Dont want to immunise, but.....(Micheal??)

[Pretty Butterfly]

Personally, if you are going to partially immunise I would not get the chicken pox one but I would get the whooping cough, tetanus and german measles immunisations (because she is a girl but that can be later). JMO though

Yep. Will get Tetanus when she walks, and german measles at 12-13. I dont think you can get Whooping Cough on its own, I'm looking into that one still!!! My blue book says ita all combined....

I thought chicken pox got dangerous (as in extremly sick) as you get older. Is that not the case? If she doesn't really need it, I dont want her to have it!!!

[Michelle71]

Not as bad as measles. Chicken pox is more dangerous as an infant with a high mortality rate. It is only a recently introduced vaccine. Just make sure whatever you decide is clearly documented for her and she is aware of her status. Especially as she gets older and may want to travel to places where some of the diseases are more prevalent.

[Arcadia]

Delayed vacc is an interesting question which i asked the dr about. He said the reason they give them so young is because until 8 mths the baby still has antibodies from the placenta present as well as breastmilk in bf babies. After 8 mths is usually when little babies start to get sick, so vaccinations are given from a young age to develop their own personal antibodies before the placental antibodies recede (i can't remember all the technical terms).

I haven't researched this point myself, but I would be interested to hear if this true, or as is often the case, the dr was just trying gto talk us into vax.

[HotI]

[QUOTE=Pretty Butterfly;1696077]Thanks hon!!
Up until 2001,(thats when the study ended, not they found cases of Autism..) not one child that didn't get vac, had ever developed Autism...How can they not make this public knowledge???
QUOTE]

Can you point me to this study? I had a look on the site the previous poster put up but couldn't find it.

A recent press release came out that the original study that found a link between immunisation and autism had serious flaws and the conclusions could not be sustained by the evidence. [Of course i can't find the link now when i need it, but will keep looking] Again, research since then may have shown a link, but the original one had flaws.

ETA- found it!


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle5683643.ece

I keep digging and digging, (driving DH crazy!), and underdeveloped countries, who rarley vacs, have almost no Autism, asthma and excema?? And they live in squalled, dusty dirty conditions....

I haven't looked into this, so can't agree or disagree but maybe the conditions are just not diagnosed because people don't have as ready access to medical care in those countries. i visited a university and teaching hospital in Cambodia a few years ago, and they had one treatment for cancer. No matter what sort of cancer you had, only one treatment was available.

People only went to hospital for care when their cancer was very advanced, and treatment wasn't going to help and they died. People then thought if you go to hospital, you are going to die, so you only go when it is really bad. And most people could not afford costs of treatment anyway. Vicious circle.

So my point is that these conditions may be occurring less in these countries, and if so we may be able to find reasons (maybe we need more dirt?), but it may be they occur at same rate but are just not diagnosed because children die early or just do not get medical attention where the condition could be diagnosed.

[Pretty Butterfly]

That is true too....

There are really sooo many sides...

I'm trying to find the other part for you, but the exact line is... "We have found NO cases of it developing in a previous healthy unvaccinated child"....

It is also the ingredients that bother me a LOT, not just the autism "link".

I am just looking at from another point of view... they may not be able to find the exact link yet to the cause of autism, but the lack of it in unvaccinated kids cant be ignored... and there are so many other problems with the vacs, not just this one problem.. the list seems endless....

" The same happened in Japan after 1975 when the vaccination age was lifted to 2 years, Japan zoomed from a much higher rate(17th place) to the lowest mortality rate (1st place) in the world"... again, no proof it causes anything, but there is proof in not giving vacs...

" After the US mandated the DPT vaccine there was a doccumented 300% sustained increase in the reported cases of whooping cough, and it is still rising, to the point that, with mandatory vaccination in most states and 5 doses of the vaccine, it now occurs at a far higher rate then before the introduction of the vaccine."

"Indeed, despite the overall far superior living standards in other respects - better housing, clean water, nutrition, etc, the US infant mortality rates rival those of the third world. Significantly it went from 6th place in the world in the early fifties before mass vaccination started to 20th place by 1990, and it has since dropped several ranks further (down to 26th place a few years ago). Similarly, measles had virtually disappeared in Europe, UNTIL vaccination began, after which it rose again."

Uuummm, so much thinking to do.....

