Is anyone else here questioning your decision not to vax?

[JadasMommy<3]

I'm really starting to question not vaccinating my child and just want to know if anyone else here is also re-thinking all of this. Especially, how have you dealt with your doubts in light of the recent court rulings? I just feel like I don't know what to believe anymore and I am starting to think I should never have trusted Dr. Sears.

Please be nice/don't post here if you don't have anything supportive to say. I'm looking for support.

[carriebft]

It is interesting you mention Dr Sears because I never found him to be all that anti vax. OUt of curiosity, which parts of his book/writings/philosophies on vaccines do you feel you are starting to second guess?

I stopped vaccinating 100% and kinda turned to a 'won't do any vaccines until they seem right to me' and, in order to get there, the vaccine had to be beneficial.

I never really bought into the whole MMR/Autism theory, so the court ruling issue I cannot help you on, but I can tell you that I have had doubts about two vaccines we have chosen not to do: hep A and rotavirus.

With rotavirus, we had both our older children come down with it on an international trip. they would not have been able to have gotten the vaccine since it wasn't out when they were babies (or wasnt offered to us), but I felt like the incident made me want to get my new babe the vaccine. But then I stepped back and looked at the evidence, and it was that re-examination that solidified my feelings....I kinda had to step away from the emotional aspect of our disaster trip and look at the evidence.

With hep A, I learned that the disease wasn't what I thought it was (maybe in the same way you feel you shouldn't have trusted Dr Sears)...it seemed more serious than was always talked about when I really looked at the information. But, again, I had to weigh other evidence. So I looked at the ingredients, side effects, and studies on the vaccine efficacy and safety and found that it just wasn't for us.

something that might also help is really pinpointing what you are fearing or doubting and why.

[alegna]

Also not sure what you mean about Sears. IMO he's pretty darn pro-vax.

Also don't know what you mean about court rulings.

I am 100% comfortable with not vaxing my kiddos. I've seen nothing that makes me waver at all.

-Angela

[kriket]

nope!

When you say court rulings you mean the autism cases that were sueing to be in the vax damage fund correct?

I'm still wondering why we need a vax damage fund. Autism cases aside

All of the parents of autistic kids I know IRL think the vax connection is shaky at best. There are a million reasons why I am going to choose not to vax and none of my reasons are autism risk.

I do sometimes "doubt" my motives for not wanting to vax, then I sit down and think about it and come to the same conclusion. I don't like any of them.

[mamakay]

Originally Posted by JadasMommy<3

I'm really starting to question not vaccinating my child and just want to know if anyone else here is also re-thinking all of this. Especially, how have you dealt with your doubts in light of the recent court rulings? I just feel like I don't know what to believe anymore and I am starting to think I should never have trusted Dr. Sears.

Please be nice/don't post here if you don't have anything supportive to say. I'm looking for support.

The recent court ruling don't surprise me after reading some of the transcripts of the hearings. Some of the testimony was very damning of the Wakefield Lancet paper, and long before then I'd become convinced that most of the "autism epidemic" was a diagnostic phenomenon.

I think always being open to re-evaluating your beliefs is a very good thing, though, in all aspects of life, though. Was the MMR/autism debate the entire reason you've skipped all vaxes before now...or were you just holding off on the MMR?

[JadasMommy<3]

Originally Posted by mamakay

The recent court ruling don't surprise me after reading some of the transcripts of the hearings. Some of the testimony was very damning of the Wakefield Lancet paper, and long before then I'd become convinced that most of the "autism epidemic" was a diagnostic phenomenon.

I think always being open to re-evaluating your beliefs is a very good thing, though, in all aspects of life, though. Was the MMR/autism debate the entire reason you've skipped all vaxes before now...or were you just holding off on the MMR?

nah, it wasn't the entire reason. it was the autism thing, the thimerisol thing, then aluminum and formaldehyde and just a bunch of things that i am just not worried about now that i've read more. i think maybe i am the only one here re-considering though so i guess i shouldn't have stared this thread.

[Emmeline II]

I believe the court case just ruled that there was insufficient evidence for the cause picked (I think the choices to file a claim of vaccine induced astism were to pick from MMR, thimerisol, or MMR and thimerisol, and prove your pick was responsible for your child's autism); there are another five thousand cases that have not gone to court yet.

I don't believe that the rise in Autism is due to better diagnosis (someone finally did a small study that found that better diagnosis could not account for the increase found; would like to see more studies on that). Autism is not a disease you can diagnose with a blood test, it is diagnosed by behavioral observation. If X symptoms mean Autism and child 1 is unvaxed and has those symptoms and child 2 develops those symptoms post vaccination, the result is the same.

In any case, I doubt anything popping up in the news would change my mind.

• Vaccines are pharmaceuticals.
• All pharmaceuticals can have negative/unintended/acute/chronic affect on the body.
• I view VADs as one or more of the following: easily treated, treatable, largely preventable, rare.
• I believe that the risks of injecting these pharmaceutical drugs are greater than the risk of severe complications or death from a VAD.

Dr. Sears book is clearly pro-vax; he encourages doing all vax on a slightly altered schedule.

