So, when it comes down to it, what's your opinion on vaccination?

[trotsky]

Poll question: So, when it comes down to it, what's your opinion on vaccination?

This is not intended to be a thread where arguments about vaccine components are hashed out. Please, do not hijack this thread by posting a smattering of articles from a site supporting your opinion, or bashing another. Just vote.

Knowing what you think you know about vaccination - would you say the benefits outweigh the risks? In other words, do you think that vaccines are more or less dangerous than the diseases they prevent?

Just a two-option poll. No fence-sitters.

[China_cat]

1. Just from remembering the days before

polio vaccine when we didn't know who would be gone from our class in school when we returned in Sept.

When a disease goes from approx. 55,000 new cases per year to -8-, the benefits outweigh the risks.

[Warpy]

6. I had polio, but it was measles that almost killed me

because that particular "usual childhood illness" can spread to the brain and mine did.

Yes, there is minimal risk to vaccines. No, don't expose your children and the illness of other children by stupidly refusing to vaccinate them.

[trotsky]

7. You had polio, Warpy?

For some reason I thought you would be too young to have had it. I have heard that much like chicken pox, infants were able to fight off polio with few ill effects, but older children get hit harder. Is that true?

[Warpy]

22. C'mon, Trotsky, I'm OLD

I'm SDS, 60s lightshow, 70s roadie OLD.

I had the disease when I was two, and I was signed up for one of the first trials of the Salk vaccine when I was a little kid in Washington, DC. When trials of the Sabin vaccine started, my mother signed me up for that one, too.

My mother didn't want to take ANY CHANCES of having to deal with that one ever again. I wore high topped orthopedic shoes until I was 13 and vanity took over.

[trotsky]

29. I guess you're just so young at heart, it shows in your posts. :-)

I dunno why, for some reason I had pictured you an early-40s type running around the hospital in your lab coat.

Isn't it true, too, that polio virus can hibernate in the ground for a long, long time? That if we eliminated every human infection of polio, it could still come back?

[Warpy]

31. Yes, the virus lives in the soil

and in water. Outbreaks occur wherever the kids haven't been vaccinated, worldwide. Once a kid gets sick with it, especially in the third world, it tends to spread through common water supplies to other unvaccinated people and to family members exposed to the nearly constant diarrhea that accompanies it.

The Sabin (oral) vaccine is a live vaccine, and there are mild cases of polio associated with it every year. However, the statistics are still vastly in favor of immunization, as those of us who grew up in high topped orthopedic shoes and couldn't do sports will tell you.

[China_cat]

16. Measles left me and several other members

of my family deaf.

[Arkansas Granny]

10. I remeber those days, too. I went to school with a couple of kids

that had to use leg braces to walk or walked with a terribly twisted body. They were the lucky ones. They were still alive and didn't have to be encased in an iron lung to breathe.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

20. And, God forgive me...

at my school we ran from those poor children and called them "the polio kids." (I was in K, 1 and 2. I think the vaccine came out when I was about 7) And, we had a brook nearby that took grey water from a local apartment complex and it was foamy and we were sure THAT was polio, too. Polio was second only to Nazis in fear quotient for us. Followed closely by The Atom Bomb.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. sorry, that's like asking if you still beat your husband and sleep with

his father.

What about non-mercury preserved vaccines? In that case, fine. If they still use older and cheaper stock, I vote no. If they have not ONE TRACE of mercury, and if the vaccinations are for TB, Polio, Typhus, Smallpox and perhaps a few others, AND they do not use one massive multidose at once, but give separate injections, spreada over a good deal of time, then I vote yes.

Attacking a kid's body with multi-spectrum stuff dealing with 12 diseases all at once is not smart. Using mercury and increasing the chances of autism is not smart. But, some vaccines are smart.

[trotsky]

5. Some people honestly believe that vaccines (with or without Hg)...

are more dangerous. I just wanted to get a feel for how many.

By the way, there is no evidence that multiple vaccines, or a "multi-spectrum" vaccine in any way overwhelms the immune system. When you realize that simply by breathing air you're being exposed to hundreds if not thousands of foreign bodies, the contents of a vaccine are pretty minor.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. Each individual vaccine component is programmed to create a strong

biological response - adversely impacting the immune system, stressing it and causing it to react in a way that teaches it and prepares it for the same bug later. If you stress the immune system of a child with one thing, fine. You have reactions in the range of 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 1,000,000. If you stress it with 14 distinct attacks, each of which cause a severe, permanent reaction in your immune system all at the same time, I suspect that is NOT a good thing.

breathing air is very different than injecting a live biological critter into your blood, intended and expected to create a strong response.

[trotsky]

11. Just wondering, are you an immunologist?

Because what I have read from actual immunologists, that's not the case.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. No,but I stayed at a Holiday express last night and played one on TV.

I was involved with some vaccine litigation a few years back. Deposed 5 immunologists, 2 who said no problems (the corporate-employed experts) one outside gal who said she needed more data and epidemiological studies, and two who clearly thought that spreading the shots out over time was the least one could do when attempting to provoke an immune response in a young child.

