So I really didn’t think I was going to write a post on this topic because it is such an emotional one for parents and is easier to discuss in person or in a class setting, but many of you who follow my blogs won’t get the information any other way. So here we go…
I’m not going to cover every single in and out on the vaccine topic because then I’d have written a book and great people have already done that (I’ll recommend some to you later on). So I’m going to cover some questions you need to ask yourself before you vaccinate your child to make sure that you’re well educated on the topic.
Our official stance on vaccines and what we teach in our classes is that you as a parent owe it to your children to do as much research as it takes for you to be able to make a really informed, non-emotional decision about whether or not you want to vaccinate. We don’t judge our patients either way. We have patients who see us in our office who are all over the board. Some of them fully vaccinate their children, some of them do an amended schedule and some of them choose not to vaccinate at all. At any end of the spectrum, you MUST do your research because there are risks and responsibilities with any decision you choose that you need to be prepared for.
One of the best ways Cindy and I have discovered to educate families over the years is by asking questions. My wife is the best I know at asking questions to help lead people to the correct answer. So the following are some key questions you need to ask yourself as parents to determine whether or not vaccines are the right decision for your family.
Question 1: Are vaccinated children healthier than non-vaccinated children?
The quick answer to that is “We have no idea”. In order to know that for sure we need comparison studies between vaccinated and non-vaccinated kids showing differences in responses to sickness. But there are no true studies that have taken these two populations and compared them directly. Vaccine research is a little funny. If you look at the way a drug is researched to determine whether or not it is safe to put on the market, they take a group of people who are on the specific medication, and compare them with a second group who are on a “sugar pill”. You compare the outcomes in the two groups and the idea is that if the medication in question is really as good as they say it is, then the results in that group should be better than the results in the “placebo” or “sugar pill group”. In vaccine research, this doesn’t happen at all. Historically, the way vaccine research has been conducted is they take a group of children vaccinated with a specific vaccine (like DtaP) and they compare it to another group with a different vaccine, but with one less than the control group. So both groups are getting vaccinated. Then they compare the outcomes and the reactions they get in the group who are receiving the new vaccine. As long as the reactions are “no worse” than the reactions that are already out there with the current vaccine, then they pass it through and put it on the market. They also leave many of the preservatives in the “placebo group” vaccines as well. Sot the control group AND the placebo group still contain aluminum and mercury in some cases. This isn’t a very good picture of the difference in the two populations because you don’t have an actual placebo group that doesn’t get anything but a sugar pill! Now what you can find is some historical correlation studies done on outbreaks in populations. If you go back and look, every single disease outbreak (that I could find) occurred in a previously vaccinated group!!
Question #2: Don’t the benefits of vaccines outweigh any of the risks involved?
This is another tough one because in order to really know for sure, we need to know how many children are actually being injured. We don’t know that because, for example, the FDA actually reported a “90% underreporting of vaccine reactions by doctors”. Another study said that there was an estimated “50% underreporting of reactions in the passive reporting system.” Why is this? Well, in order to get the numbers we need several things have to happen. First you have to have educated parents who recognize and realize what constitutes a vaccine reaction in order to report it. You also have to have a willing doctor and staff to report reactions they either see in the office or that are reported to them from parents. ANY reaction that happens either immediately or for the next few weeks following a vaccine is suspect. Fevers, seizures, headaches, vision changes, joint pain, etc. If your child has had a reaction you owe it to other parents to report what happened to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). The is a part of the FDA that logs these complaints. You can go the the website and check them out! This is a question that you also have to ask about the diseases you are vaccinating against. Most people are so unfamiliar with what the diseases can look like and the statistics on how dangerous they usually are that there is a lot of unfounded fear involved. A good book to get and read is “Vaccines: Are they really safe and effective?” by Neil Z Miller. A small, easy read book, this one goes into the incidence of the different diseases on one page and then talks about the vaccination on the opposite page so that you can really get a good comparison.
Question #3: Are vaccines safe and effective??
I’m going to leave the “safe” part up to you and your own research. There are tons of websites and plenty of books out there to give you good information on the possible side effects of vaccines. We’ve already talked about the flawed if not missing research on vaccines so do yourself a favor and dig into the topic. Now, as for effective, let’s talk about that one. “Effective” can mean different things in a study depending on what the author has defined it as. Normally, effective when talking about vaccinations means “produces an antibody” Antibody’s are cells the body produces in response to a foreign invader in order to fight it off/clear it out of the body. So when testing a particular vaccine, if when injected with the virus, the person who received the shot’s blood should contain antibodies to whatever virus they were injected with. This would show that the body was mounting some sort of immune response. Now, high antibody count in the blood has never been shown to actually prevent sickness or infection. Actually, in every single population that outbreaks have occurred, if you look back at the statistics (CDC documents), every person tested had high antibodies in their blood, yet they still contracted the disease. So don’t be fooled that high antibodies = Immunity because that’s just not true. Unfortunately, “effective” doesn’t always mean “immune response” when it comes to vaccinations. This is especially true when it comes to the chicken pox vaccine. When the chicken pox vaccine was initially designed, it was only meant for children who had either cancer or aids. Since these two populations already had very low immune function, the vaccine was designed to help shield them from the virus. But after their initial investment wasn’t going to be made back on profits, Merck submitted the vaccine to the FDA and tried to get it approved for all kids. Upon first evaluation, the vaccine caused so many side effects that the FDA pulled the vaccine and deemed that it was not “effective” because it wasn’t making kids better. So the manufacturers changed the definition of “effective” to “amount of money saved by the government”. It seemed that by giving children the chicken pox vaccine, it was saving the government millions of dollars because parents weren’t having to stay home from work with their sick children. So when re-submitted for evaluation, the vaccine passed because the new “effective” held true. So you need to look into the history and definitions of the studies to see what is actually being looked at and considered for this particular vaccine.
I’m going to stop there and pick it up again in Part 2. If I don’t stop rambling, I’m going to hit 3000 words and you won’t want to read any of this! So stay tuned…. I’m not as quick at blogging as I was before 2 kids, but I’ll get it done, I promise. 
Dr. JB
Studies and info taken from the following sources:
“Vaccine Safety Manual” Neil Z Miller; “Vaccines: Are they really safe and effective?” Neil Z Miller; “Vaccine Epidemic” Louise Habakus & Mary Holland; “Shot in the Dark” Harris Coulter; “How to raise a healthy child in spite of your doctor.” Robert Mendolson, M.D.
www.vaccinelib.org; www.909shot.com; www.cdc.gov; www.drtenpenny.com; www.vaers.hhs.gov