“A cousin of my mom’s survived Polio and lived the rest of his life with its effects. He was not expected to live past his teens but made it to his 40s. I am grateful that modern science can protect us from Polio and other diseases and I choose to take advantage of modern science to give my kid better odds of not dying from a preventable disease. I had heard a lot of noise from people claiming vaccines caused Autism, but never saw any clear evidence. It just seemed to me like people really wanted to point to something as the cause and they latched onto vaccines.”–Jennifer
I have been getting into a lot of discussions about whether vaccines are safe in the last few days. I’m not sure if it’s because of a post going viral about a (terrible) Italian court ruling last year (In contrast, American courts side with doctors and scientists on vaccine safety) or Jenny McCarthy’s recent hiring as co-host on “The View”, or simply (as a friend suggested to me today) the fact that a new school year is starting soon and parents are having to provide vaccination records to schools.
“(I got my children vaccinated) because the science supports it and I don’t want my kids to die. And civic reasons. It’s so straightforward.”–Britta
Whatever the reason, this week I’ve been in many conversations with individuals staunchly against vaccinations, parents who are very upset at the idea of unvaccinated children putting their own kids at risk, and parents who are confused and worried and want to know how to make the best decision possible for their children’s safety. I’m writing this for the third group of parents.
What’s going on?
There has been a very steep decrease in the rate of vaccinations recently, particularly (but I want to stress not only) within communities of affluent, well-educated parents. [UPDATE: Keep in mind that there’s considerable diversity among anti-vaccine proponents. A conservative religious community here in Texas, opposed to vaccines because “faith should be enough”, is currently experiencing an outbreak of measles].
“It’s that whole natural, BPA-free, hybrid car community that says ‘we’re not going to put chemicals in our children,’” Shapiro told Salon. “It’s that same idea: ‘I’m going to be pure and I want to keep my child pure.’”
California law mandates that all students get vaccinated, but it also makes it easy to get exemptions for personal beliefs. And parents in tony places like Marin County are taking advantage of it in seemingly growing numbers. One public elementary school in Malibu, an affluent beach town just north of Los Angeles, reported that only 58 percent of their students are immunized — well below the recommended 90-plus percent level — according to Shapiro.
And it’s even worse in some of L.A.’s private schools, where as few as 20 percent of kids are vaccinated in some schools. “Yes, that’s right: Parents are willingly paying up to $25,000 a year to schools at which fewer than 1 in 5 kindergartners has been immunized against the pathogens causing such life-threatening illnesses as measles, polio, meningitis and pertussis (more commonly known as whooping cough),” she wrote. –from http://www.salon.com/2013/08/14/whats_with_rich_people_hating_vaccines/ (Emphasis mine)
This is particularly frustrating when there is overwhelming evidence that vaccinations DO NOT cause autism. As the wonderful blog Science Based Medicine puts it:
“At this point, the evidence is so utterly overwhelming that there is not a whiff of a hint of a whisper of a correlation between vaccines and autism that it has become irritating that antivaccine activists keep pressuring scientists to do the same study over and over again, coming up with the same results over and over again, and then seeing antivaccinationists fail to believe those same results over and over again. Apparently, antivaccine activists think that if the same sorts of studies are done enough times, there will be a positive result implicating vaccines as a risk factor for or contributing cause to autism.”
Why are parents choosing not to vaccinate their children?
I think there are several reasons, but they all may have some connection to misunderstanding of what the scientific evidence on this issue is, or resistance to perceived authority. In Western cultures, we’re accustomed to framing every public issue as two-sided. People who refuse to acknowledge that there’s legitimacy to the other side are “unfair.” I think this viewpoint is really muddling the vaccine safety conversation. When the media presents scientists on one side, and Natural News on the other, it’s creating a false equivalency. The anti-vaxxers have no credible scientific evidence supporting their position, but placing them opposite a scientist makes it seem like there are two legitimate sides to this debate. There aren’t. The simple fact is that there’s overwhelming scientific consensus that the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism.
“I unapolagetically vaccinate my kid, and it’s not just because that’s what you do, it’s because I really looked at what the science said and made a decision based on facts, evidence, and rational weighing of risk-benefit. I think the problem is that it’s easier to feel off the hook for risking your kids via inaction rather than action. But realistically, the risks of vaccination are so much less than the risks of what could happen if your child does get a vaccine-preventable disease, and you are also protecting those who *can’t* be vaccinated. That’s why I get a flu shot. Not because I am going to die of the flu, but to protect the elderly, infants, and immunocompromised folks I might come into contact with.” –Melissa (emphasis mine)
Do vaccines work?
Yes. Here are some of the diseases prevented with vaccinations:
from “Demographics of Unvaccinated Chidren”, National Network for Immunization Information.
Do vaccines cause autism?
No. As a starting point for you, here’s a roundup of trustworthy scientific resources for you to read on your own (everything is peer-reviewed, or contains links to peer-reviewed articles):
Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25349/
Vaccine Safety studies (a bunch of studies, with notes about what they mean): http://www2.aap.org/immunization/families/faq/vaccinestudies.pdf
Concerns about vaccine safety (this is really great, and written in layman’s language) http://www.immunizationinfo.org/issues/vaccine-safety/concerns-about-vaccine-safety
How do we know that scientists and doctors are right?
I’ve been asked about this quite a bit lately. One person asked me “why aren’t we getting peered reviewed research from other points of view?” The reason is quite simple: there isn’t any.
Scientific research works like this:
You start with the specific questions “Does the MMR vaccine cause autism?”, “Does the MMR vaccine increase the risk of inflammatory bowel disease?” and so forth. You then design a study to test that question. It’s not starting from one “side” or the other, trying to seek proof for it. That’s the way politics works, not science. When you get an answer, it’s either “yes” or “no” (actually it tends to be “there is a statistically significant association between this drug and this disease” or “there is NOT a statistically significant association between this drug and this disease.”) Your results are submitted to experts for peer review. These experts then go over your results and methods with a fine-toothed comb, trying to find weaknesses in your approach, or over-interpretation of the results. They evaluate your statistics to make sure that they’re correct. If they decide that it’s acceptable (and this is usually a very hard test to pass), your paper gets published and is considered “peer-reviewed.” But that’s not the end.
Studies are then done by other research groups to both test and build upon your results. While the initial screen by peer reviewers is very stringent, it doesn’t always catch mistakes, and can miss identifying faked data (for example, Andrew Wakefield’s paper got past peer review because the reviewers didn’t catch that his data were fraudulent). However, all scientific research is iterative–that is, it builds upon a foundation created by other research. So if your results are wrong, or faked, it will quickly become obvious to other researchers who try to replicate or use them. Scientific consensus is VERY hard to achieve. So when it happens, pay attention.
Why do I (and others) keep harping on “peer-reviewed” studies? Why do I (and others) refuse to acknowledge the truth of what X blogger says?
Science operates based on the philosophy that the truth is knowable if we design experiments correctly, and we do enough of them to rigorously test our hypotheses. And I hope that you know by now that anyone with a keyboard can make stuff up. Peer review is how we test that someone isn’t making things up. Experts in your field have to agree with your conclusions.
But what about Andrew Wakefield’s research?
“I got my son vaccinated after doing research about it. I had been going through birthing classes that were against it, but the scientist in me questioned what they were saying. I found the info about the falsified info about autism. I still couldn’t believe (and still can’t) that parents would hold chicken pox parties. I’d had chicken pox as a kid, and I know about shingles. It just made sense to me.”–Charity
Andrew Wakefield faked his data for profit. His medical license has been revoked as a consequence. It’s important that people know that the the link between vaccines/autism is based on an outright lie–most of the other authors on the paper have removed their names from it. You can read more about this story here:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/01/14/andrew-wakefield-great-science-fraud/
What are the consequences of not vaccinating your children?
“We chose to vaccinate Vera on a regular schedule, and to be honest I did not do extensive research. I read enough to know that the studies showing an autism link were bad science and I found a pediatrician I really trusted and talked to her about it. I also really do believe that those of us with healthy kids should vaccinate to protect children who have compromised immune systems.”–Faye
Harm to your child:
Penn and Teller illustrate this beautifully (if profanely: language NSFW)
To put it simply, your child is at risk of contracting a preventable disease.
What happens in the absence of our vaccination program? Read about it here: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm
Harm to other children:
“Unvaccinated children are concentrated in particular states, increasing the risk of transmitting vaccine-preventable diseases to other unvaccinated children, undervaccinated children and fully vaccinated children.” http://www.immunizationinfo.org/science/demographics-unvaccinated-children
One person with whom I was discussing this issue (he has not vaccinated his kids, but does homeschool them) put forth a hypothesis:
“but if you are correct, i guess in the near future the progressive states will have noticeable outbreaks (and not just the ones you read about), ones that touch somebody you know, as more and more hippy parents stop vaccinating their kids. stay clear of the pacific northwest or perish. ahaha. nah, we are growing super strong natural kids for the future here, and not ones reliant on medicines from a lab. we are sprouting wings and soon we shall fly to furthest regions of the universe and beyond”
I agree with that hypothesis. Unlike the rest of his comment, it’s quite scientific. IF vaccines are protective, and IF parents are choosing not to vaccinate, we should be seeing outbreaks of those diseases in states where the rate of non-vaccination is highest.
This is indeed the case. Here are two examples:
Incidents of whooping cough (pertussis) are significantly higher in states that easily allow parents exceptions from the vaccination. In Washington state alone, there was a 1,300% increase in cases.
Have you ever taken care of a child with pertussis? I have. This is what it’s like (warning: video of children in pain):
And cases of measles infection in the United States have already doubled since last year.
That’s just the beginning. This post is already too long, but I urge you to go to the CDC’s website and read about recent outbreaks. They are tied to regions where vaccine rates are low.
Final thoughts
Googling and listening to what people tell you over on parenting message boards, “Natural News”, and similar sites is not the same thing as advice from a trained physician. I really believe that the vast majority of parents who are leery of vaccinating their kids are simply confused because they’ve been given bad information.
“We live in a society, and our actions have consequences for others. It’s our responsibility to protect our children and our neighbors’ children. Plus our ancestors could only have dreamed of something that would protect their children from these horrible diseases.”–Mary
Vaccination is not just to protect your own child. It’s also a moral and civic issue. Remember that we are incredibly privileged in our society to have access to vaccines. In many places around the world, people don’t have easy access to them, and there are even some places where aid workers are killed for trying to administer vaccines. Our privilege confers responsibility as well. By vaccinating your children, you are also protecting other children (and adults) who can’t be vaccinated. Here is a really great explanation of this, and the concept of herd immunity.
“I chose to have my first child vaccinated because I paid some attention in science classes and it works. I paid better attention in history classes and have a sense of the suffering various preventable diseases have caused in the past and I didn’t want that for my child. After my first born spent a week in the hospital with an infection, I feel much more strongly about having my second child vaccinated. In that case, it wasn’t something that could have been vaccinated against, but there is no reason and no excuse for subjecting your child to the risk of that kind of suffering over a preventable disease. It’s irresponsible and cruel.”–Eric
Wakefield, McCarthy, Kennedy and other leaders of the movement are deceiving you. They bear responsibility for the deaths of children. That’s why I keep speaking out on this issue.
I hope that I’ve provided you with a starting point from which to do your own research. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me here, or on twitter, or by email (link at the top of this page), or–even better–ask your physician!
UPDATE: I wrote a tutorial/example of how to critically read a vaccine safety study here. If you wish to do your own research, I suggest that reading the primary, peer-reviewed literature is a vastly better approach than relying on books/Facebook memes/discussion forums. Hopefully the tools you’ll find in that post (and this one) will be helpful.
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Edited to remove Lyme disease from list of vaccine preventable illnesses. There’s a vaccine currently in clinical trials, but it’s not fully tested or available yet. Thanks to “justreadingyourblog” for pointing that out to me.
Violent metaphors 
This is a fantastic post Jenny! I love that you do all the peer-review research for us lazy people. 🙂
Thank you, Molly!
And thankfully I AND my Pediatrician know more about vaccines and their risks than a blog writer…
Kathryn 1962 Apparently you and your pediatrician know more than almost every other medical professional as well.
Because that is who you are disagreeing with. Not the blog writer.
Remember YOU are the one who is disagreeing with the medical community. YOU are the one picking a handful of studies over the mountain of information that disagrees with you.
You are the one drawing the conclusion in direct contradiction to the people who have more knowledge on the topic. Not the blog writer.
