This is a decision that each parent has to make and I used to think the choice would be easy … I always planned on getting my children immunized … it would be crazy not to right?… Then in one of my health classes at BYU I was given the assignment to research immunizations and come up with a campaign to convince parents to get their children immunized. The more I learned the more I wondered if that was really a message I could support.
I have gone back and forth about this many times since then and when I got pregnant Mark and I realized we needed to make a decision. We researched it more and talked about it and eventually decided against immunizing Boston … at least while he’s a baby. I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not anti-vaccines. I think they are a blessing and that we need them but when it came down to it I was not willing to put my own child at risk.
The thing that boggles my mind is that when someone has a newborn they are so protective of them. They always make sure people wash their hands before touching them and keep them far away from sick people so then why do they let a Dr. inject their precious newborn with a plethora of toxins and weakened strains of deadly diseases. If we don’t expect a babies immature and fragile immune systems to withstand the common cold what makes us think there won’t be any repercussions to the vaccines?…
Mark and I had planned on keeping our decision not to immunize private because we didn’t want to have to justify ourselves but the other day Jenny Mcarthy and Jim Carrey were on Oprah talking about their “Green our Vaccines” campaign and I decided I wanted to join them in making a stand.
The campaign aims to eliminate all toxins from our children's vaccines and have our national health agencies reassess the mandatory vaccine schedule, as our children are receiving TOO MANY, TOO SOON. I was so excited to hear that thousands of parents across the country have rallied together in support of the cause and I started to realize I wasn’t crazy or alone in my thinking!!
They are fighting to get Congress to reenact legislation that would eliminate mercury and other toxins from our children's vaccines, study the instance of Autism and other neurological disorders in vaccinated versus unvaccinated children, and to extend the statute of limitations to allow all children affected by vaccine induced Autism to file in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP).
I want to immunize Boston but I want it to be safer first or at least wait until his immune system is stronger and more developed. I would just encourage all parents to take a good hard look at the issue before they make their decision to vaccinate or not to vaccinate …
Thursday, September 25, 2008
To vaccinate or not to vaccinate…
Posted by Natasha at 5:05 PM
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7 comments:
At what age does the government force you to immunize? When they go to school? I'm just wondering how long it could be postponed. A few months or years? Just curious :) I am so happy to hear you guys are doing well! Miss you!
The government cannot FORCE you to immunize your children. I am a very strong believer of everything you just wrote!! I agree that they are a blessing and should be given with much caution! I have done a lot of research on this myself and we feel very strongly about the decision we made for our children. We DO NOT vaccinate at all until our babies are 7 months old... at which point we do one vaccine at a time and we watch... you have to know the signs to be looking for, some doctors say some symptoms are normal and ok but any symptom besides a fever we would not give them a multiple vaccine. Noah has had no symptoms or side affects with his vaccines, he is a little behind schedule but that is the price we are willing to pay. Spencer has yet to get his first shot and I am appalled at how many new shots has been added to the list to shoot their little bodies with just since 3 years ago! We are not giving our kids the chicken pox or the rotavirus. Both are unnecessary. My sister had a reaction to the hep B shot by the way. Horrible, so I really believe the chances of having a reaction are getting higher and higher by injecting our children as soon as they enter this world with massive amounts of these vaccines. You are doing the right thing!!!! You set your childs immunization schedule and know the signs to look for when you give them!! Call me whenever you want to talk!!! I could talk about stuff like this FOREVER!
I totally agree. Good for you! I actually was listening to that the other day, I'm glad they are FINALLY deciding to do something about it.
Do you have any links to the campaign you mentioned? I'd like to read up more. #1 I hate shots. But that's not the point! :) I used to be super pro-vaccine, why NOT vaccinate, and put your child at risk for measles, mumps, malaria etc. Now I think I'm more on the same page as you. I think vaccines are good, but I think it's best not to do too many, too close together, at too young an age. Especially with the recent connections their finding between vaccines and autism. I'd love to read up more on this-maybe I'll have to google it and see what I find.
BTW-even when your kids are in school, you're not forced to vaccinate them. You are legally allowed to abstain for religious or other personal reasons. I'm sure there is some paperwork involved in that. But I think it's better wait on them, than NEVER do them (in my opinion). Thanks for your post!
P.S. You need to change your blog title to say "Mark & Natasha & BOSTON"!! :)
Having 2 boys myself I was worried about the autism-vaccine link (since autism occurs more in boys), but in all of my research I found that it was coincidental not causal that you begin to see signs with the MMR vaccine your child normally gets at 18 months. My mom works with autistic toddlers and none of the teachers she works with believe that autism is caused by vaccines. They think it has more to do with the gene pool than anything, since it seems to reoccur in families, and even with siblings that were not then vaccinated. Interestingly, with the children in their classes they have found that many of the parents of these children, both are highly intelligent. I thought that was weird. I agree with the campaign in getting rid of the mercury and other toxins in the vaccines, and I think it is a good idea as commented above to give a vaccine one at a time. I have several friends that have done that, and their doctors have never had any problems with doing that for them. One of the best things we can do to strengthen our children's immune system is to breastfeed them and how many people still don't do that. You will probably have to be more careful with where you go with Boston. They recommend not taking babies on planes until they are immunized, since planes are just full of germs and passengers from other countries potentially who have not been immunized. Also, since Utah has a higher rate of children not being immunized and a considerable population of immigrants the risk is higher of being exposed to those diseases as well, like cases of whooping cough has increased here. So be careful at nursery and playgrounds if he still hasn't been immunized by the time he is able to run around and play on them. Thanks for sharing your views and helping us all think a little more about what is best for our children. Best of luck!
Here in the UK the only debate has been "To Vaccinate or Not" but here when the three vaccinations where combined called MMR some experts at first had doubts about the safety of this. Some Parents choose to pay for individual jabs rather than the triple jab.
But now Parents seem to feel that measles, mumps and rubella are all serious and potentially fatal diseases, and while the take up had dropped to 78% it is claimed now it has returned to 90% take up in many parts of the country.
The current UK official Government line from Professor David Salisbury, director of immunisation at the Department of Health is,
“Parents who have not had their children vaccinated with the MMR vaccine should do so now.
The evidence on MMR is absolutely clear – there is no link between the vaccine and autism"
There were 1,726 confirmed cases of measles, mumps and rubella in England and Wales in 2006 and 2007 – more than in the entire previous decade.
A difficult decision and also in these days of worldwide travel so important.
God Bless You! Mark, Natasha and Boston
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