Thank God for Vaccines

You are far more likely to have your child maimed and crippled for life every time you put him or her in your automobile (carseat notwithstanding) than to be affected by the so-called risk factors of immunization.

I thought this post would invoke a storm of controversy. I have a Pastor friend who posted something similar to Facebook, and I was worried he’d have a church split over the enraged reactions from folks who hate vaccines. It’s all quiet here, though! :)

I don’t hate vaccines, I just love my children too much to use them.

Not sure where all this is going, but apparently it’s some big stink, and I’ve seen it in various sources:

http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/cdc-responds-admits-omitting-vaccine-d…

“When Dr. Harper appeared on ABC News to promote the efficacy of Gardasil, she admitted that “The rate of serious adverse events is greater than the incidence rate of cervical cancer,” and the numbers bear out her statement. Merck and the CDC have determined that 1 out of every 912 who received Gardasil in a large study, (see page 8) died. Yet, the cervical cancer death rate is only 1 out of every 40,000 women per year. In other words, girls are better off not taking the shot because the Gardasil shot kills the girls in greater numbers than does the disease it purports to treat.” http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2013/09/17/the-murdering-of-our-daugh…

at least we should start with some reliable sources

More than 23 million doses were administered nationally since the HPV vaccine was licensed in June 2006. There were a total of 12,424 reports to VAERS of adverse events following HPV vaccination through December 2008.
Since the HPV vaccine was approved, the vast majority (94%) of adverse events reported to VAERS after receiving this vaccine have not been serious. An adverse event is considered serious if it is life threatening, or results in death, permanent disability, abnormal conditions at birth, hospitalization or prolonged hospitalization.

Of the 12,424 reports of adverse events, 772 (6% of all reports) described serious adverse events, including 32 reports of deaths.

The 32 death reports were reviewed and there was no common pattern to the deaths that would suggest they were caused by the vaccine. In cases where there was an autopsy, death certificate, or medical records, the cause of death could be explained by factors other than the vaccine. Some causes of death determined to date include diabetes, viral illness, illicit drug use, and heart failure.

— “Summary of HPV Adverse Event Reports Published in JAMA”, (February 20, 2014) CDC

this is the same CDC that wasn’t telling the truth about autism and MMR vax?

Whooping cough, mumps and measles are making an alarming comeback, thanks to seriously misguided parents.

Almost 8,000 cases of pertussis, better known as whooping cough, have been reported to California’s Public Health Department so far this year. More than 250 patients have been hospitalized, nearly all of them infants and young children, and 58 have required intensive care. Why is this preventable respiratory infection making a comeback? In no small part thanks to low vaccination rates, as a story earlier this month in the Hollywood Reporter pointed out.

The conversation about vaccination has changed. In the 1990s, when new vaccines were introduced, the news media were obsessed with the notion that vaccines might be doing more harm than good. The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine might cause autism, we were told. Thimerosal, an ethyl-mercury containing preservative in some vaccines, might cause developmental delays. Too many vaccines given too soon, the stories went, might overwhelm a child’s immune system.

Then those stories disappeared. One reason was that study after study showed that these concerns were ill-founded. Another was that the famous 1998 report claiming to show a link between vaccinations and autism was retracted by The Lancet, the medical journal that had published it. The study was not only spectacularly wrong, as more than a dozen studies have shown, but also fraudulent. The author, British surgeon Andrew Wakefield, has since been stripped of his medical license.

There are side effects from immunizations http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm and some of them are life-threatening or life-altering.

It is up to each parent to decide if they want to take that risk with their child. I used to have to sign a permission form for each immunization my child received detailing the risks and stating that I understood them and gave consent for the shot. I think the recent vaccine scare has stopped that practice.
I stopped immunizations for my daughter because she was reacting badly - until she got her first DTaP, she had no symptoms of allergies or respiratory problems, but afterwards she developed severe asthma, and her symptoms didn’t diminish until we stopped vaccinating her. We waited until she was about 8 to start updating her shots, and she only gets one at a time about twice a year. She doesn’t react to them now, but she still has mild asthma.
Even though side effects of flu vaccines clearly say that you cannot get the flu from a flu vaccine, my mother got the flu every single time she got a flu shot, and she was often sick for weeks. So one year I talked her into not getting the shot just to see - that was 8 years ago, and she hasn’t had the flu ONCE in 8 years. Not even a sniffle or a cough. Other than her dementia, she’s as healthy as a horse. So I don’t blame people for not always trusting the information they are given by medical professionals when their personal experience contradicts it.

While I think some claims are overblown, and severe risks are rare, somebody’s kid is disabled or dies, or you wouldn’t have statistics of 1-in-10,000 or 1-in-a-million. When it’s YOUR kid, statistics don’t matter, and I hesitate to shame or mock any parent into a medical treatment that carries an element of risk. It is a hard enough decision as it is.