Clean vaccines are good, those with unnecessary additives/junk in them are not. Just a sampling of the reported problems with some vaccines:
Gardasil Destroys Girl’s Ovaries: It Should Have Been Predicted
http://is.gd/fzcujc
HPV VACCINE SEEN DIFFERENTLY BY JAPAN AND THE U.S.
http://is.gd/UWpFLv
CDC Admits 98 Million Americans Received Polio Vaccine Contaminated With Cancer Virus
http://is.gd/ByGUcV
Study boosts link between flu vaccine, sleep disorder
http://is.gd/dDbnH7
Try to pull from more than one Internet news outlet and cite the actual studies.
Wow, as an alumni, the Loyola one caught my attention right away. Do more research…
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=348&dat=19970213&id=KP1MAAAAIBAJ&sjid=nDMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2842,3525684
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131184&page=1
to say I pulled from one internet media outlet is the pure ignorance of someone who does not understand the concept of short links and also demonstrates the person did not even do the minimal research themselves to but click on the various links (either that or they are a vaccine shill that knows better)
I will also add, No personal offense, nor do I mean to ‘cast dispersions’ on the blogger, but when someone whom you personally know is completely normal and then the next day after, they essentially turn into a vegetable after having had a vaccine, one thinks twice before referring to that person as an anecdote. Ah yes, and we can’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt concerning the causal relationship. We (those not in the medical industry) don’t need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, we need extreme caution at the very least. Determining a causal relationship that would implicate a vaccine would most certainly not be a terribly profitable venture, nor in the interest of the medical industry as a whole, nor those predictable yes-men that believe what they’re told and prescribe what they are taught to, thinking it is all for the greater good, nonsense, don’t believe it for a second. And with that, I’ll take my comments off the air, so to speak.
Clean vaccines are good, those with unnecessary additives/junk in them are not. Just a sampling of the reported problems with some vaccines:
Gardasil Destroys Girl’s Ovaries: It Should Have Been Predicted
http://is.gd/fzcujc
HPV VACCINE SEEN DIFFERENTLY BY JAPAN AND THE U.S.
http://is.gd/UWpFLv
CDC Admits 98 Million Americans Received Polio Vaccine Contaminated With Cancer Virus
http://is.gd/ByGUcV
Study boosts link between flu vaccine, sleep disorder
http://is.gd/dDbnH7
Article citations and references please. Otherwise, irrelevant claims.
Jenny, I commend you for a well written, straight forward, and relatively unbiased blog post. I am a paediatrician. I have seen children die of numerous preventable diseases. If people are looking for evidence of disease increase, I recommend they read about the 9 month measles outbreak in Wales from 2012-2013.
The Wakefield scare did more damage in the British Isles than the US. As a result, I’ve seen things in my short career that my American colleagues may only read about. Death from a collapsed airway from epiglottitis (prevented by the HiB vaccine); multiple hospitalisations with pleurisy, seizures, encephalitis due to measles (prevented by the MMR); 3 infants (6 weeks, 8 weeks, and 5 months) in ICU, sedated, intubated and ventilated, requiring months of intensivist care due to pertussis (preventable); a child with lockjaw (… LOCKJAW!) from a cut in his back garden on his leg that developed into tetany (preventable… easily); a select few children with lifelong deformity, some with and some without mental impairment from meningitis (preventable); and perhaps the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever come across, and thankfully it has only been once, a teenager died from SSPE, which is a delayed (about a decade) progressive encephalitis from a previous measles infection. The chickenpox vaccine isn’t publicly available here at the moment, but it is available privately; most of the consultant paediatricians will vaccinate their children against chickenpox… We’ve seen the seizures, the encephalitis, the diffuse strep, the misery that comes with chickenpox (hell, most of us had chickenpox).
On the flip side, yes, I have been in the A&E when children come in with seizures post-vaccine, allergic reactions post-vaccine. I’ve worked in the narcolepsy clinics which boomed due to the H1N1 vaccine (that would be the isolated monovalent H1N1, which is no longer available… the trivalent influenza including H1N1 has not been linked to any of our narcolepsy patients). I have worked with children suffering from complex neurological, neurodegenerative, and seizure disorders… Sick children are heart breaking.
There are many reasons people chose to opt-out of vaccines. Some of it is emotional, especially when there has been an emergency following a vaccination. Some of it is parental good intention, the want to not harm a child. Some of it is due to lack of education on the subject (it’s not lack of college education… that has nothing to do with it) and anecdotal arguments that make things personal and emotional. But each child that I’ve seen in the A&E with a vaccine preventable illness… Their parents ask one question: “Can you give them something to make it go away?” … Sadly, there was something we could have done…
As medicine progresses, one topic/area that is advancing is targeted treatment and genetic tapered treatments. Certain people are predisposed to certain reactions (ie: seizures after vaccines). If there were a simple test to identify those children… We’re probably only a decade away from that. I would love to be on the team that works that problem out.
Thank you for your response. I would love to talk to you more about your thoughts, if you’d like to stay in touch. I’m actually a genetics researcher, so the topic of personalized medicine is very interesting to me (though I work on it very indirectly through population genetics).
I’ve been thinking about why people resist the evidence that supports vaccines so much. I think a lot of people tend to be skeptical of medical advice because some of it has not always been based on good science – even recent recommendations such as encouraging women to take calcium supplements to reduce the risk of osteoporosis – turned out there weren’t any studies that showed that link. Someday I hope to have a child and I will definitely be taking a lot of medical advice about maternal and infant health with a grain of salt (for example, increased fetal monitoring during labor has not been shown to reduce the rates of infant deaths – but it’s still common). The bottome line to all of this is, medical research is challenging (especially long term research) and largely out of reach and difficult to understand for most people, not to mention the time it would take to become and expert in every type of medicine that might affect you or your family. We have to trust the experts sometimes, but I can understand why that’s really hard when it’s pretty clear that some medical advice/practices are not based on sound science.
The benefits of calcium supplementation are actually thoroughly substantiated. Calcium and vitamin D in general are associated with reduction in various types of fracture; but the form of calcium has a well documented impact on effectiveness. There are meta-analyses out there compiling thousands of people taking Tums and determining that Tums is not a useful calcium source, that’s all.
Your point is accurate, though- I would just use the example of doctors telling women for 30 years or so that formula was superior to breastfeeding. Of course there are financial interests pushing for studies to support whatever they want. We vaccinated our baby, but pretending that money doesn’t motivate vaccine manufacturers just like it motivates everything else in our society is wearing blinders.
This is a recent study on daily calcium supplements and the risk of bone fractures later in life. I certainly haven’t done extensive research on the subject (and am not a doctor) but this one jumped out at me when I heard it in the news last year because I’ve had two different doctors give me a VERY hard time about not taking regular calcium supplements. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110524191649.htm
Molly O, I’d recommend you read your own article again: “The results show that women had the lowest risk of having a fracture when they consumed around 750 mg a day of calcium.” The study does go on to indicate that taking MORE than that didn’t have a clear benefit, but it also concluded that taking less than that was detrimental.
true – medicine has made a lot of mistakes in the past and we will continue to make them. the unfortunate reality is that we will certainly realize in 30 yrs that things which are common practice now are wrong. but, no one has a crystal ball. all we can do is what the evidence shows us is best practice NOW and always keep an open mind to new findings. right now, the evidence is overwhelmingly in support of vaccination
This!
One issue is that not all vaccines are equal. While this is (IMO) undeniably true for most vaccines, particularly those that have been in use for decades, I am not so certain about newer vaccines. In addition, the potential harm of the different diseases are not equal. All of this needs to be taken into account.
This was all excellent information. Thank you for posting this! My only concern (as a parent and reasonable human being) is that the vaccine research and subsequent scientific findings are funded by the same pharmaceutical companies who manufacture the vaccines. It seems to me like a conflict of interest. While they may be completely unbiased, they may also be biased and we, as a society, won’t be able to know the truth either way. Pharma companies and the FDA often hide information that is harmful to people (examples: recent admission by the FDA that arsenic is used in chicken feed and present in chicken meat that is consumed all over the U.S., the HPV vaccine that was recommended for 9 year old girls that has killed some and caused irreversible damage to others, numerous drugs that had been approved, then pulled off the shelves only after adverse effects on people have occurred, and the list goes on… ). The reason the “natural news” community doesn’t have scientific data is that they, as opposed to pharma companies, don’t have the funds to conduct these scientific studies (they’re not cheap!). I’m not pro or anti vaccines (I’m sort of on the fence – I see valid arguments on both sides of the debate), but I feel that there is not enough OBJECTIVE information available. It seems like anyone who questions vaccines is not getting their questions properly answered. ALL vaccine information should be objective and transparent to everyone, so that all parents can then make informed decisions.
I also follow a delayed schedule with my kids and agree with he above comment. Most of the parents that I know who choose something other than the CDC/AAP schedule never speak of Wakefield when discussing their rationale.
The implication that the “vaccine studies” were funded by pharma is false. You need to go look at the studies again. While there were lots of studies funded by pharma, there were lots of independent, unbiased, even NIH funded studies as well. Look at all of them. This isn’t big pharma making money on vaccines (they don’t), or some big government conspiracy (it isn’t), it’s objective scientific data that people attempt to refute in any way possible and for a variety of personal reasons. It’s selfish, arrogant, and ignorant.
Agreed. Big Pharma DOESN’T make money on vaccines. They would make a lot more money by treating a disease- it requires a lot more than 1-3 doses of medication. Big Pharma makes money from maintenance drugs, not vaccines we use a few times in our lives.
Yes! Thank you for saying this.
Thank you for such great comments! I’ve been working and can’t keep up well today, but I appreciate your participation.
Thank you for your comment! I’m contemplating writing a longer, separate post to address all of your points (and those of commenters that follow you) in a more thoughtful way. But while I work on it (I’m a sloooow writer, so it will be a few days), let me just address a few quickly (in no particular order)
1) As the anon commenter below points out, pharmaceutical companies don’t fund all vaccine research. In the United States, research and development is conducted by both private companies and the federal government. Your tax dollars are funding this work. I’m trying to find out the specific percentages, but it looks (from this source, haven’t verified it) to be about 36% taxpayer-supported (so the research is conducted by individual scientists through grants from the NIH), 46% from the profits of other vaccine sales (research conducted by pharmaceutical companies), and 18% though risk capital to small companies (Source: http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/pubs/DELFAB.pdf). All research, whether private or public, must then be reviewed by the FDA before the vaccines can be used.
2) As far as the “natural news” community not having access to the data–that isn’t actually the case. They may not have the money to fund many of their own, independent studies, but they actually do some. However, if you’re starting from a particular position (i.e. “X vaccine WILL HAVE this adverse effect”), you tend to bias the experimental design in order to get the result you want. That’s not good science at all. Better to ask the question “What adverse effects does X vaccine cause?” or “Does X vaccine cause Y effect?” It may seem like a subtle difference, but has a tremendous impact on the outcome.
In any case, all government funded studies must provide their data to the public, so that anyone can test the results. The “natural news” community (and I’m aware that this category is an oversimplification) does have access to these data.
Thank you Jennifer! I will look into those private studies. I wasn’t aware of exactly how the funding is distributed. Thanks!
Well put, Christine I couldn’t agree more! Seeing commercials warning consumers about certain drugs causing harmful or sometimes fatal side effects AFTER the product has been distributed is alarming to say the least! One example is YAZ, now causing cervical cancer. When this occurs in the medical field it does cause distrust and fears for people. I personally don’t trust the pharmaceutical companies and would prefer to get my information from the medical field who is not associated with them. I vaccinated both of my boys as babies, but as I began to research and as a Special Education teacher I talked with several parents who’s children were considered “normal” until kindergarten vaccination and their child exhibited “autistic like symptoms”. Did the medical field back this up? Absolutely not. Did I have the testimonies of parents who’s children twirl and flap their hands? Yes I did! Is vaccination the perpetrator of autism? I don’t know, but I didn’t want to risk it with my two boys. We eat healthy foods, exercise and take vitamins and I’m happy to say I have 2 active, happy and healthy little boys. I never tell people if they should vaccinate or not, that is up to them, but I am happy with our decision.
If vaccines cause autism, why aren’t more children autistic? If the water’s bad, everyone who drinks it gets sick.
