We would like to come to any pox party within driving distance, for our unvaxed younger kids. We live in Seattle but are willing to drive.
Thanks much!
PS If anyone's interested in helping get started some sort of notification email system going for such parties, please let me know.
You can get chickenpox, measles, pertussis, malaria and may more for your child. Take your child to Africa. And the big bonus of chickenpox is that your child can get shingles later.
Yes, I am being fascitious. But it is true, if you believe that the diseases are good, head to Africa. They are still there in abundance.
nursesusan--
You may be interested that some doctors see quite a bit of evidence that the chickenpox vaccine is actually causing the recent rise in shingles cases, a rise which coincides with the mass-use of the vaccine. You can read a related article and explanation at
And why would I need to travel to Africa to be in a place full of diseases? In America now, we're surrounded by numerous kids who have all sorts of allergies, sensitivities, asthma, brain disfunctions, and other disabilities which were rare or nonexistent 40 years ago. Why? And why do the unvaccinated kids here have hardly any of these problems?
I stay on the lookout as well now that my youngest is old enough for it. I often check here and it's the first place I'd come to ask if anyone wanted to get it.
Quote:
In America now, we're surrounded by numerous kids who have all sorts of allergies, sensitivities, asthma, brain disfunctions, and other disabilities which were rare or nonexistent 40 years ago. Why? And why do the unvaccinated kids here have hardly any of these problems?
funnily enough the kids I'm surrounded by have tons of allergies and sensitivities and I'd say 75% of them are unvaxed. Stating that vaxed kids have more health issues is a generalization with nothing to back it up. One of the main reasons for increased issues is increased diagnosis - 40 years ago a rash was a rash, not an allergic reaction. Now it's an allergy or sensitivity. There was just autism, not the spectrum. We know so much more now and with that has come increased diagnosis.
And yes, there are a lot of diseases that are no longer an issue in the United States that have re-emerged in Africa, chicken pox not being one of them. Africa is a continent with a huge HIV+ population who is either not treated or under treated. This is a problem and has caused diseases we expected to be eradicated to re-surge. So, another generalization.
AND you can get chicken pox in Seattle because there's a current outbreak. No international travel required. If you are planning an exposure, please make sure to keep vulnerable populations safe: babies, the elderly, adults who have not had chicken pox, pregnant women and the immune compromised. You can do this be observing a strict 21 day quarantine, including no visits to any public places - the store, the park - where you could expose those populations.
Disco Infiltrator--
I also know vaxed and unvaxed kids and have an experience completely contrary to yours. The vaxed kids are the ones having asthma and serious allergies. This jibes with the research, investigation, and medical opinion I've read. Below are a few sources.
If you care to read the UPI series on searching for autism in the unvaccinated (see one installment of it at http://homefirst.com/info-1/vaccine-choice/autism-and-the-homefirst-practice.html) you'll see the following two passages, here excerpted.
"Schattauer said Homefirst's [a very large naturally-oriented clinic in Chicago at which many patients are unvaxed] patients also have significantly less childhood asthma and juvenile diabetes compared to national rates. An office manager who has been with Homefirst for 17 years said she is aware of only one case of severe asthma in an unvaccinated child."
"Several studies have found a risk of asthma from vaccination; others have not. Studies that include never-vaccinated children generally find little or no asthma in that group.
Earlier this year Florida pediatrician Dr. Jeff Bradstreet said there is virtually no autism in home-schooling families who decline to vaccinate for religious reasons -- lending credence to Eisenstein's observations."
The relatively recent book "The History of the Peanut Allergy Epidemic" also outlines the parallels between increased vaccination and increased food allergies, and gives the causative factor: peanut oil used as a medium in vaccines, and injected into infants. Very interesting reading.
In addition, a brief study of Vashon Island (WA) schools, which have a relatively high unvaxed percentage, found that 100% of peanut allergic kids were vaccinated. And of course none of the unvaxed kids were. (see http://www.avoidingmilkprotein.com/vacandpea.htm)
So, Disco Infiltrator, you can see there are a number of medical professionals and investigators that think that the rate of chronic diseases is much lower for the unvaxed. Can you cite for me any literature to the opposite, that unvaxed kids have more allergies, autism, etc?
