Well we have been asked by a friend to elaborate on our previous blogpost where we referenced Vaccines or Childhood vaccinations. I hope to answer why we have vaccinated LIliana and why we have yet to vaccinate Mattie. I also plan on adding a link so that you can learn for yourselves if interested.
I should start off by saying that this is a heated topic. As parents we want to do right by our children. I am sure we all do the best we can with the information we have at the time.
If I knew then what I know now, I would not have vaccinated Liliana with all of the vaccines. She probably would have had a small amount (possibly). For the most part I followed the standard American schedule for vaccines with L. For those who do not know, no other country gives as many vaccines as we do. For instance, in Japan, they give 7 shots over two years, as opposed to 30 for our children. This is one important factor. If I did choose to vaccinate I would adopt a different vaccination schedule (and any Pediatrician or Family Doc worth his salt would work with you in creating an alternate schedule). I would do this for several reasons:
1. Although as of 2004 or so Thimeresol (the mercury additive) was pulled from vaccines (it actually happened in 2001, but it takes several years for the old stock to be used up) by the FDA there are numerous other additives in the vaccines that are harmful to a young baby. It takes a good 18mts or so for the Blood-brain barrier to not be so permeable. When we inject a vaccine (in many cases we are injecting a live virus that is weakened), loaded with additives like mercury (which is still allowed in the yearly flu vaccine), aluminum, bovine serum, and a host of things that would make you cringe if as a parent you knew you were putting in your child, in a newborn baby it can easily cross that blood-brain barrier. Things like mercury and aluminum are toxic to the brain (this we are know from science class). Although our FDA has approved such additives as safe (setting safe levels for each additive), we have and continue to go above and beyond those safe levels when we inject more than one shot at a time. Sometimes, without realizing it, we are injecting 4-5 times the so called safe level of aluminum for instance.
2. Imagine you take your baby in for their well-child check up. You mention that she has been having bad skin reactions (this is usually a gut symptom, something she is eating is causing a reaction (or could be environment)) This means there is currently inflammation happening in her gut. Inflammation is not in itself a bad thing, it means our immune system is doing its thing. But long term inflammation is harmful to us and leaves us very vulnerable. So, you baby has skin rashes and eczema over and over, maybe she has had several colds, ear aches...maybe you have put her on medicine (antibiotics) several times in the last 6 months...(antibiotics by the way strip both the bad and the good bacteria from your gut, sometimes it strips most of the good and only part of the bad, for instance, I hardly submit to taking an antibiotic (which literally means, 'against life'), but when 8 mts pregnant I could not shake this head cold that was killing me. I took my weeks worth of pills and then got my first yeast infection...I had stripped my gut of the good bacteria, allowing an overgrowth of yeast (fueled by my 8mt pregnant person consumption of sugary foods). Then you take this child in to get 4 shots, 3 of which contain weakened live viruses that lodge themselves in their gut (measles loves to live in the gut). Not only have they been inundated with loads of additives over the so-called safe limit, they now have to contend with these weak viruses that are running through their body. So the spike a fever, their body is in fighting mode (more inflammation). What if they were already born with a weak immune system (either through genetics or toxic exposure during pregnancy)..add all of this together and it is a disaster for our little baby in the story. This is the multi-system idea behind Autism or other developmental and/or sensory issues in children. So to clarify, I do not believe children get autism from vaccines. I do believe that vaccines can/do cause problems when there are other mitigating circumstances.
3. So this leads to Mattie. Mattie has skin issues. Bad eczema. She is only breastfeed, so something I am eating is driving her gut into inflammation mode, and she cannot (or my diet cannot) pull her out of it (as a side note, with some experimenting, I think it is my dairy consumption (what I shouldn't be eating a bowl of ice cream ever night???)). I refuse to give my already immunologically compromised daughter shots that will drive her immune system into even more inflammation. It only takes so much before your body starts attacking itself or just shutting down (an always sick child for instance). I have a great doctor. He lets us decide her vaccine schedule (we have decided to re-evaluate vaccines for mattie when she is 18mts old), by then her body will be better able to handle any nasty additives should we feel the need to inoculate her against a few things.
4. We are not anti-vaccines. Liliana has had most (expect for ones we personally think are silly and not even worth the pain of the needle, like chicken pox and the flu) Mattie will probably end up with a few important ones like tetanus.
5. We are against the idea of forcing parents to give children shots (by not letting them into schools for instance). We also are against giving vaccines when babies are still in the hospital (like feeling the need to give a Hep B shot (which is a sexually transmittable thing-like our newborn will be sexually active anytime soon).
6. We believe in sound science. Let us honestly examine our current vaccines for the good and the bad in them and see how we can improve on them instead of being secretive and just hoping parents go along with the flow for profit sake.
7. If you want to learn all the science/research behind vaccines, check out that section in the following manual: "Changing the course of Autism:A scientific approach for parents and physicians"
8. If you want to watch the following it will also help explain:
http://anon.autismri.com.edgesuite.net/anon.autismri/Alexandria/HI%20video/DAN_VA_07_Parents_Cave_DSL.mov
Once again, these are decisions that are made by each family. I am sharing what we think/do. I hope this helps answer some questions.
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5 comments:
Thanks for the information. I had no idea the kind of stuff that the put in vaccines and what it could do to a baby. Obviously, I don't have kids but this is good information for anyone to know.
Thank you for saying it so well. I agree whole-heartedly. My children have not had the hep B shots either. A baby is at very little risk of coming into contact with any diseases transmitted only through bodily fluids. If they haven't had chicken pox by age 9, we will probably give it at that time, before it could mean more harm to get the disease itself. The vaccines we have given have always been given one at a time until I know their reactions and then only as many as 2 at once.
We give the Hep B because we don't want our children to have to worry about it when they decide to go on a mission later in life. We also give the chicken pox one (after much research) because we don't want our children to run the risk of shingles. Yes, that's the difference. Those who get chicken pox the normal way having never had the vaccine will most likely have shingles when old. The others will not. We don't do the flu shot at all... usually isn't the right strand anyway, but I had a bad reaction the one time I had it,and though it's recommended for teachers, Bob won't touch it. We figured it wasn't worth it for our kids. Typically they weren't high risk for the flu anyway.
But, I agree that it's a family choice and that we need to be informed and prayerful. We have never done more than two at time because that is what we've felt okay with. And if the kid was in any way "sick" or coming down with something, we skipped it and came back later. We use to get a lot of weird looks, even from the nursing staff, at first, but then later we were told they respected us for taking it upon ourselves to do what we felt best for our children.
Thanks for your thoughts. I'm glad to hear that what I've been reading and thinking are not to wild :-)
Thanks again, Shoshana
Just a quick note. The chicken pox vaccine was developed in 1988, which means that there is no long term studies that show that those who are inoculated with the chicken pox vaccine as a child are more resistant to getting shingles than those who get chicken pox. In fact, the opposite is more often the case. Those who get chicken pox usually get life-long immunity and get immunity boosted by their exposure to children with the active disease. This is why there is a rise in shingles in the community with elderly patients: there are less cases of chicken pox and our immunity is not boosted periodically. Immunity due to inoculation with the chicken pox vaccine will have to be boosted by further inoculations.
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