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

Ok, we have 5 fully immunised kidlets, 3 in school... 3 at home full time.

Little Harmony is fully breastfed,and in a sling everywhere we go. We stay home Mon-Fri anyway.

We didn't have Hep B or Vit K at birth.

She will be in no care until preschool.
So me and DH decided to not vac, at least for a while. Delayed Vacs is what we are looking at.

BUT... with 3 older siblings in school, is there any vac that she should get?? Is there anything they are likely to bring home that could harm her??

The other 2 kids at home have had no illness at all, the older 3 have all had chicken pox, one of them got it twice!! :rolleyes:

MY older DD had rotovirus at 2, but it wasn't a bad dose, the horror stories of the actual vac are scarier to me!!

I found a study that showed in Japan, vacs aren't given till the age of 2, and they have the lowest child death rate in the developed world, and a significent lower percentage of Autism. They also split the MMR and I dont *think* they combine any vacs together...

So, is there anything we should get now, or can we delay them all???

Welcome to VISA Investigate Before You Vaccinate

its SA based but lots of info..
my DD's pead was happy enough when we said we werent vaxing yet(no real plans too) he just said if she shows symptoms of something go straight to hospital to have her checked out.

being that your kids are in school as well as home you know what is going around..(we are just at home so have no idea whats happening in the towns children iykwim)

there are the homoepathic immunisations available if you want to vax against something inparticular.

HTH

Thanks hon!! :D
I had decided to not vacs, but after reading that... my god.....I dont wanna give her anything, even delayed vacs....

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??? :o

And the ingredients.... *shudders*....

there are other ways to treat illnesses! we dont have to immunise against everything that makes us sick or potentially worse...
bfing is the best for helping the immune system which you already know..
we are just going with the flow but i know (in my heart) that i couldnt make my self harm dd(yes DS is fully vaxed too up until now)although he wont be having his 4yr old and he didnt have chicken pox or vit k at birth...
we can only do what we know at the time..

Yeah, I wish i'd known all this earlier!!! :doh:

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....

Also, just as the rate of these infectious diseases were going down, due to better living conditions, we started to vacs, and they started to go back up!!!! Its just mad.....

We are seriously thinking instead of delayed vacs, we'll just the pertinent ones when needed.... like chicken pox before high school if they dont get it before hand....

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 ;)

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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 ;)

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Yep.:D 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!!!

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.

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.

[QUOTE=Pretty Butterfly;1696077]Thanks hon!! :D
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??? :o
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

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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....

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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.

That is true too.... :think:

There are really sooo many sides...:wall:

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.....

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.

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

just letting you know, Sydney now has an outbreak of Whooping cough. There is no way I wouldn't vaccinate my third as his two older sisters are at school/kindy. To me whooping cough is too scary (especially in under 1year old).
I have been a bit weary of vaccine's but am going to get them for DS. I avoided Hep B, dont think it's necessary, but will get the rest. A nurse told me yesterday that a positive of the chick pox vax is that you can't get shingles later if you've never had chicken pox. Shingles is chick pox lying dormant in your body after chick pox and is terrible. That was something I didnt know. I didnt immunise DD1 with it but she chose to have it at 8 years as she had decided she didnt' want to catch it!
As for Japan, I had that same thought, but the thing with Japan is (as my Kenisiologist pointed out) they aren't as multicultural as us, therefore we have more risk here.
I would definitely see if you can get the whooping cough vax. It's been around our school and is going around many others. xo

you know i have really thought about this, and if the whooping cough vaccine was worth the risk then there wouldnt be any around, because it would have worked!

Thats what I think too Kitten.... The rate is now higher, not lower.... same with many of the vacs, theres now more problems than before....

We were all vac as kids, and still got chicken pox, measles, mumps etc....
and I got chicken pox bad....


We didn't get Harmony vac after much talk with DH.... she is at such a low risk.... not worth the risk to us.... all the shots are together.. the whole lot except rotovirus... not impressed....

