In order to make a really good choice and a fully informed decision about whether or not to vaccinate your child, you really have to look up and study each individual disease you are vaccinating for and compare the risk/benefit of the disease to the risk/benefit of the vaccine for that particular disease. I’ve found that many parents have no idea what the diseases really are or what they can cause and will vaccinate for them anyway. Without looking at both, how do you know that the disease is really severe enough to vaccinate for?? So let’s talk about a few of the most popular diseases that have vaccines for them and see what they typically present as.
Hepatitis B
A viral infection, Hep B can cause symptoms similar to the flu: weakness, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, low-grade fever, diarrhea, sore muscles, and joint pain. Because it effects the liver, a swollen liver and jaundice (yellowing of the skin due to liver damage) can also occur. Hep B usually runs it’s course in a few months and some people are carriers of the disease and have no symptoms at all. Most people never require hospital care and 95% recover completely and never will contract the disease again due to lifetime immunity. Chronic Hep B infections are a problem and can lead to liver damage and the numbers show about 4500 deaths from Hep B yearly. So how do you contract this disease?? In the U.S. over half of all new cases of Hep B occur through sexual transmission. The disease is spread through bodily fluids (blood, saliva, semen). Outside the body, the virus is still contagious for up to one full week. The incubation period, or rather, how long it takes to notice symptoms is anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months following exposure. I.V. drug users make up another 15% of cases every year. The people most at risk from infection from Hep B are: heterosexuals engaging in unprotected sex from multiple partners, prostitutes, sexually active homosexual males, I.V. drug users, and health care workers exposed to infected needles or bodily fluids of infected people. In the U.S. less than 1% of all cases occur in people under the age of 15. The only way your infant could be exposed to Hep B and contract the disease is if you the mom are a carrier and have the disease.
Hep B Vaccine:
The Hep B vaccine has been linked to many different reactions since it’s entrance into the vaccine market in the early 90s. Between the years of 1992-2005 there were over 36,000 adverse reactions to the disease reported to the VAERS reporting system. A study done in 1996 showed that there were 872 reported vaccine reactions in children under the age of 14 with 48 deaths reported. That same year there were only 279 cases of Hep B with no deaths and no hospitalizations. There are currently 2 different Hep B vaccines on the market. Recombivax and Engerix-B are the two names. There are also combo vaccines that contain the Hep B virus.
Chicken Pox:
A virus in the herpes family, Chicken Pox is known as “a benign, self-limiting” disease by experts. The symptoms include: fever, runny nose, sore throat, and itchy rash that can appear anywhere on the body. The disease is usually totally gone in less than 2 weeks. The disease imparts lifetime immunity. The disease can cause your child to be miserable for a few days but serious reactions in children are extremely rare. As a child gets older or especially in an adult, reactions to the virus can become more complicated.
Chicken Pox Vaccine:
The vaccine contains a weakened form of the chicken pox virus and once injected, that strain of the virus stays in your system for life. Unlike contracting chicken pox naturally, which gives you lifetime immunity but does NOT store the virus. When looking at the chicken pox studies, “effective” means something different than most other vaccines. Effective usually means that the vaccine created an antibody response to the injection. But with chicken pox, “effective” is a financial definition. Researchers found that the vaccine would save $5.40 for every $1 spent on the vaccines because of parents not missing work with their sick children who have the virus. So the FDA cleared the vaccine on the grounds of money the shot saved the government! Interesting huh?? This is why were’ so adamant about you searching out information and digging into the studies yourselves!
Pertussis (Whooping Cough):
A contagious bacterial infection that targets the respiratory system, pertussis most dangerous to a child when they are under the age of 6 months. At that stage in their development, their airways are very sensitive and are not strong enough to handle the intense coughing that can occur when pertussis is at its worst. There are 3 different stages of pertussis that happen if your child truly contracts this bacteria. 1. They begin having trouble breathing that lasts for about 2 weeks. 2. They develop a severe cough that has a barking “whooping” sound that is worse during the end of the day and into the night. This stage can also last up to 2-3 weeks. This second stage is where the danger is with a young infant and where they will need the most care and help. 3. The cough subsides and begins to improve. All told, with a full-blown, extreme case of pertussis, the illness can last for up to 2 months. There is no major medical treatment for pertussis and fatalities in America are very rare. On a milder level, again, pertussis can present as a cold or minor respiratory infection that never produces much of a cough.
DTaP Vaccine (Diptheria, Tetanus, and acellular-Pertussis):
One thing you really need to look at and consider when you’re doing your research on vaccines is this whole issue of “Well, vaccines are the reason we don’t have these diseases around anymore…”. If you look at the history, that’s just not true. With pertussis, from 1900-1935, pertussis rates had declined by 82%. The first DTP shot was introduced around 1940, AFTER this major decline. Recently there have been increases in the amounts of pertussis infections (an outbreak if you will) in the U.S. Last year in California was the big news story. The thing the news does not tell you is that the majority of pertussis cases during an outbreak are in a previously vaccinated population!! Look historically at some outbreaks that have occurred in the U.S.:
Vermont, 1996: The state experienced a huge outbreak of pertussis, despite a 97%vaccination rate for children 7-47 months! Out of the children who came down with the sickness, 74% had already been previously vaccinated with a minimum of 3-4 round of the DTaP vaccine.