[mamakah]

I agree with the pps that Dr. Sears is very pro vax. I read his book, but when I read his delayed/selective schedule, I decided we weren't on the same page.
To answer your question, yes I do question my decision. My son is 9 months old and is unvaxed. It is hard to get past the years of doctrine that we have been subjected to. It is funny though, whenever I am really starting to get nervous about my choice, something ALWAYS comes up to reassure me. Last week, I was feeling nervous (and I don't know why, just sometimes those old scare tactics get to me ) about me decision. I turned on the news to find Katie Couric interviewing parents who claim their daughters were harmed by gardasil. Of course the CDC and Merck issued their statements saying that the vaccine had nothing to do with it...then they said that they were pushing for boys to get gardasil also since they can infect women/girls with hpv. Right then I felt a rush of relief, I saw it for what it was, big business. I saw mothers crying saying they know what happened to their children only to have someone slap them down saying "no no no, you don't know your child, that is not what happened, nope nope nope no way. By the way, since we are on the subject of Gardasil go get your sons vaccinated too!" ugh.
A couple weeks before that I caught the tail end of the measles episode of the Brady Bunch. Where, just about 30 some yrs ago, the measles was a plot on a sitcom, not a deadly disease that will wipe out a population.
I am not afraid of most of the VAD, I won't lie, sometimes I do get scared when I hear about the x number of people that died of so and so disease. When it comes right down to it though, I'm much more scared of the shots.

[ema-adama]

I think that it might help if you reassessed your reasons for not vaccinating. If you are not confident in those reasons, that would obviously be an important reason to reconsider your decision. I can imagine it is worrying if you chose not to vaccinate because of concern about autism and the MMR and this then being possibly shown to not be a concern. When I worry about my decision and think about why I am choosing such a different preventative medicine route for my family, I just need to go over what I know about the diseases, what I do know (and even more importantly, what I DON'T know, as in no real safety studies done) about the vaccinations and I am reminded that I am making the best choice for my family.

I also a curious as to why you mentioned Dr Sears. On his schedule you still get every vaccine. He is just spacing the aluminium out. And breaking up the MMR.

it is not easy trying to find what is best for your family.

[carriebft]

Originally Posted by JadasMommy<3

nah, it wasn't the entire reason. it was the autism thing, the thimerisol thing, then aluminum and formaldehyde and just a bunch of things that i am just not worried about now that i've read more. i think maybe i am the only one here re-considering though so i guess i shouldn't have stared this thread.

Like I said, I stopped vaccinating and re-thought about the issue in a different way. I had all of this anti vaccination material coming at me at once, so I decided to go through it and reexamine the vaccines and diseases and see where that got me. I ended up selectively vaccinating for the same reasons you are talking about here. Some ingredients ended up not worrying me, some theories ended up being disproven, some material was just flat out lies (on both sides)....

I don't think you are the only one thinking again about the subject; plenty here continue to read new material and change how they do things. With the recent Hib outbreak/death story out of Minnesota, I know that a few changed their minds on that. Others found the story to reinforce how they feel about not vaccinating.

[mamadelbosque]

No. The recent rulings haven't meant anything to me, mostly because I never didn't vax because of autism. I don't vax because I don't think the vaccines really work, and I don't think they're safe, in a variety of ways.

Also not sure what you mean about Dr Sears... he's never been one of the docs that I particularly read much of. Mostly I read Dr Tenpenny's book "Vacines: The Risks, The Benefits, the Choices" and that helped a *lot*. All of the CDCs charts showing when vaccines were introduced, what the death rate of X was, and what it was after, changing definitions, etc. Also I read "How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor" and THAT was a fantastic book that I still think about. Read it. It'll help you.

[Super Glue Mommy]

every time I question my choice I am faced with the thought of vaccinating and then I revert to my decision not to vaccinate., the idea of vaccinating scares me more then any of the diseases out there. I am with mamadel - I dont believe they work and I dont think they are safe.

Dr Sears seems very pro vax to me. When I had read his book I was only going to skip rotavirus and chickenpox and do a delayed schedule.... but then I researched more and more each disease and each vaccine along with some common sense (the way probability/statistics work in relevance to humans - sports and medicine) and I know one size does not fit all. a lot of things played into my decision. I dont want my children to get sick, but out of my options, them possibly getting sick sounds like the best choice.

[tmaue]

Only in the beginning did I go back and forth on vaccinating. I don't vaccinate anymore, but not out of fear of the vaccines or adverse events they might cause, so this is not my reason for not vaccinating. From the evidence I have seen, vaccines do not work as they say they work, they do not help build a strong immune system, and I feel much better equiped now to deal with the diseases should we encounter them.

This third point was really key in helping me get over the doubt. I have accepted the fact that regardless of vaxing or not vaxing, my children could get these diseases (read this sentence again). So, I have spent the last several years learning about the correct ways to take care of a sick child and also some alternative treatments that can be used, such as homeopathy (which I have used very successfully with my kids when they have been very sick, actually I have found it works best the sicker they are). I feel so much more confident in myself as a mother, that I will be able to handle whatever comes my way. But this is something I gained over time, with knowledge, it wasn't just something that came to me one day. Spend some time educating yourself in this area (apart from vaccines) and you will gain more strength and confidence too and then you may find you have less fear in the area of vaccines and health.