I'll review how we feel at the 4 month ones.....

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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.

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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.

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????

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you know i have really thought about this, and if the whooping cough vaccine was worth the risk then there wouldnt be any around, because it would have worked!

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Just a thought, but as more people are doing their research and choosing not to immunise, do you think the whooping cough rates are higher because more people are not immunised?

Adults can carry the whooping cough virus without even knowing it. What we think is just a cough, could be whooping cough and we risk passing it on to our kids.

Laranna, the studies showed a rapid increase in Whooping cough after the vac was bought out. And it is still rising!

And theoretically, if only 2% of the population aren't vac'ed, then 98% of people with whooping cough were vac'd anyway... so it cant work that well....I didn't see the point of putting all those chemicals in my daughter,... I just keep her away from anyone that is the slightest bit unwell...

The reason why whooping cough is still around is that a lot of people don't realise that they are only immune for 10 years. 80% of babies who get whooping cough contract it from their mother. It would be great if you could protect your daughter by just keeping her away from anyone who is sick but in reality it's not the case. I am not trying to convince you either way as I agree that you need to make an informed decision, please just make sure that you obtain your information from true evidenced based articles - not scaremonger websites.

Nope, I got all my information from proper clinical studies. ;)

"It would be great if you could protect your daughter by just keeping her away from anyone who is sick but in reality it's not the case"

Actually, it is. To get whooping cough you need to be with someone who has it, for at least a couple of hours, and be coughing and spitting and so forth, which is why it is rife in child care and hospitals.. My baby doesn't go anywhere without being in my sling, and isn't in care. If any of her siblings were sick, I'd keep them away... many of unvac'ed kids never catch anything, because there parents are careful.. If infected people stayed away from everyone else, and didn't spread it, then it wouldn't be around. I find people and parents who still go to care, school and work while sick are much more responsible for spreading any diesese than an unvac'd person!!

JMO of course....theres not much chance of my unvac'ed daughter giving anyone anything...but the rest of the vac'd society?? well.....they are the 98% spreading it...

I have to agree with PB here - with this "epidemic", stats that 98% are immunised - it just doesnt sit right.

ANd I would much rather my little bundle to not have nasty heavy metals injected into her beautiful little body!

google thimerserol.............

The problem is though, that we might try and keep our kids away from infected people but it just doesn't happen. Eg, Dad goes off to work where his colleague shows up coughing and sneezing, passes it on to Dad. Dad comes home and passes it on to Mum and Mum passes it on to bub. PB, I agree that sick people should stay away from others, but they just don't and that sucks.

Like Hisista says, most adults are not immune to whooping cough and if they get it, they wouldn't even know for a couple of weeks, because it starts off with a runny nose which is the most infectious period.

I guess one has to weigh up whether the risk of immunising outweighs the risk of not immunising.

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I guess one has to weigh up whether the risk of immunising outweighs the risk of not immunising.

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This is so true hun. I have absolutely nothing against immunisations - in theory. What concerns me is the preservatives and the heavy metals contained within those preservatives. I am also skeptical of live viruses being used in some newer vaccines.

But I dont think there is a real need for some vaccines - such as chicken pox, I think (JMO) this is more a vaccine for convenience for our modern day world- if you are a family with both working parents and a few kids you simply cant afford a few weeks off with each of them! Same as the flu vac (which i just think will lead to a super flu bug if we all dont build up natural immunities) ........... the list goes on

I'm not well enough to post in a legible way. But Janie - you are right of course. Babies have animmune system - it just takes time to develop so I really don't understand that comment.

I will BBL when I am not dopey on meds...:redface:

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I guess one has to weigh up whether the risk of immunising outweighs the risk of not immunising.