[Arcadia]

Just to position myself...I am choosing to vax DD, but I truly think your concerns are valid ones. I have had to think about possible side effects a lot, and I am still nervous about the whole thing (we go for the first shot on Thurs), but I find it interesting that the debate about vaccinations always focusses on the negatives of vaccinations.

I must admit I found myself overwhemed by the possibility of side effects, and the study linking MMR to autism, but I realised I was just focussing on the negatives of vax, not the positive outcomes the majority of people experience - namely a high percentage (although not total) immunity from some nasty and deadly diseases.

I think its interesting that we in a first world nation are now choosing not to vax, when people in third world nations could be saved if given access to the same vax programs.

I could have gone either way...it really is a tough decision.

[Oorki Galoorki]

i think you might find the reason that alot of "negative" information is out here is due to the fact that only "positive" info is coming from the doctors that do these immunisations
there is always 2 sides of the story which means that very few people are nuetral.
and research is always twisted to a particular way depending on the persons personal opinion

[Peg]

Delayed vacc is an interesting question which i asked the dr about. He said the reason they give them so young is because until 8 mths the baby still has antibodies from the placenta present as well as breastmilk in bf babies. After 8 mths is usually when little babies start to get sick, so vaccinations are given from a young age to develop their own personal antibodies before the placental antibodies recede (i can't remember all the technical terms).

I haven't researched this point myself, but I would be interested to hear if this true, or as is often the case, the dr was just trying gto talk us into vax.

Its partially right. Babies get antibodies from the mother whilst breast feeding and some still in the system for a while.

the thing is that a baby does not have an immune system until after 6 months. So if vaccines are given to newborns, its not really going to be good for it because there is no immune system to develop.

After i learned that fact, and the dr confirmed it, I asked why they bother giving vaccines at all and the dr didn't have an answer.

Its seems pretty logical to me that if vaccines are meant to 'build' up the immune system, a baby without an immune system is really just getting a vile of toxic chemicals.

[Janie]

Surely babies have some sort of immune system happening before 6 months???? I know the immune system is a very complex thing, but that just seems wrong to me, that they have none????

[Peg]

Surely babies have some sort of immune system happening before 6 months???? I know the immune system is a very complex thing, but that just seems wrong to me, that they have none????

Im sorry, i probably should have said they have an 'undeveloped' immune system.

Just like the lungs on a premature baby, they dont function 100% until they are full term

The immune system is similar, its there but it doesnt begin to function until a certain age (approx 6months)

All the babies antibodies come from the mothers milk in the early stages.

[Lulu]

After my own research I decided that I didn't really mind if my child DID catch measles, mumps or chicken pox (and that's pretty much all they vacced for back then - babies anyway). Its one way to immunise, if they do catch it when they are young, so they don't have to suffer the implications of getting it as adults.

I can't seem to catch CP despite multiple exposures, and none of the kids have had it so far either. Both little ones have had mild cases of measles and mumps (and offers for other kids to come and play with them during this time!). They may catch CP too, but I won't immu for my own convenience.

I do review my decision every now and again - the quiet incubation period of most things worries me too sometimes, but then again I remember that all the kids in dp's family have caught CP etc WITH immu, so I can't see the point...

[Liz]

The immune system is similar, its there but it doesnt begin to function until a certain age (approx 6months)

All the babies antibodies come from the mothers milk in the early stages.

I'm still not convinced on this one.. why aren't formula fed babies dropping like flies from every disease/illness that's around? It MUST start earlier. Of course it's undeveloped.. they haven't been exposed to anything yet.. it's a fresh slate.

I had the wrath of the Gods on me when I refused immunisation of Imogen (very rare for a baby to leave NICU unimmunised).

There was no immunisation going on when we were in the NICU? DD was a 34 weeker & we were in the public hospital's NICU for about a week and then moved over to the private hospital's SCN for another two. DD didn't have any needles.. we declined the Hep B, but that was all that was offered.

The thing I hate about reading up on vaccinations is they are always very onesided articles and worded in urgent almost sensational tones, and yet subtle at the same time. Both for and against. In the end we went with our gut, and that was basically that we would beat ourselves up more if our children suffered terribly from an immunisable disease than we would if they had an adverse reaction to the needle.

