Childhood Vaccines: Taking A Second Look
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Your Kid and Vaccines: Taking A Second Look
Just about everyone with kids is familiar with vaccines. They are the routine injections given to children and adults to immunize them against a variety of diseases. Most vaccination are done when you are relatively young, starting even at birth or within a couple days of birth, with many more being given into at various times during childhood. The idea behind a vaccine is to inject a weak or inactive form of the disease you seek to protect against so that your body will be able to quickly to attack these foreign cells and build immunity to them so that later infections will not result in illness.
Since no parent would want to see their child become sick it is not hard to see why most parents choose to vaccinate without question. The medical community largely endorses this practice as well. But is vaccination completely safe or are their risks?
You may be surprised to find out that there are a number of risks involved with routine vaccination that are not widely known. As a parent, it is vital that we evaluate both sides of the issue and the risks and decide which is the best choice for us and for our children and in some cases you may decide to join the growing number of parents that are choosing not to vaccinate their kids, or to delay vaccination or to selectively vaccinate. Making an informed choice should be the goal for all parents.
There are four primary arguments in support of vaccinations but upon further look they start to look less convincing.
Do Vaccines Work?
Doctors claim that vaccines work to prevent illness. In some cases vaccines this may be true. However, many of the diseases children are being immunized against are fairly rare and would not likely be encountered anyway. Immunity is also not guaranteed to be effective and even if it may provide immunity for a short time it can lose its effectiveness late in life, requiring further vaccinations. Many people still get measles, rubella, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and other common diseases even after they have been vaccinated. A danger exists when young adults get a disease that is normally contracted in childhood - such as measles. For example, outbreaks of measles in a vaccinated population of college kids is much more likely to lead to serious repercussions. This has happened several times around the country.
Are Vaccines are Responsible for the Decline in Infectious Diseases?
It is often said that without vaccinations we would never have gotten a handle on disease epidemics of the past such as small pox but research clearly shows that many infectious diseases began to disappear long before vaccination came into practice. The decrease in disease had much to do with improved quality of living, better nutrition, and improved hygiene.
Are Vaccines Safe?
Even if vaccines were proven to be responsible for the decline in childhood diseases and if they were proven to work, there is still the question of are they safe to administer? While all medical treatments carry some risk, even a simple aspirin can cause side effects, there is an alarming amount of evidence mounting that shows that vaccines are anything but safe. They contain many questionable and unhealthy ingredients such as Thimersol (Mercury), Formaldehyde, MSG, and aluminum. These ingredients and others work to actually compromise the immune system…not strengthen it. There are also numerous vaccine complications reported every year such as severe temperatures, uncontrolled screaming, seizures and convulsions, brain damage, and death. There is even data to suggest that vaccines cause neurological disorders such as epilepsy and autism and they have been heavily linked to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) as well. The VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System) was put in place by the Federal government to collect data about vaccine problem and injuries and in many cases you use pharmaceutical money to pay restitution.
Many parents are becoming concerned about a possible connection between vaccines and increasing rates of autism. This mom who was interviewed on natural moms talk radio spoke about her son’s autism and profound brain damage that resulted from his shots.
When you take all these factors into account you may ultimately question conventional medical wisdom and decide that vaccination may be too risky in the long run.
Recommended reading:
What Every Parent Should Know About Vaccines
Immunization Theory Vs. Reality: Expose on Vaccinations