Beatnikbean,
Can I suggest a good book for you and DH to read? I read just about every vaccine book out there, and I think by far the most balanced and well written book is Aviva Romm's "Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent's Guide."
http://www.amazon.com/Vaccinations-T...3673081&sr=8-2
There are, of course, other great books out there as well, but most I found had a tad too much of a conspiracy theory vibe to be easily digested by most. Aviva Romm's book has a very clear and lovely explanation of how our immune system works, how vaccines work, and how natural immunity differs from vaccine induced immunity and why. It was tremendously helpful to me as I made my decisions about vaccinations.
I'd also caution you to remember as you "research the diseases" that you can't just compare the risks of the shot to the risks of the disease. Its not comparing apples to apples. Its the risk of not only IF your child would be exposed/catch the disease and then how they would respond. In most cases you will find that the VPDs we've been so conditioned to be scared of are mild and self limiting diseases. Some you won't even know your child had! Some are like chicken pox or measles (not fun, but definetly treatable). Complications usually arise in countries without good healthcare, sanitation, or in children with immune compromised systems. Some like polio and diptheria have been eradicated in the Western world for over 10 years. Polio in particular is very controversial, because the vaccine contains monkey parts. In the 1960s, batches of the polio virus contained a monkey virus called SV40. SV40 causes cancer in humans and worse yet, it is passed on from generation to generation. There is some assinine statistic about the % of cancer today that can be linked back to the SV40 virus. Here is one link about it:
http://www.sv40foundation.org/ Worse yet, when this virus was discovered, the companies continued to administer the vaccine for 2 more years, and some SV40 contaminated vaccines were thought to be administered as late as 1990. What disturbs me even more than that, is there is a real question as to whether the polio vaccine ever did ANYTHING, because at the same time the vaccine was introduced, they changed the diagnostic criteria of what constituted polio. Instead of being paralyzed for a number of hours, it had to be a few weeks or more. Suddenly there was a huge increase in aseptic meningitis, and a decrease in polio. It was simply a change of name. The #s stayed the same.
I used to think the moms on here were pretty extreme. I honestly didn't believe them when they said they had no worries about vaccines whatsoever now that they had done their research. But low and behold, after and I read and read and read, I can honestly say I am 100% at peace with my decision not to vaccinate my children.
My best friend (who also loves the Romm book) has chosed to selectively vax and delay shots/space them out. Her DH is simply not comfortable doing none. She also felt that Romm book was very helpful.
So just wanted to throw that out there. It really is true that you can always give them later, but you can never take them back.
XOXO
B
