Vaccination?

[lady_karelia]

Something came up in chat tonight, and because it's late and I'm tired and have to be up early in the morning, I offered to continue the discussion on LJ. So here goes.

If you're that keen on convincing me why I should allow myself or my children be injected with a cocktail of poisonous substances, then please provide me with the scientific evidence, ie. link to scientific studies that prove to me beyond the shadow of a doubt that vaccines are beneficial rather than damaging.

I spent nearly eight years of my life looking for that scientific evidence. I started out because I wanted to disprove someone who told me I'm a "believer in the religion of medicine". I was desperate to find a scientific proof and subscribed to medical journals, which cost me a fortune. When I finally gave up, I had never felt more disappointed.

For example, one would think there'd be plenty of double-blind studies out there, proving that vaccines are beneficial. Well, I'll be darned. Didn't find a single one.

Don't bother linking me to "news". The "news" also tell you how wonderful diet coke is. Or ready-made meals that contain more poisons than edible stuff, let alone nourishment. Or how wonderful meat is. So, just don't. I want scientific evidence.

Give me a clue why it might be beneficial to inject mercury, formaldehyde, aborted fetal tissue, animal dna, alunimum directly into the blood of a human. All in one go. And that's not even mentioning the "virus" which is "weakened". Weakened with what kind of methods? Ethical? I doubt it.

And, as someone was afraid of meeting me or my children since we're not fully vaccinated, please tell me why you are afraid if YOUR children are fully vaccinated to meet my unvaccinated children??? You are told when you bring your children into your doctor's office as well as by TV commercials that once your children are vaccinated, they are fully immune to the disease they're vaccinated against. Why are you afraid of non-vaccinated people if the vaccines are so safe and protective???

I have been reading my f-list religiously. Each time vaccines are mentioned, they go together with the mention of sickness. The flu vaccine wasn't "the right strain that's why I had the flu anyways", or the flu vaccine "made me sick like hell". The anti-cervical cancer vaccine "made dd really sick, but at least she'll be protected now". Oh, rly? She might be so well protected that she'll never have children. Read the package insert, at the very least. And for crying out loud, please do your research.

Comments

[sbrande.livejournal.com]

This is not trying to go against what you said and if you are against vaccinations then that is your choice however, a close friend of mine (he is elderly) mother didn't believe in vacs and he contracted polio at the age of 12.

I am on the allergy injections and I swear by them.

Here in Australia it is virtually impossible to sent your kids to daycare or school without at least the basic immunizations.

Just thought you would want to know about the situation here in Australia.

Love Sonia :)

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

I have contact with Australians (http://www.avn.org.au). :)

[astarrymist.livejournal.com]

Here in America, it may vary state by state, but generally, all a parent has to do is sign a waiver in order for their unvaccinated children to attend public school. It has the waiver right on the back of the immunization records. However, they really like to perpetuate the myth, even here, that your kids can't go to school without having had their shots. Just an FYI to anyone who didn't know that.

[renitaleandra.livejournal.com]

What medical journals did you subscribe to?

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

The British Medical Journal. I also had, for a while, access to others, thanks to a friend who's a physician.

[mundungus42.livejournal.com]

I almost don't know where to start here, hon.

Firstly, search for the words "vaccine efficacy" pulls up over 11,000 articles at PubMed (http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/healthy/vaccines/028.printerview.html) (the National Library of Medicine's repository for biological and medical research). Add the name of the vaccine to the search, and you'll find exactly what you need. That's where the hard numbers are that back up the NIH's recommendations, which are here (http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/healthy/vaccines/028.printerview.html). The FDA requires vaccine manufacturers to prove efficacy before it goes on the market. If you can't view the full text of these articles, go to a library that has an online subscription to the journal.

As to why would we would put all these foreign substances into our bodies, I hate to tell you this, you're kind of already getting them and far worse just by living in the modern world. Everything from fabric softener to flame-retardant lingers your body far longer than the preservatives from a vaccine. National Geographic ran this (http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-body/chemicals-within-us.html) rather daunting article on environmental chemicals. Unlike those that are in vaccines, the long-term effects of these chemicals aren't studied.