BTW I think it would be a GREAT idea to compare health of similar-background unvaxed and vaxed kids in a large nationwide study. But it's exactly what the pharmaceutical companies don't want to happen.
Kitandkaboodle - I have no desire to cite any studies that I can warp to fit my agenda, I just found it amusing that the highest number of kids with sensitivities/allergies I've come in contact with are part of a group of parents who mostly don't vax their kids. Just my own experience.
I would point out that at one point in this society children were dying from communicable diseases, then vaccinations were developed, and kids stopped dying. I honestly don't know how people can get around that fact, but clearly large numbers have. I know what is best for MY family and I make those decisions, and we actually don't full vaccinate, but I do feel good about the choices we've made. I also think citing an office manager's experience really doesn't help your case, and I would be more convinced if the reference you provided from a handful of medical professionals - one clinic and a school on Vashon???? - came from respectable and reliable sources, not avoidingmilkprotein.com, a website that places its agenda in its name. If vaccinations were truly a threat to our society then you would see research being done by reputable institutions, but people who are true believers in the dangers of vaccines will cite conspiracy theories and the pharmaceutical industry. I am queer and somehow we get studies done about our families despite it being difficult to obtain funding, so if there were scientists who truly saw the dangers, they would find funding and put out studies. In the meantime at least we're talking about vaccine safety and getting ingredients like thimerasol out, which is a benefit of this controversy.
So until the government enforces vaccinations, and this will indeed happen once herd immunity is truly impacted, I'll vax my kid and you don't vax yours. Totally okay with me. I just found it silly to make a claim that vaxed kids are sicker than non-vaxed (a claim which I still feel is not adequately backed up) AND silly to tell someone to go to Africa to expose their kid to chicken pox. Both sides are buggin' me at this point. And I really beg you to follow the quarantine because if a member of the vulnerable population gets sick it's no casual thing and they could end up in the hospital. As someone who recently lost almost two weeks of work because my MOTHER gave me a bad cold, it's not small thing to be very sick, to lose accrued sick and vacation time. If a breast feeding mother who never had CP became sick BFing would probably end, an elderly person's chance of dying greatly increases just with admission to the hospital, which could happen if they get chicken pox, an immune compromised kid could end up hospitalized, someone with HIV or cancer could get very sick. That's what I feel passionate about - being responsible about our decisions, both yours and mine.
Disco Infiltrator--
You might be surprised to know that I'm not entirely against vaccines myself. Pretty much I'm against the overuse of them without doing realistic long-term control-group studies, something which essentially is never done. There are plenty of MDs that agree with me on this. It's true that any parent has to make a judgment call as to the risks and benefits one way or another. Good judgment comes form informing yourself as well as possible.
You might be surprised to learn that the death rates from the common vaccinable diseases plummeted during the 20th century before the introduction of mass vaccines. Basically, by 1960, kids were almost all getting measles, but they were rarely dying of it. Same could be said now about the measles vaccine: kids are almost all getting it, but are occasionally dying of it. Compound or synergistic effects of 20+ vaccines as infants/small kids might also come into play in the current risk equation. Another consideration is that these traditional illnesses may in fact have had the effect of making people stronger. Harold Buttram, MD, of Pennsylvania cites at least a couple studies which show a higher rate of asthma in those who had natural measles as opposed to those who did not.
There is really no lack of reputable studies which point to problems in the current practice of increasing mass vaccinations. All you have to do is read.
Also, I think your comparison of queer studies with vaccine studies is a naive one. There are essentially no financial motivations to skew research on queer studies, though there are certainly lingering prejudices to overcome. But there are likely hundreds of billions of dollars worth of financial motivations to skew research on vaccine studies. That's not "conspiracy theory," that's business.
I really appreciate your civil tone on this discussion.
