No Vaccines and School

[Westinsmommy]

DS is vaccine free and through a lot of deep research I have come to this derision on my own and with the help of my brother (who is a chiropractor). I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who had asked me if DS has had his immunizations. I told her no, and that I may or may not decide to give him SOME later on down the road when he's older (if need be). She kept explaining how a lot of her friends with babies had gotten their vaccines when they were newborns to get their bodies immune to such things, so they wouldn't have to worry about it later on down the road. My belief is complete opposite. I explained how you can't take back a vaccination. Once it's administered, it's there. Since DS won't be in daycare, I don't really have to worry at the moment, however she did bring up the question "What happens when he starts school and he's not immune to such sicknesses?" This question I didn't have the answer to. My brothers children, both 5 and 8, have never had their immunizations and they are both in school. Did you/are you going to vaccinate when school does come into the picture? What happens then? Sorry, I am new to this subject, and I beleive I really am doing the right thing for not vaccinating DS (even if everyone else seems to think otherwise).

[MyBoysBlue]

What is so different about school? I go shopping with my kids. I take them to playgrounds? I don't keep them completely isolated. We haven't lived any differntly now that we have stopped vaccinating. Our first son was vaxed but out second is completely unvaxed. They will both get sick at times but our unvaxed son always gets over it faster.

Getting sick is part of building their immune system. If your not vaccinating you must have come to the conclusion that the illnesses carry less of a risk then the vaccine. In all likelyhood they will come down with at least one VPD, even most vaxed children get a VPD or two. I had Chicken pox, mumps and Pertusis and I was completely vaxed though not for CP. My unvaxed son had Chicken pox already. Illnesses are part of life whether vaxed or not. An untampered with immune system will handle these illnesses better.

[saimeiyu]

Most of what they're going to come in contact with at the school is going to be stuff that you really can't vaccinate for, first of all. Second, in the case of stuff like the flu, it's stuff that you can *try* and vaccinate for, but it's really just Russian Roulette whether or not it will *work*.

Your immune system was designed to fight off pathogens. Sometimes it needs help in the form of better nutrition, reduced stress, antibiotics or antifungals, or whatever. I'd say your biggest worry when sending the kids to school is going to be whether or not the school is going to try and bully you into vaccinating your kids "'cause it's the law" rather than any illness the kids will pick up. (Which, if you've gotten this far, you should know already that the "it's the law" crap is just crap and you can pretty much get an exemption in almost all of the states.)

[SunshineJ]

It is an unfortunate fact of life that in order to have children that are healthy, you must risk them getting sick. IMO that's a basic foundation building block of the human body that many health care professionals seem to forget. Something else that seems to be forgotten as well is that increased exposure not only to the VPD's but in some cases to similar diseases strengthens the immune system substantially. This has long been documented by the original pox vaccine where they realized that exposure to cowpox seemed to offer some protection against smallpox.

Most of the illnesses that we vaccinate for are not something I consider overly alarming. Can they be fatal? Sure they can. So can strep throat or a really bad cat scratch that gets infected. But odds are if my child comes down with say measles, then they'll feel crummy and look a little odd for about 3 days and life will go on as before. There also seems to be a push in the mainstream medical community to convince parents that these diseases are *everywhere* just waiting to jump out and attack unvaxxed children, when really, your child is much more likely to be home sick with pink eye, strep throat and the common cold.

[Emmeline II]

Exemptions.

State Vaccine Requirements

We haven't changed our lives due to non-vax status either.

Here are some questions to answer for yourself in deciding about vax.

1. Name of the disease
2. Description of the disease
3. Length of time from initial infection to end of all symptoms
4. Infectious period
5. Normal symptoms of the disease
6. Known serious consequences of the disease
7. Proportion of persons infected developing serious consequences
8. Transmission route of the disease
9. Prevalence of the disease
10. Treatments of the disease and efficacy of those treatments
11. Relevant research about the disease
12. Name of the vaccine
13. Company that makes the vaccine
14. Contents of the vaccine
14A. The significance of whether or not the vaccine is live
15. History of development of the vaccine
16. Known side-effects of the vaccine and rate of incidence of those side-effects
17. Possible side-effects not yet acknowledged by the vaccine maker
18. Relevant research into the vaccine
19. How effective is the vaccine at preventing the disease?
20.What is the vaccine meant to do? (Many vaccines are not meant to prevent infection or transmission).
21.Number of cases reported each year.
22.Number of deaths reported each year from the vaccine and natural disease.

Here are some sources to help you out:

Inside Vaccines

Vaccines-The Risks, the Benefits, the Choices DVD, By Sherri J. TENPENNY

YouTube: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...35240451107552


http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/mmwr_wk.html (download the current issue)
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pin...k-chapters.htm
http://vaers.hhs.gov/pdf/PackageInserts.pdf
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...40451107552&q=
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...87981735&hl=en
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pin...ses&deaths.pdf

[Julia24]

Currently (and granted, my thoughts on this are still changing regularly), I'm planning to have my kids partially vaccinated before they attend school - the varicella and the MMR. Beyond that, I'm not all that worried. And it's not so much that I'm concerned about the disease itself, but I value their education - and I would like to try to avoid them missing potentially 2 weeks or more of school bc of contracting said illness. Plus, by the time they're going to school, I'm injecting the vax into a 40 or 50lb body instead of a 20 lb body. I feel better about that as well. (not to mention all the maturing their brains and bodies and immune systems will have done by that time). So - that's my compromise. (and actually hoping that they will get the diseases BEFORE school age so that we don't have to worry about it in the first place, though that's harder to come by since all the other kids are vaxed, yk?

[Emmeline II]

I'm not worried about them missing school. It's not as if they will not get the work done.

How much school they miss also depends on their immune system and school policy. My district's policy is that you cannot attend school withing 24hrs of a fever or vomiting, and not if they had diarrhea that day; my (fully vaxed) niece has missed more than two weeks of school this year just on that policy alone--and not because of any VADs!

Personally, I'm more concerned about shingles after the chicken pox vax and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis from the MMR.

[julieann199930]

You just file an exemption.

Exploring Vaccines lists the mandates and exemption basics and what you need to do:

http://www.exploringvaccines.com/?cat=644

[Chakra]

I have a eight year old (and two other little ones who are not in school yet) who has not been vaxed and he is going into third grade. Every year I have to sign the school vax exempt form and then about a week later I get a call from the Arizona Health Dept. They try and talk me into vaxing him and give me a list of all the 'bad' things that will happen. The only thing I say is that I have state and ferderal laws that protect my right NOT to vaccinate. Other than that we have no problems.

I'm just worried about forced vaccination in the future.

[honeybunch2k8]

Originally Posted by Emmeline II

Personally, I'm more concerned about shingles after the chicken pox vax and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis from the MMR.

*nods*
I refused to take the MMR for myself b/c of fears of arthritis.