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So true. :D

But when such a high percentage, (the 98% of vac'ed folks) still get chicken pox,whooping cough, flu's etc.. I just dont see the point in having a potentially dangerous and very heavily chemical vac,(including animal blood products, formaldahyde and mercury) and then also the diesese anyway...:rolleyes:

Its a catch 22, and I rethink and research each time her vac date comes around!!

One major sway for me was my mums work mate. He is microbiologist, (specialising in some blood thingy) and flatly refuses all vac's, for himself and kids. He is supposed to get regular vacs due to his job, but doesn't. He told mum if I showed you what goes in it, you would never put it your blood stream, and definatly not a babies.


I wonder if anyone can help me here too.... I would like figures on what percentage of Vaccinated kids still get childhood dieseses... like chiken pox,whooping cough etc compaired to unvaccinated kids??

Everyone I know has had chicken pox, and I got it real bad, and was vaccinated.

Just how effective are they?? If you are around someone with a diesese, and you had 2 kids there, one immunised, one not, what is the chance of each child catching it too???

I have just never heard of a sick child playing with a healthy vac'ed kid, and the kid not get sick because of vac. Maybe due to being clean and careful, but from an actual vac?? As kids, if one kid got something, we all got it anyway... :lol:

Did that make any sense?? I know what I mean.... :redface:

PB, I've had a quick google and the closest info I could find was the following article from the JAMA on the vaccination org au website. The numbers are an American study, but I guess Aust would probably be similar.

Also, I totally understand what you're saying, why vaccinate if you're going to get sick anyway? It's that reason why I don't get a flu shot every year. Although, I think it is good for certain types of people to get the flu shot, such as chronic asthmatics, the elderly, etc, etc.

More food for thought, either way unvaccinated children will still get sick just as vaccinated children will, but will the unvaccinated children suffer more from the illness than the vaccinated children...?

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Exemptors from vaccination also increase risk for some vaccinated children.

CHICAGO -- Children who are exempt from immunization for religious or philosophical reasons have a higher risk of measles and pertussis, according to an article in the December 27 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. Parents and public health personnel should be aware of the risks involved in not vaccinating children and the potential impact on the community, the authors add.

Daniel R. Feikin, M.D., M.S.P.H., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, and colleagues conducted a population-based, retrospective cohort study to evaluate whether personal exemption from immunization is associated with the risk of measles and pertussis at individual and community levels. They collected data on standardized forms regarding all reported measles and pertussis cases among children aged 3 to 18 in Colorado during 1987-1998.

According to background information cited in the study, 48 states allow exemptions from mandatory vaccination for religious reasons, and 15 states allow philosophical exemptions. Exemptions based on medical grounds are allowed in all states. A recent study showed that the risk of measles infection during 1985-1992 in the United States was, on average, 35 times greater in children with personal exemptions compared with vaccinated children.

In Colorado, the percentage of school-aged children who were unvaccinated as a result of personal exemptions in 1994 was 1.4 percent, more than twice the national average of 0.6 percent.

The authors assessed the relative risk of measles and pertussis among exemptors and vaccinated children, the association between incidence rates among vaccinated children and the frequency of exemptors in Colorado counties, the association between school outbreaks and the frequency of exemptors in schools, and the risk associated with exposure to an exemptor in measles outbreaks.

During 1987-1998, there were 45 cases of measles among exemptors aged 3-18 and 137 cases among similarly aged vaccinated children. From 1996-1998, there were 36 cases of pertussis among exemptors and 346 among vaccinated children aged 3-18. But since the total number of exemptor children was much smaller than the total number of vaccinated children, their risks of these infections were much greater.

"Exemptors were 22.2 times more likely to acquire measles and 5.9 times more likely to acquire pertussis than vaccinated children," they write.

"In children of day care and primary school age [age 3 to 10 years], in whom contact rates and susceptibility are higher, these risks were approximately 62-fold and 16-fold greater among exemptors for measles and pertussis, respectively," they continue.