Re: viruses in vaccines, most are killed by heat before being put into the body and chemically preserved (rather like much of the food we eat). While I am pro-vaccination, even I know that mercury-based preservatives like thimerosol are bad news. The way to avoid this is by asking your doctor to help you avoid them.

As to why people are upset about people not vaccinating their children, that's how outbreaks happen (like the measels outbreak in Northern California and the resurgence of mumps), and outbreaks have bigger effects than simply those who have the disease. And vaccines don't last forever- that's why people who work with animals need to get frequent booster shots for tetanus. I know you said no news, but this New York Times (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CEFDA1330F932A15750C0A96E9C8B63) article encapsulates the issue quite nicely.

If you're questioning the efficacy of childhood vaccines due to people's experience with flu shots, you're missing a fine but critical distinction vis a vis the bug involved. Influenza is caused by thousands of strains of three different viral subtypes, all of which survive by mutating rapidly to evade the host's immune system and cause yearly epidemics. Every year, epidemiologists study outbreak patterns to predict which strains of which subtype of virus are likely to cause problems during the flu season. Since there are so many different types that all make people sick, a flu shot may work perfectly and still be ineffective against other strains. By contrast, measels, mumps, rubella (all paramyxoviruses), and tetanus (bacteria) are relatively stable pathogens, which is why their vaccines are more effective than flu shots, even those, like tetanus, that require periodic boosters.

As to why to get your children vaccinated? Well, I can understand not getting a kid a polio vaccine. But tetanus, menangitis, and hepatitis are all potentially deadly bugs that are everywhere and easy for kids to be exposed to. Your advice to do your research is excellent, and I encourage you to get your pediatrician involved. Find out what he/she recommends, and then read up on it.

As a final word, to help put things in perspective: I've never gotten a flu shot, and I have had the flu. I have had vaccinations against measels, mumps, rubella, menangitis, typhoid, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and probably others that I don't remember, and I have never had any of those serious or life-threatening diseases, no matter how many times I may have been exposed in my lifetime. I don't believe that this is a coincidence.

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

Wheeee, I don't know where to start either, LOL. The links in your first paragraph both link to familydoctor.org, which is financed by advertisements mainly from pharmaceutical companies. Ah, if I want to find out about the benefits of becoming a vegetarian, you wouldn't consult a butcher, right? ;)

Yes, I'm aware of all the chemicals that are imposed on us, and I'm aware that I can only do so much to avoid them (rinsing clothes with vinegar rather than adding fabric softener, for example). Food is equally contaminated, as is tap water. Btw, the long-term effects of these chemicals are no less studied than those in vaccines. Some years ago, I learned how Eli-Lily had "studied" the efficacy of thimerosol in the 1920s. They injected it into a terminally ill people who had meningitis. Then, when all those people died, they concluded they had died from meningitis, not from injected mercury. Makes perfect sense, of course, if profit is your god. And the replacement for thimerosol is 2-PE, which isn't any better than thimerosol.

As to viruses in vaccines, yes, most are killed. Not all. The polio vaccine that was given to everyone up until the 1970s and much longer in third-world countries was the only cause of polio occurrences in the US. Other western countries have similar statistics. As to asking a doctor, I've spoken to plenty. Most if not all were plainly arrogant and implied that I have no idea what I'm talking about and how dare I question something so vital as vaccines. However, I never received an actual answer to my questions.

That NYT article shows very nicely why I don't care for such newspaper articles. They throw around numbers, but tell nowhere where these numbers came from. The report forms for a notifiable disease (and measles is one, amongst others) do not ask about the vaccination status of the patient.

If you're questioning the efficacy of childhood vaccines due to people's experience with flu shots, you're missing a fine but critical distinction vis a vis the bug involved.

No. I simply named the flu vaccine as one example, possibly because it is the one that continues to contain 25 mcg of thimerosol. That amount injected into your body cannot possibly be beneficial to your health. And I won't even mention the other ingredients. I doubt MMR is any more effective than any other vaccine. I know for a fact how pediatricians, and in England, GPs, refuse to diagnose measles or whooping cough because they know the patient was fully vaccinated; therefore, it "cannot be that disease". They've come up with colourful new names for the same old diseases. "Viral cough", "temporary asthma", "unidentified rash", to name a few.

