The Right to Choose

Recently I was called ignorant for my choice not to vaccinate my children. I'm not usually very vocal about my choice because it causes a lot of controversy. I've always been of the mindset to educate yourself and do what you feel is best for your child no matter what that might be. I also have the opinion that if the vaccines work then why are people so afraid of the unvaccinated. It's my children who are at your risk, not yours. That statement is what started a debate (if you will) with someone we attended church with before we relocated last year. I genuinely liked this person. We weren't BFF and didn't hang out together aside from seeing each other at church. Now I know that it was probably a good idea that we didn't.

She posted a link to an article that CNN put out about a measles outbreak. Fingers being pointed that the unvaccinated were going to cause the outbreak. My problem with the article 1. it came from CNN the most biased news reporting station there is 2. is that not all outbreaks really start with unvaxed kids. It's a spin to scare people into running to get shots. When I read articles like this it brings questions like, What were the ages of the people that the outbreak was occurring? How many were vaxed? How many weren't vaxed?

Most adults (my age) that were vaxed as kids no longer have immunity from childhood vaccines. They have about a 10 yr time frame of immunity before immunity from the vaccines wears off. Hence the new campaign to push adult vaccines for pertussis, chicken pox, etc. Natural immunity is greater than immunity from vaccines. Vaccines dull the immune system and it doesn't work as effectively because it's been compromised. Eating a healthy diet of organic foods rich in vitamins and minerals like fruits and veggies builds the immune system.

Getting back to the reason for my post.

I really like this interview by Dr Sear's on vaccine choice. I read his book while doing some education research for myself. I like his approach. I wish more pediatricians were like him. We started a delayed schedule with our oldest. She had a reaction. I'm not sure if hives and swelling in the injection site would be considered a minor or severe reaction. Albeit thats what happened within minutes of injection to the HIB. It was a good enough reaction for us to decide we would not continue. While that may have been a minor reaction that time the next time it could have been more severe. We were not willing to take a chance and play Russian roulette to find out.

Our country was founded on the idea of freedom of choice. It's sad to think that parents are losing or being bullied out of that choice.