I'm not ignorant to the fact that vax'd kids can still catch the diseases, but hopefully it will be a much milder dose.

I also think it would be very hard to maintain that bubble we believe our children to be in when we keep them away from sick people. A lot of diseases are incubating even before symptoms show, and whilst you can keep bub himself away from a lot of it, you can't keep other kids & parents away from it all.

Is this the woman who will be interviewed on channel 7? Whooping cough claims Lennox infant | News | Lismore Northern Star | Lismore Northern Star

[~Saram~]

Hon, I know just what you mean, Ari got her first lot of vax against whooping cough, dip and tetnus but we aren't getting the other ones, she can choose when she is older if she wants the german measles.

My DS has autism and I asked our dr if he knew of any studies involving a case with family history of autism and a sibling not showing any signs and any vax reactions. He advised me that he would NOT get his child vax in this case. Having said that I live in a town with 93% vacc rate which means we have an awesome community buffer where very little of the active disease is spread.

Having said that we had a measles outbreak last year and it freaked me out! I questioned my decisions and um and ahhed but in the end we just used common sense and hygine and she didn't get it. I have some info on homeo pathics I can pm you if you like?

[Inanna]

I am back though just dosed on panadeine forte so my response may not be up to par.

To establish my position - I do not vaccinate my babies. My oldest DD had a severe reaction to her immunisations (whooping cough was not included) - she now has aspergers which may or may not be related to this. (I suspect not as she was very "aspy" in her early babyhood ) I live in a rural area and tetnus spores are still found int he ground up here. I immunise at school entry for tetanus, measles, mumps and chicken pox.

I am a nurse and I have witnessed child hood illnesses - and despite common thought they are not necessarily "mild". The public has a misconception that measles, mumps, chicken pox are very mild illnesses that have few if any problems. This can be very far from the triuth. Deciding not to immunise should not be done without facing the reality that contracting these illnesses can and does present a risk to life and can affect quality of life.
I have also travelled to third world countries and have seen first hand what it looks like when the "herd" are not vaccinated.

We are living in a country where approx 40% of the population are immunised. This affords a cover to the rest of us who are not.

I fully understand why parents immunise their babies - and I understand why parents don't. I just ask that people make INFORMED choices. Contracting the illness is a form of vaccination - albiet a very dangerous one. Measles followed by meningitis is not pretty and it happens. Whooping cough kills children still in this country. Some of those that die are too young to be immunised.

I am a fence sitter. I sit on the fence as I have seen far too many reactions to immunisation that scare the brown stuff out of me. I have also watched children die of complications of immunisable diseases...

We need to be less careless with our herd. We need to restrict our babies to who they are subjected to. Shopping centres in strollers = sitting baby duck. Whooping cough is highly contagious. When there is an outbreak we need to be very aware. Children should be kept home when they have runny snotty noses - this is the first sign of many communicable immunisable diseases. We need to use preventative herbs, vitamins and wholesome foods.

It's a really tough decision but it needs to be made not out of fear, but out of education and intuition.

I had the wrath of the Gods on me when I refused immunisation of Imogen (very rare for a baby to leave NICU unimmunised). She was neutropenic so thank Goodness I listened to my intuition. So far so good - she has had her share of chest infections but touch wood no "childhood illnesses".

Again, read read read - educate yourself and make a decision from a clear place not a fearful one. Goodluck!

[sunshine_sieben]

I am a selective vaxer. I declined the HepB at birth, didn't find that necessary. I did agree to the Vitamin K, but orally.
I didn't agree to the chickenpox, but DD had all the others.

The problem with the chickenpox vaccine, is that - as opposed to actually contracting the disease - in most cases, immunity from the vaccine won't last a lifetime. Seeing that not many of us keep getting booster shots as adults, this could mean an outbreak of adult chickenpox in 30 years time. Chickenpox is usually a lot more severe in adults, so this could cause serious problems in the future. Same goes for pregnant women. If they never contracted chickenpox, their fetuses might be at risk if the immunity from their childhood immunisation has worn off.

By the way, this is the same case for the Rubella shot (german measles). I, like most other young girls was vaccinated against it. But by the time I was thinking of starting a family, the immunity had worn off - if I ever actually developed it in the first place.
So, in my opinion, if these immunisations are given to protect unborn babies, they should be given as close to a girl's child bearing age as possible (rather than in infancy). And ideally followed up by a test to see if immunity was actually acquired.

