the United States prior to vaccination. If you have no understanding of science and not even a basic understanding of history, and when challenged you decide to rest your argument on your religious faith in the inherent perfection of the human design, then I guess there is no hope for you.

DOCTORS AND SCIENTISTS WHO CONDEMN VACCINATION

"There is a great deal of evidence to prove that immunisation of children does more harm than good."
Dr J Anthony Morris, former Chief Vaccine Control Officer, US Food and Drug Administration

"The greatest threat of childhood disease lies in the dangerous and ineffectual efforts made to prevent them through mass immunisation."
Dr R. Mendelsohn, Author and Professor of Paediatrics (How To Raise A Healthy Child In Spite Of Your Doctor)

"In our opinion, there is now sufficient evidence of immune malfunction following current vaccination programmes to anticipate growing public demands for research investigation into alternative methods of prevention of infectious disease."
Dr's H. Buttram and J. Hoffman (Vaccinations and Immune Malfunctions)

"All vaccination has the effect of directing the three values of the blood into or toward the zone characteristics of cancer and leukemia...Vaccines DO predispose to cancer and leukaemia."
Professor L.C. Vincent, Founder of Bioelectronics

"Every vaccine carries certain hazards and can produce inward reactions in some people...in general, there are more vaccine complications than is generally appreciated."
Professor George Dick, London University

"Official data have shown that the large-scale vaccinations undertaken in the US have failed to obtain any significant improvement of the diseases against which they were supposed to provide protection."
Dr A. Sabin, developer of the Oral Polio vaccine (lecture to Italian doctors in Piacenza, Italy, Decemebr 7th 1985)

"In addition to the many obvious cases of mortality from these practises, there are also long-term hazards which are almost impossible to estimate accurately...the inherent danger of of all vaccine procedures should be a deterrent to their unnecessary or unjustifiable use."
Sir Graham Wilson (The Hazards of Immunisation)

"Laying aside the very real possibility that the various vaccines are contaminated with animal viruses and may cause serious illness later in life (multiple sclerosis, cancer, leukaemia, etc) we must consider whether the vaccines really work for their intended purpose."
Dr W.C. Douglas (Cutting Edge, May 1990)

"The only wholly safe vaccine is a vaccine that is never used"
Dr James A. Shannon, National Institute of Health, USA

With reference to Smallpox;

"Vaccination is a monstrosity, a misbegotten offspring of error and ignorance, it should have no place in either hygiene or medicine...Believe not in vaccination, it is a world-wide delusion, an unscientific practise, a fatal superstition with consequences measured today by tears and sorrow without end."
Professor Chas Rauta, University of Perguia, Italy , (New York Medical Journal July 1899)

"Vaccination does not protect, it actually renders its subjects more susceptible by depressing vital power and diminishing natural resistance, and millions of people have died of smallpox which they contracted after being vaccinated."
Dr J.W. Hodge (The Vaccination Superstition)

"It is nonsense to think that you can inject pus - and it is usually from the pustule end of the dead smallpox victim … it is unthinkable that you can inject that into a little child and in any way improve its health. What is true of vaccination is exactly as true of all forms of serum immunisation, if we could by any means build up a natural resistance to disease through these artificial means, I would applaud it to the echo, but we can't do it."
Dr William Howard Hay (lecture to Medical Freedom Society, June 25th 1937)

"Immunisation against smallpox is more hazardous than the disease itself."
Professor Ari Zuckerman, World Health Organisation

With reference to Whooping Cough (PERTUSSIS);

"There is no doubt in my mind that in the UK alone some hundreds, if not thousands of well infants have suffered irreparable brain damage needlessly and that their lives and those of their parents have been wrecked in consequence."
Professor Gordon Stewart, University of Glasgow (Here's Health, March 1980)

"My suspicion, which is shared by others in my profession, is that the nearly 10,000 SIDS deaths that occur in the US each year are related to one or more of the vaccines that are routinely given to children. The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine is the most likely villain , but it could also be one or more of the others."
Dr R Mendelsohn, Author and Professor of Paediatrics (How To Raise A Healthy Child In Spite Of Your Doctor)

"The worst vaccine of all is the whooping cough vaccine...it is responsible for a lot of deaths (edited by Liora: SIDS deaths) and for a lot of infants suffering irreversible brain damage.."
Dr Archie Kalokerinos, Author and Vaccine Researcher (Natural Health Convention, Stanwell Tops, NSW, Australia 1987)

With reference to Polio;

"Many here voice a silent view that the Salk and Sabin polio vaccine, being made of monkey kidney tissue has been directly responsible for the major increase in leukaemia in this country."
Dr F. Klenner, Polio Researcher, USA

"No batch of vaccine can be proved to be safe before it is given to children"
Surgeon General Leonard Scheele (AMA Convention 1955, USA)

"Live virus vaccines against influenza and paralytic polio, for example, may in each instance cause the disease it is intended to prevent..."
Dr Jonas Salk, developer of first polio vaccine (Science 4/4/77 Abstracts)

Well, in the face of proof from Chas Routa circa 1899, I guess I just have to give up.

Well, in the face of proof from Chas Routa circa 1899, I guess I just have to give up.

Ditto!! Even the piece "Nov. 2, 2000 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:" seems very old....

Lioralourie

Some people are not able to, or do not wish to open their eyes.

Do as I do and let them be.

Lioralourie

Some people are not able to, or do not wish to open their eyes.

Do as I do and let them be.

interesting...

"In 2004, it was estimated that there were 454 000 measles deaths globally: this translates to more than 1200 deaths every day; 50 people die every hour from measles." http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/ (worth more than just the quote)

what words of wisdom do you have for the parents too poor to afford immunizations who lose a child to measles?

evorsx wrote:Lioralourie

Some people are not able to, or do not wish to open their eyes.

Do as I do and let them be.

thank you

i heard somewhere that, when confronted with new information,

96% of people will spend all their time and resources justifying the current way of thinking

4% will listen open-mindedly and perhaps research the topic for themselves

* double post

evorsx wrote:Lioralourie

Some people are not able to, or do not wish to open their eyes.

Do as I do and let them be.

thank you

i heard somewhere that, when confronted with new information,

96% of people will spend all their time and resources justifying the current way of thinking

4% will listen open-mindedly and perhaps research the topic for themselves