Admittedly, that was 5 yrs ago. I am sure there is better data out there now. If so, I will gladly be corrected and be thankful for the education.

[trotsky]

13. Hehe... nice.

Here's a few articles.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C07E7DD1439F93BA35752C0A9649C8B63

By a conservative estimate infants have the theoretical capacity to respond to as many as 10,000 vaccines, the study said.

Parents who are worried about the increasing number of recommended vaccines may take comfort in knowing that children are exposed to fewer antigens in vaccines today than in the past, the report said. Antigens are foreign substances that provoke a response from the immune system.

That's something I've encountered before - today's vaccines don't have to carry nearly the same number of antigens that they used to. They've improved the "dose."

http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,5170,00.html

http://www.highschoolscience.com/vaccines/vac_immune.html

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. Great! and thanks for the sites.

[HuckleB]

33. The one thing lawyers need to remember.

Is that cases tried in case often have no resemblance to the real world of health and medicine.

Remember that, and you'll be thousands of miles ahead of your peers.

[BanzaiBonnie]

3. For vaccinations --- with a caveat

Too many vaccinations at once for small bodies to handle are what I believe to be causing problems. You can request your pediatrician to schedule just a couple at a time. It IS the parents responsibility to learn about possible problems caused by vaccines and go forward judiciously.

It is my understanding that in Japan where they put off some vaccines until a child is older there have been fewer cases of autism in the population.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

4. I'm not convinced there is not a link to autism

however that risk is smaller than whooping cough or diptheria. Or polio. I also remember classmates dying, living in huge casket-like machines (before respirators) called iron lungs, or crippled and wearing braces after summer vacation. My father's mother lost four siblilngs in one week to diptheria, and there is whooping cough in Tallahassee as I write this. If we are going to herd our children into classrooms (and I'm a teacher so I can't complain about THAT) then we need to protect them. My own kids were so sick with chicken pox we almost lost them both, and I remember the misery of measles and mumps personally.

So I voted in the affirmative.

[China_cat]

17. Whooping cough is making a big comback

everywhere because of the resistance to vaccination. We have epidemics here of measles about every 3 or 4 years because of non-vaccination. I truly expect to see diphtheria making a comeback.

[Warpy]

23. It's coming back because the immunity declines over time

but it's not nearly as serious a disease in adults as it is in little kids. The average time it takes a toddler to recover from whooping cough is two years. Infants die from it. It's especially tragic when a case happens to an infant who is too young to vaccinate.

I had it in my 40s and it was a pain in the ass for about four months.

And yes, the antivaccination zealots out there are convincing nervous parents not to risk their precious children on statistically safe vaccines, but to trust the statistically fatal diseases, instead.

[China_cat]

28. That's why we need as many to be vaccinated as possible.

The 'herd immunity' helps prevent the most vulnerable from being stricken.

[hedgehog]

9. Vaccinations are the difference bt third world infant mortality

rates and first world infant mortality rates by far.

As for causing a rise in autism, let's talk about all the pesticides, petrochemicals, teflon residues, PCBs, heavy metals etc that we're all carrying in our bodies from environmental sources before we blame vaccinations. Not to mention 20 some years of above ground testing of nuclear bombs.

[triakis36]

15. People SHOULD be vaccinated

Plus vaccination at a young age is the prime time to perform them. That's when the immune system is developing the fastest and precisely tuned to acquire immunity to last long into late adulthood. As the immune system matures it becomes less flexible, which is why getting chicken pox is more deadly for adults who have never been exposed. Having a subpopulation of non-vaccinated children is a dangerous invitation for an outbreak.

[Peanutcat]

18. Good God Almighty!

Would I say the benefits outweigh the risks?! How the hell do you think all the formally common diseases have virtually disappeared? When's the last time you heard of anyone suffering from smallpox? Polio? Mumps? The list goes on and on. Who's stupid enough to think that vaccinations aren't necessary?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

19. You would be astonished

my daughter has a lot of friends who like she is, are having babies. And quite a few of them are not vaccinating. It is a mistrust of "the system." Need I mention they are all stalwart Democrats? We really have trust issues, don't we? Also, some of them just don't want to kowtow to the big pharmacy companies. I'm not sure how they get their kids into school, though. I think you can get dispensations for religious reasons, but I don't know the details. My daughter was under significant peer pressure not to vaccinate. And also to nurse for two years. One girl in particular fills up her inbox with all sorts of stuff just about daily on both these issues.

[RedOnce]

21. You need a 3 rd option: "I believe parents SHOULD

vaccinate their children with mercury free vaccines."

[Celebration]

25. probably need one for each different vaccine

I would get most--I certainly would avoid flu shots, hepatitis, and anything with thimerosal.

[trotsky]

27. Factor it in.

Considering that virtually every childhood vaccine these days is "mercury-free" anyway.

But even if thimerosal was responsible for everything the anti-vax crusaders say it is, factor that in. Compare it to the morbidity and mortality rates from the diseases that used to routinely haunt us. Go ahead - take the worst case scenario with mercury, and compare it to what measles or polio used to do.

