unvax'd 2 y/o: start vaccines?

[junipermoon]

My 22 month old is totally unvacc'd. My h is a neuroscientist and *he* is having trouble making sense, via the scienitific literature, of which shots might be more dangerous than the risk of the contracting the disease itself--I read and read about vaccines, but without a great background in statistics or the natural sciences, I'm even more lost than my husband. I tend to just get confused and upset when I research it.

All along I planned to wait until age two to start vaxing--we are coming to that age.

Anyone else in this boat? Suggestions? Assuming you believe in the efficacy of vaccines in the first place, which do you think are definitely more dangerous than they are worth?

Thanks guys.

[covertlycrunchy]

In the same boat & rapidly approaching the 2yr mark ourselves, which was when we were going to start vaxing. I'm most concerned about contracting measles as a disease. Yes, encephalopathy can occur w/ the vax or the disease but it is *much* rarer with the vax. I'm approaching this by asking myself which diseases have great negative consequences vs vaccination & which is she likely to get.
Our list:
Measles (would have to be the MMR since the single dose isn't available here)
DT (diptheria & tetanus)
IPV for polio.

Pretty much the old schedule minus pertussis.

[germin8]

I recommend Dr. Sears alternative vaccines schedule and reading his book thevaccinebook.com.

Someone we know is not planning to vaccinate chickenpox vaccine since "everyone" gets it - vaccinated or not. I thought that was a good idea. Something to think about.

[becca_howell]

We haven't vax'd DS (18m) and stopped vax'ing DD (3) at 15 months. We said we'd re-evaluate when DD was 2 years, but I didn't want to do anything at the time because DS was only 5 months. I think I'm gonna re-read The Vaccine Book and re-evaluate our position. It may not change what we do, especially with the MMR and CP vax (moral issues with those). Honestly, I doubt we'll end up doing any vax'ing because A. we're TTC and we'll have another little unvax'd one soon hopefully and B. it seems to me that the medical field treats us as an "all or nothing" crowd. When I tried to delay some vax with DD, her pediatrician tried to discredit my position and push me into doing more vax at a time.

[xmasbaby7]

Just to make sure we are on the same page, not every vaccine's efficacy is alike.

The ones that I believe actually work best are the live vaccines for MMR and chickenpox, but I don't think it is in our family's interest to vaccinate for those.

It would be great if the p component of the Dtap for pertussis actually worked, but I think it is a big joke. It continues to peak in the same every five year cycle, and with the overwhelming misdiagnosis of it, I can't say it offers much for public health.

The Hib and Prevnar vaccines don't sell me either, because we are just forcing an acceleration of new strains. I would say I am surprised that anyone thought they were good ideas, but then I am constantly disgusted at the misuse and abuse of antibiotics by physicians and patients.

I had planned to begin vaccinating at 2, too, at least selectively, and I kept looking for that one vaccine I felt great about. I never found it.

Some people on here will say that none of the benefits outweigh the risks, and I agree with that, but I am not one who fears that a vaccine would chance my child overnight. I am a realist for both the number of severe adverse reactions from vaccines as well as serious complications that could arise from vaccine preventable illnesses, and I think neither outcome is statistically likely for my family.

I have no study to back this up, but now that my child is five, I have seen what an unhampered immune system can do compared to our vaccinated peers, and it comes down to not wanting to fix what isn't broken. I don't think the benefit of temporary and possible immunity to measles or chicken pox, for example, (both of which I think my child would be fine with healing through) is worth developing some one of the skyrocketing autoimmune issues for the rest of our lives.

Good luck with your decisions!

[poppan]

I was in that boat and finally did my research around the 2 yo mark. I too did not have a background in science or statistics, so I didn't read the studies. I made a chart with each vaccination down one column. In a second column I wrote down what I found out about the disease itself -- what the complications are, what the risk of having those complications are, and what the chances of getting the disease in the first place are. In the third column I wrote down what I found out about the vaccine -- complications and risk of getting them.

