Vaccinations, are they necessary?

[joannek]

My daughter (nearly 2 yr o) is seeing this naturapath. He is VERY against vaccinations & introduced me to read all these books about how vaccinations are not the ones that raddicated the illnesses. it's hygiene, isolation & education that irradicated polio, whooping cough, smallpox, etc. i read those books & of course, they are written by Drs. who are against vaccinations. these Drs. also advocates that vaccinations are widely recommended by WHO, APP, UK's Health Dept etc.because it's a political issue.......money & power, etc.

my daughter soon needs her 2 yr o jabs. i don't know anyone who hasn't had any vaccinations. my daughter's doc said becasue nowadays babies are now introduced to all these virus at such young age, that's why there are more asthma, eczema, flu problems for them. he said his patients kids who never had any vaccinations don't get sick so easily & if they get eczema, it's easier to treat.

the research that i did on the internet are 2 extremes, either for or against (usually for) vaccinations.

have any of you not give your children vaccinations? are these vaccinations really essential? are they really gonna get mumps & measles nowadays?

 

[carang]

are you willing to take the chance? personally, i think that the POSSIBLE side effects are far outweighed by the benefits, ESPECIALLY living in Asia where living conditions are so crowded and in many cases hygeine is unheard of...(ever stand in a public washroom and count the # of people that actually use soap after going??? a TINY fraction!)

also, do you really think that life back in Roman times/middle ages was better, before vaccines? that vaccines haven't helped at all? please.... back then the life expectancy was something like...30-35 years!

i don't buy that they are 100% safe. there ARE POSSIBLE side effects, as with any drug, but i also don't buy into the fact that it's all a hoax to make $$$ either!

 

[Millerwhisk]

I totally agree with carang. How can you possibly take the risk when you are talking about such serious diseases. I also feel that by not having the vaccination if your child gets that illness you are then putting at risk other children who for whatever reason i.e medical, cannot have the vaccination.

When I was a baby there was a lot of fuss over the whooping cough vaccine. My mum decided to let me have the vaccine, 2 weeks later I got whooping cough - but not as badly because of the vaccine. I went to school with a girl whos sister was disabled because she had not had the polio vaccine.

It should be your choice but do think of the child, what would their choice be - the benefits far outweigh the risks (if there are any).

 

[Mootje]

Personally, I think if I have not given my childeren vaccination and they got a serious disease I would not forgive myself.

The choice is up to you but I follow Carang and Millerwisk

 

[Matty]

People who say that it isn't vaccinations that have erradicated diseases are very misinformed.
Try talking to people who lived in the days before vaccinations, (my Grandmother is 97) and experienced the death of a child, and also had a sibling crippled by polio and they will give you very strong opinions of what they think of the 'natural approach' to treating these illnesses.

The WHO have documented proof that as the percentages of vaccinations drop in a region (usually due to peoples concern of unsubstantiated side effects) the incidents of illness increase.


If you are concerned about the link between the MMR and autism, it has now been wholeheartedly disproven.
And if in the end you are still concerned, you can have them administered separatley.

There is plenty of info on the internet about the serious complications ( for children and adults) these illnesses bring.
For example, if an adult male catches mumps, he will become sterile, and therefore unable to have children.
If a pregnant woman is exposed to rubella, her baby can be born with severe deformaties or mental illness.
Not to mention the danger period for all babies before they are old enough to be immunised.
We really don't want these illnesses to become commonplace again.

And at the end of the day if you want your child to attend school in just about any developed country, you will have to prove that they are vaccinated.

 

[funnychamp]

I would suggest not to take the risk.. many new diseases are coming over.. the scarries one for babies are polio..

 

[Sleuth]

You are debating running the classic "freeloader" scenario.
If everyone else has their child vaccinated, your child might not need to because it would be very hard to catch anything since everyone else had paid for the vaccinations. Your child would have to pick it up without transmission from people which is possible, but rare. The risks here (look around you) would seem to be greater than the risks of playing the same strategy in the West. Even greater if you cross the border.
The risk you are running is that if your child picks something up you will discover the reason why vaccinations were invented in the first place.
Your choice, your child's life.

 

[joannek]

of course i will vaccinate my chil dif it's best for her. the thing is, there are studies who show that vaccination not necessary means your body will produce antibodies to that disease? what her doc is saying is that it is "not necessary" to vaccinate a child because it doesn't protect her. (??) i have no idea whether this is true or not. i'm no medical doctor & i have no idea if vaccinating a human body, thsi body will create antibodies. there are a lot of studles that say hepB shots are only useful for 10yrs. hepB is a STD (or thru blood transfusion). infants are not sexually active, not for the first 10yrs of live (hopefully), why don't they jab them hepB at 10yr old instead of at birth? why do children in the philippines still get TB when they already has the BCG shots? why do i know a woman who's had the chickenpox vaccine still got chickenpox when she was pregnant? do these vaccinations really work? that is my ultimate questions. can they really protect our children?

 

[barbwong_130]

There is an American magazine called Mothering which looks into many controversial parenting subjects including whether to vaccinate or not. Their web site is www.mothering.com

They have an article called, In the Wake of Vaccines, http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/vaccines/wake.html
which might answer some of your questions.

I find this a complex subject which is further complicated by the fact that in the USA you are only allowed not to have your child vaccinated on religious ground. So you either have to have all of them or none of them.

There seems to be many arguments which aren?t really to do with whether or not the vaccines work or not. For example, side-effects and whether or not mercury should be an ingredient.

I find it difficult to distinguish health improvements from a better medical services and other essentials, like clean fresh water, and those from vaccinations. Usually these improvements in our living conditions have happen together.

On the pro vaccine side, the smallpox story is one of how a vaccine has managed to wipe out a disease. The non-vaccine arguers, however, point at scarlet fever and say here is a disease with no vaccine that is no longer the killer it used to be.

Not really answers to your question rather just giving more confusion!

Best wishes,
Barb

 

[joannek]

thanks barbwong, mothering is one of my favorite magazine. i'll check out the link. if there anywhere i can get it in hk?