Vaccinations, are they necessary?

J

joannek

Registered User
My daughter (nearly 2 yr o) is seeing this naturapath. He is VERY against vaccinations & introduced me to read all these books about how vaccinations are not the ones that raddicated the illnesses. it's hygiene, isolation & education that irradicated polio, whooping cough, smallpox, etc. i read those books & of course, they are written by Drs. who are against vaccinations. these Drs. also advocates that vaccinations are widely recommended by WHO, APP, UK's Health Dept etc.because it's a political issue.......money & power, etc.

my daughter soon needs her 2 yr o jabs. i don't know anyone who hasn't had any vaccinations. my daughter's doc said becasue nowadays babies are now introduced to all these virus at such young age, that's why there are more asthma, eczema, flu problems for them. he said his patients kids who never had any vaccinations don't get sick so easily & if they get eczema, it's easier to treat.

the research that i did on the internet are 2 extremes, either for or against (usually for) vaccinations.

have any of you not give your children vaccinations? are these vaccinations really essential? are they really gonna get mumps & measles nowadays?
 
are you willing to take the chance? personally, i think that the POSSIBLE side effects are far outweighed by the benefits, ESPECIALLY living in Asia where living conditions are so crowded and in many cases hygeine is unheard of...(ever stand in a public washroom and count the # of people that actually use soap after going??? a TINY fraction!)

also, do you really think that life back in Roman times/middle ages was better, before vaccines? that vaccines haven't helped at all? please.... back then the life expectancy was something like...30-35 years!

i don't buy that they are 100% safe. there ARE POSSIBLE side effects, as with any drug, but i also don't buy into the fact that it's all a hoax to make $$$ either!
 
I totally agree with carang. How can you possibly take the risk when you are talking about such serious diseases. I also feel that by not having the vaccination if your child gets that illness you are then putting at risk other children who for whatever reason i.e medical, cannot have the vaccination.

When I was a baby there was a lot of fuss over the whooping cough vaccine. My mum decided to let me have the vaccine, 2 weeks later I got whooping cough - but not as badly because of the vaccine. I went to school with a girl whos sister was disabled because she had not had the polio vaccine.

It should be your choice but do think of the child, what would their choice be - the benefits far outweigh the risks (if there are any).
 
Personally, I think if I have not given my childeren vaccination and they got a serious disease I would not forgive myself.

The choice is up to you but I follow Carang and Millerwisk
 
People who say that it isn't vaccinations that have erradicated diseases are very misinformed.
Try talking to people who lived in the days before vaccinations, (my Grandmother is 97) and experienced the death of a child, and also had a sibling crippled by polio and they will give you very strong opinions of what they think of the 'natural approach' to treating these illnesses.

The WHO have documented proof that as the percentages of vaccinations drop in a region (usually due to peoples concern of unsubstantiated side effects) the incidents of illness increase.


If you are concerned about the link between the MMR and autism, it has now been wholeheartedly disproven.
And if in the end you are still concerned, you can have them administered separatley.

There is plenty of info on the internet about the serious complications ( for children and adults) these illnesses bring.
For example, if an adult male catches mumps, he will become sterile, and therefore unable to have children.
If a pregnant woman is exposed to rubella, her baby can be born with severe deformaties or mental illness.
Not to mention the danger period for all babies before they are old enough to be immunised.
We really don't want these illnesses to become commonplace again.

And at the end of the day if you want your child to attend school in just about any developed country, you will have to prove that they are vaccinated.
 
