To Vaccinate or Not To Vaccinate...

Over the past week, the subject of vaccinations has come up between my friends and I quite a few times. Previous to yesterday, all I knew was that certain vaccines were questionable, that Michael and I were still researching, and that we were waiting on vaccinating our children until they were older.

Ethan is going for is 18 month well-baby check-up next week. Since he is now walking (and running, and jumping...), I had planned on having him get a tetanus vaccine. However, before I had him get his first shot, I wanted to do some research.

What I found was so informative...and borderline shocking. I'm sure that most Doctors don't know what they are injecting infants, children and adults with. I know that I had always assumed that vaccines were simply the disease with a saline solution. I was sadly mistaken.

This website has the list of ingredients of most vaccines. The ingredients in the DTaP (Diptheria, tetanus, and Pertussis) vaccine? Formaldehyde, aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate, animal by-product gelatin, and thimerosal. Some of the other routinely given vaccines include human diploid cells from aborted fetal tissue, chick embryo, and guinea pig embryo cells. The first question I asked myself was, do I really want those things injected into my son? The answer was no. Second question? What is thimerosal? This led me to this article. Thimerosal is a mercury based preservative that is also a potent neurotoxin. It was banned from vaccines in Russia 20 years ago. Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain, and all the Scandinavian countries have also banned it. What do they know that we don't?

From the above article, "You couldn't even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe," says Haley, who heads the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky. "It's just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a petri dish, the culture dies. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage." If that isn't scary, I don't know what is.

Another article I found specifically talks about the tetanus vaccine, and about thimerosal. You can read it here.

There is also a link between autism and thimerosal. Prior to thimerosal being added to vaccines, there was no autism. You heard that right. Within the first year of thimerosal being added, autism was diagnosed. As many people know, the Amish community in large do not vaccinate. A reporter did a study of one Amish community is Pennsylvania. According to the amounts of autism in the 'general' population (non-Amish), there should have been 130 children with autism. There were four. One child had been exposed to mercury from power plants, one had been adopted from outside the Amish community, and thus had been immunized, and the other two had had their vaccinations.

The other question that lingers in my head is that I wonder if the cure is worth that the disease. Are we so scared of getting sick that we are willing to inject ourselves and our children with metals, preservatives, and animal and human byproducts? Especially since most of these diseases are treatable, and not fatal. Tetanus, for example, can be prevented by thoroughly cleaning any wounds...but if contracted, can be healed by antibiotics or pennicilin, with full recovery. Personally, I will make sure that my children always wear shoes when outside, do not play outside unsupervised, and if they get a scratch or cut, then I will cleanse it with hydrogen peroxide.

As for diptheria, it is also preventable by good nutrition and washing your hands. If contracted, you will fully recover unless it goes untreated. So, I will find out what the symptoms of diptheria are, so that if my children come down with it, I will know to have it treated.

And pertussis, also known as whooping cough? From what I have read, it is only fatal to those with a compromised immune system. I have a friend whose daughter has Cystic Fibrosis, which can affect the lungs. I would have a child with CF immunized...whooping cough could prove fatal to them. But for the average child who doesn't have that type of disease, I don't believe they would need to be immunized.

I don't know if I will ever have my children immunized. Perhaps if our government bans thimerosal from vaccines, I'll rethink it. Maybe if they stop putting cells from aborted fetuses in them, I'll consider it.

Until then, I will keep a close eye on the children God has given me; I will not allow them to be in the 'general population' (i.e. church nursery, daycare); I will make sure that we eat a healthy, nutritious diet (low sugar, high protein, whole grain); I will encourage my children to get plenty of sunshine and physical activity to strengthen their immune systems.

On a side note, I think that far too many parents are content with the status quo. Instead of searching and questioning why we do things, many people simply follow along, because it is what everyone else is doing, and because it is what their parents did before them. I'm not saying to go to a radical, extremist point of view, and do everything the opposite of everyone else...simply for oppositions sake. But I do think that we should analyze the things that we do, and the reasons for it. So our pediatrician says that all children should have x number of shots every few months...why? So our culture says that we should only have 2.5 children. Why? Many think that cloth diapering is just...weird. Why?

Perhaps its because my parents were hippies, maybe its because my husband is SO analytical...but I know that I have been taught for many years not to just do something because everyone else is doing it. At least, if you are going to do it, know WHY you are doing it, if for no other reason than that you will have an answer if anyone asks you. That you will know without a shadow of a doubt that you are doing the right thing....and this is the reason why.