Newbie here, need some support!

[firqueen]

I've been lurking since yesterday and really feel I've found my home.  I have twin toddlers who I have not vaccinated at all yet. I have a grown child who did get most of the vaccines (except pertussis as he had a bad reaction to the first one).  He now has asthma. I will always wonder if there is a connection since we have no history of asthma in our families. My pediatrician is being cool so far but I know she is unhappy with my decision and her boss leans on her really hard (talk about a pro vax Nazi, omg) in these matters.  

Okay, anyway, I'm an RN who worked only with adults, not kids, retired for many years so a little bit rusty, and I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to vaccines and childhood diseases, I'm still learning. My medical background comes in handy in some unexpected ways, such as, that I know doctors and scientists make mistakes and engage in cover ups all the time, I know what big pharma is all about, and I can probably read medical literature a little easier than those who don't have a medical background. But beyond that, as I said, I'm still learning along with the rest of you. Where it becomes a real liability is when people find out we aren't vaccinating, then it's "And you call yourself a NURSE?"  Then the shaming and belittling and general intimidation comes in. I'm pretty scrappy and can defend myself but have to admit, this is getting tiresome. I've had doctors online and in real life accuse me of misleading lay people when I ought to know better, etc.

Lately I've stopped telling people IRL. I do get drawn into some cyberspace brawls on the subject though. I'm kind of surprised at how divisive this issue is. There is simply NO discussing it reasonably. We on the cautious side are accused of fearmongering but in reality, it's the pro vax side that is engaging in fearmongering and wow they have done a bang up job on the public because many people think that if you refuse to vaccinate your kids, you are on the same level as a murderer. I have a friend, who is a pediatric nurse, who doesn't vaccinate and she was point blank called a murderer by someone she thought was a friend.

I have made a decision to stay off the topic except in a supportive environment, like here. Maybe I will take up the battle flag again when I feel a bit more knowledgeable and secure. I've been reading NVIC's website and I read Dr. Stephanie Cave's book as well as Dr. Sears' book on autism.  I have a couple of questions for the ladies here - do we have any immunologists and neurologists on our side? Because the pro vax fascists make mincemeat of Dr. Tenpenney for being a DO and Dr. Cave for being a lowly pediatrician.  Any other advice or support is appreciated. Glad I found you!  Oh, and p.s., I do feel insecure about not vaccinating but I feel even more insecure about vaccinating, which is why we rejected out of hand the current schedule and recommendations. I may selectively vaccinate at school age. I haven't decided yet. For now, I think I belong here in this forum.

[ssun5]

Hi welcome!

I have lurked on this board for a long time and only posted a few times. WE have had different medical prof come and go through here at different times and you can find them around, they just have to be really careful as normally once you make a stance on Vaccination, you no longer have a career. Some have even had to go into hiding.

:-) Glad to see you made it here though!

[firqueen]

Thank you for the warm welcome!

I am not a bit surprised that the medical community ostracizes any doctor who can't go along with vaccines due to  his/her conscience. How sad, though. 

I really do believe it is only a matter of time before the truth will be known.

[twinsplusone]

Hi fellow 'retired' nurse with twins!

I have found many of the same things as you.  A few people in my closer circles know I do not vax.  Most of the time I do not bring it to anyones attention unless they specifically ask me a question about questioning their own choices.

I also chalk up a lot of peoples anger about vaccines to thier own personal fears of the choices they have made.  None us wants to be faced with feeling we did something wrong by our children, whether it be not vaccinating & they come down with some VPD & either have a very hard go of it or God forbid die.............just as those who DO vax & their child has a SEVERE reaction or end up dying of 'SIDS' a day or 2 after they get thier vax.  Know what I mean?  Nonetheless it is very exhausting/tiresome mentally.

When it can be difficult is when people constantly say  WHY are there SO many peanut/food allergies, asthma, ADD/ADHD, Autism, cancers in young people, fertility issues.......the list goes on & on. Well, I try to asses the situation/person & decide to say how I really feel, or just say........hmmm I dont know, but a lot of things have changed since 'we' were little.

