I normally don't like to cause a stir, be too in your face about my opinions or call people stupid. But I have a message that needs saying, and I feel so strongly about it that I may just use some harsh language.
So, here it is . . . people who don't vaccinate their children are IDIOTS! I just can't think of a nice way to put it. Here's a generalization that I think everyone can agree with. Long ago, lots of children died of diseases such as smallpox and polio, now, hardly any children die of these diseases. People may not have died as a result of diseases such as mumps, measles and rubella, but did end up having health troubles later in life that were related to these diseases. Does anyone want to take a guess as to why we have fewer incidents today? There has been one major shift since the 50's and 60's . . . vaccinations. Yet, there are some people out there who are nervous about immunizations. Why? Why? Why?
A popular scare today is concerning the Measles, Mumps and Rubella shot. One argument against the MMR vaccinations is that it supposedly causes autism. If you go to the Centers for Disease Control website and check out the "Myths Busted" section, you'll find an explanation of the flawed studies that have linked autism to the MMR shot. The "Wakefield" study, that found a supposed link between the MMR immunization and autism missed the boat in two areas. First the MMR shot just happens to be administered at about the same time in a child's life that autism is first noticed and diagnosed. This causes parents to think that the shot brought on the autism. Secondly, they only studied children who had the vaccine, then developed autism and did not include children who did not have the vaccine and then developed autism. They had a flawed approach to the study and therefore, do not have conclusive evidence. You can read more about studies, the flaws in the studies, as well as research that has proven no relationship between autism and vaccinations in the "Myths Busted" section. Most importantly, there is very strong evidence that autism is a genetic disorder, and not caused by environmental factors.
If you are a parent who is choosing not to vaccinate, I find it hard to believe that you are willing to take such a serious gamble with the LIFE of your child. It really is a matter of life or death, especially with more and more uneducated yahoos skipping out on immunizations. Did you know there were over 6,000 reported cases of mumps in the U.S. in 2006, just a few years back, mumps was expected to be eliminated. Way to go, anti-vaccination wackos.
So, get off the, anti-immunization because of autism, bandwagon people. Just because those in the media says their beliefs over and over doesn't make it true. I'd rather trust good science and good doctors because guess what, they've done a whole lot of positive things for our society. I think that people who honestly believe that doctors would knowingly give patients things that are bad for them, are paranoid, conspiracy theorists. So, go on now, before it's too late and get your kids vaccinated. If you don't have kids, be a part of the solution, spread common sense instead of perpetuating the foolishness of, "I heard on TV that blah, blah, blah, so I don't think I'll get my kids their shots."
Oh, and I'd love to debate this topic with anyone, but only if you're willing to back your arguments with some logic and evidence, not hearsay. --AnnMarie
9 comments:
Love your post AnnMarie! Immunizations are a hot spot for me, so I'll enjoy the dialog. I agree with you that the subject should be discussed with reason and as much factual information as possible.
First of all, from what I understand autism and the MMR vaccine are not linked. However, I disagree with the idea that autism is not caused environmentally and this is my logic: Autism is rising in huge numbers, much faster than the gene pool can change. It may be that something in the environment is "turning on" some sort of gene. However, the rates of autism are simply rising too fast for it only to be a genetic factor.
I am not suggesting that children should not be vaccinated. But my concern with vaccines is that, according to my understanding, vaccines have been dealt with irresponsibly by the medical community. For example, in the 1990's routine children's vaccines contained a preservative called thimerosal, which contains a significant amount of ethyl mercury. Now, mercury and thimerosal is a whole debate in itself. But the bottom line is this: we know that methyl mercury is very dangerous in very small amounts, we don't know if ethyl mercury is dangerous or not. Why take a chance? There's no way I'd take a chance injecting my baby with any amount of any type of mercury. The medical community seemed to "overlook" this for an entire decade! Although there is no "proof" of harm done, thimerosal has now been removed from routine children's vaccines (except the flu shot).