There are now a handful of very large settlements that have been awarded to vaccine injury victims by US courts. And as for the comment by anonymous, look at the jump in autism rates and childhood cancer rates between the late 80’s and now. The number of recommended vaccines also tripled between then and now. And as the mother of a child who was dramatically different and went from months ahead to months behind developmentally after his 18 month vaccines, I am adamant in telling parents to do research. On the vaccines, the ingredients, the adverse possible effect, the risk versus reward for doing selective/delayed vaccines, etc. Every family needs to do what works best for them, but do not blindly trust doctors and pharma companies. Even pediatricians who recommend the CDC schedule do not keep up to date on vaccine ingredients and possible side effects. As fast as medicine changes in every facet, you can’t realistically expect them to, either. Therefore, as the advocate for our children, it is our responsibility to make sure we are up to date on researching these chemical concoctions that are being injected into our children. If you would like a good resource, read Dr. Sears vaccine book, it is not anti-vaccine but it is honest and a great resource for parents who are concerned about the health of their children.
You’re insane if you think that activity and healthy foods will protect your children from polio should they come into contact with it. I realize that many of the diseases we are vaccinated against currently are no longer prevalent, but this is directly due to vaccination. Read the medical literature on the recent outbreaks. Stop being a sheep.
Your example of Yaz, or any oral contraceptive for that matter, causing cervical cancer is incorrect. Cervical cancer is caused by HPV, or human papilloma virus, which is a sexually transmitted infection. Reiterating what the initial poster presented, it appears that many people are getting their medical “knowledge” from TV commercials, google, and Facebook. I agree it is important to get information from objective scientific data.
Autism is difficult to diagnose, especially by parents (who rarely want to believe that their child is different). Unfortunately, parents are also the first line of defense in identifying autism. As such, while autism can be reliably diagnoses at around 18 months, most children are between 3 and 6 before their autism is diagnosed. Or, in other words, when they’re starting kindergarten.
Even setting aside vaccines entirely, we know that kindergarten is when a child is likely to be diagnosed. Therefore, the fact that a child diagnosed then also had a vaccine recently is irrelevant. Correlation is not causation.
Correlation does not equal causation. It just so happens that we know that autism begins to become more readily apparent as children reach kindergarten age. Also, the diagnosis of autism is become more broad and more widely recognized by more providers; therefore, rates around that age group are going up dramatically. Making such a misinformed choice is unfortunate and has the potential to harm both your children and others. As a clearly concerned parent, I would assume you would want such a thing to happen to your children. Fortunately for you now there is such thing as herd immunity, which allows such a debate to even exists because these diseases are not as widespread as they used to be. Unfortunately though, vaccination rates are dropping precipitously in some areas and they are losing their herd immunity – potentially subjecting innocent children of either misinformed or arrogant and selfish parents or both to be at the highest risk of morbidity or mortality from these easily preventable conditions. Don’t be that parent and don’t let your kids be those kids that die or suffer needlessly, potentially for a lifetime – vaccinate!
Here here.
I vaccinate just on a different schedule than the CDC recommends. How am I to tell which vaccine caused a reaction if my child gets 9 at once with all the combo vaccines. And if they work so well why are the largest outbreaks of whooping cough in vaccinated populations according to the CDC. How can they urge me to take DTAP while pregnant and openly put on the pamphlet my doctor gave me that the DTAP shot has not been evaluated in pregnant or nursing mothers? These are the questions that most non vaxers ask. Years ago these doctors recommended smoking as good for you and even did ads choosing the best cigarettes. We all know how silly that is now, but plain and simple we do not get the full truth from doctors or big pharma. This is why some folks question. I don’t believe in not vaccinating, but a schedule closer to what we all experienced as kids seems more intelligent than the tripled schedule they suggest now and my pediatricians office agrees. My pediatricians office has 3 MDs who all suggest the vaccine schedule that is more spaced out and only one at a time with no vaccines before the blood/barrier is capable at 6 months.
Hi Jennifer,
Just a question…..do you have a child with autism? Does anyone in your family have a child with autism? Do you know a child with autism? If so, I stand corrected. If not then you have never experienced the gut wrenching and agonizing helplessness, panic, and fear that a parent of a child on the spectrum goes through. To watch your child regress or not meet their develpomental milestones is torture for a parent. I appreciate that you spoke of both sides, however one day the truth will come out and living a “pure” life may not be the worst idea…….
Yes autism is a terrible and heartbreaking disorder but there has NEVER been a causal link between vaccinations and autism, there needs to be more research into what causes autism to help reassure parents that not immunising children against diseases that can kill is not the answer. I would be more concerned about the overuse of antibiotics in the first year of life
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episode/autism-enigma.html
I would also ask how it is that despite vaccinations being given for decades that it is only recently that there has been such a huge spike in autism spectrum disorders.
Hi anonymous,
A question for you…. Have you ever seen a child die of meningitis or suffer from a preventable disease like measles? I have… It’s not pleasant.
Hi Anonymous, I hope you will understand when I say that I prefer to keep my family (with the exception of my sister, who’s an athlete and a public figure) private. So, respectfully, I’m not going to answer your question. But here’s my philosophy: If we can demonstrate scientifically that vaccines definitively don’t cause ASD, then I want to know what actually DOES. If we keep getting stuck on the vaccine question, are we going to ignore other potential causes? I’m afraid that’s the case among some communities. We need to take a broad approach and examine all potential causes. With respect to vaccines, the scientific evidence is in, and NOT vaccinating kids won’t decrease the rate of ASD (it actually has increased in recent years), so withholding vaccines only is doing harm by providing potential reservoirs of these preventable diseases in the community.
If I may step in here, I have two children diagnosed as on the spectrum; I have the same diagnosis. If anything, it’s probably good that my boys turned out the way they did, because it’s easier for me to relate to them.
It is not the end of the world and I resent the implication that being autistic is literally worse than being dead.
That needed to be said. Thank you.
Hi Anonymous,
Just a question…..do you have a child with polio? Does anyone in your family have a child with whooping cough? Do you know a child who has died from it? If so, I stand corrected. If not then you have never experienced the gut wrenching and agonizing helplessness, panic, and fear that a parent of a child with an easily preventable disease goes through. To watch your child waste away or to have their future stolen from them is torture for a parent. I appreciate that you spoke of the truth, however the truth has already come out and living a “pure” life is the worst idea.
What are your thoughts on the HPV vaccine? Its only been out about nine years. Are we really seeing benefits from it yet or is more time needed? My twin girls are eight years old and I do not know if I should consider this vaccine. My children have received all other required vaccinations to date.
Studies are already showing that the rate of HPV infection after the introduction of the vaccine has reduced by 56%! That is in a study population including all girls age 14-19, not just the vaccinated ones. Now imagine if everyone had been vaccinated.
While it will take many more years to determine the impact of the vaccine on cervical cancer itself, its well known that HPV causes cervical cancer, so I would fully expect cervical cancer to decreased significantly as well.
Here is the paper that discusses these results: http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/jid/prpaper.pdf
Thank you!
It has been shown that the vaccine is effective in preventing cervical cancer which is clearly linked to the more harmful strains of HPV. The vaccine confers immunity against these specific harmful strains. It is also recommended for boys aged 9-26 (given that it is sexually transmitted). If anyone has had to go through multiple Pap smears, colonoscopies, LEEP procedures, or worse due to abnormal paps and positive HPV on testing, the vaccine would seem very worth the prevention.
There is no vaccine for Lyme disease as stated in your blog
Thank you so much for pointing out my mistake! I will correct this ASAP. There actually does appear to a vaccine that’s doing well in clinical trials, which is really great news for us. Here’s a link to the abstract: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2813%2970110-5/abstract
What makes you think that all these parents are worried about their child getting autism? You keep hammering on about that point….don’t you realize there are numerous other reasons parents choose not to? And saying that there aren’t 2 sides….seriously? Why does everyone seem to want to turn America into a socialist nation these days! It’s been proven over & over again that socialism doesn’t work. Don’t believe it? Go live in a socialist nation and see how you like it. America was built on the foundation of freedom. Which includes freedom of choice.
The thing is, the children need protection from the parents sometimes… if a parent “chooses” not to feed their children or “chooses” to abuse the child- it’s the government’s responsibility to save that child. Frankly, not vaccinating a child can be just as negligent as some other reasons for calling Child Protective Services. Not vaccinating can KILL both your children and others. What’s your non-autism reason that is more important than that?
You obviously have not read about severe adverse reactions some kids have had from vaccines… meaning a slow agonizing death or a sudden death just minutes after the vaccine… So now what? Until you can prove to me that vaccines are 100% safe, we will not be getting any more in my household.. One vaccine injured child in my family is quite frankly enough..Being warned by a team of pediatricians at Georgetown is enough for me, too. As far as Autism goes.. The cause will NEVER be linked to vaccines.. I am not naive enough to think that will ever happen. The resulting lawsuits would cripple big pharma. It will never happen.. I am good with that.. I am not, however good with people like YOU calling people like ME ignorant, or negligent or in need of a Family Services report… IF you take the list of diseases that we vaccinate against and look at each individual disease, there are not any that an 8 week old is at risk for much less a newborn, which is when we start injecting this crap into our infants.. Don’t try throwing down the dead baby card unless you can back it up.
As a pediatric RN, I so totally agree with this. Have seen way too many cases of say for example pertussis, and these kids suffer horribly and can possibly die from it. Unless your child has a certain medical condition that they cannot receive vaccines,these parents should be required by law to vaccinate their children not only to protect their own kids, but to protect others who cannot receive vaccines which can be deadly to them.
Kathryn1962, newborns ARE at risk for pertussis. My friend’s daughter contracted it when she was less than a month old.
Kathryn1862, your logic is puzzling. You are more concerned with the vaccines being 100% safe for everyone and not causing a serious, life threatening, adverse reaction in a minute number of cases rather than, potentially, exposing your children to a far more serious and prevalent disease? The science, reasoning and simple odds are far greater in favor of giving the vaccines as opposed to not. In fact, it is your responsibility to other children, aside from your own, to get these vaccines in order to not, possibly expose these people to deadly, preventable diseases.
I think that because I have been talking to many parents who have this specific concern. Is there another disease or adverse health effect that you’re concerned about?
And no, I’m not a socialist by any means. I’m in favor of capitalism + regulation. I am not preventing you from choosing not to vaccinate your kids by talking about the scientific evidence for why this is a bad decision, both for your kids and for the welfare of the American public. True civic responsibility is caring about the health of your community, actually.
I care about the health of my community but I will not put my child at risk.. True civic responsibility would be all of us demanding vaccines be 100% safe…
Kathryn, when you can find me a medical procedure that is 100% safe, or 100% effective – you get back to me. I’m not gonna hold my breath.
kathryn1962, nothing is ever 100% safe. People are all made differently and as such suffer different reactions to everything they come in contact with. My friends child is allergies to green bell peppers. Hence since he could die from them they are not 100% safe – should we ban them? The best anyone can offer is as safe as possible. I do agree they need to be monitored closely but they will never be able to prevent every possible reaction, including death. Many times immediate death is caused by a severe reaction and is not a normal reaction. Cars are not 100% safe do you drive? That’s an unrealistic number.
umm….banning green bell peppers?? no. but we probably shouldn’t force them down everyone’s throat (as some responses to this particular comment have suggested with vaccines). but it’s ok for us to have sacrificed our family members’ well-being so you can protect yourself. ok. cool.
Kathryn1692, you are putting your child at risk by not vaccinating, not the other way around. Let us assume for a moment that vaccines might cause autism. Given that the evidence is not clear, if so, then it must be at an incredibly low rate. Lower than the rate of a child getting the disease that the vaccine would have prevented, for example. Lower than a child dying from that disease, actually. Even if vaccines did cause autism, it would be doing so at such a low rate that your child would still be at a higher risk of a medical problem by not vaccinating.
Even if anti-vaxxers are right, not vaccinating your kid is still wrong.
Amen!
@Kathyryn1962– (it’s not letting me reply to a reply)
What if I told you that there was a new vaccine that prevented febrile seizures from occuring. If you take the vaccine, then you will almost definitely not get those seizures. If you don’t take the vaccine, there’s a 1 in 3000 chance you will get febrile seizures. Now, what if I told you the side effect from the vaccine: a 20% chance of being hospitalized from the measles, and rarely, death? Knowing this terrible side effect, would you you give your child the vaccine? The vaccine is obviously not 100% safe, as you mention.
Well, guess what I just did? I just took the “inverse” of the measles vaccine. In other words, I made the purpose of the vaccine the side effect and made one of the most common serious side effects the purpose of the vaccine.