Tetanus is extremely rare according to statistics, and for most cases, the vaccination status is unknown. That doesn't tell me a thing about the efficacy of the vaccine. Furthermore, the wording in those reports from the CDC is generally quite interesting: "It is assumed that the high coverage of vaccination contributes to the low occurrence." It never actually says that is is because of it, no, only "assumed".

My only problem with vaccines is that that Gold Standard Study, which is a double-blind study and generally accepted by the scientific community as proof for something, does not exist. And probably never will be carried out because it might very well show that unvaccinated people are a great deal healthier than those who are "protected" from diseases.

[alienor77310.livejournal.com]

Just a couple of real-life examples:

- The farmer who sold their holiday house to my grandparents in the 60's died of lockjaw/tetanus at age 50.
- My sister contracted tuberculosis as a toddler and had to undergo a pneumothorax.
- I've known 3 people who had polio as kids. One was in a wheelchair for life, one was severely crippled, and one could get around with only one crutch on his good days.
- My 8-year old brother had to be sent away for months shortly after my birth because he got whooping cough, which can be deadly for infants.

For tetanus, your kids are still at risk. For the rest, they're more or less protected because everybody else is vaccinated.

As to the flu vaccine... here in France, it's free for people "at risk": mostly people over 65. Before that, in the 70's, there were 25.000 deaths a year due to the flu. Today, it's less than 300 a year. QED.

[alienor77310.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I forgot... My grandmother survived cervical cancer. With difficulty.

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

I have similar real-life examples:

-The childhood friend I had spent four years in prison because his son died following a DTaP hot lot and he was accused of shaking him to death.
-A colleague I had received a booster tetanus shot and is since in a wheelchair, unable to move more than her right hand and unable to speak. She, or rather her aging parents, fought for twelve years to prove that it was due to the shot, and shortly after she was granted life-long pension for vaccine damage, she died.

Where did you find those statistics? Do you have a link?

[persevero.livejournal.com]

Dear L K,

I shouldn't be replying to this because I don't have the scientific data you're asking for, only my own general knowledge and being the offspring of a father whose PhD was on bacterial infections and drug resistance, and the daughter-in-law of a GP. But I feel very strongly about it.

I live in a country with no smallpox, polio, diphtheria or tetanus; with no HIB or meningitis C in under-14s. I don't think that that is a coincidence.

I'm totally happy for my immunised children to be around the unimmunised, but the parents of immune-compromised children may not be. For me, I'm glad that my children contribute to the group immunity that protects the rest.

I don't think we can imagine now what it was like in the days when polio swept cities every summer, and there were outbreaks of diphtheria. My home town had a polio outbreak a couple of years before I was born (1958, m'an oldie!) and my first primary school had a dozen or so children who wore callipers. According to my mother, about sixteen children died in the town - they were born just too early for the Salk vaccine which was introduced in 1955.
/rant(hope that doesn't have some obscure real meaning in HTML!)

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I see no group immunity. I see immune-compromised people who suffer permanently from damage. I had pretty much all childhood diseases, and while they were inconvenient, I came away with absolutely no damage. Nor do I know anyone who died of any childhood disease.

A GP's income is considerably improved when he gives vaccinations. I wouldn't bite the hand that feeds me either. :)

There is an interesting bit on polio history here (http://www.marytocco.com/polio.htm).

[ltgarrix.livejournal.com]

I don't have the scientific facts, but I have read of measles outbreaks which have been facilitated by kids who did not have the vaccine and traveled abroad. This is a potentially deadly disease.

I don't know that I could live with myself if she died from something that was preventable, or had to suffer the debilitating effects of polio. Granted the odds of catching one of these diseases is low, but as more folks decide to opt out of vaccines, the odds are going to go up.

I do know that other than influenza, thimerisol has been removed from childhood vaccines. I just give it a benefits outweigh the risks type of thing.

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

So, essentially, it is commonly accepted that fully vaccinated children can contract the diseases they are vaccinated for, right?

If you look at older statistics, you will see how far diseases had already declined by the time a vaccine was introduced. Yes, measles is potentially deadly. However, in all my life, I have never even heard personally of anyone who died from it. Or any other childhood disease. Only read it in the papers. Now, if it were such a dangerous disease (which I had as a child, btw), surely, I should have met someone who knew someone who died of measles. But I never have. And I've literally traveled the world, so have met loads of people.

