Reasons Why I Am Not Vaccinating My Kids
So, last week I went in for Elle’s one-year-well-baby-check and was not able to see my regular doctor. She was called in to deliver a baby right before she was going to come in to see us. So I saw her PA (Physician’s Assistant) instead. Right away she asked why I did not want to give Elle her shots. (Before the appointment the nurse told me all the shots that were due at that time and I told her we were going to wait until after she was 2 to give them to her. I honestly don’t think she will be getting ANY more, but figured if I said that I was only delaying, I wouldn’t get too much crap for it). I started telling the PA that I had been researching vaccines for the past couple months and decided that I would rather wait until she was older to give her anymore. She started telling me that I can’t believe everything I read on the internet; and that the CDC, FDA, doctors and pediatricians recommend all vaccines, they are totally safe, blah blah blah. She wouldn’t let me say anything, and just continued to make me feel like a bad mom. I ended up leaving in tears. (Part of this is due to the fact that we had to wait for over an hour to see the doctor and Elle was both tired and hungry, which resulted in her not wanting to be held, but not wanting to be set on the floor, and crying for almost the entire hour). Right before I left, the PA said that I “HAD” to come back in 2 months to talk to Dr Human about not vaccinating and that I “HAD” to bring a list of reasons why we were not going to. That is a load of crap. But I have been thinking about it, and decided that it’s not a bad idea to come up with a list of why we aren’t vaccinating.
But first, here is the recommended vaccine schedule from the Center for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov):
The Vaccine Schedule: YIKES!
Birth:
Hep B
2 Months:
Hep B
Rotavirus
DTaP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis)
Hib (Haemophilus Influenzae type B)
PCV (Pneumococcal)
IPV (Inactivated Poliovirus)
4 Months:
Rotavirus
DTaP
Hib
PCV
IPV
6 Months:
DTaP
Hib
PCV
Rotavirus
12 Months:
Hep B
IPV
Influenza (2 doses)
Hib
PCV
MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella)
Varicella (Chicken Pox)
Hep A
18 Months:
DTaP
Hep A
4-6 Years:
DTap
IPV
MMR
Varicella
11-12 Years:
Tdap (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis)
MCV (Meningococcal conjugate vaccine)
HPV (3 doses -females) Human Papillomavirus)
36 doses altogether.
Here is a list of reasons why I do NOT want to vaccinate my kids:
- Each one of these vaccines contain “trace amounts” of different toxins like mercury, formaldehyde and aluminum. In one dose this may be true, but when a small child receives up to 8 shots at one time, this adds up to more than a trace amount.
- You are no longer immune to the viruses as an adult. Studies have been done that show that since we inject a fake virus into our bodies to trick our immune systems, we do not gain lifelong immunity to those viruses. The CDC now recommends that after age 18 young adults receive boosters for Tetanus every 10 years, 2 doses of the Chicken Pox booster, 2 doses of the MMR booster, and an annual flu shot. They also recommend boosters for Hepatitus, Pneumococcal, and Meningococcal for high risk persons. This adds up to a LOT of vaccines, and a
- The CDC, FDA, and World Health Organization recommend that infants are breastfed for the first year of life. If not breastfed, then it is recommended that infants are only given FDA approved formula. They recommend that infants receive nothing but breastmilk or formula for the first 4-6 months of life. The same organizations also recommend limiting the use of pain medication and antibiotics with infants. If breastfeeding, they advise that mothers stay away from caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, certain medications, etc. because they will go through your milk to your baby. Recently, the FDA stated that they do not approve cold medicines for children under 6 years of age. Those same organizations have approved and recommend 6 different vaccines, a total of 16 doses, for infants under 6 months of age, most of which contain mercury, formaldehyde and aluminum. They recommend injecting the same infants that are to have nothing but breastmilk or formula with over 100 different toxins before they are even 6 months old. How can it be that drinking coffee and nursing your baby is harmful, but all of the toxins in a vaccine are not?
- The CDC and FDA have approved the “trace” amounts of mercury and aluminum that are in many vaccines. While there may be only a trace amount in one vaccine, it does add up when you inject 3-4 vaccines into a child at one time, and 36 doses over 6 years.
- Many adverse reactions to a vaccine or disease are related to an underlying health condition. Those underlying conditions cause children’s bodies to react to the vaccine or the disease differently than the norm. How do we know if a child has an underlying health condition when they are so young? We often do not find out until something goes wrong. If my child were to come down with a natural disease and get very sick I would feel better than seeing them have a seizure from a vaccine I chose to give them.
- Our immune systems were built to fight off disease – why not let it do its job?
- For some reason, what was once considered a common childhood illness is now being called a deadly disease. When did this happen? Before the MMR and Varicella (Measles, Mumps and Rubella and Chicken Pox) vaccines were around, those diseases were considered to be normal childhood illnesses. Most children got them at some point during their childhood and parents had their kids rest, drink fluids, and stay home from school until they were better. I realize that some kids had complications, even deadly ones, but for the most part, they survived. The problem seems to be more associated with parents not wanting their kids to miss school, or not wanting to have to miss work. This is the easy way out and is not beneficial in the long run for our children’s overall health.
- When I look at the risk of the disease I do not feel scared into vaccinating against it. Here is why:
Here is a list of the symptoms and possible complications associated with some of the diseases we are told to vaccinate against: (This information came from the CDC website)
Measles:
A typical case of measles begins with mild to moderate fever, cough, runny nose, red eyes, and sore throat. Two or three days after symptoms begin, tiny white spots (Koplik’s spots) may appear inside the mouth.
Three to five days after the start of symptoms, a red or reddish-brown rash appears. The rash usually begins on a person’s face at the hairline and spreads downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs, and feet. When the rash appears, a person’s fever may spike to more than 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
After a few days, the fever subsides and the rash fades.
