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Well, just one, really. Thanks to Michelle (thanks again!), I've reached a turning point in my skepticism about vaccines. I vax'ed DD without question. DS has not received any yet, until I learn more. I'm leaning towards an altered vax schedule, but we'll see. I have a question and I hope it doesn't offend anyone, but it's really the penultimate question I have about vaccines: if you decided not to vax at all, what alternatives did you weigh? Meaning, what made you decide that the consequences of not getting the vax were less risky than the consequences of getting it? Did I make sense? What made you decide that not vaccinating (and possibly getting the disease) was safer than vaccinating?
Well, just one, really. Thanks to Michelle (thanks again!), I've reached a turning point in my skepticism about vaccines. I vax'ed DD without question. DS has not received any yet, until I learn more. I'm leaning towards an altered vax schedule, but we'll see. I have a question and I hope it doesn't offend anyone, but it's really the penultimate question I have about vaccines: if you decided not to vax at all, what alternatives did you weigh? Meaning, what made you decide that the consequences of not getting the vax were less risky than the consequences of getting it? Did I make sense? What made you decide that not vaccinating (and possibly getting the disease) was safer than vaccinating?
I think what you're asking makes sense. I weighed the chances of dd getting the disease to start with against each vaccine. So for example her getting diphtheria.. well if you look at the amount of cases out there, the chances of even getting diphtheria is close to nothing. Then I researched the disease in detail to see what signs do I look for, what do I do if I suspect she has a certain disease, what characteristics would classify as serious or deadly and what medical treatments are there for it. By all means I'm scared of meningitis but *to me* the chances of getting it compared to negative sideeffects of the vaccines outweigh the risks of getting it. (I even read cases where your chances of getting it go up by vaccinating.) I understand others not believing that so I respect why they may vaccinate. Even with the vaccine, there is no guarantee your child won't get it. At a certain point, having faith in the immune system ability to fight the disease and the medical communities attempt to combat a bad case scenario is what I had to make peace with. Being unvaccinated actually helps us because in many cases the medical community will rule out a serious disease because of their own faith in the vaccine.
I also armed myself with books and alternatives. A homeopath can treat many of these vaccine "preventable" diseases too. So if I suspect measles, a homeopath can give me some remedies to help me get dd through it. (Obviously if it becomes more serious, I would take her to an allopathic doctor.) The book, Raising a vaccine-free child, Raising a Healthy Child in spite of your doctor and books on homeopathic remedies has helped me feel more confident about what to do and how to approach all sorts of colds, flus and so called vaccine preventable illnesses.
I hope that helps.
Cheers!
Last edited by (.Y.)mom2dd(.Y.); December 1st, 2009 at 01:02 PM.
pretty much what Michelle said. i weighed the risks of the vaccine vs the risk of the disease. it never occurred to me not to vax until DD was born. i was going to do a selective and spread out schedule, but the more i researched it, the less i wanted to vax at all. DH strongly does not want to vax. we will probably do tetanus in a couple years though.
All of my older children are fully vaxed at this point...I was going to just delay vaxes until Olive was 6 months....then I pushed it to a year....then when she was nearing one I started REALLY researching what vaxes I THOUGHT I was going to give her and the efficacy of them vs the disease....and then I decided that I wasn't confident in ANY vaxes and she'd go without ALL vaxes....and that if she DID contract a disease we'd treat it just like in the old days lol....and like michelle said...I looked into each disease and it's ACTUAL risks and such...vs the risks of being vaccinated....
THe one I was going to do at one year was tetanus....we decided against it since then.
__________________
Martha
Momma to Emma, Elzie, Gretchen, Olive, and Rogan
We aren't to give a baby milk, berries, or peanut butter. We are to introduce new foods one at a time. But it's OK to inject several viruses, bacteria, aluminum, formaldehyde, phenoxyethanol, animal serum, mercury, squalene and more into an 8 week old? I don't think so.
In order to be healthy it is an unfortunate fact that people must be allowed the opportunity to be ill. I trust my body and those of my children to work correctly against the relatively benign diseases they vax for, and do not trust the ingredients in the vaccinations.
Our choice to not vax isn't based in ignorance, poverty, conspiracy theory and rumor. It's research, common sense, fact and evidence based..something the medical community has largely forgot about.
Thanks gals. And where have you found information about the risks of acquiring each disease (as an unvaccinated person?)
The CDC has the information you have to weigh as well as the books.. all the books I listed have footnotes to direct you to the study. I know many people don't like to look on the computer, but google does verify these studies. It's a lot of work but at least you can feel confident about your decision.
Tersh, I forgot.. When it was still the Calgary Health region, they gave sheets of each of the diseases with risks of getting the disease along with the risks of getting the vaccine. I'm sure if you called the AHR, they would give you the same sheets. Try them and if they don't, I could show you the ones I have and you could make a copy. They just couriered it over to me.
