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Originally posted by ratsinacage
reply to post by notquiteright
I remember when i took my child to the first doctor appointment at around 6 months of age. At the time the child was very plump and healthy, had not yet had a cold of any kind....was still breast fed etc. The doctor advised the standard course of vaccines to which i responded i was going to wait a while (not wanting an outright confrontation at that point).
At the next appointment a few months later same routine. My child had the physical....all the benchmarks were said to have been met or exceeded...again in super good health and everything great. Again the vaccine talk...again i said i wanted to wait. This time the doctors tone was quite different....I was told many horror stories of what can happen if a child gets one of the diseases the vaccines prevent. At one point the doctor used tetanus as an example and said that every one who gets it dies. I was a little shocked by that statement so i re stated that back to the doc as a question "there is a 100 percent mortality rate of those who get tetanus?'. The answer was an affirmative 'yes'.
Now, this was no hole in the wall practice. Its at least a two or three doctor childrens practice and both the times i went the waiting room was filled with kids, at least half of whom were coughing or visibly sick (something that bothered me a little bit). Naturally after this conversation i went home and did my dutiful fact checking and found out that tetanus related deaths are nowhere near 100 percent with modern medicine. Now, thats not to say that there arent serious complications and perhaps life long scars associated with getting it....but thats besides the point. I asked the doctor to stand by their false statement and they did so with enthusiasm and self assurance.
For those who are in favor of vaccines and redicule those who either question them or are fully against them: i wonder why you bother since the tone you often take wont do anything to educate, convince or otherwise win someone over...it seems more often to be a diatribe originating from some place selfish or an enjoyment of just tearing down rather than building up.
For those who have questions about vaccines all i can do is encourage you to become as completely educated on every bit of minutia as you can so that you can fully own your decision and leave as few regrets as possible. The decision to vaccinate or not i dont think can ever be one made that gives total peace of mind....for as a caring and loving parent you will always have 'what if's' and second guessing of yourself. Thats where arming yourself with as much knowledge as possible comes in.
As for me and my decision about my child.....they are now a year and a half old....so far no vaccines at all....my child has had 3 colds, one which was a little bit serious (upper respiratory congestion) but got over it in less than a quarter of the time it took me. My child was breast fed until 16 months of age, has a great appetite, started eating solids at around 8 months (before was exclusively breast fed). I dont shelter my child from the world.....we ride public transportation frequently, shop at all kinds of stores where often my child falls down or touches the dirty ground and then promptly sucks the fingers clean, we play at playgrounds and attend events where there are lots of other children coughing and sick or what have you.....in short my child is fully immersed in the world around us and so far so good (i am not smug about this, just thankful that so far nothing bad has happened).
some might say we are merely benefitting from herd immunity....and i cannot entirely disregard that argument since it may be true (im not an immunologist). However since there are plenty of peer review studies and papers that show that many outbreaks happen among vaccinated groups i feel that my decision is about as risky as those who choose to vaccinate.
I wish the scientific community and large corporations would fund large scale studies that were above reproach showing the full gammut of issues relating to control groups of vaccinated and unvaccinated. Seems to me that if you make a product you should stand behind it....and thats not something most if not all vaccine makers will do. That by itself should bother any critical thinker. Besides that, if there are really no detrimental effects to vaccines it seems reasonable that any serious long term studies would do nothing but shore up scientific support for that claim. But we all have seen how interested big pharma and government is in conducting those kinds of studies.....and that weighs heavily in my decision making.
good luck all
Originally posted by Xcalibur254
reply to post by Unity_99
This study is not new. It's from 2008 and his highly flawed. Not to mention that it seems to actually be a study originally done by Andrew Wakefield that was passed on to one of his proteges after he was found guilty of fabricating results.
British Medical Journal Forced to Publish Letter about Merck Conflict after Age of Autism Campaign
By John Stone
BMJ have been forced in a humiliating climb-down to publish a letter in its on-line columns pointing to BMJ Groups relationship with MMR manufacturer Merck in the context of its attack on Andrew Wakefield earlier this year (HERE ). The articles by Brian Deer re-cycled allegations first published in the Sunday Times in 2009 shortly after proprietor James Murdoch was appointed to the board of another MMR manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline.
Originally posted by Retikx
So why in the hell does it matter to you if i dont want myself or my children to have these same vaccines injected? If myself or my children catch measles or polio are you not protected from our afflictions???? And if not... then whats the point?
Originally posted by alfa1
Originally posted by Retikx
So why in the hell does it matter to you if i dont want myself or my children to have these same vaccines injected? If myself or my children catch measles or polio are you not protected from our afflictions???? And if not... then whats the point?
Again what I posted back on page one - the only people claiming the "100 percent effective" bogus strawman argument are the ANTI-vaccine people.
Anyone actually familiar with vaccines know they are not 100 percent effective and nobody has ever claimed them to be so. Therefore,a vaccinated person hanging about in a group of non-vaccinated people *IS* at a higher risk.