What I’m trying to demonstrate is that your argument about vaccine safety completely ignores the original purpose of the vaccine. There is a safety risk from taking the vaccine, and there is a safety risk from not taking the vaccine. The truth is that *not* taking the vaccine is even less safe. Vaccines have been proven to stop viruses and save lives. If you believe risking your child dying from measles, polio, whooping cough, etc. is better than the alternative side effects, then that’s your opinion. But I think any parent with an autistic child would rather have their child living than dead.
LOL, I’d *much* rather live in an actual socialist nation, like one of the Scandinavian ones, than in the Calvinist right-wing shithole the U.S. has become. Thanks for demonstrating that so much opposition to vaccination has to do with parents thinking they own their children as possessions.
So we should be possessions of a government who have absolutely no accountability? Thanks, I choose to not follow a government structure that allowed a leader like Stalin or Hitler.
If you don’t like the government of the people, please choose to not enjoy your right of voting. If you choose to vote, you are enjoying a right that socialists do not support….
So in these identified populations of lower vaccination rates, there must large outbreaks of the diseases they should be vaccinated against. Conversely there should not be any outbreaks among vaccinated children. But that’s just not the case. The fact is science only proves that a vaccine can cause a production of antibodies that might help prevent a disease. The fact that it is more educated populations choosing to not vaccinate may be due to the fact that they have educated theirselves on how vaccines are made & their side effects & have chosen it is not the healthiest/safest way to raise a healthy child. Regardless, it is a personal choice, and I thank God I live in a country that still allows us to have a choice…..for now.
I’m confused about your logic. How does the production of antibodies against a pathogen not help prevent infection with that pathogen? Can you provide me with a source for that, please?
Look at the extremely high rates of vaccinated children who got measles in the last big outbreaks… Something like 80% in some areas… So much for the effectiveness.. The truth is, we don’t know how effective they are because rates of most communicable diseases had taken a huge dip and were going down with better sanitation and healthcare…
@kathryn1962 – so I guess you are going to stop driving a car (not 100% safe from crashing), flying in planes (not 100% safe from crashing), walking down the street (not 100% safe from being shot, stabbed, bitten by a rabid dog, run over (jeez, walking IS dangerous), eating (risk of choking), drinking (risk of choking). NOTHING IS 100% SAFE IN THIS WORLD.
Not to mention that Jenny McCarthy has recanted her claims upon finding out that her son actually has Landau-Kleffner syndrome and not Autism, as originally thought.
Another victim of the anti-vaccine voices is the physician-patient relationship, as physicians plead and set forth scientific evidence of benefit for vaccines, and actual proof of harm when they are declined. The parents who hold their celebrity spokesperson’s opinion above the advice of the professional caring for their child, a chasm of doubt and mistrust opens between them and their healthcare providers.
Extremely good points! Thank you for your thoughts.
Your article is wonderful and very informative. Too many people are quick to believe everything they hear in the media. It’s really the media that exacerbates the rampant fear of the harmful effects of vaccination. Someone flips channels and hears, “The link between vaccination and Autism, story at 11:00,” and incorrectly surmises that vaccinations are the cause. Then without even so much as tuning in to the news broadcast, the same person performs a Google search with the keywords “Vaccinations+Autism” and finds 10,000+ links to all kinds of articles/studies/accounts/etc that claim vaccines cause Autism. The uneducated, or perhaps it’s the fearful, stop there. That’s proof enough for them. Instantly the person’s search tipped the scales in favor of the unfounded equation:
Vaccination = Autism.
Search VS research might be the real problem here. I’m a teacher, and I’m constantly training my fourth graders NOT to believe everything they come up with on a quick Google search. Anyone can sound educated and scientific with the correct wording. There is a reason we should REsearch. By definition, re- tells us to “do it again”. That’s what scientists are trained to do.
Thank you for writing this. I wish all parents could read it.
Thank you so much, Amy! I am so concerned about how the media handles scientific controversy, that I want to do my part, however small. YOUR role as educator is incredibly important. I teach at a university level, and it’s so discouraging when kids arrive without understanding that very concept. So I really do appreciate the teachers who are out there working to improve scientific literacy. I’ve just set up a FB group for this–please feel free to join and keep in touch!
https://www.facebook.com/scienceliteracy
Thanks everyone for participating in this discussion! I want to take things a step further. If you have some ideas to share for how to improve science literacy, feel free to come join our brand new FB community at https://www.facebook.com/scienceliteracy
Who is Wakefield? MCCARTHY? I am a MD, have seen these “vaccine preventable” dx you speak of and treated children with autism. You my dear are living in a delusional world if you can not see a cause and effect with the high rise in vaccination and the prevalence of autism, add, adhd, asthma, allergies, diabetes, and auto immune disease in children. What we are doing here is trading treatable illness with permanent life altering ones. You talk about herd immunity, this concept is false, think of the hundreds of thousands of folks over the age of 20 who have never had the current vaccine schedule to keep up with the “herd”. You talk about outbreaks of pertussis, you should really check your data before publishing it. Most all cases of pertussis we are seeing in the pnw are in vaccinated population. The vaccine has a large failure rate. The un vaccinated children I see are some of the most healthy kids I have seen in my practice in years. But then again I rarely see them because they are so healthy. Practice in the field for a few years and watch the health of our youth degrade before your eyes after they receive the dep of ped vaccine schedule then come and talk to me if you can sleep at night. I for one took the hipocratic oath to do no harm. I stand by what I pledged.
I am appalled at most parents’ definition of “fine” “Of COURSE we vaccinated Suzy and she is fine..” Of course Suzy has asthma, ADHD and juvenile onset diabetes and eczema.. but she is fine!! It is sad…
Judging from the poor composition above I highly doubt you are a physician. And that ‘Hipocratic’ Oath that you hold so dear; you should probably learn how to spell it correctly
Of corse this person is a doctor, none of them can spell! Us nurses do it for them. I have worked in nursing homes for many years and it’s a big hush hush…. Oh it’s flu vaccine time… Who’s is going to die after the shots this time! Never fails, always takes at least 3 of the elderly out. Keep vaccinating. Keep believing. Its easier to turn a blind eye and believe they are the all mighty and powerful God given gift that is the inoculation!
Amen! I had never heard of Jenny McCarthy or any of the other mainstream conversation on vaccines. I made the decision to not vaccinate because I am unfortunate enough to have a vaccine-injured child. After she nearly died we were advised to not immunize her any more for the time being. We began our research at that point. I hadn’t even heard of the “autism link”.That was never my concern when we decided to stop vaccinating and start questioning. I have also had a child with measles (who was vaccinated on schedule and received the MMR). While both are terrible (measles and vaccine injury) I would rather my child contract an illness than suffer life-long consequences from my decision to inject chemicals and substances into him/her.
P.S. My husband is a physician. We vaccinated on schedule per the medical culture we live in. Did you know he never had to take a course in vaccinations during his 8 years of schooling? Not one. And we would have never learned what we know now had our own child not been injured by one. Wake up. There’s nothing wrong with questioning vaccinations and demanding further testing (not just for an autism link, b/c I agree with the poster who said that will never happen) and further transparency.
You may be surprised to know that many physicians when they begin thinking critically and examining these things begin to question it themselves. It’s not just some “google doctor masses” out there causing hysteria. There may very well be a legitimate concern, and it is worth further examination.
“Organized medicine” dupes the public with scientific data that supports the maintenance of “patient status” for the first (most vulnerable) months of EVERY PERSON BORN. How many times in the last decade has an 8 week-old infant (or any human on the planet) contracted the Diphtheria virus? What is the big problem with waiting until the child has a chance to develop a more mature immune system of 2 or 3 or 4 years? The only disease both my children were exposed to, that they had also been immunized for, was chicken pox. Both children had moderate to severe cases in spite of their so-called immunization.
Vaccines have a made an enormous positive impact on the global eradication of harmful viruses. They do not, however, belong in the bloodstream of newborns with immature immune systems. There is no logic, no science, no evidence of an added benefit to vaccinating babies over vaccinating preschoolers.
If you want anyone to believe you are really an MD, you need to have a little more credibility than posting as anonymous.
Oh, certainly… Clearly the disjointed, illogical rant, riddled with grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors is the work of an MD. How do we know? The anonymous poster on the internet says he/she is an MD! A very smart MD, who thinks the idea of herd immunity is self-evidently crazy. All of the best medical schools teach that!
Good enough for me! Faced with that kind of authority, I don’t need any coherent arguments or any evidence. Off to not vaccinate my kids!
I agree with the doc! I was told about vaccine dangers(by a DOCTOR) when I was pregnant with my first child. I still chose to vaccinate until I had researched more. So she was vaccinated until 6 mos old. My 2nd, who is 2 years younger, has never had a vaccine. The difference in their health is astonishing. My oldest has allergy problems, ADD, stomach infections, inflammatory problems and gets strep every year, sometimes twice a year. My second child is almost never sick! I could count the times on one hand. Never serious. Both of my kids have had Whooping cough, but it wasn’t this struggling to breathe, coughing up a lung craziness that is thrown around. They each had a mild cough for about 3 weeks, similar to an allergy cough that I get every year in the spring, but sounded like a barking seal. They both recovered perfectly. The illness really didn’t even slow either of them down! According to my research, IF either of them even get it again, they will be past their 30’s. To me, that is real immunity, not a yearly booster. Vaccinated kids have a weaker immune system, I think that’s why many of them have problems.
No, the pharmacy companies don’t make much money on vaccines, but how much do they make on antibiotics, epipens, asthma meds, tonsil removals, ADD, diabetes, kids’ cancer meds, leukemia meds ANY medicines for chronic illness that a kid shouldn’t have? All the pro-vaccine people only talk about autism. If you are only bringing up autism, that proves that you have not done your research.
Also, I find it interesting that Jennifer rarely responds to the anti vaccine posts.
Many of the anti vaccine posts are based on personal anecdotes and opinions. Do you really believe that I can reason someone out of that strongly held belief? I don’t. I’ve laid out the best evidence I can find in the post itself, and I don’t think that responding to each anti vaxxer’s personal story will add much beyond provoking an angry argument. But here’s something for you (and others), that I’m genuinely curious about. Just as a thought experiment: What type (if any) of scientific evidence would you guys need to change your mind?
I have also noticed this writer mainly responding to pro-vaccine posts (including posts that are also anecdotal and have no scientific references) as well as supporting and responding to posts that seem to openly mock those with different opinions. that just doesn’t come across as a very objective, reliable information source imo.
Jennifer,
I appreciate your article so much! I wanted to comment on the “2 sides” you mentioned. As a physician, I find this extremely frustrating. I notice that people do feel they have to take one side or the other. Do I believe that pharma and the FDA lie to us about things? Yes. Do I believe that they allow impurities in our foods (which I really believe has a stronger link to autism, although I am not sure about any studies. Just know that my friends who have children with autism are seeing a very good response to GFCF diets.) Do I think your child needs to be immunized against Hep B as soon as they come out of your uterus? No. Do I think they need to be immunized against pertussis, MMR and polio? Yes. Why? Because I have seen children DIE from these things. In 2011 and 2012. Not. cool.
Anyway, my point is that we all develop such strong emotions over this debate. But I hope that everyone is taking advantage of the learning and exposure to different viewpoints. And don’t be so quick to jump on top of someone. Maybe you can find a common ground that benefits everyone involved. And maybe, just maybe, we can learn something from one another.
Thank you. Very good points!
May I just say to the “Anonymous” doctor and nurse commenters – how credible is a comment you won’t stand behind with an identity? Privacy I understand (hence the code names many use for email addresses).
I’m a registered nurse and I work with both typical and special needs children in a school setting. Yes there’s a sharp rise in ADD, ADHD, asthma, eczema, and diabetes among children. There’s also a sharp rise in stressful over-busy lifestyles, insufficient sleep, poor nutrition, chemicals in our food, water and environment, consumption of junk food, too little exercise and too much “screen time”; and dare I mention those unknown monsters we call genetically modified foods or GMO’s? Until you provide a well-researched, peer-reviewed and referenced article such as this, I would be foolish to believe only your anecdotal conclusions.
