I have a confession. It isn't a huge secret if you know me personally, but since I've never really discussed it openly here, I thought I'd bring it up. I am one of "those" parents - I go against the grain and mainstream medical advice, and... do not vaccinate my children. I wasn't always of the anti-vaccination mindset. In fact, I can easily remember a time about 7 years ago when I thought non-vaccinating parents were endangering their children, foolish, and acting out of fear. Because I have been on both sides of the issue, I know this can be a very heated topic for parents to discuss.
Anytime we, as parents, make a decision that we believe is in the best interest of our children, and it comes under fire, there is a protective irritation that rises up! And, honestly, both sides of the argument have judgmental and extreme supporters who can be offensive at times. My goal is to simply explain my transformation without any offense of judgement toward parents who have chosen differently.
It started out very slowly. My oldest two children are almost entirely vaccinated. When Ezra (#2) was born, we refused the Hepatitis B shot they give newborns in the hospital (questioning the need to vaccinate a newborn against a sexually transmitted disease) and were surprised at the fight we had to put up to stop it from happening. When Joel (#3) was at the age to get the Chicken Pox vaccine, I faced yet another battle when I refused that one. I couldn't understand why there was a vaccine against a common and relatively benign childhood illness. Yes, I understand that it is no fun to see our children sick, but I also don't see the need to try to live in an entirely sterile, germ and illness-free world. It's not realistic, and neither do I believe that it is actually healthy! I believe the immune system is wonderfully designed by God to grow strong naturally.
When his pediatrician gave me a long, dramatic lecture about the horrible dangers of Chicken Pox and why it was negligent of me to not vaccinate my child against it, her strong reaction started to make me wonder. (This was the same pediatrician who, a few months later, told me I would
have to wean Joel when he got to be a year old. We stopped seeing her after that, needless to say!) At that point, I started really looking into the vaccine issue.
I knew a few people in real life who didn't vaccinate, as well as friends on-line. As I mentioned before, up until that point, I thought they were foolish not to be vaccinating! But many of them said, "Do the research and see what you find." I had to admit - I hadn't done the research. I read the fact sheets that my pediatrician handed out at each appointment, but that was it. So I really had no argument to support my choice, based on my own research.
At first, the research was really difficult. Many anti-vaccination websites are very extreme - exaggerating claims and playing on fear. That bugged me a lot, because I wanted facts, not emotionally-driven half-truths. So I decided to research where I felt the information would be more helpful in proving my position in choosing to vaccinate - the website of CDC itself. Ironically, the one place I went to try to support my decision is the one place that ended up changing my mind!
The CDC is very open - it has pages that list each ingredient of each vaccine produced by each manufacturer. In my years of motherhood, (and especially having an allergy-stricken child) I had become a very careful food-label reader. I tried to avoid as many artificial ingredients as possible - MSG, hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and so on. However, it had never once occurred to me to look into what I was allowing to be injected into my childrens' bodies! When I came across
this list, and
this list... my heart sank.
Formaldehyde? Ethylene glycol (the poisonous stuff in anti-freeze!)? Mouse serum? Monkey Kidney Tissue? MRC-5 (cells from
tissue of an aborted fetus?!)
These are all things I would not ever, ever introduce to my children's diet... why was I allowing them to be injected directly into their bloodstream, bypassing the protective digestive system all together?
At that point, after discussing it in depth with my husband and praying about it, we decided to hold off on vaccines for a time being. When Nathan (#4) was born, I believed we would just "selectively" vaccinate - meaning, choose the ones we thought the risk of the disease outweighed the risk of the vaccine. A wonderful, very centered book on this topic is "
The Vaccine Book" by Dr. Robert Sears (
Dr. William Sears' son). It discusses every vaccine on the market today, it's risks, and the chance of catching along with the risks of each disease the vaccines are for.
We continued to discuss, and to wait... and now, 6 years later, with three children who have been completely not vaccinated, I've had to admit to myself - I'm am not a delayed vaccinator, nor a selective one - I am a non-vaccinator. That does not mean I will never, ever vaccinate, or that I think we should all live in hippy communes and run around naked! No, I am an average parent, prayerfully trying to make the best decisions for my children that I can, as I know most every other parent out there is, too!
You see, I do believe that vaccines are somewhat effective. I don't enter into the argument that swirls around that line of thinking, because I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to have a firm opinion. But I also believe that adding all of those extra things into a child's body just can't be good, especially at a time when their own immune systems are trying hard to develop and their brains are growing tremendously. I believe in the wonder of breastmilk and it's protective properties that God made it to have. I believe in limiting a baby's exposure to lots and lots of other people (ie. daycare and nursery situations). I believe in good nutrition for mama and baby, during pregnancy, nursing and weaning.
I know that by not vaccinating, I am putting my child at risk for a vaccine-preventable disease. However, I also fully believe that when I was choosing to vaccinate, I was also putting my children at risk for numerous other problems, some more life-threatening than the disease they were trying to prevent. I am concerned by the actions of the pharmaceutical companies - especially after reading about the repeated failures and recalls of the rotavirus vaccine, as well as the absurd amounts of complaints against the HPV vaccine. I believe they are marketing vaccines too quickly, with too little testing, and that we, as the public, are basically the lab guinea pigs in many cases. I know several people whose children have suffered vaccine-related injuries, and it is heartbreaking. I also know several adults who have had adverse reactions to vaccines (most people I know will admit that the flu vaccine is ineffective or even made them sick! Why wouldn't that carry over to other vaccines?).
I know this turned into a very long post, and if you've made it all the way to the end, I applaud you! Thank you for taking the time to read my experience and how we got from there to here. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences, but please remember to keep things respectful, as I hope I have done.
(Oh, and for the record - 3 of my children have had the chicken pox. One of whom had been vaccinated against it! And all are perfectly fine, despite the doomsday prophecies of that pediatrician. In fact, I hope that the rest who have been born since then are able to get natural exposure somewhere in their childhood, as well, to assure lifelong immunity - which the vaccine does not give.).
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