Last edited:
You are debating running the classic "freeloader" scenario.
If everyone else has their child vaccinated, your child might not need to because it would be very hard to catch anything since everyone else had paid for the vaccinations. Your child would have to pick it up without transmission from people which is possible, but rare. The risks here (look around you) would seem to be greater than the risks of playing the same strategy in the West. Even greater if you cross the border.
The risk you are running is that if your child picks something up you will discover the reason why vaccinations were invented in the first place.
Your choice, your child's life.
 
of course i will vaccinate my chil dif it's best for her. the thing is, there are studies who show that vaccination not necessary means your body will produce antibodies to that disease? what her doc is saying is that it is "not necessary" to vaccinate a child because it doesn't protect her. (??) i have no idea whether this is true or not. i'm no medical doctor & i have no idea if vaccinating a human body, thsi body will create antibodies. there are a lot of studles that say hepB shots are only useful for 10yrs. hepB is a STD (or thru blood transfusion). infants are not sexually active, not for the first 10yrs of live (hopefully), why don't they jab them hepB at 10yr old instead of at birth? why do children in the philippines still get TB when they already has the BCG shots? why do i know a woman who's had the chickenpox vaccine still got chickenpox when she was pregnant? do these vaccinations really work? that is my ultimate questions. can they really protect our children?
 
There is an American magazine called Mothering which looks into many controversial parenting subjects including whether to vaccinate or not. Their web site is www.mothering.com

They have an article called, In the Wake of Vaccines, http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/vaccines/wake.html
which might answer some of your questions.

I find this a complex subject which is further complicated by the fact that in the USA you are only allowed not to have your child vaccinated on religious ground. So you either have to have all of them or none of them.

There seems to be many arguments which aren?t really to do with whether or not the vaccines work or not. For example, side-effects and whether or not mercury should be an ingredient.

I find it difficult to distinguish health improvements from a better medical services and other essentials, like clean fresh water, and those from vaccinations. Usually these improvements in our living conditions have happen together.

On the pro vaccine side, the smallpox story is one of how a vaccine has managed to wipe out a disease. The non-vaccine arguers, however, point at scarlet fever and say here is a disease with no vaccine that is no longer the killer it used to be.

Not really answers to your question rather just giving more confusion!

Best wishes,
Barb
 
thanks barbwong, mothering is one of my favorite magazine. i'll check out the link. if there anywhere i can get it in hk?
 
I don?t know anywhere in Hong Kong that sells Mothering. I get my copy by subscription. It costs an extra US$10 to get sent here. I?ve found the mark up of shops selling overseas publications to be huge in Hong Kong that even if you could buy it here a subscription would probably be cheaper.
 
i read the article. this is exactly what i am worried about. i have been reading a lot about vaccinations, and the more i read, the more scared i am for my child.
 
I think when reading such articles it is important to question every statement that is made.

For example could there be other reasons for the high number of reported disabilities in today?s society?
It seems to me that my brother and my son have almost the same problems with reading. My son has been diagnosed with dyslexia and is getting extra help whereas my brother was just labeled as thick. I do wonder what would have happened if my brother was at school now rather than 30 years ago. Likewise today there are many different levels of autism but in the past only the most effected where consider to have this problem.

Could the rise in these problems be due to something else which has occurred at the same time as the rise in vaccinations?
For example there has been a huge drop in breastfeeding over the last 50 years. It is now well known that breastfed children are less likely to have asthma. This means that children who are formula fed are more likely to have asthma. This fact really biases the non-vaccine argument as mothers who chooses not to vaccine are more likely to breastfeed their children. Diabetes is another illness that we know is a much lower risk if you have been breastfed.

The article asks ?And could we be compromising the integrity of our immune systems by eliminating all experience of natural infection??
One thing we know is that breastfeeding actually improves the effectiveness of vaccines and more antibodies are produced. So you could argue that it doesn?t seem to matter whether you get the illness or the vaccine the body will make antibodies if it is able to.

The infant mortality rate is much lower now than in the past. Could it be that because more children are living there are more to have chronic illness rather than acute illness and die?

Another interesting fact is that the infant mortality rate is much higher amongst the black communities in the USA than amongst the white middle class. But the white middle class are more likely to have vaccinated their babies. The white middle class are also more likely to have their children diagnosed with learning disabilities. This could be for lots of reasons ? not just the vaccination rate. Is this because they need a reason why their children aren?t performing well or just because the authorities are more likely to listen to them?