There is no such thing as a 100% safe vaccine, but I still believe in vaccination, with freedom to alter the scheduling of it (for individual reasons agreed upon between physician and patientI) Is there really a 100% safe ANYTHING? Life itself is a risk, and it is the combination of the choices, risks, and daily decisions we make that direct the course of it. BUT as any mariner could tell you, no matter how carefully you set your course, there are any numbers of variables than can alter it- these are the so called “storms” of life that we have absolutely no control over no matter how much we desire to. We all die- the choice is In how we choose to live. Will we make well informed choices to the best if our ability, or live in fear and thus never fully live?
Form and state your opinions based on your experience- absolutely, it is your right. Research and “own” your opinions- that is responsibility.
With every right comes a responsibility.
Very good points! And thank you so much for your kind words.
I’m camping and don’t have access to my computer and other resources so I can’t share any links or quotes. I have two basic issues with this article that I’d like to point out. One is that it seems to suggest that the reason people aren’t vaccinating is mostly due to autism fears. I find that to be extremely false. The only people I generally hear talking about the link between vaccination and autism are the pro vaccination people trying to make unvaccinated people look crazy. The other issue I have is that it makes it sound like all we do is read Google and natural websites. Most of my decision was based on the CDC website, official medical graphs showing the extreme decline of all of the diseases before vaccines were even introduced due to better health standards and cleanliness, and actual scientific studies and watching recorded government trials. There is plenty of legitimate scientific evidence that vaccines cause harm and there are risks and benefits to either decision. Just read the inserts that come in the packaging. Read the ingredient lists. Read the admitted side effects.
I see both sides and I do firmly believe there are two legitimate sides. This article has some good points, but also a lot of wrong points and is written to make people who don’t vaccinate seem like Internet readers that fall for things easily and are only concerned with autism. That is far from the truth.
Agreed!! I just had the privilege of participating in a dissertation project that is aimed at discovering the reasons why mothers do not vaccinate (or select/delay vaccinations). I am looking forward to reading the results once they are published (which probably won’t be for a couple of years). I also noted, as I read the above article, that this particular blogger heavily criticizes parents for not vaccinating based on an autism fear. I can’t speak for the other mothers who participated in the dissertation study (since I of course do not know who they are), but autism never once came up in the my interview. I’ve read about women who swear their child’s autism is connected to vaccines, but I really can’t say. Obviously the scientific community does not support the connection. However, just because the connection has not been made NOW, doesn’t mean it won’t be made in the future. I, personally, think autism is much bigger than a vaccination issue, but I still question whether vaccinations are in some way adding to the problem. All that to say… I agree that autism is not a major reason why mothers (or parents) choose not to vaccinate, or selectively vaccinate. Some selectively vaccinate because they, themselves, suffered adverse reactions (MMR & DTaP come up most often when I talk to other mothers about their decision). I for one am mostly concerned with allergies, asthma, and autoimmune diseases because of my own health history, and that of some of my family members. I read a study last year or so (I don’t remember where I found it, or I’d share it), that found the polio vaccine was the least likely to be refused by parents, and the Hep B was the most likely to be refused. That makes since to me! Nobody wants their child to get polio, and the Hep B vaccine may or may not protect your child when they reach the age of sexual activity (if they were vaccinated on the current recommended – day-you-were-born – schedule) because the vaccine may wear out by the time you are a young adult. So, yes, I will continue to reject the Hep B vaccine when my children are born, because that is just silly! (And I will responsibly consider having my children vaccinated as pre-teens/teens, instead – when I was). The risk of the infant dying from the vaccine is higher than the risk of the infant contracting Hep B WHEN THEY ARE BORN (which can only happen if the mother HAS Hep B – FYI). And I will seriously consider getting my children vaccinated for polio… EVEN THOUGH it has been completely wiped out in the U.S. The problem I see (continually with bloggers & news articles condemning parents who don’t vaccinate) is that AUTISM is usually the ONLY fear talked about amongst anti-nonvaxers. Why? Why not talk about these other fears? Yes, I WILL continue to questions “doctors” and the scientific community (even in the face of their studies trying to prove my instincts are silly fears) … especially when a friend of mine has to go ALL THE WAY TO THE MAYO CLINIC (after 7-8 family doctors, pediatricians, and specialists) to find specialists who CAN diagnose a simple dog allergy; especially when a family doctor and another specialist were incompetent in diagnosing a close family member with JRA; and especially when my family doctors put me on steroids continually as a child & teenager (causing obesity and self-esteem issues) instead of taking the time to teach me how to appropriately manage my asthma. So, I agree with the above responder. Don’t make us non-vaxers out to be some crazy, uneducated fools. We have education, we have instincts. We may not be doctors (though some are). But we are not crazy and we are not intentionally harming our children; our children don’t need to be “protected” by the government. We ARE intentional about raising our children to be healthy, productive members of our society.
“Doctors”? I’m truly sorry you have had such a hard time finding a correct diagnosis for your and your family members’ issues, but this does not make the doctors “incompetent.” Doctors are human and make mistakes just like you and me. They are doing their best, but sometimes it takes some trial and error to come to a correct diagnosis. If you think they’re so incompetent, then by all means stop going to see them. I’m sure the rest of the patients would appreciate a shorter time in the waiting room.
About Hep B. The reason newborns are vaccinated is to prevent transmission of the virus from mother to child. Hep B is often asymptomatic, but can lead to serious liver damage and liver cancer. So a mother may not know she has it but can pass it to her baby.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis_B_vaccine
I don’t think you are crazy. I just think you are wrong about this issue. It happens to everyone. Most vaccines are among the safest medical interventions performed (there are some, but still small ,dangers with certain live-attenuated vaccines). And yes you should be careful about allergies, especially eggs, when taking certain vaccines like the flu vaccine. Hep B vaccine however is grown in yeast, so that should not be a problem. My sympathies for enduring asthma. It’s awful.
I could not agree with you more. Your logic and research is 100% spot on! We also chose a delayed/selective schedule for our son (and will do the same for our next baby on the way). Part -not all, just part- of our reasoning is that he was born 2 months premature and we did not feel comfortable injecting his TINY premature body with tons of vaccines at only 2 months old (as recommended). My husband and I and both our families are fully vaccinated and we did not take our son out in public for the first few months, so we didn’t see a need to vaccinate him right away. We waited until he was a little bigger and his immune system had a chance to get stronger before we started his vaccinations. We also are skipping Hep B until he is a pre-teen (and, yes, that’s when we were vaccinated for it as well). We don’t believe in the flu shot either. Basically, we are vaccinating him for the major vaccines, but only doing one at a time (spaced out 1 every 2-3 months). By the time he starts school, he will be fully vaccinated. While I realize there is no scientific evidence for supporting the benefit of spacing out vaccines and doing one at a time, there is also no scientific evidence proving that it’s harmful. So, it boils down to a personal choice that we’re comfortable with and we feel that we’re making the right decision. We’re protecting him, just on a slower schedule.
I really appreciate the measured way that you approach this issue, and the decidedly not-shrill manner in which you’ve engaged your readers. However, I’d like to respond to two potential problems with the way that you frame resistance to vaccination; namely, you treat the reasoning across potentially quite varied groups of individuals as monolithic, and you treat medical science ahistorically and also as a monolith.
In the interests of full disclosure, I’ve chosen to delay, for now, most vaccinations for my child (currently 2 ½) – this isn’t because I have any fear of autism (I don’t, and I’ve also read all of the evidence that refutes earlier purported claims), nor because I have any hankering to keep my child “pure” (for religious or yuppie compulsive reasons either way), nor because I’ve just done incomplete research. My interest in the literature came when I was pregnant, and started to wonder about all of the “advice” I was getting from medical professionals, friends, and common mommy lore alike – I wanted to understand the history and the science that led to these prescriptions and proscriptions. And what I found is probably not surprising, but it felt so at the time: some advice was based on spotty (or decontextualized, or since disproven) evidence, and a lot of it was based on the fundamental assumption that a medical model (where risk and benefit alike are spread across a population that may or may not closely match an individual’s situation or concern) sufficiently meets the needs of every situation regardless of context. The framing of vaccination specifically has remained a concern, since these are decisions that I continually research and discuss with my pediatrician. (I’m no longer pregnant, so whether or not an extra cup of coffee is a bad idea, or whether I should have that sushi are now moot points.)
That is, I suppose I’m trying to answer your question of “Why might otherwise intelligent people look elsewhere from medical professionals for advice?” by acknowledging that the relationship between patient and provider is necessarily complicated by a relation of power, one which is often exploited by the physician. (Not always – of course not!) And by acknowledging that medical professionals are fallible, too, and that expecting a GP to be an expert in immunology as well is kind of crazy (that is, I don’t expect authority in some situations, but also don’t appreciate it when authority absent actual rational expectation is expected to be obeyed.) And finally, a hope on my part, that the relationship can be one of mutual learning, not merely obeisance.
Here are two concerns that I happen to have that receive, in my opinion, too short of shrift.
1. The relationship of actual statistics regarding actual vaccinations, and also a more nuanced approach to understanding disease incidence and presentation, as well as mortality (much literature tends to use the general population’s conflation of morbidity and mortality, and tends to simplify other potential contributing factors to any given described “epidemic” situation). The data that even support widespread adoption of vaccination regimes don’t point to the monolithic terms by which this public health concern is often characterized. Stats on efficacy, both in the short- and long-term, paint a much more complicated picture than you’ve accounted for here. For example, herd immunity is not an across-the-board reality for even fully vaccinated populations, and is an incomplete or even incorrect concept to apply for some diseases with extant vaccines available. Another place where the conversation often seems to go awry is with regards to reactions to vaccination (and here I don’t, emphatically, mean autism, but rather things like encephalitis, paralysis, etc. – things that do happen commonly and have a clear etiology that’s been substantiated), which are often minimized.
2. I’m most concerned with the long-term effects of copious vaccination on the immune system itself. There is a some exciting research being conducted around questions like this, and I think these types of questions are pushed to the back-burner when the issue is repeatedly framed as either/or and the crappy Wakefield research is invoked as indicative or representative of all who are interested in the medical moment that we find ourselves in.
I guess what I would like to underscore here is that: I’m not anti-science; I’m no conspiracy theorist; I’m not an unintelligent or superstitious person. In fact, my reservations about vaccination have come from reading the scientific literature! My qualms about vaccination come from having read the research, which unlike your article suggests, shows that there are still a lot of questions, and that all vaccines, just like all disease patterns, aren’t created equal.
Your conclusions are not based on science and are erroneous. Your reservations have been rejected already upon exhaustion. Could you please tell us what new exciting research you are talking about?. It is ok to have a fixation against vaccines, it is not ok to disguise it with false arguments. It is like religion if you dont want your child to get vaccinated just say it.
Excellently written- you describe and explain my point of view much more eloquently than I! Thank you.
Thank goodness for solid research. My daughter has mild ASD and we noticed it before her getting the MmR vaccine. I am glad both my kids got vaccinated. I loved the Penn and Teller video, love how they are straight dope on things
It’s interesting how early the symptoms for ASD manifest, isn’t it? Doesn’t fit with the cause-effect relationship that people are insisting on. But then they keep moving the goalposts when you point this out to them. My best to her and to your family.
As a “natural parent,” I do steer clear from bpa products, feed my kids organic, cloth diaper, and drive a hybrid. I also VACCINATE them on schedule! I do all of these things to protect them and provide the best possible future for them. You can be a “hippie” parent and still be knowledgeable enough to protect your kids from easily prevented illnesses.
Then you are injecting them with aluminum, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80, antibiotics, and a host of other chemicals and carcinogens.. So why bother??
Ok let’s see…autism or a life-threatening disease….wow tough choice! NOT! Seriously people, do what’s best for your child and vaccinate them!
You have said so much that is incorrect in this thread but this is the only comment that had a link to reply. See the fifteen or so paragraphs above with actual data and links to copious research? Do you have even a fraction of evidence to support your claims (links to studies, names of like-minded and identifiable practitioners, etc.)? You seem to think that all childhood disease (everything from adhd to childhood onset diabetes) is a product of vaccination. You are living in the dark ages
That’s a terrific point, and I appreciate your comment. People are oversimplifying when they say that it’s only the “hippie/crunchy” community which rejects vaccines. A quick search through responses here shows a much wider population of people with this viewpoint than that!
A couple people are saying that it is undeniable that with an increase in vaccinations, there has been an increase in autism and ASD, ADD, ADHD, etc. Yes, well I’ll also mention that with the as the number of vaccinations has increased, so has carpal tunnel syndrome. Does that mean Vaccinations cause carpal tunnel syndrome? Obviously not- it’s a well reported overuse disorder that has risen with the advent of keyboards. Autism and ADHD have only become commonly thought-of disorders in the past 20 years, around the same time as vaccines becoming widespread. Remember, that as late as the 1970s, any psychiatric disorder was stigmatized.