[runes]

Originally Posted by JadasMommy<3

I'm really starting to question not vaccinating my child and just want to know if anyone else here is also re-thinking all of this. Especially, how have you dealt with your doubts in light of the recent court rulings? I just feel like I don't know what to believe anymore and I am starting to think I should never have trusted Dr. Sears.

Please be nice/don't post here if you don't have anything supportive to say. I'm looking for support.

Why would the court cases sway your decision? The special masters ruled against these 3 families who were the test cases, but that is only the first set of hearings that took place. It's not "over". Not by a long shot. And they won't be for a while. Remember Hannah Poling? She was supposed to be one of the 3 test cases but the government conceded in her case.

As others have posted, Dr. Sears is pro-vaccination. If you read his book and use his schedule, you still end up with a fully vaccinated child.

The other thing is that reading about vaccinations is not and should not be a one-source issue, for exactly the trust reason that you describe above. The point of researching vaccinations is that you read and learn so that you can trust yourself and your own decisions. Not your doctor, not some physician who wrote a book, not the CDC, not the pharmaceutical companies, and not moms who post to message boards. You. It's about ownership of your decisions. At the end of the day, it's not about vax/no vax, but about confidence in the choices that you have made. It sounds like you've reached a crossroads with that (and yes, we all do at various points). For me, it means it's time to hit the books (again)!

It's a lot to do, and it's a lot of information to integrate, and it's a huge responsibility. I'm very firm and confident in our family's decisions about vaccinations, but I still spend some time every day researching and thinking about it. My philosophy on this is that if you are faced with not knowing who to believe because the information is so conflicting and so divisive, trust your gut and revert to the default, until more or clearer information is available.

The other thing that helps me is to read up on how to optimize general health. Not vaccinating, or vaxing on a selective/delayed schedule, doesn't mean that nothing else is going on. There are so many things that you can do to boost your family's immune system so that they are healthier overall. Here is a recent thread about that. The Nutrition sticky in this forum is also a must-read.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

I have days where I rethink not vaxing and recently went back over the ingrediants list and cases of disease and death rates vs. vaxing and death rates. I always come back to the same thing. More kids die from vax than they do from the diseases. More kids have bad reactions to vax than the kids have from the diseases.

I still feel soul deep vaxing is dangerous for my family and I am sticking with that.

[angie7]

Do you honestly think the gov't is going to say a negative word about vaccines? They have so much blood on their hands and the truth is staring them in the face yet they turn a blind eye. They are injecting children and adults with poisons, poisons that they know about and yet they do it anyways. The gov't will never admit vaccines are not safe or for the greater good. I would not let the gov't sway my decision in the slightest. I think you need to go back and do some more research b/c if the gov't can sway you, it sounds like you weren't that comfortable with your decision in the first place.

I'm not quite sure how you are no vax from reading Dr Sears. He is more of a selective pro-vaxer. He has some decent info, but definately not no vax.

[LavenderMae]

The recent court ruling didn't make me rethink my decision. Autism was never part of my decision making. I do conitnue to read/educate myself about vaccines but I have not yet found any convincing evidence that they are effective and safe. The negatives still out weigh any positives.
I do think it's a good idea to keep searching and to keep questioning.

Like others have already stated Dr. Sears is definitely pro-vaccine.

[kriket]

Originally Posted by JadasMommy<3

i am just not worried about now that i've read more. i think maybe i am the only one here re-considering though so i guess i shouldn't have stared this thread.

I'm sure you're not the only one question, you're just the only one with the stones to stand up and say something! I wonder a lot, if you don't re-evaluate your decisions on things your decisions can get stale. You have to be constantly accepting new evidence and re-evaluating your decisions!

Originally Posted by ema-adama

If you are not confident in those reasons, that would obviously be an important reason to reconsider your decision

it is not easy trying to find what is best for your family.

:

[Pernillep]

while we were never 100% anti vax and was keeping our options open for a delayed schedule after 2 years of age I have recently found myself questioning my decision.

I personally, was not vaccinated at all as a child and had the major childhood illnesses and now have natural immunity (confirmed with Tither). I feel my mom made the right choice for me because of my birth etc. This also had a tremendous impact on my decision to hold on vaccinating my son as I did not know of any potential reactions on my side. DH did have some minor reactions to several of his shots.

I don't quite know what is causing my questioning and need to reread and do more research again. I am just having a hard time right now finding the time and also closing out all the pro vax propaganda so it does not sway my opinion without me doing the proper research. Because of the court case it is front and center in the media again and hard to tune out.

[anewmama]

I question it all the time. And I wonder for those who are firm in their decision and don't have doubt, why the need to research all the time and participate in this board? It's something I wondered. If I were 100% certain and at peace, I would move on to other things in life. So I wonder if on some level, we all need to reinforce our choices, even when we say we are sure. I wonder if we all nee the support of "Others" out there otherwise, it can be a lonely world in this when most people around us vaccinate.