I believe in considering every immunistaion individually. I think we all should weigh up the pros and cons of every immunisation and then make a decision based on whether or not we believe the benefits outweigh the risks. Cause one thing is clear: as with every medical treatment, there is always a risk.

I also believe that there is a need for more research into the long term effects of wide spread immunisations. There are so many questions still unanswered. So many theories out there.
None of us likes to see our children sick. But maybe the odd disease primes and strengthens our immune system.
And it is not only about whether or not we vaccinate, but also what we vaccinate with. As some of you have mentioned, it is the other chemicals and also other diseases that vaccinations can be contaminated with, that might cause the biggest problems.

What I really don't understand is when people say: "My older child just had disease xyz and he was so miserable for a week, it broke my heart. So I'm getting my younger child vaccinated." Of course it breaks our hearts when our littlies are sick. But to me, that is just not a good enough reason. If the child had contracted polio and couldn't walk, I would understand the position. But just because the child was sick, but had no lasting effects, in my opinion does not outweigh the risks you might run by vaccinating. On the other hand, having a runny nose and maybe an elevated temp after a vaccination, wouldn't make me think that the vaccination was a bad idea. It is the long term effects that have me worried and they are so complex that nobody really knows what is going to happen in the future. It's a bit like cane toads. It might eradicate one problem and create a whole lot of others. JMHO.

Yes, in rare cases, these "mild childhood diseases" (chickenpox mainly) can be very severe or even life threatening. But this is rare. And as pointed out above, even a vaxed child can still contract it.

Sasa

[JellyBean]

Janie - bubs do have immune function - but it is rather weak. The immune system gains strength with time as it is exposed to various bacteria and viruses. Every time a person gets sick, their immune system develops antibodies in response to that particular virus. During breastfeeding, the baby receives antibodies from any bacteria/viruses the mother has either contracted or been exposed to for at least the past 4 years. This is arguably the best thing about breastfeeding - you are literally 'feeding' your babies immune system with this method.

We normally contact bacteria/viruses via our mucous membranes - which line our nose, throat, etc. These mucous membranes play an important role in literally 'registering' and forewarning the immune system of the newly invaded pathogen, and set up a 'blue-print response' if you like, for the immune system to get its army ready to fight the pathogen before it proliferates its way throughout the body.
The problem with vaccines is, they inject the pathogen (virus) as well as many other not so pleasant ingredients directly into the blood stream. This catches the immune system completely off guard, and the traditional immune response to the pathogen does not ensue. This helps to explain why some individuals have such a sudden and violent reaction to the vaccines - from the topical skin rashes and blisters to seizures and even death. The body is literally saying "what the hell are YOU doing here and how on earth did you get past me without me knowing?! I am not prepared for this!"

I remember reading a study not that long ago that looked at antibody count of vaccine viruses in vaccinated children. There was a substantial number who were found to have either no or very minimal antibody count for the viruses they had been vaccinated for- indicating that they were actually not immune from these viruses. It was suggested that this was due to poor immune system response, in response to the 'unatural' exposure of the viruses via the blood stream rather the usual route of the mucous membranes. Whilst it is important to note that sufficient antibody count was present in most children in the study, this study clearly displays the fact that no two children's immune systems are the same, and the medical field's approach to vaccinating all infants and children with the exact same doses at the exact same times is incredibly flawed, treats people as though they are merely numbers, and is in desperate need of review.
As for the 'no evidence' factor regarding autism and vaccines, it may be worth remembering that not all that long ago, the medical profession claimed that there was no link between smoking and cancer. All sorts of weird and wonderful potential culprits where suggested to explain the high prevelence of cancer amoungst smokers as opposed to non-smokers. Doctors even recommended women to smoke during pregnancy as it would help them to 'relax.'..... and look where we are today.
Truth exists regardless of white coats and degrees. Peer-reviewed medical journals aside, there is no greater evidence in one persons life than personal experience.
At the end of the day, we only have ourselves and the ability to do our own research, trust our gut instincts, and perhaps listen to those out there who are fighting to tell their stories against a sea of animosity and opposition.

[kroggies]

i couldnt agree more jelly bean! Well said