I, too, gave it a benefits outweigh the risks type of thing. And I arrived at the other end, lol.

[angelmischa.livejournal.com]

We eradicated smallpox (pretty much). I have no figures (barring the wikipedia article), but I feel like if we managed to do away with a dangerous and nasty disease, and the only thing we did different was the vaccine...

I see your point, that if one person doesn't have the vaccine, surely they'll be okay because no one else has the disease? But in society (much as Modernism and the 'me culture' might tell us otherwise) one can't operate like that because everyone will think they're that one person, and then no one will have the vaccine.

I couldn't have come to Harvard without having gotten my vaccinations. I actually had to get more vaccinations just before I came (such as hep c) because in Britain we don't tend to vaccinate children for all the things Harvard wanted me to be immune to. (Like chicken pox, but I'd had it, so I'd done my own vaccination for that!) We won't house summer school kids (high school kids) or undergrads who don't have them. We can't have a population of 6000+ people living in really tight proximity to each other and risk an outbreak: A) Dangerous, B) Fuck with my (and everyone else's) academic career if classes had to be cancelled, everyone had to go home, etc. (I'm sure Harvard cares more about the former! LOL) Apparently, even chickenpox is bad enough to deserve a vaccine, and that's just annoying for a little bit; hep c, meningitis, mumps, polio... more than annoying.

Can you link to the medical research that says we shouldn't (as a general rule) be vaccinating our children, please? (as you asked everyone to link you to research saying we should...)

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

Here (http://whale.to/a/biggsext.html) is a whole book about how smallpox vaccination failed in England and how cities who stopped the smallpox vaccinations stopped seeing the disease. A German doctor, G Buchwald, published "Vaccination - The Business With Fear" I think it's called, and it documents the last one hundred cases of smallpox that occurred in Germany. All 100 were fully vaccinated.

In society? Well, look at the live vaccines, flu and mmr. People shed the virus for between three and six weeks. They are not quarantined during those weeks. So the virus is alive and well and spread everywhere. Unfortunately, no studies show the effects of the shedded vaccines on people.

You were told you had to get them to attend uni. Every state in the US has either a religious or a philosophical exemption. But if you don't know about it, then the officials will tell you that you must be vaccinated.

There are lots of studies that show evidence of the dangers: Tetanus (http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/tetanus.htm), Shaken Baby Syndrome (http://home.san.rr.com/via/DISEASE/sbs--scheibner.htm), Adverse Effects of Adjuvants in Vaccines (http://www.whale.to/vaccine/adjuvants.html). If you want more, there is plenty out there by Dr H Buttram, Dr Archie Kalokerinos, Dr Mendelsohn, Hilary Butler.

[veradee.livejournal.com]

Is there any proof that vaccines are not beneficial but damaging?

[voxangelus.livejournal.com]

The federal government has a fund set up to compensate people badly injured by vaccinations.

http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/

If they weren't harmful to some people, the fund wouldn't exist.

[(Anonymous)]

Just thought I'd stick in my 2pence worth, both G & L have been vaccinated, L has terrible allergy problems, suffers from glue ear & bouts of exzema. He's been to see an allergist who has pinpointed exactly what he's allergic to, she explained that his allergy to grass/pollen is hereditary as his dad does & grandmother did suffer from it but everything else is down to vaccine damage.
Lady J x

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

I bet it is. *nods* And it's disheartening to see autoimmune problems grow as the number of shots grow. In my childhood, I'd never heard of a kid with diabetes, for example. Now it's rampant. And only in vaxxed kids.

[ariadne1.livejournal.com]

The only one I have any direct experience with is polio, and that was my Dad's generation, not mine. He was one of 9 kids in his classroom (he was born in 1931, way before the Salk vaccine). There was a polio outbreak and the schools were closed. Of the 9 in his classroom (I think this was grades 4-8 in the same classroom - very rural area), 6 contracted the disease, three died, and one or two were affected so badly that they never returned to school. So I'm grateful for the polio vaccine.

As for flu shots - *shrugs* - my mother gets them every year, and I do, when I remember. When I get the shot, whatever winter sniffles I get don't last as long and don't turn into months-long infections.

But what you say has some merit. I've been looking into food research lately and am absolutely horrified. Different topic, similar horror.