The truth is that data does not support any of these connections. I’m not saying vaccines atre 100% safe, but the alternative to vaccination is much much worse.
Exactly right. There is always some small % of the population that has adverse reactions to vaccines because they’re allergic to them. That’s why the rest of us need to be sure we’re up to date on ours….to protect those who can’t be vaccinated!
And very good point about the case-effect relationship. Thank you.
I’d like to make a couple of comments…
The first is more of a question: What is the incidence of autism in the unvaccinated group? Give me a percentage in that group to compare to the percentage in the vaccinated group! That data is very hard to find (granted I’ve not done extensive searching).
Second: There are risk versus benefits discussions with every medical procedure or medication being proposed to a layperson, usually (and supposedly) given in layman’s terms. This risk versus benefit tells you that, yes, vaccines are not inherently 100% infallible. There are risks to everything in life, (including drinking a glass of water)! But the benefits of vaccination far outweigh their risks. I can’t fathom why a parent would opt out of protecting their child from any of the many illnesses we vaccinate against which could KILL them.
As a nurse, the thought of an unvaccinated population scares me. As someone who has been in the healthcare field for over 10 years, I’ve seen only 2 actual cases of varicella, but unfortunately have lost some patients to pertussis in the past few years. I’ve not ever seen a case of polio, diphtheria, or epiglottitis (which is caused by H. influenzae). Not seeing these diseases means that, as a pediatric nurse, I will not be prepared for them if/when we have a similar outbreak to the pertussis outbreak a few years back… because they have been nearly eradicated until now, but are slowly making a comeback! These are diseases that can kill. Scary to think that today’s healthcare force might not know how to take care of these patients!
Thanks for reading…
There is NO study on a vaccinated vs unvaccinated population as it relates to Autism. NONE. That one, simple study would put an end to the Autism/Vaccine debate. The CDC was told to perform the study in the 1990’s, but it never occurred because they thought it would be “unethical” to deny certain individuals vaccines. However, the population of people is out there already, vaccinated/unvaccinated. The population is OUT there. Ask for their complete medical records, and I am sure enough people would hand them over, as long as their names were removed for privacy, for this study. Long story short, the study could be completed, ETHICALLY, and no one will perform it within the U.S. If people want all kids vaccinated, then FORCE your elected officials to mandate a study of those who are fully vaccinated, vs those FULLY unvaccinated, in the school aged population, since they are the ones getting this crazy vaccine schedule, and THEN let’s have this debate.
I think a lot of people are losing trust in physicians because of their tendency to only prescribe for the symptoms and not always look to educate or seek out a true cause. It seems physicians are too closely linked to pharmaceutical reps. While there are incredibly beneficial drugs out there, we also live in a place now where we way over-prescribe antibiotics. I wonder if some parents have swung so far the opposite direction in an attempt to free themselves from the pharmaceutical mindset and now can’t see the evidence presented on vaccines. I can’t blame them for seeking alternatives but agree that vaccinating is the right thing to do.
Can you comment on the safety of the HPV vaccine. In Texas we mandated girls get the vaccine a few years ago (why not boys??) and I feel like I saw a news story indicating they found direct correlation to scary health information. Didn’t catch most of the story but now I’m intrigued.
Thanks!
I also wonder if doctors are so overscheduled that they have less time to speak with patients and discuss their concerns individually. Do you think that may have contributed to the erosion of trust?
I’ve had several people ask me to comment on HPV, but I’m punting it for the moment until I’ve had a chance to read more of the latest research. I kept my writing above mainly focused on the MMR-autism link because the VAST majority of conversations I have with people have to do with this. But I’ll definitely keep it in mind for a future post! Thank you.
I agree with the fact that doctors are over scheduled and yes, that may be a contributing factor to patients losing trust in them. Regarding the pharmaceutical-doctor link, 10-15 years ago pharma reps had a big influence on doctors, but this is not the case anymore, especially with the most recent government regulations on pharmaceutical promotional spending (Sunshine Act). So, I personally don’t think that doctors have anything to gain by pushing unnecessary drugs on their patients.
Regarding HPV, from what I understand, the majority of cases resolve themselves. I personally know a few women who have had it and cleared it within a year or 2. About 75% of women have HPV present at some point in their life and small percentage of cases that develop into cervical cancer are the ones with a family history of cancer. The important thing is to monitor it and make sure the cells are not turning dangerous. To me, it doesn’t seem serious/life-threatening enough to warrant a vaccine. At the end of the day, people should do a risk vs benefit assessment and this particular vaccine has way more risk than benefit. Besides, HPV is sexually transmitted. Why is it even recommended for girls age 14? They should be recommending pap smears, not this vaccine.
Again, I’m not an anti-vaccine person. I just believe that each should be looked at individually and then we should weigh out risk vs benefit.
All vaccines (and medications) have chemicals and junk in them that nobody wants in their body, but if having a few chemicals in you can save your life, then it’s worth it!
And regarding autism, that’s the hot topic right now, but many parents who don’t believe in vaccines are concerned with much more than just autism. There’s a variety of reasons parents choose not to vaccinate.
I personally think there are several environmental reasons for the rise in ASD cases. Age of fathers is a contributor, toxins in the air we breathe may be a contributor, family history is a factor, chemicals/ preservatives in our food, and several other factors. Also, they’ve broadened the definition of it, so kids that would not have been diagnosed 15 years ago, are being diagnosed now. Therefore, there are more cases now, appearing as though there is a huge rise in autism. There are just so many factors to look at, but since the removal of thimeresol from the MMR vaccine, it’s pretty crystal clear and scientifically proven that its not a vaccine-caused disorder (at least not anymore).
Just after the Penn & Teller video, I think preventive should read preventable. Great article.
Eeek! I HATE making mistakes like that. Thank you so much for catching it. Fixed. 🙂
Thank you very much for writing this. I hope it makes its way around like the “court ruling” article did. I think this post also calls attention to the desperate need for scientific literacy. But that’s a rant for another day.
Thank you so much! It certainly is getting passed around quite a bit. I’m amazed at how many people have read it–I really didn’t expect this kind of response. And I agree 100%–science literacy is a cause that’s really important to me. In fact, I started a new FB group this morning for that purpose (https://www.facebook.com/scienceliteracy). I’d love it if you have any ideas you’d like to share!
There are other disorders besides Autism that HAVE been proven to be caused by the 6 month vaccines ( dravet syndrome, and other seizure disorders). Epileptologists will actually use the date of their patients first seizure and with Dravets the onset every time is onset after vaccines. This is such a small number of children that no one seems to mention it, but it is a life lost. The outcome is catastrophic.
I agree, there are many more concerns to look at besides Autism. Check out http://www.greatergoodmovie.org/TGG/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/GGFastFactsPostcard-2013-4-20.pdf
Yes, I focused on ASD here because the vast majority of conversations I’ve had recently have been with regard to this particular issue. I’m quite interested in your comment and would like to read more. Can you point me towards a source? Thanks in advance!
You can not speak for the reasons people choose to not vaccinate unless you are a mind-reader. We, my household, do not use all ‘recommended’ vaccines for ethical reasons. We choose some because I want LIFE for my child, a healthy life. For the same reason, respect of life, we will not use other vaccines because they are manufactured using the stem cells of aborted babies. We choose to vaccine shop. Just as some choose American made cars, bicycles, etc. Or organic apple farms in their home state, or companies that support/oppose their particular agenda, based on conviction, I CHOOSE LIFE and wont support a company that profits from abortion. For some vaccines, I am able to order a different brand. Unfortunately, a small few are monopolies in the market.
Additionally, if you claim science as the authority, you might be better respected if you were able to site some reputable sources and also to respond to the oppositions argument rather than just insult it and ignore the issue. while autism is not my primary reason from abstaining from some vaccines, it is why we space them out more. Also, There is no scientific PROOF that vaccines dont cause autism because you would have to PROVE the cause of autism, which is currently unknown. You can make a hypothesis ( which has been done by both sides but neither has proven).
Your arguments are invalid to me, we have been paid and compensated from the government for vaccines causing “autism like symptoms” and “encephalitis” in our child as stated in our court documents. Why am I not screaming it from the roof tops? Bc we were issued a gag order along with our financial compensation. Paid out, made to keep it hush hush… Keep trying to disprove all this “conspiracy”. Keep reading your texts and your peer reviewed articles. All you do is “research” and blog about various bs subjects you have learned about but never lived. I am living this. God bless you.
Thanks for this post. I am a physician and cringe anytime I hear the debate against vaccinations that are not founded on actual scientific evidence. This is a huge part of why I did not choose pediatrics – I could not deal with such parents making harmful choices for their children. We are lucky in this country that polo was eradicated. We are lucky to not suffer from the vaccine-preventable diseases that plague those who have no access to the vaccines. We put not only children at risk by not vaccinating, but also anyone with suppressed immune systems (the elderly, those with HIV/AIDS, those undergoing chemotherapy for cancer or other immune-suppressing therapies for autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, and a host of others), and even the unborn children of pregnant women (rubella contracted during pregnancy can cause severe birth defects and even death in the fetus. Rubella is preventable via the MMR vaccine). Thanks for your thorough article and I hope it educates people about the vast benefit of vaccines.
Thank you. I’m curious, how do you respond to other physicians (like the person upthread, who claims to be an MD) who reject the concept of herd immunity, vaccine effectiveness, etc?
I cannot speak to their experiences, but I suppose that we are all human and react in different emotional ways to our experiences with patients. Sometimes our guy feeling (buttressed by experience in caring for patients) is right, and other times it is wrong. We are not infallible as everyone expects. We work hard to learn the scientific basis of disease and pathology and the treatments for those. We also have seen major success of vaccines. I agree that vaccines can have adverse effects – but that is just like anything else we put into our bodies. No one can predict how one person will react to anything. I don’t have seasonal allergies (thankfully) while others suffer miserably at the hands of pollen exposure (a “natural” phenomenon, btw). Yes, children have had adverse effects from vaccines, many of the neurological and this linked to Autism. But I still firmly believe that the benefit far exceeds the risk. That is always the question in every medical decision: does the risk outweigh the benefit? This is also something parents should ask themselves. As many have pointed out above, seeing your child for from bacterial meningitis or measles or tetanus or pertussis or hepatitis B is far worse than a non-fatal and RARE potential side effect.
It seems my previous answer did not post. Briefly, I wanted to say I cannot speak for the others above. I know that as humans, doctors react to their experiences with patients in very different ways emotionally. Perhaps that person above has had experienced children with Autism and feels strongly that their disease is linked to Autism. I don’t know. But feelings cannot stand in for evidence. That is why in medicine, we learn to read scientific literature and to understand statistics. Statistics as presented on TV really skews what the numbers actually mean. As someone above mentioned, medical literature is not easy to comprehend. It needs to be studied to be understood, and then the recommendations made based on those studies need to be closely examined. So far the evidence (vast amounts with thousands of participants) has not linked Autism to vaccinations. As I say over and over, anything can cause an adverse effect. Yes, vaccines have caused adverse effects such as encephalitis and other neurological problems. Not vaccinating has also caused adverse effects. My take is, vaccines help more than they hurt. Anytime we make a decision in medicine, we have to weigh the risk vs benefit. As I said below, I can’t recommend to a parent not to feed their kids peanuts because they might develop an allergy. I cant recommend that an adult does not exercise because they might tear a ligament. Some things you just can’t predict. You just have to make the best informed decision and weigh the risk of your child contracting a deadly disease that can be prevented versus the risk of an adverse side effect. But I disagree with spreading the falsehood that ASD is caused by vaccination. We need to find the real cause and then we can focus on that.
The physician actually knows less than any mother whose child has been damaged by vaccines, because medical schools teach nothing about either vaccine ingredients or the nature of vaccine damage. Vaccine injury is real. The national vaccine court has paid over $2.7 billion in compensation for injuries like epilepsy, brain damage and death – and “causing a condition that triggered autism” – wording not precise, but you get the point. More than 5,000 vaccine-associated deaths have been reported to the CDC over the last few decades, and it is well known that only 10% or less of actual serious adverse reactions ever get reported – and there are as many life-threatening reactions, and twice the permanent disabilities, not to mention tens of thousands of resultant trips to the emergency room. We truly don’t know, then, the real number of serious, debilitating, sometimes fatal vaccine reactions that have occurred.
