Why Parents Aren't Convinced: The Choice Not to Vaccinate

The great vaccination debate is probably one of the biggest debates we'll see during our time. On one side you have vaccination supporters who insist vaccines work, they believe the benefits far outweigh the risks and they do not believe vaccines are the cause of any of the rising developmental and health issues plaguing children today (Such as the 4 A's: ADHD, Autism, asthma and allergies). On the other side you have concerned parents who insist that one day they took their completely healthy child to receive one or more vaccinations and shortly after that the child's health declined and developmental issues crept up. A great number of these children have since been diagnosed with Autism or other neurological disorders. Along with these concerned parents there are some medical professionals that support the concept that vaccinations and the ingredients they contain are the cause for a spontaneous occurrence and rapid decline in children's development.

Factual information regarding vaccines is not readily available without detailed research. Medical professionals can provide you with an accurate list of the vaccines that are given today along with a recommended schedule supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Further investigating provides information that you're likely not going to hear from your child's doctor. If you look at the list of required vaccinations (From the AAP) in the 1970's, 23 doses of vaccine were given to young children. Today, children now receive 48 doses of vaccine before they reach the age of 6. Further overloading a child's immune system, vaccines are now produced by companies such as Merck and GlaxoSmithKline and are given in combination shots to save on visits and vaccines. The problem with this is that no actual research exists or has been done to study the possible interactions these vaccines have with one another.

Many parents have chosen to exercise their right of parental judgment and weigh the pros and cons of vaccinating their child. Many parents across the country have chosen to delay vaccinating their child or have chosen to use an alternate schedule such as the one Dr. Sears showcases on his website (www.askdrsears.com). This is in hopes of using one other than the one provided by the AAP. On message boards all over the internet you will find parent's stories of how this resulted in them being asked to leave a certain medical practice and find another doctor; parents are being scrutinized by medical professionals and other parents for supposedly putting other children at a greater risk and have been 'threatened' by the media as being potential factors for starting an epidemic. The great misunderstanding about all of this is that parents who choose to delay vaccinations or not to vaccinate at all (Some states allow a religious or philosophical exemption- you can find a list here:http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/cc-exem.htm) are not purposely attempting to put their children or other children at risk. Simply, if non-toxic vaccinations were offered by drug companies, a great number of parents would follow along with a vaccination schedule and vaccinate right from birth. Unfortunately, these 'greener' vaccines are not currently available and the choice is to either vaccinate your child with both live and dead viruses that contain preservatives and chemicals such as formaldehyde, aluminum, ethylene glycol (anti-freeze), mercury (Yes, there are still vaccines being produced with mercury in them. The AAP claims mercury is not used in vaccines today as a preservative. It just so happens that mercury is in there, just not as a preservative.), MSG, hydrogen peroxide, egg albumin, gelatin and yeast protein, or to delay vaccines until a child is older and potentially more able to handle these vaccines on a drawn out basis. The pharmaceutical companies that make these vaccines have to list these ingredients on their product sheet. If you seek this information you'll find all the toxic additives right on there and the FDA lists these additives on their website as well.

Members of the AAP believe and confirm on their website that vaccines are completely safe as well as effective. If you read the facts very carefully (You can find some of this information at www.aap.org) it's true that vaccines do not completely protect any child from contracting a disease. In fact, a study was done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention many years ago that determined children who received the HiB vaccine were actually 5 times more likely to contract the illness than those who had not. In 1994 a study was published by the New England Journal of medicine that showed 80% of children who developed whooping cough before the age of 5 had been vaccinated for the illness. Most alarming is the fact that in the 1970's, the inventor of the polio vaccine himself (Dr Jonas Salk) admitted that the oral version of the polio vaccine was responsible for 140 cases of polio that occurred in the United States after 1961. These cases were from the vaccine themselves (As reported by The Polio Vaccine Myth; Christopher Kent http://www.whale.to/vaccines/kent.html) The AAP also states on their website that if severe side effects are reported after a vaccination is administered and further research shows that vaccine was to blame and it is not safe, it will be taken off the market immediately. This is coming from the organization that insisted vaccines were safe to begin with. If vaccines are so safe why is a fund set up by the Federal Government that pays families for vaccine injury and to date over $900 million has been paid out (http://www.generationrescue.org/vaccines.html).

The medical community including the AAP is taking a stance and has confirmed numerous times that vaccines are not linked to autism or other neurological disorders. This information simply is not true. No study exists or has actually proven that vaccines are not the cause of Autism. The one and only study that was completed by the CDC was decided as neutral, meaning they could neither confirm nor deny the correlation.

The fact of the matter is that the number of children in the United States today that have learning disabilities, ADHD, asthma or diabetes has tripled in the past 25 years according to the National Vaccine Information Center. The amount of vaccinations given today has more than doubled in the past 25 years. It's quite possible that other environmental factors are contributing to this growing trend among our children these days; however the links between childhood vaccines and the onset of severe health concerns in young children are hard to deny. When a vaccine is developed it is only tested by the pharmaceutical company for approximately 6 weeks before being approved and officially put on the market. This is hardly enough time to ensure that a product we are injecting into our child's blood stream is safe and will not cause any type of neurological injuries. If a child needs an appointment with a specialist to screen for something such as Autism, it's likely going to take longer than 6 weeks to even get an appointment let alone to make a diagnosis. While some children may be genetically predisposed to developing a neurological disorder, something typically has to set it off and vaccinations just may be the culprit. Few parents can say with confidence that they have no worries about their child receiving a vaccine with such harsh and dangerous ingredients in it. Parents who choose to postpone or refuse vaccines for their child simply cannot convince themselves that the proposed benefits of a vaccine far outweigh the risks they are putting their child under.