If you choose not to vaccinate based on your research, how do you get access to full-text...

[macy]

My husband and I have always worked at universities so we have always had access to journal articles from home or work. I am curious what others do. Do you go to medical school libraries and photocopy articles in your spare time or stick to reading what you can find hassle-free online?

ETA: I do vaccinate.

[Marnica]

Some articles are avaliable in their entirety online. some for free and some for a fee. I have paid for access to some studies.

I live relatively near a University and went there quite a bit with my friend who was a student there....admittedly I have not been in quite some time. I went more when I started my research.

Ive also been able to obtain things through interliberary loan

[SuburbanHippie]

I have online access through my college. 

[Ldavis24]

Originally Posted by Marnica 

Some articles are avaliable in their entirety online. some for free and some for a fee. I have paid for access to some studies.

I live relatively near a University and went there quite a bit with my friend who was a student there....admittedly I have not been in quite some time. I went more when I started my research.

Ive also been able to obtain things through interliberary loan

This pretty much. I have paid for a few and have had enough friends still in various college's to take advantage of their access to university libraries. Also I look at the local picture in my vax decision. How prevalent are the diseases in my area that my doc wants me to vax DD for? What is the likelihood of her catching one of these based on our lifestyle etc.... What I found from that was the reality is that she very unlikely to catch a VPD that I would truly be concerned about her catching. I am not afraid of her getting measles or mumps or even pertussis, same with rotavirus so that is something to take into consideration. If I lived in the middle of India I think I would definitely be considering the location in a very serious way when I make my decisions. 

[hildare]

in general, wherever you have a library nearest you, or one you regularly use, they should have access to at least one good, general database.  Some of the common ones are Academic Search or Proquest (there are several versions, depending on what the library paid for).  Both your public library or your college library should have on-site access, and most public libraries should let you have a password based upon your public library card.  With the password you can work from home or wherever.  Hopefully you could just phone the closest library and speak with a librarian about access to full-text journal article databases.  :) 

ETA:  There are also some full-text open access journals you can search through at www.doaj.org  

ETA again:  If this is a how do I personally access question, then, that's easy.. i'm a librarian :)  and, yes, i've read many studies, and no, we don't vax.

[chaoticzenmom]

When I was a university student 2003 to 2006, I did do some research using the databases that we had access to at that time.  I don't remember finding anything extremely significant about vaccines, mostly about auto-immune disorders and how they are triggered and on what genes, etc.  At the time, vaccines weren't on my radar because I had 2 kids, we used a regular pediatrician and we vaccinated.  It wasn't until I started seeing a naturapathic doctor that I stopped.   So, my not vaccinating is mostly based on her research.  Naturapathic doctors in Washington are real doctors who can prescribe drugs and have their own practices.  Their major difference is that their education is more about prevention. Since then, I've followed reference links in articles, but that's about it. 

How much research does one do when they decide TO vaccinate?    I should have done more research before I vaccinated my first two children. That would have made more sense.  I wonder now, how I looked at the list of possible side effects and just signed on the line, certain that those things only happen to other people. 

[crunchy_mommy]

I'm just curious -- why is this directed only to those that don't vax?

Anyway, the university I attended has a database to search through -- the results allow access to the full text for a huge number of journals. For other publications, sometimes I just read the abstract and don't feel compelled to even look at the full-text... and sometimes I am able to get the full text free through other databases as well, with just a little effort. I rely a ton on my library as well.