The physician is the person who, by the ethical tenet of informed consent, is supposed to assure the quality of that consent – is supposed to provide full vaccine information, both positive and negative, to the parent – yet isn’t even aware of vaccine injury because the information is denied him in his studies. Yet, obviously, the people who compile medical school curricula are aware of the track record of damage.
Perhaps there should be a mandatory consent form for each individual vaccine, that ends with the realistic question:
This vaccine can kill, brain damage, or otherwise seriously injure your child, and the administering doctor has no way to predict who will succumb, even if there is a history of non-reaction thus far. Are you willing to sacrifice your child for the herd?
…if only as a reminder that we’re not cattle.
Research. Educate. It’s an issue of trust.
Physicians are also mothers and fathers. There are physicians who are parents of children with Autism who continue to support vaccination. A child can have an allergy to peanuts and not know it until they eat peanuts. An allergic reaction can be fatal. Does that mean no parent should ever feed their child peanuts? Even “natural” products and lifestyles can have adverse effects.
If you research, you’ll find about fifteen patent applications for the use of various vegetable oils as vaccine adjuvants, including peanut – oils that, if used, do not have to be listed as ingredients, because they are GRAS – Generally Regarded As Safe. The thing is, if vegetable protein enters the bloodstream – which vaccines do, if indirectly through the muscles – without first going through the digestive system, they cause problems, the first of which will be allergies.
And oral ingestion can do the same thing…
There are information forms that are handed out with each vaccine at most physicians offices, or physicians explain verbally. I am a 4th year medical student, and what you say about there being no information in medical school about the harms of vaccines is absolutely false. That is why there are certain subsets of the population who cannot get vaccinated – because they are more susceptible to those risks. It’s just that those harms are so incredibly small, that they don’t get much focus – because we have to learn about things that pose actual health risks. As is clearly shown in science again and again, the benefits outweigh the risks astronomically. Informed consent is a part of any procedure, large or small, but no physician has the time to lay out every single possible thing that could happen in the most unlikely situations. Physicians do their best to provide the necessary, pertinent information that a person should reasonably require to make an informed decision. If a patient has any further concerns or questions – they should ask! Healthcare is a TEAM effort between doctor and patient. Because you’re right, we’re not cattle, and we all need to take a little responsibility in our health and the health of our neighbors.
Also – just as a note on the Lyme Disease vaccine, the vaccine is successful and was on the market for a short time, but Lyme disease is very easily treated, so there was just not much market for it. That is why it’s not given anymore.
The half dozen doctors I’ve interviewed have all said they were taught nothing about vaccine damage – and I’m not talking about the preposterous herd immunity through vaccination theory, but actual vaccine damage; chronic illnesses, autoimmune diseases, neurological problems and death.
As long as you’re aware each time you vaccinate that every vaccine has killed some kids and seriously damaged many more, and that the reporting system for serious reactions is broken, so we literally have no idea how many serious, often catastrophic reactions have actually occurred, and are willing to sacrifice your child – it’s your prerogative; your decision.
But it’s the little illusions that keep folks coming back, like the illusion of the eradication of polio, because the CDC never mentions the radical changes they made to the definition and labeling of the disease in 1955, following on the heels of the release of the vaccine, that effectively removed polio from the diagnostic dictionary. They’re good, I’ll give ’em that.
Responding to Jessica, about the Lyme Disease vaccine – it was removed from the market NOT because Lyme is “very easily treated”, but rather because there was a reasonable suspicion that the vaccine was causing arthritic reactions.
For more info, you can read: S. Dittmann. “Vaccines (Chapter 32)”. Side Effects of Drugs Annual, Volume 28, 2005, Pages 356-368.
Per the CDC, “…because in most of the cases the patients were vaccinated, the 4.5% of Washington school children who were exempted from vaccination during 2011–2012 represented only a small proportion of those at risk for pertussis in the state” (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6128a1.htm). My kids are vaccinated for pertussis and we live in Washington, but it is somewhat of a misnomer that the pertussis outbreak was due to low rates of vaccination. My husband works in pediatrics and his contact with the public health department indicated that the outbreak has more to do with waning immunity and eliminating the live vaccine than with lowering rating of vaccination. (The live vaccine was eliminated due to adverse events according to the same CDC article above)
Thanks for that clarification.
Pertussis was never a live vaccine; it was a whole cell vaccine meaning the entire organism was pretty much pureed and injected. Now it is an acellular vaccine, meaning they have only taken out an antigenic agent instead of the entire bacteria. The original vaccine had terrible side effects, the new one less. However there was the trade off of waning immunity. No vaccine is 100% safe, but if that’s going to be someone’s argument, then they would need to show me that not giving them is 100% safe, which it’s not either. Good article Jennifer.
Yes, that is correct; I had the terminology wrong. Thanks.
We’ve selectively vaccinated our kids and I always feel like I am making a gamble, because it’s not 100% safe on either side and no matter what I do, I feel like I’m risking something in the end. It’s been an extremely stressful, frustrating decision for me as a parent.
Careful about your sources – it was the CDC that decided in 1999, when their own in-house study found a direct correlation between the mercury in vaccines and the rise in incidence of speech and learning disorders and autism, that American parents didn’t need to be told. Instead, they met with the vaccine manufacturers to discuss what they characterized as a public relations problem.
Research. Educate.
Mr. Siegel, please include links with the studies you cite, as many of the other bloggers have done. It’s only fair, and would add credibility to your arguments against vaccines due to their side effects.
What do you say to the well written articles on this blog? Just to clarify, I am not the author of this blog, but I do appreciate the thought and in depth research that she puts into her work.
http://gianelloni.wordpress.com/
Here are a series of articles she wrote on Polio:
http://gianelloni.wordpress.com/category/polio/
Many blessings!
Based on the first article against the HPV vaccine, I would say she is uninformed and unable to properly evaluate data [I only bothered to wade through the first article]. In her argument against Gardasil, the most revealing statement is that it only prevents infection from 4 kinds of the 100 kinds of HPV. Thats very true; the reasoning behind this is because the other 96 kinds of HPV don’t lead to 70% of cases of cervical cancer. It has a bunch of claims about all sorts of side effects that kill and or give horrible diseases to people receiving the vaccine, and yet does not cite any data. I’ve actually read several peer reviewed papers regarding the safety of the HPV vaccine, and the very articles that establish them as safe are the ones the anti-vaccine crowd point to as evidence they aren’t safe. They misrepresent and misinterpret and lie in their articles.
You may talk about how well written it is, but the article has absolutely no scientific credibility.
I am a mom of a child with Autism. You were not there when I saw my child change and go into another world. I can tell you that it’s real. My child was not autistic before she got the MMR vaccine. When you live through it that’s the proof. This is the trending truth.
Anti-vaccine paranoia isn’t a Liberal disease alone–some Conservatives seem as suspicious of the governments encouraging or mandating vaccination as their counterparts are of the companies making them. In the grand scheme of things, I suspect some people just don’t trust anything that isn’t physically in front of them.
It makes me sad and angry that this is still a topic of discussion. You put together an excellent post, but I think what I really want to start seeing is Natural parents whose child gets whooping cough, who suffers the debilitating effects of polio, who is hospitalized for tetanus.
No I don’t WANT to see those posts (I couldn’t watch more than a minute of whooping cough), but I think personal stories of children in pain are what is needed for the holdouts- because obviously they don’t understand Science.
actually, my 8 month old got the whooping cough. we treated it and she is a happy, healthy four year old. meanwhile my nephew had severe, lifelong disabilities due to encephalitis from his vaccination schedule.
I acknowledge this is not everyone’s experience. that’s actually my point. to say what is ok for your child is definitely ok for mine and that I’m a bad, uninformed parent for not vaccinating is, imo, quite unfair and inaccurate.
Great article and well thought out! Overall life is a gamble and if we can take some preventative measures and it’s proven to be safe, then do it. I vaccinate and will continue to do so, on schedule, and with the advice of my physician. Are there risks? Yes… is it worth it? Yes!
Love this. My son HAS autism. And when it was time for his second MMR Vaccine… he got it. And I saw raised eyebrows when I mentioned this to a mom in the waiting room with me at his therapy office. Why did we do it? Because the first MMR did not cause his Autism. And because the second one won’t cause it again. And because he is pretty awesome and we would like to keep him, so it seems pretty ridiculous to risk losing him to a preventable childhood disease.
You’re awesome. Well done! 🙂
If vaccines prevent chicken pox, why have I had them TWICE after receiving the vaccine and boosters? Why did I get the flu for the first time the only time I’ve ever gotten an influenza vaccine?
There are several reasons why the vaccine you got did not prevent the chicken pox or the flu. I would hazard a guess that the most likely reason is that the vaccine you received did not protect against the strain of virus you contracted. Viruses mutate and change their genetic structure constantly- this is why the flu vaccine changes every year. Just as humans have different DNA sequences from each other, so to do different influenza viruses (in the case of the influenza virus, its genetic code is made of RNA rather than DNA, but that is beside the point). The vaccine is designed to protect against strains that you are likely to come in contact with, but it can’t guarantee that the virus you come in contact with won’t have mutated in someone else before you got it- potentially rendering your vaccination ineffective against it.
It should also be noted that vaccines are more often designed to prevent only the most damaging strains.
For instance many people complained about the HPV vaccine because it didn’t cover all or even the majority of the strains. When in reality the Vaccine was specifically targeted to fight the strains that help to cause cancer and other major issues.
Also vaccines only help your immune system, gives it weapons a plan to stop the virus. It does not do it’s job. Most people only get chicken pox once in their life. I think it’s safe to say that Alison may not have the strongest immune system to begin with.
Infants are delicate. We introduce new foods to young children only one at a time so we can find out if there is an adverse reaction. The human body is immensely complex. And different things affect different people differently. Injecting a baby with dozens of vaccines probably won’t cause that child harm but, just like introducing new foods, it seems prudent to do it one-at-a-time and in great moderation. Problem is neither element is common in the world of vaccines. Too much, too many at once is a recipe for complications too difficult to diagnose. Prudence demands liberty to reject the status quo – without being judged for exercising such prudence.
^^^^^ this.
perfectly stated.
Matt
People are not being judged for exercising caution. They are being judged for doing so for silly and often ignorant reasons. While at the same time making massive assumptions, accusations and drawing conclusions that are not supported by any person knowledgeable on the field.
On any other topic or in the work place you’d call these people paranoid nuts and you’d treat them as others have done. Don’t let your judgment of behavior change because of the topic.
If you have reasonable concerns than you should ask questions and seek answers from reasonable sources. Eg. Your doctor, or other accredited sources.
What you should not do is make knee jerk reactions to having heard a story about someone across the country who got sick. Or that you heard a rumor from some blog site.
You owe to your kid to make an informed choice. As opposed to one based on rumor, accusations or random incidents. The reality is that your kid is more likely to die on your back yard swing set than because of a vaccine you gave him. That also has a much greater chance of killing him than your backyard swing set. (have you gotten rid of your swing set?
The only reason you will need these vaccines is because big industry will spread these diseases all over the world and force everyone to buy it and once everyone is vaccinated they will just engineer and spread another…. http://www.heartcom.org/VaccineMurder.htm
Wow. Paranoid much?
What about all of the stuff we vaccinate for that has been long dropped by other civilized nations? Why vaccinate against a disease that hasn’t stepped foot in the US in over 40 years? And sure you can say no autism side effects, but the doctors all agree that vaccines DO have some side effects.
So
a) Vaccinate against a disease that hasn’t stepped foot in the US for 40 years and banned in other nations AND have a .1% chance of a reaction
or
b) not vaccinate against that one obsolete disease?
Which seems logical?
Frank
Frank, you are aware that humans travel the world by jet plane constantly, right?
haha!
Frank, did it ever occur to you that the reason some of those diseases haven’t “stepped foot in the US for over 40 years” is BECAUSE we have vaccines to prevent them? Just a thought.