As far as Immunologists here, I dont know, but I will say that after I left our first ped/got kicked out for stopping vaxing, the new ped, like yours was not thrilled with my decision & we tolerated each other for quite some time, & I jumped through some of his hoops.  One of them was to see an immunologist.  At my consultation with her, in the end, she told me with the history we have, if they were her kids, she would never vaccinate them. Doesnt mean she would say the same to everyone, but it really helped me to feel validated in my choices.

I have found this to be a great supportive site.  I remember when I first found it, I was SOOOO excited, I called my mom saying OMG OMG you wont believe this!! LOL

[Marnica]

Hi and welcome :)

I don't discuss my sons vaccination status with anyone (except those people that are supportive and share my views). Frankly it is none of anyone's business. It is a medical choice we have made and we don't discuss other medical choices so why would this be any different.

I have found that the ones who criticize the loudest and have the most horrible things to say to parents who don't vax are the ones that know the least about the subject. I have encountered many provax parents that have done a ton of research and found for the most part (there are always exceptions and they usually seem to be the ones in the medical field!) that while they disagree with not vaccinating, they are respectful that other parents may make a different choice and they are certainly not going around calling them murderers.

Anyway I'm not big on debates. I know what I know after many long years of research and will always remian open to soemthing if it changes - but I don't need to be engaging with closed minded people in real life or on the interenet so most of the time I just don't allow myself to get sucked in (cause that's what they want BTW). Once in a blue moon I can't help myself and I ALWAYS end up regretting it!

[firqueen]

Thanks for the welcome! Maybe we'll talk about being retired nurses someday and what all that brings up. I don't know your history so not sure why the immunologist told you that but very glad you found such a doctor.  When I was asking if we had any immunologists or neurologists on our side, I didn't necessarily mean posting on this site, but rather, leaders speaking out about the issues involved. The main leaders are pediatricians and family practice physicians. It would help bolster our arguments to have such specialists, I think. But maybe none of them are brave enough to risk being blackballed, which is what would surely happen.

[firqueen]

Marnica, exactly. I get drawn into these arguments and always regret it.  I would never say anything to anyone who chose to vax, so why do they feel they have the right to excoriate me for my decision? That's when I end up getting into arguments either online or in real life, but have to learn to just walk away and not engage. Sometimes with the online situations, I feel responsible to those readers who are either on the fence or who maybe have never heard that there is another option, and I want to be the voice for that. But lately I feel I am just not up for taking the beating.

[miriam]

. 

Edited by miriam - 5/28/12 at 9:11pm

[firqueen]

That is going to be my new MO for people in real life. I just don't have the energy to deal with it. Meanwhile they can go on taking their kids to this autism specialist and that and if they never want to question WHY everyone they know has a kid with autism, well, not my business either.

[Chloebelle]

Welcome!!!

Ya, I just had a talk with my DH today about making sure he doesn't talk about our kid's vax status with any parents at school. We're pretty open about our lives in general, and have no problems talking about not vaccinating to our family and close friends, but I do not want my children being treated any different because of it, and I know some parents (like a PP said, usually the uneducated ones), can be really judgemental towards non-vaxers.

Speaking of autism, I can't believe many people I talk to these days who have a child with autism. It's really shocking. How can people not see that something is very wrong in our society?

[firqueen]

Thanks Chloebelle. Yeah, I can't understand the level of denial that is in operation these days. I guess it shows how revered doctors are and how easily duped people are.  I was fully intending to vaccinate our twins until we had our "getting to know you" appt. with the peds and I learned they were now giving Hep B to newborn infants not even one day old.  Anyone remember the pop song "things that make you go 'hmmmmm . . .'?"   I started researching everything after that. Now I'm not sure if I will ever vaccinate at all.  Talk about a 180 degree turn.  If the pharma folks weren't so greedy and impatient, they might have been able to keep my business, but they blew it.