I agree a lot with Michelle. What I did was look at each disease and look at the risks of the disease and the prevalence of it. I had to weigh that against the risks I saw in the vaccines themselves. One book that I really enjoy is:
It breaks down each disease, treatments for the diseases, the risks, the prevalence, ect.
Also another big deciding factor for me is our education system. In my state, NY, you either get all the vaccines or none (or in some cases you can start to vax, then change your "religious views" to support not vaccinating). Basically its all or nothing, you can't pick and choose vaccines. To be honest, if I had the choice, there are some vaccines I might consider giving my girls as they get older, but with the way the laws are, I can't.
I want to pass this one too. It reaffirmed the things I've been learning. This is my homeopath's seminar and my homeopath was a former medical doctor:
What is a vaccine and what's in the shot?
What is the effect of a vaccine on the immune system?
What is vaccine damage?
What is homeoprophylaxis?
What is a healthy immune system?
This seminar is a valuable resource for parents considering this complex health
issue as well as for parents who have vaccinated already, as we outline the use of
homeopathic medicine for clearing the effects of vaccines and for treating
vaccine-related chronic illness.
Presented by two homeopaths, Linda Miller CCH and
Dr. Randall Pow, MD, HD.
This seminar provides valuable information for making an informed choice about vaccines.
We offer this seminar once a month.
Be sure not to miss this valuable resource.
Upcoming Seminar Dates:
Monday December 14th at 6:30PM
Monday January 18th at 6:30PM
at Xerion Homoeopathie.
Tersh, I forgot.. When it was still the Calgary Health region, they gave sheets of each of the diseases with risks of getting the disease along with the risks of getting the vaccine. I'm sure if you called the AHR, they would give you the same sheets. Try them and if they don't, I could show you the ones I have and you could make a copy. They just couriered it over to me.
But, are these the risks of geting the disease *currently*? I guess what I am trying to ascertain is whether the risk rate is reduced because most of the people are getting vaccinated, or if it's an absolute rate? If the risk is say 1.5%, do we know enough to say 'those people are unvaccinated people' or not?
But, are these the risks of geting the disease *currently*?
According to them it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tersh
I guess what I am trying to ascertain is whether the risk rate is reduced because most of the people are getting vaccinated, or if it's an absolute rate?
This is the part that is cloudy. They will give you extreme stats and not answer your questions like that. You have to look at their data (which isn't backed by any references other than their authority) with a critical view of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tersh
If the risk is say 1.5%, do we know enough to say 'those people are unvaccinated people' or not?
This is why this subject is so frustrating to me. They really can't give us the stats of unvaccinated because of the high compliance rates. The sheets they gave me just say Risks of Getting Meningococcal Disease with their scary stats then have a Risks with Vaccinations which completely minimized the risks. With critical thinking, of knowing their rates are with vaccinated kids/people, *to me* that confirms that these stats are with vaccinated kids. With further research, I found even the vaccine manufactures say each vaccine only have a 85% effectiveness with (so called) herd immunity on a theoretical population base 100% vaccinated. Obviously if there is only a 95% compliance rate, then the unvaccinated population is blamed when those 15% points are showing clearly in the vaccinated. (So there is plus or minus 20% of the population at risk based on their own understanding.) They play a theoretical stats game. (Check out an example of this with their flu shots: here. Notice how there are two huge variables that the general public is unaware of, that they aren't really testing the cause of death and that they lump other causes of death as flu-related. The H1N1 thread shows clearly how the WHO is not testing properly for H1N1 but going on assumptions of the doctor. Plus, there were at three meningococcal assumed deaths here in Alberta last year. (One was not actually confirmed but assumed.) If those kids were unvaccinated, they would go out of their way to point it out as possibly "vaccine-preventable" deaths to help ensure confidence in their vaccine programs. Because I'm so critical of these now, I would think that is another example of showing credit to the study I read that getting these shots increases our children's chances of contracting these diseases.) People who are wrongly labelled anti-vaccine, like Barbara Loe Fischer, have been calling for studies with kids that are unvaccinated to prove that unvaccinated kids are healthier. If the CDC and other pro-vaccine programs were solid, you'd think they jump all over that right? So the more I researched, the most evidence I found that the testing and effectiveness of their shots are again based off of theory, not complete science. (That's a whole subject in it's self.) At the end of the day, I started with my calculation.. if three Albertans died of meningococcal out of roughly three million Albertans on a bacteria we all have.. I may not believe in God but to me that's a number really out of human hands to control.
I felt I had to either trust them or the immune system. That's why if you're a Cdn and decide to vaccinate, I highly recommend getting Your Child's best Shot as a book to help your confidence in your decision and respect why you have to. (If you're working on 30% science and only have two options, I really do respect why people make that choice.)
Last edited by (.Y.)mom2dd(.Y.); December 3rd, 2009 at 11:04 AM.
Hi Tersh! For me, I wasn't looking so much at the risks of contracting the diseases, but at the rates of complication with each disease, and how preventable those complications are. A book I found quite helpful was:
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