100% safe doesn’t exist whether you vaccinate or not. One post mentioned 5000 deaths over the past several decades. There were 600,000 deaths from influenza in the US alone (3-5 million worldwide) in 1918. That doesn’t include the deaths from other diseases that year. Losing a loved one, especially a child, is tragic, heartbreaking, and something I would never wish on anyone. The reality is however, it will happen. We are human, and we will never live in a world where all children live to adulthood. Why is it more acceptable for it to happen from a vaccine preventable disease than a vaccine itself? Especially if the risk of death or injury from the vaccine is so low (one source I read from the VICP listed ~13,000 compensated injuries since 1988, given the millions of vaccines administered in that time, we’re talking a fraction of a percent risk). Even if that number is low, it would take a lot to reach the level of risk incurred by the disease itself. Every once in a while a child dies of an undiagnosed heart condition while exercising. Does that mean we shouldn’t let any child exert themselves ever? Should we ban peanuts from the earth? By that logic we certainly shouldn’t be riding in cars. There is no way to know for sure you will be safe on your trip, or at your next meal, or running at the park.
We also have to be careful about correlation vs causation. Yes the number of vaccines have increased around the same time as autism, asthma and other diseases. But that doesn’t guarantee causation. There are unvaccinated children with all of problems mentioned by previous posters. Over the past few decades we have also been pouring chemicals into just about every nook and cranny of our lives, as well as unprecedented amounts of antibiotics. We’ve nearly sterilized our homes, but not become healthier. Diseases like Type I diabetes (juvenile) have been shown to have a genetic component, and one large study (TEDDY) showed that giving regular formula to a baby with the genetic component increased the chances of developing the disease. But the reality is that all of these diseases are not simple, and rarely have one exact cause. We definitely need more research on all aspects of health, and I am absolutely for holding vaccine makers and the government to a high standard. I hope all the folks who won’t vaccinate until it is completely safe are out raising money for research, working with government to shape policy in a evidence based fashion, and certainly voting for more money to go to these areas!
So if vaccines are safe and effective, if my kid isn’t vaccinated and yours is, what’s the big deal?? Just ignore that the CDC and vaccine companies are in bed together. Gardasil was safe right? Oh wait…
This is a disgusting piece of propaganda, just keep doing whatever the government tells you, they couldn’t possibly be wrong…
You’re an idiot.
I appreciate your points, but please avoid name-calling here. Thanks!
I apologize.
It’s all right, and the person you were responding to was borderline (and quite rude). I’m still working out a commenter policy, didn’t mean to pick on you. I appreciate your participation!!!
So people die from Gardasil while one of Rick Perry’s cabinet members profits from it and I am the idiot, just do some evil googling. I was sarcastic, but not rude to anyone. If you don’t understand how people profit from being part of the CDC just do some research. Or just keep believing whatever you are told without doing any research at all, the goveremt has never been wrong before, right?
The CDC is a nonprofit government agency, what on earth would they stand to gain by being “in bed” with anyone?
SCIENCE. Read the research. And tell me without a shadow of doubt that vaccines are safe. http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-evidence-of-any-link.html
Since 1986, vaccine manufacturers and administrators have been released of any and all liability – even if the vaccine is used inappropriately and contrary to insert directions.
Pharma is creating a whole new group of chronic illness without autoimmune disease. I don’t think it started out that way – but with all the asthma, diabetes, GI issues, ADHD, etc. the vaccine market has inadvertently contributed to a bonanza of maintenance customers.The vaccine market is a $90 billion market currently. It has become the battle cry that when something like a Vioxx problem happens – create a vaccine, get it mandated and you have a market. It started out as low revenue – but when liability was removed, revenue shot up. Wake up.
My kids are vaccinated and damaged by it. I have nothing to gain with my stance other than to get other parents to think beyond the fear tactics. And then, if you chose to vaccinate at least you considered all options. Those yellow sheets they give you prior to vaccinating your child don’t contain the info you need. You need to read those boring inserts.
My kids receive some vaccines, autism is now 1 in 50, drastic change from the 1 in 100… Clearly this is caused by string we are doing in mass quantities…my children receive SOME vaccines.
Or…… It could be because of any number of the things we do differently.
For instance to the best of my knowledge there is a KNOWN causation between the age of the mother and Autism. As a society we are having kids later and later.
There were also recent studies that showed that areas with increased pollution of certain types had an increased risk by a small percentage.
Heck you could blame it on TV. The point is that it’s not a good idea to blindly say it’s vaccines based on little to no evidence.
Then there is also the matter of detection and severity. The autistic spectrum is very very broad. People assume Autism means that people are like rain man. When in reality that is not the case.
Todays diagnosed autistic child was yesterday’s socially awkward smart kid. Doctors and teachers are now able to diagnose kids much earlier in life when previously for good or ill no-one would have attributed to anything at all.
These are things that most people do not take into account when considering the increase.
There is some early science to support that giving Motrin to quell vaccine pain can blunt the needed inflammatory response in children and make the vaccine not quite as effective. I have no comment on the other ridiculous comments here. You cannot change ignorance if people are bent on being ignorant. I just hope that we don’t see them on Dateline crying “we didn’t know these diseases could kill our child” like the last couple that was on there touting that you don’t need vaccines.
When my kids were young, my chiropractor whom I trusted in Minnesota recommended against vaccines, as did many doctors and naturopaths around the SanFranCisco area. What I do not get, is it really necessary to give a newborn five shots in a row? And then they repeat this half a dozen times in the first year. Megaaa-dosing! We all know about the AMDA, donʻt we? Iʻm just saying, you cannot believe everything you hear or read. Now there is a shot for everything. More and more shots every year. Antiobiotics and immunizations weaken the body over time, as do all pharmaceutical drugs. We had measles as a kid, and it was not life threatening. Actually catching the disease gives you stronger immunity in the long run. Many who are immunized still catch the disease. And polio can be spread through a swimming pool, from a kid who was just immunized with the live vaccine! Like I said the first time, Donʻt believe everything you read.
Hopefully everyone takes your advice not to believe everything they read, since your comment contains as many fairy tales as one comment could. There is absolutely no credible research to back up anything you just said.
Haha!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/series/diseases/polio.html
Wow, your understanding of the immune system is.. shockingly misinformed. Also, you are aware that chiropractors are not doctors, yes?
Thank you!
There are actually 76 studies out there that prove the link between vaccines and Autism. 76! Also, if vaccines do not cause autism, then why, on page 11 of the DTaP insert- that comes in the package with the vaccine, that no Dr. reads, or tells the parents about, or even OFFERS when the time for that shot comes around- state that a SIDE EFFECT of the vaccine is Autism??? But no, vaccines don’t cause it. I have 2 boys who regressed into Autism after “routine vaccination.” Pretty straight forward evidence that it DOES cause Autism, if it is in the vaccine insert.
Please provide me links to those 76 studies? I would like to read them.
Trying to track down the link. As soon as I do, I will hand it over.
A link to the 76 studies that no one other than parents of kids with vaccine induced Autism seem to know about: http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-evidence-of-any-link.html
Thank you.
Here is a challenge…..I would like to hear from just ONE parent of a child with autism on their thoughts about vaccines. It’s really easy to have such a strong opinion when you have not watched it before your very eyes.
Several parents of children with ASD have written comments here already. And yes, they are pro-vaccine.
Coming from a pro vax mom who vaxed all kids., these studies are pretty compelling this person listed. Maybe include some less biased information in your blog. Clearly there is evidence that more research needs to be done. I looked into the cdc website to see what money has been paid to people for what injuries. And it states autism like symptoms and encephalitis. In a perfect world they would be side effect free. Clearly there is evidence that supports a possible link. And not enough long term studies done. What about the one person who wrote in saying they were paid from the government?? Clearly a court ruled in their favor and made them stay quiet about their child being injured. Thankfully my fully vaxed kids had no complications immediately following. But one has asthma, signs of add, tons of illness, ear infections, always sick…. and we are pretty “natural”. All organic diets. No Tv etc. Oh and btw both kids got pertussis last year, always get the flu, one baby had rota virus and passed it to the whole fam. She was vaxed for it. Seems like I injected my kids with a lot of crap for them to still contract the illnesses and seems their immune systems are so weak even if they had the vaccine for other stuff that they would contract it anyway. Our neighbors are vaccine free and I envy them. Their kids are never sick. My husband is pro vax so I am totally by default but if I could do it differently I would. Also, why would I be scared of my neighbors vaccine free kids getting mine sick? Aren’t my kids vaccines supposed to protect them? So does not really make any sense to think that he vaccine free kids spread the diseases. Heck my kids are sick all the dang time and play with them and they never get sick.
“In a perfect world they would be side effect free.”
There is no such thing as a side-effect-free drug or vaccine. Obviously that would be ideal, but it’s simply not possible- even foods aren’t “side effect free”, because there’s always a risk of allergic reactions. And holding pharmaceuticals to some impossible standard is only going to negatively impact biomedical research.
And the reason why unvaccinated children pose such a risk to others is because some people *cannot* be vaccinated- newborn babies, for example, or people with compromised immune systems. Those people depend on herd immunity to keep them safe. And also, just like immunity obtained the “natural” way, no vaccine is 100% effective. So yes, parents who decide not to vaccinate are potentially harming other people’s children.
Looking over those links, I see a lot of comments like, “further research warranted”, and, “more information needed”. I see nothing that proves the link between vaccines and autism. I have two children, both of whom have been vaccinated on schedule. Both of whom are healthy and happy. I have two family members, both in their 70’s, that had polio as children, and they both lost the use of their right arms. They will be the first to tell you that vaccines are one of the greatest inventions of 20th century medicine. Do I agree with the barrage of shots directed at infants? Maybe not, and maybe selective scheduling is an option. But NOT vaccinating your children, in my opinion, is a form of child abuse.
A parent of 2 ASD kids, and most certainly am NOT Pro-vaccine.
As an adult with ASD I’m glad my parents got my vaccinated when I was a kid. They thought that avoiding the very strong possibility of me contracting or causing another to contract a deadly or incredibly debilitation sickness was a preferable over the….. minor, might be possible, unsubstantiated, unsupported, sliver of a possibility that I maybe… might…. Get ASD.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/new-study-backs-up-evidence-chicken-pox-vaccine-causing-epidemic-of-shingles/
Click to access 129-141.pdf
umm…. this was a single case. Not an epidmic and it says in the vacination warnings that the vaccine has a small chance of giving someone the virus but the rate of that happening is well below the natural infection rate.
http://www.releasewire.com/herpes-zoster-presents-shingles-year-girl/96477
In short you have a better chance of getting the virus walking around than from the vaccine.
But hepy
Amen.
I’ve noticed that nearly every anti-vaccination or “concerned parent, so we delay” response to this article has many sentences that begin with “I feel” or “I think” or “It seems”. Feel/think/seems aren’t science. I FEEL like eating raw tuna sushi is a bad idea, because i know a person or two who’ve gotten violently ill afterwards. but the FDA has proven it’s really quite safe if prepared correctly. So yes, sometimes my FEELINGS might prevail in one or two cases that I could point to as “proof” that raw tuna is harmful and should be banned, but I wouldn’t actually be scientifically correct. We have science for a reason. Peer-reviewing is a very rigorous process. I live in a fairly affluent, well-educated area, and while I’ve met some unvaccinated children, the vast majority of doctors and parents around here understand how the scientific process works.
Parenting introduces a whole lot of feelings and worries and thoughts and connections in our brains that we didn’t have before kids. Yes, the desire to protect my children is often overwhelming at times. But I’m still going to strap them into their carseats even though I feel like I’m a good driver, and I’ve never had an accident while driving. Science says carseats make them safer, my feelings notwithstanding. I’d rather a seizure than measles. I’d rather a few days of a high fever or even a lifetime of autism over a death from Polio or whooping cough. I’d rather a child who is alive.
Finally… everyone pointing to all these “Super educated wealthy people who aren’t vaccinating their kids, well they are rich and educated so they must be right” line of thought… no. Educated plus wealth does not equal smart. It often equals isolated and insular, to the point where you hear deadpanned, confident statements like, “Little George won’t need the measles vaccine because only poor 3rd world people get measles, and he’ll never be around such humans” which… will little george never leave Park Ave?
Reblogged this on House Calls and commented:
Vaccination is always going to be a hot topic among parents. Next to breastfeeding, it is the topic I get the most questions about. Despite the powers of the internet (and maybe because of it), it can be very difficult for parents to find scientific and reliable information. I have been planning to write a post on this myself, but came upon this excellent article and am sharing it here. The author includes links to scientific resources, explains how scientific research is done and what ‘peer-reviewed’ means, and includes images of what some vaccine-preventable diseases look like. The article is a bit long but explains everything simply – it is a must-read for all parents.