by Sara Mcgrath

Created on: March 30, 2008

Afraid to vaccinate your children? Afraid not to? Both?

Educating Ourselves About Vaccines

Both vaccines and the diseases they were created to suppress carry potentially disastrous and deadly risks. When we choose to vaccinate, as well as when we choose not to, we are making a decision that carries the risk of harm to our children. We must educate ourselves about these risks and weigh them carefully before making our decisions.

Vaccines are a universal approach to preventing diseases in an individual, at least temporarily. The occurrence of vaccine-injury and death to vaccinated children challenges this universal approach. Side effects that affect some but not others exemplify that our bodies respond in an individual, not universal, way to vaccines and other drugs. Based on a study in 1998, drug side effects were found among the top 10 causes of death in the United States.

A bombardment of vaccines are currently given to children early in life, constituting their first immunological experiences. Many parents and health professionals question the wisdom of this practice as scientific evidence indicates that vaccines may damage a child's immature immune system contributing to the development of autoimmune (allergies, asthma, juvenile diabetes) and neurological disorders (autism.)

Children who contract diseases in developed countries with available nutritious foods, sanitary conditions, and standard medical care can recover without complications and with lifetime immunity to those diseases. Vaccines only provide temporary protection. Is it wise to prevent our children from contracting certain infections naturally, by instead giving them only temporary protection with potentially disastrous side effects? Are we trading infectious diseases for chronic disorders?

It is a fact that vaccines injure and kill some children. Is it ethical for governments to command by law that some of us sacrifice our children "for the greater good?" If vaccines truly provided immunity to diseases, those who chose to vaccinate would have nothing to fear from those who chose not to.

A 1998 study published in British Medical Journal' found that pertussis infection (whooping cough) occurs in vaccinated people in the Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark despite vaccination rates as high as 96 percent. Also in 1998, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a measles outbreak in Alaska in which over half of the children had received the vaccination.

Before deciding to vaccinate

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