The article also states, ?Mothers taking their children to paediatricians to be vaccinated placed a blind trust in the complete safety and effectiveness of those vaccines.?
But isn?t that the case with all medicines? When was the last time you were told the possible side effects of the drugs the doctor prescribed for you?
I took my dog for an operation recently and the vet make a point of explaining that with a general aesthesia with dog may not wake up. Have you ever had a general aesthesia? I have twice ? neither time was I or my family told this! But it is true for humans as well as dogs.

Lot of these sort of articles (from both sides) are just playing with statistics. And as a statistician I can tell you it is possible to argue either side with figures to back you up. The important thing is to read between the lines and question everything as I think both sides aren?t as open as they could be.

It is obvious to me that there are problems with having vaccines just as there are problems with not having vaccines. And I definitely think we should be fighting to make vaccines safer but so far no one has convinced me that the actual working of vaccines is hazardous for either my or my children?s health.

Best wishes,
Barb
 
and the people who wrote against vaccines never said that vaccines don't work. they're only focusing on the other substances that are put in the vaccines - mercury (which i think the newest vaccines that our chldren are getting are the new batch that doesn't include the mercury), preservatives, etc.

before i take a western medicine, i do try to find out about their side effects. that's why after reading so many inserts of western medicines for the past 10-15yrs, i've finally decided that they are my & my children's last resort.

thanks for your inpur barb. i think you've been very helpful, as always. =)
 
i have decided to jab my daughter with her 2 yr o vaccinations, against the advice of her homeo doc. after extensive research, i do believe that vaccines work, despite the potential side effects & all those things that i don't wanna be in my daughter's system. i guess i will feel so much more secure with her vaccinated.

plus i yet have to asked the schools that i plan to send her to whether they accept a child who hasn't been vaccinated......

but then i haven't made her 2 yo check-up appmt yet....
 
This thread made me really mad, so I feel I have to butt in and give my two cents worth.
By not vaccinating your children, you are not only putting them at great risk, but also others. Because of the recent anti-immunization misinformation campain, illnesses that were eradicated are making a comeback in some industrialized countries! There hasn't been mercury in vaccines for years, and it has been proven time and time again that there is no link whatsoever between vaccines and autism.
Please read the World Health Organization pages on common misconceptions regarding vaccines before you make your decision.

http://www.who.int/immunization_safety/aefi/immunization_misconceptions/en/
 
I feel that I need to make some kind of comment here. I have read most of the medical journals about vaccinations and I am also one of the people for whom they haven't always worked. However as a doctor who has worked in paediatric departments I would like to say that there is no question about the benfits of vaccination as far as I am concerned.

Chicken-pox was one of the subjects brought up- someone had a vaccine and it failed. Well a vaccine works on the principle that you introduce something to the body in a safer format and it forms the antibodies so that if it comes across the disease you are several steps ahead on making a response. You may not make that response though and that applies to the vaccine or the disease. I had confirmed chicken-pox as a child but discovered I wasn't immune at medical school. Likewise I had the rubella vaccine aged 10 and did not form an immune response to it. In drugs you always try and balance safety and effectiveness, and that means there will always be those people for whom it doesn't work. That is the case no matter what we do in life.

As other people mentioned a great number of diseases we don't even worry about now- who considers diphtheria a risk, yet it was a great killer in the past, and everytime people panic about vaccinations the herd coverage drops and more people become sick. There have been recent measles epidemics in the UK and it is notable that they are always in the areas where the parents are better educated.

Hope that helps. I am not prepared to go into each vaccine but this is some background and my opinion.
 
thanks, dr cookie, this is the kind of response that i was hoping to generate from starting this thread. as i said previously, i am no medical dr & all i know about vaccines are from books & publications (pro & against). which might not even be true!!

so that measle epidemic in UK that you mentioned, are those vaccinated?

ontheroad, it's nice how you feel so strongly about the subject & share your views & thank you for the link. let me check it out & come back. =)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top