Okay, my second example of irresponsibility with vaccines is the birth dose of Hep B vaccine. Now, it's great that we have a Hep B vaccine. Hep B is a blood borne disease transferred by sharing needles or sexual contact or sharing blood in another way. I'm very glad to have the Hep B vaccine myself because I've worked with other people's blood in my workplace. However, my newborn surely is not going to be exposed to Hep B! Why inject a brand new life so early with something needless? Now the counter argument is this: In the US, a small number of babies will be exposed to Hep B because their mother's acquire it during pregnancy. The baby is at risk if blood is shared during delivery. So, my pediatrician tells me that this vaccine saves 90 (I think that's the number, but I can't remember for sure) babies every year from getting Hep B. What I hear as a parent is "We are needlessly vaccinating thousands of babies at birth every year."
One more example of what I think is irresponsibility in the medical field concerning vaccines: The Cervical Cancer Vaccine. If I am misunderstanding anything here, please correct me. This vaccine targets the human papilloma virus which causes cervial cancer. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease. It's great that we now have a vaccine for it, but wouldn't it be more responsible for the medical community to do some education instead of just vaccination young women? Oh, (here's me being cynical), but the drug companies make money by promoting the vaccine and nobody makes money by promoting sexual education.
So that's my observation with the irresponsibility of the medical community.
Now, on to what I think about the medical community. I feel that I can be very candid about my opinion because I myself am a health care professional and have worked in public health. The health care industry is all about money. It's all about money.
I will use my own profession as an example. The American Dietetic Association gets money from the Dairy Council. All of the nutrition conferences that I've been too have been at least in part sponsored by the Dairy Council. What's wrong with the Dairy Council? Nothing; I like milk. The part that I don't like is that the Dairy Council is an interest group and can easily influence the making of nutrition policies.
So, after all this, the bottom line is: I don't feel that I can trust the medical community (including the CDC). I think parents need to be informed about all sides of health issues and make decisions for their children based on individual needs.
It's me again. :) James thinks I need to give a stronger reason for not giving Hep B vaccination at birth. Here's my reason: ALL drugs and medications have side effects, known ones and likely unknown ones. Whenever you take a medication (in this case, vaccines), the potential benefit should outweigh the potential risk. In the case of my newborn, there is no risk of Hep B, so there is no means to justify a potential risk.
Also, I should clarify my distrust of the medical field. I do not believe that all individual health care workers have questionable motives. It's the industry and organization overall that I believe to be inappropriately influenced by money.
--Charity
The first thing I’d like to say is that parents aught to have the right to decide what their child is receiving for immunizations. The beef I have is with people who choose not to with no good reason or solid evidence. (Which is not a category that Charity and James fall in, btw.) And that people disregard that fact that the immunizations we received have saved thousands of lives. The diseases we are immunized against are deadly. We’re talking about life, death and living a healthy life. It’s too serious of a decision to be made without thinking it through. And I must add again that the only logical conclusion is that immunizing is good.
You make a good point about the Hep B vaccine. It is perfectly sensible for you to say that it is not necessary for Isaiah. I’m glad Harold got it because we don’t really know what birth mommy was up to. So, there’s a good example of making an informed decision on an individual basis. I agree that needlessly injecting infants with vaccines is silly. (I happen to think the flu shot is crazy because the flu is not deadly nor does it have long term health effects. Unless of course you’re old or feeble and that’s not me so why put extra stuff in my body.) But I do know that the vaccine schedule that Harold is on is very necessary and good.
On the topic of the Cervical Cancer Vaccine, I do think it is something all young women should get. It is the job of the drug industry and the CDC to save and protect lives. The most foolproof way of doing that is to have the cervical cancer vaccine. Sexual education is not going to catch 100% of the women out there (because some people are dumbies), the vaccine is much more effective. The vaccine protects against four types of HPV, including two that cause about 70% of cervical cancer. Secondly, it is not the job of the drug industry to educate the public on sexual education, that’s the job of the family, schools etc., etc.