According to the CDC, before the MMR vaccine was created, each year in the
So the chances of dying of the measles is 450 out of 300 million, or .0000015%
Mumps:
Up to half of people who get mumps have very mild or no symptoms, and therefore do not know they were infected with mumps.
The most common symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, tiredness, loss of appetite, and swollen and tender salivary glands under the ears.
Symptoms typically appear 16-18 days after infection, but this period can range from 12-25 days after infection.
Before the MMR vaccine, the CDC reports that Mumps was a major cause of deafness in children, occurring in approximately 1 in 20,000 reported cases. Mumps is usually a mild viral disease.
Rubella:
Rash and fever for two to three days (mild disease in children and young adults)
Before the MMR vaccine, there were 57,600 cases of Rubella a year (this was in the 60’s). The CDC does not offer information on Rubella related deaths before the vaccine was around. It does state that in children, Rubella is a very mild disease that often does not require hospitalization.
Chicken Pox:
A skin rash of blister-like lesions, covering the body but usually more concentrated on the face, scalp, and trunk. Most, but not all, infected individuals have fever, which develops just before or when the rash appears.
Before the Varicella vaccine, Chickenpox was responsible for an estimated 4 million cases each year, including 11,000 hospitalizations and 100 deaths.
So, since the chicken pox killed 100 out of 4 million every year, it has become a deadly disease that we must vaccinate against. This is not logical.
Rotavirus:
This is diarrhea. Ryann had rotavirus when she was about a year old. It was really gross, smelly diarrhea, but she was just fine. The problem with Rotavirus is that infants can become dehydrated. As long as they are drinking plenty of fluids like pedialyte, they will be fine. If they stop having wet diapers or seem lethargic, they can go in to the hospital to have IV fluids. It is not life threatening.
Pertussis (Whooping Cough):
Cases of pertussis have been on the rise even though we vaccinate against it. Hhmmm….interesting. The CDC states that Pertussis has always peaked every 3-4 years, even after the vaccine was around. The vaccine requires 3 doses before it is fully effective, meaning infants are not “fully immune” until they are 6 months old, at which time whooping cough is not so scary. The CDC says that infants under 6 months of age are most effected by whooping cough. Why do we vaccinate then? The vaccine is not even fully effective until an infant is 6 months old. Even during an epidemic of pertussis in the 70’s, only 41 deaths were reported.
Hepatitus B:
The Hep B vaccine that is given THE DAY A BABY IS BORN is totally unnecessary. Hep B is transmitted through blood, semen, vaginal fluids, and other body fluids and if a woman is not infected when she gave birth, the baby cannot get it. When someone does contract Hepatitus B, the acute illness usually goes away after 2 - 3 weeks. The liver usually returns to normal within 4 - 6 months in almost all patients who are infected.
(The following is taken from a website called KNOW Vaccines, which some may not see as being as reliable as the CDC. When I looked through the CDC website, I was able to confirm that these numbers are true)
“The Declining Rate of Diseases:
Pertussis had been falling steeply for 70 years prior to the vaccine. The death rate from 1900 to 1935 in the
From 1900 to 1930, years before the vaccine was introduced, deaths from diphtheria declined by 90%.
From the Civil War to WWII, tetanus declined by 99.8% while other developing countries without the vaccine also saw a steady decline.
Measles death rate declined by more than 95% from 1915 to 1958 long before the vaccine was introduced. From 1958 to 1966 (before the live vaccine) the number of measles cases reported each year dropped from 800,000 to 200,000.
Polio death rates declined 60% from 1923 to 1953, before the vaccine.”
Many people are making a lot of money off of these vaccines. We are so easily scared into thinking that we HAVE to vaccinate our kids or they might die, and wouldn’t we just feel horrible if we didn’t vaccinate and our child gets sick. But what if our child has a deadly reaction to the vaccine? Wouldn’t we feel horrible in that case, too? I would rather risk the slim chance that something natural caused my child to become sick, than something I chose to put in her body.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to teach children how to eat healthy, take vitamins, get enough sleep, wash their hands frequently, and rest when they are sick? The media and many doctors are saying that we don’t want our kids to miss any school, and we don’t want to have to take time off of work in this economy. That is no excuse! Why are we so encouraged to take the easy way out?
If we continue to trick our immune systems into fake immunity, we will become weaker and weaker over time. Our immune systems were built to fight off disease to make us stronger. We have learned over the past few years that doctors have over-prescribed antibiotics to the point where MRSA cannot be fought off by any antibiotic. Doctors are now saying that they do not want to prescribe antibiotics unless totally necessary because they have found new antibiotic resistant bacteria. So we know that even though some things are said to be safe at one time, they are later found to be very unsafe!! The government, the CDC, the FDA, whatever, they are not always right! Just recently, the FDA announced that cold medicines were not recommended for children under age 6. Up until a few years ago, the FDA approved many different cold medicines for children. Now they are taking that back, and are in the process of banning the production of cold medicines for children. While some things may be approved by the FDA, we need to be aware that they may be wrong. Things may come up later to make the FDA see that, in fact, something was not safe. No one can guarantee that vaccines are 100% safe just because the FDA approved them at this point in time.
I welcome any comments you may have to this. There is so much more out there that I would love to share, but I just wanted to share some main points. And as you can see, I have not found information from bogus sites or bogus doctors. Most of my information comes from the CDC, a site that many see as valid. I do enjoy articles about vaccines from Dr. Mercola, Dr. Larry Palevsky, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), Vaccine Nation, KNOW Vaccines, but the information I used in this post did not come from any of them. (Well, except for that small blurp that did come from the KNOW Vaccines website).
To anyone who actually read all of this, thanks!!