The authors measured the impact of children with personal exemptions on community risk. "After adjusting for confounders, the frequency of exemptors in a county was associated with the incidence rate of measles [1.6 times greater risk] and pertussis [1.9 times greater risk] in vaccinated children," they write. Also, "schools with pertussis outbreaks had more exemptors (mean 4.3 percent of students) than schools without outbreaks (1.5 percent of students)," they continue. "At least 11 percent of vaccinated children in measles outbreaks acquired infection through contact with an exemptor."

The authors assert that the decision to forgo vaccination must balance individual rights with social responsibility. "If all vaccine-preventable diseases were confined to the individual (e.g., tetanus), the consequences of forgoing vaccination would fall only on the child whose parents made the decision. Most vaccine-preventable diseases, however, are spread from person to person. Therefore, the health of any individual in the community is intricately dependent on the health of the rest of that community," they write.

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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????

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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.

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...

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?

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! :hug:

Oh chicky babe, that's why I'm reviewing things constantly. That's why I didn't want to go back to work, cos I INSIST of having the kids home with a snotty nose. I don't treat measles/mumps like a cold - I nurse them through it thoroughly, but felt worried that my 2 had played with a friends baby whilst it would have been incubating (measles), she chooses to vac but the child was due the next week.

I kept my lot away from pools, childcare etc till pretty much over 12 months, eek yuck on shopping centres!

I have to think some more because my girls seem to have very robust immune systems but my boy does not.

Ach, its hard but they are all over 3 now. I might think about whooping cough for the boy.

I dunno :wall:

Just letting you know i had shingles as an adult as i wasnt vaccinated for chicken pox and it was incredibly painful, it chooses one area of your nervous system to attack. Mine caused nerve damage to my shoulder so bad that i couldnt wear a bra strap on that shoulder, chest, neck area. For 2 months and couldnt carry a handbag on that shoulder without pain for 3 months and also know someone who went blind from it as they got shingles on their face. Pretty scary. The worst thing is I can get it again if my immune system gets really low and stress levels get high!! Just food for thought on that vax :)

i'm going to watch channel 7 sunday night at 6:30 for the Sunday night show that is going to have the mum who just lost her bubba to whopping cough on it.

Don't ever watch channel 7 if you actually want real news or facts though!

Yes, there are definitely awful side affects to these illnesses. Just as there are side affects to the vaccinations...

All needs to be weighed and balanced. It is very difficult to take the emotion out of such an emotive subject. I'ts a tough one.

I have seen babies die from whooping cough. I have also seen dreadful reactions to said vaccination. :hug:

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Don't ever watch channel 7 if you actually want real news or facts though!

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true true. i just feel for this poor woman

Hell yeah, I do too but I wont watch it....

FC, it's hard to know but I wonder since mine are older now......and since they both had such mild cases of mumps/measles - is it true immunity?

Flower child I agree 100% there is much more to immunity then vax! Looking after our diet and getting rid of a lot of the chemical crap in our house I believe has changed my kids immune system from catching everything under the sun to being very healthy and fighting things off well when they do.

Also not many of the vax in Australia use mercy or thimerserol as my dr (supportive of us not vac) told us.

Interesting to note that there are many vet studies coming out at the moment about over immunising animals and the effect it is having on them in regards to autoimmune conditions also???

As for the autism link the thing that sunk it for me after living with someone with autism and then having a child not affected with autism (that we can see yet) is that I felt I had more control over communicatable diseases than autism. and as I explained to a very argumentive dr who saw my daughter recently I could not bear to watch my healthy 2 yr develop symptoms of autism now after witnising her normal development. I could not live with myself. However I felt we had a much better chance at fighting of measles/mumps/rubella with moden medicine, helathy lifestyle and being viligent. If no-one is willing to promise me my daughter WILL NOT develop autism after being vac then it's not going to be a risk I take.

Also I had measles (12), german measles(10) and whooping cough (18mths) after being vaccinated????

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