I think many anti-vax people bring up measles and the death rate, and present it as a benign childhood disease. It's not just children dying that is an issue with vaccinations. It's the cost of care and the cost to the family. Maybe youre' a SAHM so if your kid got sick you can be at his/her bedside 24/7, so caring for a child sick with measles feels like it would be no big deal. But I'm not, I am the primary breadwinner for my family. If either of my kids were sick, I would stay home and take care of either one and end up losing my sick time, my vacation and time face possible disciplinary actions as well. A stay in the hospital would, truthfully, be devastating to our finances, and again cause me to use up my sick and vacation time, as well as reveal me as the mother-bear crazy person I am. One of my main goals is to never have my children in the grips of hospital care. What about parents who are uninsured and their children get sick? The cost of the care for these children is passed onto the tax payer, and at this time in society resources are limited. They are increasing patient loads on nurses and significantly reducing patient safety because of budget cuts, so it's really important to not burden the healthcare system with unnecessary care. (I work with adults, but I can directly report that if your family member admitted to my hospital they are less safe than they were two or three years ago and face a great risk of a negative outcome.) When so many people are going without care it's highly important to make decisions to use our resources wisely to preserve the quality of care we offer. A vaccination vs. a hospital stay, the lower cost is the vaccine.
And why do you think that measles is a innocuous childhood disease? In 2009 the WHO reported that 18 children an hour were DYING of measles. In 2008 it was the leading cause of death for children globally. Measles is clearly not a simple childhood disease but one that is easy to treat if you have adequate healthcare resources and live in a first world country. We're lucky to live in a country where the leading cause of death for our children is accidents, where we have adequate food resources, and anyone can receive adequate health care, but it has also led to an air of privilege and naivety. But clearly kids die from measles, just not kids in the US, just not OUR kids, and even that is a game of percentages. Not most of our kids or even only a few of our kids, but I'm sure they still die.
I actually share your concerns about the increasing number of vaccinations and the benefit to the pharmaceutical companies. After all, if they had their way we would establish normal ranges for things like cholesterol and BP that would require everyone to be on medications to maintain them. What I do support is the idea that mass vaccinations reduce and eliminate communicable diseases and that the trend of NOT vaccinating one's children is going to threaten herd immunity, which it will, and that some of these diseases are truly a threat to our population if they re-emerge in a wide-spread manner.
As for all these docs, doctors are people who have agendas. Since I work with this group on a regular basis, I actually put very little stock in what any one of them say. There is no standardized training for pediatricians and they basically can say whatever the hell they want, pull right out of their bottoms or right off the promotion materials from Gerber or Nestle. I refuse to take my children to a ped, currently take them to a very reasonable ND, but if I didn't make that choice I would always choose a family practice doc over a ped. They simply have too much of an agenda and I've observed this across the board. So telling ME specifically that some doctors agree with you is neither here nor there. If I cared, I could find an overwhelming number who not only agree with vaccinations but disagree with my partially vaccinating my children as well.
My point about queer studies is that people do them despite it being challenging. If there were researchers who felt strongly about the dangers of vaccines they could find a way to produce an unbiased study. BTW, queer studies are regularly questioned because they are done by queers, because we care about our population, but then they are declared to be biased, but no one else will do them, so if there isn't the risk of perceived bias the study doesn't get done. I do not doubt the reach of business, I see it every day, I just dislike the argument that any study that finds vaccinations to be safe is determined by those who don't vax to be biased which borders on conspiracy theory.
I really appreciate your civil tone on this discussion.
I think many anti-vax people bring up measles and the death rate, and present it as a benign childhood disease. It's not just children dying that is an issue with vaccinations. It's the cost of care and the cost to the family. Maybe youre' a SAHM so if your kid got sick you can be at his/her bedside 24/7, so caring for a child sick with measles feels like it would be no big deal. But I'm not, I am the primary breadwinner for my family. If either of my kids were sick, I would stay home and take care of either one and end up losing my sick time, my vacation and time face possible disciplinary actions as well. A stay in the hospital would, truthfully, be devastating to our finances, and again cause me to use up my sick and vacation time, as well as reveal me as the mother-bear crazy person I am. One of my main goals is to never have my children in the grips of hospital care. What about parents who are uninsured and their children get sick? The cost of the care for these children is passed onto the tax payer, and at this time in society resources are limited. They are increasing patient loads on nurses and significantly reducing patient safety because of budget cuts, so it's really important to not burden the healthcare system with unnecessary care. (I work with adults, but I can directly report that if your family member admitted to my hospital they are less safe than they were two or three years ago and face a great risk of a negative outcome.) When so many people are going without care it's highly important to make decisions to use our resources wisely to preserve the quality of care we offer. A vaccination vs. a hospital stay, the lower cost is the vaccine.
But there is the other side - vaccine damaged children that require a lifetime of special medicalized care. That can be a huge burden on a family and society as well. No decision or outcome is clear cut. All we can do is reasearch and make decisions that we feel are best for our children and our families.