Let’s talk about money. Of course the medical community is concerned with money. Money is needed to pay for employees, equipment, more research, etc. etc. Just because money is a concern, doesn’t make what they do any less effective or necessary. Side note: People act the same way about the oil industry. It’s evil because they make so much money. But actually they make about a 10% profit. That’s what a normal business makes. So, I’m nervous about using money as a point against an organization. I’m sitting here drinking my coffee, Starbucks is making money off of my buying their product. That’s O.K., it’s business. Just as it is O.K. for the drug industry to make money off of vaccines and medications, because it’s a business. But it just happens to be a business that saves lives. And the money they make can go into research to save more lives. I’m choosing to trust the FDAs approval of the drugs that are deemed safe. I have to trust them because I’m not a chemist, I’m not a scientist and they do have chemists and scientist who have studied the drugs that are considered for the public. Of course they make mistakes, find things out at a later time, but I’m not going to write them off for that for the sake of the greater good.
That leads to types of vaccines that may have been given to children that are not safe. I think the discussion about thimerosal and mercury is a moot point. For two reasons, one, it is no longer used and two, just because it contains mercury does not make it bad. Let’s use chlorine as an example, chlorine by it’s self is very poisonous. It was called mustard gas in World War I and was used to blind and kill thousands of troops. However if it is combined with sodium we get NaCl, common table salt. The same situation is true for mercury, alone it has some toxic properties, but combined with other things it behaves entirely different.
With all that said. I’m going to reiterate the original point of the blog post. Don’t be stupid, find out which vaccines your child needs and immunize your children. Research what is happening in the health industry and vaccinations. Be informed, not a blind follower.
I definitely agree with your blog point that people shouldn't be stupid about health care decisions. I think the way not to be stupid is to be informed.
Good example about Harold and the Hep B vaccine. I think that's a responsible use of a vaccine.
I agree with you AnnMarie that sexual education is not the job of the drug companies. I do believe, however, that it is the job of the health care community. Anyone who is administering the shot should give fair explanation about what the vaccine is protecting one from. By fair explanation I don't mean handing out the "vaccine facts" sheet of paper; I mean having a conversation in a way that promotes understanding. I think that a lot of people might not even know that HPV is an STD.
Money. We believe in capitalism in this country and every entity has a right to make money. The problem I have seen is people/organizations trading ethics and integrity for money. For one example, perhaps you have seen ads promoting breastfeeding (Babies Were Born to Breastfeed, etc). These ads are put out by the Ad Council (which, I believe, is non-profit). A few years ago, the Ad Council made some ads promoting breastfeeding that were very straightforward. Formula companies found out about these ads before they were published and told the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that if the ads were published, the formula companies would take away their funding from the AAP. Guess what happened? The original ads didn't get published. A milder version of the ads was produced and published instead. The formula companies probably had no direct threat to the Ad Council, so they used their money where it would talk. The AAP had the power to stop the ads. I've seen too much "talking money" in my short time in public health.
If anyone is interested in reading more about the breastfeeding, formula, and money, I recommend a book called "Milk, Money, and Madness." (But that's really another subject altogether.)
Unfortunately, each of us individually can't produce our own research and at some point we have to trust other people for a variety of things. So I can't blame anyone for trusting who they choose to trust.
Sorry that I can't get all my thoughts into one blog post.
One thing that makes vaccine decisions difficult at times is pressure from the medical field. For example, we chose not to immunize Isaiah against Hep B at birth for reasons stated in the earlier post. And I think we were quite logical in this decision. However, the medical staff at the hospital gave James a hard time about this decision. Now James is a pretty calm guy, but it makes me react with defensiveness and fear when a medical person can't understand [what I believe to be] educated reason.
Okay this is my last post on this topic because I spend too much time thinking about it and it just makes me upset. On to happier topics...
Charity
It is great to "hear" you discuss this subject back and forth. You both have wonderful points - exactly the reason each situation has to viewed individually by those people who can think reasonably!
You trust an administration that has set an 'acceptable' percentage of feces and salmonella in our food supply? And then doesn't enforce it? There is no oversight to the amount of hormones and antibiotics pumped into our 'food' supply and no studies done on the long term effects of eating beef that has been pumped full of antibiotics that are creating antibiotic resistant strains of viruses. And you trust THAT administration to tell you what is safe to pump in to your baby? Weird.
Brother John
I do trust the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). Years ago people used to die from all kinds of horrible diseases and questionable medical practice, now almost no one dies from these things. Plagues and epidemics are a thing of the past. I think the CDC and FDA are doing a good job. If you don't trust them, then who do you trust to make public health decisions?
C.O.
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