As my sources I used the CDC "pink book" initially (available as PDFs on the CDC website). Later on I branched out to the CDC's "MMWR surveillance" reports (google "MMWR surveillance" + the disease name). The pink book quotes statistics that turned out to come from the surveillance summaries, and the surveillance summary is of course in itself a summary. The surveillance reports seemed to me to have less "spin" than the pink book chapters, although the pink book already has less spin than the stuff they give out for laypeople consumption. The Sears Vaccine book was a big help too.

One thing about measles. In my pedi's office it says the death rate from measles is 1 in 1,000. I believe that is the statistic from the last big measles outbreak in the US, in '89-'91 (?). However if you look at the historical death rate in the US and the current death rate in Europe (Germany etc) it is more like 1 in 9,000. My understanding is that the last outbreak in the US was mismanaged and they did things like give fever reducers to the children, and the mismanagement (because they hadn't encountered measles for so long) caused the higher death rate.

[Emmeline II]

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? (Vaccines may not 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:

Vaccines: The Risks, The Benefits, The Choices 1/18DVD, By Sherri J. TENPENNY


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://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pin...ses&deaths.pdf

Health Sentinel Graphs

WHO GRAPH

Vaccine Injury Table

Beyond Conformity Resources Page
Do you have a quick-fire summary?

Inside Vaccines

Mothering: Ending the War on Disease
http://www.mothering.com/health/heal...m-just-growing

[junipermoon]

oh you mamas are so wonderful. so much better about keeping a clear head with this stuff than me. thank you for your thoughts.

emelline II thank you for this list of questions, I think it will be so helpful.

someone in another thread basically wrote that their statistics prof told them: don't trust a study unless you had access to all the raw data and ran the numbers yourself--my h basically feels the same.

this leaves me in a conundrum. i am just so confused! I have my mom telling me I am *nuts* to be considering injecting proven poisons into my babe; she probably right is my gut feeling. then have the er doc and the ped telling me I am *nuts* (in gentler terms) not to vax. then I have my h who is perpetually on the fence about all of it.

last night I dreamed that I was trying to crawl up out of a deep/steep embankment, but everytime I got close to the top, the grass and dirt I was clawing at gave way and I fell back down. at the bottom of the embankment was a mcdonalds restaurant. this so exemplifies my life right now! McCulture is so fast and easy and falsely tasty, "100,000 vaxes at once are safe!" Then, going against the grain can be so hard, and what if, what if I am making the wrong decision to keep on avoiding/refusing the vaxes? Ugh.

But thank you all so, so much for your thoughts. Sorry for my rant!

[Juvysen]

I know how you feel. I guess my take so far is that once I do it, I can't take it back... but I can always decide to vaccinate later. Seems like most diseases are managable with modern medicine and the rates of contracting it are small. With some of the diseases you can be vaccinated when you think there's a risk of contracting it (or use TIG, for instance). I guess I feel like most of what I hear from the pro vax side is fearmongering. Oh, and the other thing is - be careful who you're listening to. Follow the money. For instance "100,000 vaxes at once are safe..." that's Dr. Offit... who holds a patent on a vaccine. Conflict of interest? Perhaps...

[mamadelbosque]

Hi there, I'm kinda in your boat, I always kinda thought at some point we'd probably get ds1 some of the vax. But he's 3.5 now and starting preschool in another week... and I just don't see the point. The one and only vax that I still think about is DT for the tetanus portion, and one way or another I could see getting it. But otherwise? Theres just nothing I'm scared of in the least.

[mkmoro311]

If your child is unvaxed at 2yrs their immune system is way ahead of the majority of theose 2 yr olds who are vaxed. Those vaxed kids are more likely to get the symptoms of disease then your kid at this point. And that is what is to be remembered. Vaxes don't prevent you from getting the disease only helps lesson the symptoms.

[mattemma04]

I think it would be better to wait with vaccines till you pass the common age where autism crops up(or is dxed) otherwise they will say the autism was always there.

Also,I feel it is better to wait till the child can better communicate what they are feeling following vaccination.

And one vaccine at a time makes it somewhat easier to pin point possible causes for any reaction/injury that may occur.

Best wishes and good health!