Disco Infiltrator--
Nice inside info on peds and the current state of healthcare.
I grant you there are some parallels between queer movement and "the vaccine questioning movement". Both are minorities that are basically fighting for the right not to have to conform to some standard they don't agree with.
I also think that in some ways such a struggle is much harder when there's a multi-billion dollar industry fighting against an essentially unfunded group.
You seem to suggest twice already that there's some sort of absence of decent independent studies indicating health risks or other negatives related to vaccines. In fact, there are scores of such studies. The real questions are: why don't these studies receive much media coverage, why don't they influence public policy more, and why don't they receive follow-up funding?
You might as well ask: who pays for the TV commercials and full-page ads? Who will pull same ads if honest reporting happens? Who will fund my next research project so I can make a living? Who will pull such funding from me in the future if I don't figure out a way to jiggle the study design in a way to produce palatable results?
If making money is a "conspiracy" then I suppose the pharma industry could well be called one. There are tons of money to be made by promoting vaccines--and by maligning negative information that comes to light about them--and almost no money to be made by pursuing natural health.
So when a study calls into question some aspect of vaccines, counterstudies can easily be arranged and published. Unethical sure, but neither illegal nor a conspiracy. It's simply good business.
As you're probably aware, most research regarding pharmaceuticals is funded by the companies themselves. And you've probably read that meta-studies have confirmed notable bias in such industry funded research compared with independent research, regardless of the industry.
No surprise that it's recently come to light that some of our top public health officials and vaccine researchers are getting paid off directly by the pharma industry (and/or were quietly allowed to bilk it), see recent article on Paul Offit of the CDC et al at http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/05/22/cdc-autism-researcher-indicted-for-fraud.aspx.
Your point about the benefits of vaccines as a form of insurance against time off from work is well taken. Certainly that's increasingly a "buy in" for modern parents in two-earner households. However, as you imply, it should be something willingly engaged in, not forced. I agree with Dahlia (above) that the risks are impossible to accurately calculate. By so doing, you could be trading a likelihood of temporary convalescence in youth for a statistically higher likelihood of later chronic conditions, complications, or hospitalizations.
Regarding measles, the reason that measles was relatively more dangerous in earlier times (and I'm assuming in places like Africa now) is the presence of secondary infections caused by lack of clean public water and lack of fresh food, two factors that were also prevalent in the US a hundred years ago. By 1960, measles, along with the other then-common childhood diseases, carried very little risk.
Also regarding measles, I made a typo in my last post: I should have stated that Harold Buttram MD in his writings cites at least a couple studies that showed a LOWER incidence of asthma in people who contracted natural measles as opposed to those who did not.
In any case, D.I., I hope at least you are interested in the topic in a way that is not dismissive of people's concerns. Some years ago, I never would have dreamed of questioning vaccines. It took years of reading both sides of the issue -- while carefully watching out for prejudices in myself and others -- to arrive to the carefully considered opinions that I have today. I very much appreciate Mothering magazine as a venue which allows such discussion, rather than censoring it outright, as is often the case.
We'd love to join you, count us in!!!
Thanks!!!
Almost sure my almost 4yr old DD has chicken pox (all the symptoms except itchiness, so we did some lab work today) PM me if you're interested in a playdate this week. We live in Bellevue, WA.
Thank you so much for your message. Any other time would be great. The timing is unfortunately not going to work....so sad.
Thanks again and hoping for an easy ride for you :)
cheers,
marcy
We are also looking for a chicken pox play date in the Seattle or Tacoma area.
Almost sure my almost 4yr old DD has chicken pox (all the symptoms except itchiness, so we did some lab work today) PM me if you're interested in a playdate this week. We live in Bellevue, WA.
I'm also in Bellevue, and would like to expose my 2 youngest boys! However, I'm almost 27 weeks pregnant, and I don't know if it's safe now... 
I had chicken pox as a child, and am immune... off to search for info!
Okay, I just found information that says that pregnant women who are immune don't need to worry.
So, Loreana, if your DD does have them, let me know!
We're looking for pox also! DD is 4 and we are in the Seattle/Tacoma area.
We are also looking for a pox party in the Tacoma/Seattle area for our youngest 2 boys (5 and 7).
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