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

Something (http://www.marytocco.com/polio.htm) interesting about polio. And lookie what I've just found here (http://www.notadoc.org/Articles/NATURALLY%20Speaking/pulitzer_prizes_polio_propaganda.htm). Sugar. Yup.

Oh, don't get me started on food, LOL. Or cosmetics. What on earth is an ingredient generally known in labs for its skin-irritating function doing in shampoo and cleansing bars???

Different topic, similar horror. You may very well find eventually that the topic isn't all that different. At the end of the day, I think we're all being terribly conned. I've been waiting for the day humanity wakes up. I sincerely hope it won't be too late then.

[voxangelus.livejournal.com]

My kids are vaccinated, but on a delayed schedule. 3 yo plays with unvaxed children pretty frequently, so I'd have no problem meeting you or your kids.

It's just that for me, I'd rather not rely on herd immunity. It's a personal choice, and if you've done your research either way and are comfortable with it, then that's honestly, to me, all that's important.

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

There is no doubt less damage if vaccines aren't started before age 2. I remember reading something about Japan and the infant death rate dropping dramatically when they changed that.

[melusin-79.livejournal.com]

I don't have kids, but if I were a parent, I would find it a hard choice to make. In the news recently in the UK there were calls to ban non-vaccinated kids from school - it was quite rightly met with derision. I don't think the government has any right to force the issue - it must be left for parents to decide what they believe is right for their child.
As an example why I'm in 2 minds about this - a woman i used to work with had her firstborn given the mmr jab - and a healthy, lively baby changed overnight. He was later diagnosed as autistic - but of course, the doctors said it was pure coincidence. Needless to say, her second child wasn't vaccinated.
And my poor cat too. He has to be vaccinated by law to be able to be put into a cattery when we go away. The vet gave him a rabies injection - 20 minutes later and our very much loved pet went into a sort of seizure. The vet gave him something to purge his stomach 'because he must have eaten something' and we left him there, thinking we wouldn't see him again. He survived the night, but when we went to get him, he was totally blind - it took another 6 hours for his sight to come back. At no time did the vet admit it could have been the vaccine.

Incidents like these are supposedly rare, but I think the media glosses over the risks - and like I said, if it was my decision to make for my child, I'm not sure I could do it.

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

It's heartbreaking, seeing this damage happening with your own eyes, isn't it?

Incidents aren't that rare at all. Those in charge lie, and those who are fed by them are unaware. No ped I've spoken to ever actually knew what the package insert says. They don't care because as long as they vaccinate, they have an income. And those few who eventually have doubts are shut up immediately. Or made into scapegoats, just look at Andy Wakefield.

[ellaselenelupin.livejournal.com]

Just a note from me.
When my brother had to do his military service in the Bundeswehr, he got the measles. He was an adult (I think he was 19 or 20) and suffered from a childhood disease. That's always a dangerous combination. He collapsed during exercise, after that the doctor diagnosed measles. They sent him home. He took a bath and we suddenly hurt him calling. He wasn't able to move and my mum and I had to hoist him out of the tub and carry him to his bed. When my father came home they went to the hospital. It was horrible. There still could be complications we don't know yet, like infertility.
I am vaccinated against measles or else I would have had to move out for the time being, and I had to stay away from one of my friends because she was pregnant at that time.
Also, my grandmother's sister got the measles when she was an adult; she died from it.

[ellaselenelupin.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I'm confused about the word measles. Just for clarification I'm talking about Röteln.

[bambu345.livejournal.com]

I had a conversation with my brother and my SIL about this topic recently. Their kids are young enough to still be doing the childhood rounds of vaccines, and SIL does her research. There is apparently a recent study (I do not know whose) which links standardized vaccinations with the rise in Autism.

It makes me very glad that we kept our children from having every single vaccine ... but it irks me that we succumbed to so many.

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

Yes. In fact, there is plenty of scientific evidence, starting with the effects of mercury poisoning, which are incredibly similar to the symptoms of autism. And let's not forget Dr Gerberding's slip-up on TV recently, during which she was recorded saying there is a link.

I'm totally with you on the irking. There was a time I didn't question.

[kelly-h80.livejournal.com]

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/nr-cp/2002/2002_81bk1_e.html

The page I was refering too.