Cyprus 2003: Vaccination rates were holding stead at 98% when this specific large outbreak of pertussis occurred. Of those who contracted the disease, 79% had previously had 3-5 rounds of the vaccine and only 13% of the children who contracted pertussis were totally unvaccinated.
Israel: The acellular vaccine for pertussis was introduced in 2002, but the rates of pertussis has continued to climb, despite very high compliance to vaccination schedules.
In 2010, California reported 7,800 cases of pertussis….more than had been recorded in years. But out of almost 8,000 children who became ill, there were only 10 fatalities. Of those fatalities, all of them (100%) were under the age of 3 months. The first available DTaP vaccine isn’t until 6 weeks of age anyway, so there’s not much those families could’ve done in that situation.
Another issue with the pertussis vaccine is the lack of studies and lack of trials to show safety and efficacy of the shot. Did you know that in the U.S. there have NEVER been human trials or studies done with the pertussis vaccine?? All of the studies that have been done (very few) were done on rats. The studies used to quote the efficacy studies were done in the 1950s in Great Britain!! I was shocked when I found that out. Not only are we relying on information on children from another country to state the safety of a vaccine, but in our own country, we’re never actually tested the shots on kids before we injected them with it.
The side effects of the pertussis vaccine that have been documented are severe and numerous. Symptoms and reactions range from fever, encephalitis (brain swelling), seizures, permanent brain damage, and death. If you study back and look through the reported reactions on the VAERS website, you will find consistent and repetitive neurological damage found in children either immediately or days following the pertussis vaccine.
MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella):
Measles: A contagious viral disease effecting the respiratory system, skin, and eyes. Symptoms start about 10 days post exposure and start with a fever, cough and runny nose. Eyes become red, watery and sensitive to light. Small pink spots with grey/white centers appear in the mouth. A few days later the spots may break out on the face. The rash may spread and once it reaches the feet, the fever will go away and they will get over the virus. Catching this disease naturally imparts lifetime immunity and fatalities are very rare among the normal population. People with immune deficiency or malnutrition are the highest in susceptibility to the disease. One thing researchers have found is that reactions to either the disease or the vaccine are worse when there is a Vitamin A deficiency. Higher Vitamin A levels correlated with lower numbers of reactions.
Mumps: A viral disease that begins with a fever, headaches, muscle aches and fatigue. The salivary glands may also swell and as a secondary issue, ovaries, breasts or testicles could possibly swell due to infection. Mumps is relatively harmless when contracted as a child. Side effects and serious reactions to the disease are very rare as a child but become more prevalent in the teenage and adult years. Most of the time there is no medical intervention needed, the patients are instructed to merely let the virus run its course. The virus imparts permanent immunity.
Rubella: A contagious viral disease that causes fever, slight rash, sore throat, and runny nose. Lymph nodes on the back of the neck and under the throat may become swollen and tender and there may be tenderness in the joints as well. There is nothing medically that is recommended for rubella other than to allow the virus to run it’s course. Symptoms disappear in a few days and the virus confers permanent immunity for it as well. There is virtually no major risk or threat from this virus for children, but if a pregnant mom contracts the virus in the first trimester, her baby could be born with birth defects.
MMR Vaccine:
This vaccine has gotten about as much publicity as Tiger Woods over the past few months to years. It really all started to hit the fan when a british research doctor by the name of Dr. Andrew Wakefield produced research showing that the MMR shot produced inflammation in the lining of the intestines. They deduced from this research that this could be one of the hidden causes of autism or at the very least could be causing a child with autism to become worse. They have since went back and forth on the topic trying to prove his research wrong and basically drag Dr. Wakefield through the mud. When 2 kids are fighting and I hear stories on both sides of the issue from other people not related to the situation, I like to go back to the source and see what the heck happened. So to hear about the research and what actually happened go here. Make up your own mind on that one, but at least do your research. Ok, so back to the MMR vaccine itself, it was combined and created into the 3-in-1 shot in the 80s. Other things to note is that the shot is cultured off of the WI-38 strain of aborted human fetal cell tissue. So if that’s an issue for you then you should look into that. Merck, the company responsible for created this vaccine, publishes many of the known side effects of the vaccine in the insert to the vaccine and they can also be found in the PDR (Physicians Desk Reference) at the local library or Half Price Books. I won’t list them all because there are too many, but here are a few of them: encephalitis (brain swelling), encephalopathy, seizures, Guillan-Barre Syndrome, optic neuritis, retinitis, otitis media, anaphylaxis, thrombocytopenia….and the list continues to grow. Next to the pertussis shot, this vaccine has probably the most documented, reported reactions of any of the vaccines on the market. And again, just like I talked about with the other vaccines earlier, if you check into the outbreaks of measles, mumps, and the rubella viruses, the majority of the people who are found to be carrying the virus have been previously vaccinated. The numbers have shown as much at 90% vaccination levels in the population that has contracted the diseases.
So you really need to weigh the risk of the disease you are vaccinating for against the risk of injury from the vaccine produced for that particular disease. This is for sure not an exhaustive list of diseases and vaccines, but these are some of the main ones that you as a parent will have to decide about. Hopefully this gives you some things to think about as you try to make your decisions about whether or not to vaccinate your child. In our next post I will go over some of the preservatives found in vaccines and how to protect your child from potential damage from them.
Dr. JB