What is it about vaccinations that causes such huge emotions on both sides of the issue? I have decided that no matter what you decide in parenting, it is a direct reflection, in your mind, of your ability to produce healthy well-adjusted human beings at the end of the day. So if someone disagrees with you, it feels so doggone personal!
Vaccines fall directly into that category. If you vaccinate fully and on schedule and someone else does not and shares their reasons for why they don't it can feel like they are telling you that your way is wrong, and I suppose they think they are telling you that. On the other hand, if you don't vaccinate and someone feels strongly that everyone should be, then it feels like they are telling you that you are responsible for the ills of the world.
So, I am super cautious sharing my views. I have no problem with either side of the debate. I can see both sides, and even agree with both sides. Weird eh? When people ask, I tell them that we selectively vaccinate, and that is closest to the truth. I have given this a great deal of thought, research, and looked at both sides very carefully. So here is our story.
In 1983 my second son developed epilepsy suddenly and shortly following his vaccinations. I would not have associated the two in any way, except that summer it was all over the news that there were recalls of certain vaccines due to seizures following them. This was eye opening to me and quite shocking obviously and back then it was very hard to get information on the subject. I just could not do more vaccinations for the next 3 or 4 years, because I didn't know enough about why it had caused the problems in the first place. When my third son came along I didn't do any vaccines for the first couple of years, but then my dr convinced me that it was safe, so I went ahead and gave him all of his vaccines before school.
My fourth child, we did vaccinate at first, but then I started reading more about it, and it lined up with what I knew from before, and that was when I really started being able to learn more about it all. The information superhighway was born and with it information and misinformation and false information and everything in between.
I knew how vaccines worked of course. The mechanism is to cause your immune system to create antibodies to the disease without actually getting the disease so that when you are exposed to it, your body can fight it off more effectively. The first inoculations were done with small pox, and a small amount of the fluid inside the vesicles was put on the tip of a quill or needle and inserted under the skin. Ideally it would create the right situation to cause an immune response without full blown disease, but often it just caused the disease it was trying to prevent. In either case the risk was worth it because the benefit was that you could survive the disease which was rampant. And that is the bottom line here: Risk vs Benefit
There is risk to everything we do. If you drive a car to work you risk getting into an accident, but you have weighed out that risk in your mind, and decided that the benefit of driving outweighs the risk. Every time you put food into your mouth you risk choking, but the benefit outweighs the risk. If you were to choke most of the time you put food into your mouth, then the risk would outweigh the benefit and you would find alternative ways to eat.
With vaccines it is always a risk vs benefit decision you make. Does the risk of measles outweigh the risk of the vaccine for you? Because there are risks to both, and benefits to both. Which risk do you choose and why? And shouldn't you be allowed to make that decision for each vaccine separately? In other words shouldn't there be each vaccine in a separate dose and not a bundle of them together?
Informed consent means that we understand the risks and benefits completely, and are fully informed of both.
When I was in labor with each of my babies I was asked to sign a paper authorizing vaccines to be given right after birth. The first time I was given this paper I signed it because it was just in the stack of other papers I was signing and frankly...uh...I was in labor and not as sharp minded as I might have been. This makes me a bit angry to this day. I did not give informed consent to that vaccine, and for my child, the risk of hepatitis is extremely small and so the risk of the vaccine is simply too high. This does not mean I think no one should have a hepatitis vaccine. There are life situations where there is a very real risk of hepatitis, and therefore the risk of the vaccine is small in comparison, but not for my newborn. Even if the risk were only the risk of injection site infection (which it isn't but for the sake of argument,) that risk is too high for the zero benefit of that particular vaccine for my particular child.
Let's take another example of tetanus. This is a disease with very real and very serious consequences, and I for one am very glad that there is a vaccine for it. But since the vaccine can be given at the time of any injury where there is a risk of tetanus, it simply does not make sense to me to give the vaccine routinely. There is no benefit and only risk to that.
For the most part our decisions are made based solely on Risk v. Benefit but there are a few cases where there are moral aspects to the vaccines themselves that we have decided are simply too important and add to the risk to make it impossible. Some vaccines are produced by incubation in fetal lung tissue; in other words aborted babies. I simply will not ever inject that into my child regardless of any benefit.
Another separate consideration is what is commonly called *herd immunity*. And I get it. I do. I understand that the theory that if everyone were immunized then the disease would simply cease to exist. Sadly that is only partly true, and after doing much research, some diseases would, and some would not. Pertussis is a great example of that. Among those immunized, only a percentage are actually immune, and among those, some can be carriers even if they themselves don't get the disease. Same with chicken pox, and many others.
Risk vs Benefit. Trust me, if polio were still around, I would be first in line to vaccinate my child against it! The benefit far outweighs the risk in those cases and it is so obvious. If we lived or worked in a place where tuberculosis was around, a simple shot to prevent it makes complete sense. And so forth with every vaccine.
Sometimes people ask me what vaccines we give and why, and in general I won't answer that question. My reason is that what is right for my family and our situation is not going to be the same as what is right for your family and your situation. It will be different. And frankly it is your responsibility to do the research to make those decisions. I don't want that responsibility for your family.
The information is out there and easy to find.
Your questions should be:
What is the risk?
What is the benefit?
Which one is heavier weighted and why?
Make an informed decision for each vaccine, each child, and each circumstance, and don't let anyone guilt you into something else.