[hedgehog]

24. My mother went back to work as a nurse part time c 1962

after staying home to raise a brood of kids starting in 1953. One night she had to go down the hospital basement to get some supplies. There lined up, row upon row, were the iron lungs that weren't needed any more thanks to Dr. Salk.

[SheilaT]

26. It is too general a question.

they're recommending vaccinations against diseases little kids have virtually no exposure to, such as Hepatitis B.

I also agree with those who think that too many vaccines are given in too short a time. I wonder if the increase in auto-immune disorders might not be a result of that.

Our immune system is designed to fight off disease encountered "naturally". Of course, we all understand that some people do die from diseases others are hardly bothered by. I've read that smallpox was in the process of becoming less virulent and possibly would have become a normal childhood disease like measles, mumps, and chicken pox, when the smallpox vaccine was developed.

And if you survive a bout of a disease, you have a far greater immunity than that conferred by the vaccines -- part of the problem of vaccinations losing their effectiveness over time and the need for boosters. I'm not advocating we return to the good old days of no vaccines, but there needs to be an honest evaluation of the risks.

Remember that one of the outcries against resuming mass smallpox vaccinations was that it would be far more dangerous to immuno-compromised people (those with AIDS, anyone who'd had an organ transplant and was on immuno-suppressant drugs) was far, far greater than any hypothetical risk of a smallpox outbreak.

[Warpy]

30. Yeah, the operative words being "if you survive."

I had one playmate who died in the same measles outbreak that nearly killed me; I lost several to polio; I lost two to scarlet fever. Immunizations to whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus were around, so we were all spared those, but most of my friends had little scars from chicken pox and are probably facing an extremely painful condition called shingles down the line because of that infection that never quite confers immunity.

Get it through your head, these diseases can be DEADLY. There is a bunch of supposition and a whole lot of JUNK SCIENCE against the vaccines. The benefit is so overwhelmingly greater than the risk that it looks like sheer insanity not to protect your kids.

Let your kids build their immune systems via all those viral illnesses they'll get that produce colds and earaches. Please spare them the deadly "usual childhood illnesses."

[FM Arouet666]

32. Vaccination causes cavities and cavities are filled with amalgams.

Sorry I couldn't resist.

Two points

1. Everything has a risk, a patient should accept a risk only after adequate review of available information. Vaccinations are generally safe, but there is a small number of patients which suffer adverse side effects. For most vaccinations, the benefits out weigh the risks.

2. How does one evaluate the risks? Answers should be sought from legitimate sources. The layperson may find legitimate sources difficult to discern. Consider a Medline search, NCI, etc Yes, I know these are government science sites, conspiracy theorists will remain unconvinced.

[Odin2005]

34. Of-fucking-course.

My god, my grandma always tells me how awful it was before vaccines were commonplace. This whole "vaccines cause autism" BS is pure media sensationalism as far as i'm concerned, too many unvaccinated kids is a threat to public health. The whole growing paranoid distrust of of medicine is absolutely pathetic.

[Warpy]

35. Schools agree with you, which is why they insist kids have

those shots up to date before they can enter.

I just have to wonder what's going to happen to all those overprotected home schooled unvaccinated kids when they get out into the real world. Childhood diseases can be very different when they happen to adults: chicken pox produces severe scarring; mumps can produce male sterility; Rubella (German measels) can damage the fetus if a pregnant woman catches it; tetanus, polio and diphtheria can KILL.

No kid with an antivaccination loon for a parent is going to be thankful when s/he catches any of these easily preventable diseases as an adult.

[philb]

36. Its an extremely poorly worded poll, its not that simple

There are some vaccinations that are more beneficial than the potential harm- all have significant potential harm,
as documented by the CDC case files.

But there is no valid reason for having mercury in vaccines, and perhaps formaldehyde. And parents should choose a single vaccine- 3 times rather than MMR, which has caused lots of adverse health effects. For vaccines that are needed,
there should be a safe version available and parents should make sure that the vaccine doesn't have mercury or dangerous levels of other toxics such as aluminum, formaldehyde, etc. which have been in most vaccines in recent years.
Its clear that millions of kids have been harmed by vaccinations, and the harm caused by many is more than the benefits.
There is also a lot of disinformation/misinformation about benefits and risks, to convince the public to go along irregardless of the real risk/benefit ratio.


I am a father and one of my kids had major harm from vaccinations, as has been well documented for many thousands more like me,
http://www.flcv.com/autismc.html (my son had effects other than autism after reaction)
http://www.flcv.com/kidshg.html

[trotsky]

37. It was intended to be vague.

As things are right now, thimerosal or not, versions of vaccines or not, are you for or against vaccination?

Its clear that millions of kids have been harmed by vaccinations, and the harm caused by many is more than the benefits.

Millions of kids, eh? Take away the ones that only had a simple fever or irritation at the injection site as their only "harm," and how many do you have left? Do you have a peer-reviewed cite for these "millions"?

Compare that to how many millions of kids would be dead today if we didn't vaccinate against polio or measles.

By the way, your flcv.com link makes mention of hair testing for mercury exposure. Known to be totally irrelevant to mercury body load.