I wasn't answering with my own facts. That's why I've tried to put as many references as I could. Nothing I've written there has come out of my own head
The autism study by Dr Wakefield was the study that was full of inaccuracies and basically had so many problems with it's "study" (I can't even fathom calling it a real study), that I can't believe it was ever published in the first place. While it's definitely been found that his study was full of holes, that doesn't mean that his theory was actually wrong, it just means that he didn't prove or disprove it.
We have a couple of reasons for being extra cautious. Both my sister and I had pretty severe reactions to the whooping cough vaccine as babies. I almost died when I went into respiratory distress, and my sister has a rare lifelong form of eczema that has been potentially attributed to an immune response brought on by the vaccine. Whilst the vaccine has been changed since back when we had it, we've been told there is no way to know if the reactions were definitely to the constituents in the vaccine carrier, to the vaccine itself, or to the specific immune response. And as it's been proven that vaccination reactions are more likely if a family member has also had a reaction we are being cautious.
The main reason though is due to the potential link to autism. Both sides of our family has an extremely strong history of children on the autistic spectrum, especially in boys (probably around 80% of male siblings and cousins affected to some degree). After seeing a geneticist and a psychiatrist that specialises in children on the autistic spectrum and vaccinations, we have decided that the potential risk is too great for us to feel comfortable given the vaccines at this stage. Most of the studies surrounding vaccination and autism focus on the MMR vaccine, yet a more recent study has pointed to link more generally toward vaccines in general. It basically possible causes of autism and included autism caused by encephalitis, that was initially caused by a vaccine reaction (not specifically the MMR). (Helen V. Ratajcza. Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes—A review. Journal of Immunotoxicology, 2011; 8(1): 68–79)
The two journal studies I've read still potentially linking vaccines and autism were both published in 2011, so are both very new. I also have a 3rd article on my computer (that I am still reading as it's 52 pages long, lol) was also written this year and is basically an analysis in which they review and critique the analytical epidemiology studies most commonly cited as evidence against the autism-vaccine hypothesis.
I really do wish that the potential link would either be confirmed or debunked because it would certainly make the decision of whether to vaccinate or not a lot easier!
It's often cited that once you have a vaccination against something, that if you still manage to catch the disease it can be a milder form of the disease. This can certainly be true. What is less often mentioned is that someone who has been vaccinated against a disease and then catches the disease is more likely to have an "atypical" form of the disease than someone who was never vaccinated against it. It's still rare to have that sort of reaction, but they can be much more devastating than the "normal" course of the disease.
With Polio, Australia has zero cases of polio since it was declared "polio-free" by the world health organisation in 2000. The risk of one of my kids getting polio is statistically 0%, whereas the risk of a reaction to the vaccine is higher than 0%. It makes more sense to me to get the polio vaccine later in life if you are ever planning on visiting a country that still has polio, rather than giving it repeatedly to a baby with an immature immune system.
I hope I'm making sense. Vaccination is such a complex subject.
And again I want to point out that I'm not actually against vaccinations, lol. I DO wish that there were stricter studies done on vaccines before they are used on the public, and I definitely think that the efficacy and safety of vaccines should be greatly improved, AND I think that there should be more options when it comes to being able to choose which vaccines to give and not to give (rather than limiting it to a 5in1 or 6in1), but in general the theory behind a vaccine is certainly a good one and I don't doubt that they do a lot of good.







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