[sleeveless]

Firqueen,

First of all, I would listen to some of these posters and keep quiet about your children's vaccine status. It's no one's business but your own.

I feel helpless when I talk with parents of autistic kids, and see them hauling their kids off to be vaccinated, and then off to various therapies. I used to try to offer my opinion, but now I keep my mouth shut. Parents do not want to be enlightened. They want assurance that what they are doing is the right thing. I know this because I am guilty of this.

I vaccinated my children until one of my children became ill. And then I started looking for answers, and realized that the doctors I'd previously revered were probably responsible for my child's illness. Vaccines and antibiotics are part of the problem, autoimmune diseases in my family and environmental toxins are another part.

My child is now cured, no thanks to the traditional doctors, you know, the ones who HATE you for stopping vaccinating. I was kicked out of two practices for stopping vaccinating. I now have a traditional pediatrician who at least allows me in the practice despite my decision to stop vaccinating, and to selectively vaccinate. This may change, and I'm prepared to get kicked out of this practice as well.

It is so frustrating when people don't listen to reason. Just a few days ago I listened to a group of very intelligent, educated people go off like maniacs about the "crazy" people who don't vaccinate. I listened in silence as they ranted, using completely incorrect facts as "proof" to support their opinion that people who question the safety of vaccines are wackos.

Someday, when my children are all grown, I will begin telling people what I think. I'm pretty good at arguing, and it frustrates me to sit on my hands over and over again as the vaccine boosters (no pun intended!) go completely crazy ranting and raving about the dangers posed by crazy people (like me!) who question the vaccine practices in place in the U.S. in 2011.

I firmly believe the epidemic of autism, ADHD, allergies, asthma, various learning disabilities and related disorders is due to the large numbers of toxins we as mothers and our children are exposed to, including the toxins in vaccines. The concern about toxins in vaccines is that they are injected directly into very young babies, often in doses that are not tested adequately for long-term negative effects.

You often hear the argument that the quantity of antigens (I hope I have that right) is far lower in current vaccines, so there is no way these vaccines could be the culprit in autism, etc. That may be true, yet I don't believe the antigens themselves are the problem. I think it's the adjuvants in vaccines, such as mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde and others, that cause the problems in children, not the antigens (by that I mean the chicken pox virus, measles virus, etc.). Because so many vaccines are given to children now, they receive much larger doses of these adjuvants than they did previously.

Of course no one is testing this theory, so for the moment it's only a theory, but I'm not the only one who thinks this. Some doctors I've talked to are starting to come around to this viewpoint, but they will say so only in hushed tones, and will disagree violently in any public forum, lest they be ostracized from the medical community. The reach of Big Pharma and its Big Money as well as Big Medicine (ie the major medical institutions and organizations, AAP, AMA, etc.) is enormous and immensely powerful. Hence my decision to stay underground until my children are adults. It's not worth it to fight with people who do not question conventional wisdom, even if that "wisdom" has been produced by Big Pharma and Big Medicine working together to support each others interests.

FWIW, my neighbor is a nurse who doesn't vaccinate. She came to this decision after a lot of research. She's very quiet about it because she doesn't want to lose her job. You are not alone.

[kathymuggle]

Welcome!

[firqueen]

Sleeveless, thanks a lot for your post. It means a lot to me and I love to hear of other RNs who are not vaccinating. Like you, I've just learned to sit on my hands and it's very hard.

I hope that the truth comes out very soon and that big pharma has egg on its face when all is said and done. I can just see a Hollywood movie made out of this, along the lines of The Informant.  I can only imagine how many pediatricians are out there who know what's going on and feel they can't say anything. What an awful position to be in.

KathyMuggle, thanks for the welcome! I'm really glad I found you all.

[bygones75]

hey,

I just wanted to say welcome, give you a cyber hug, and tell you to hang in there.  I find that when my decision to stop vaxing is hurting in real life, I come here. Even when I don't post, it's comforting to be around others who have made this educated choice.

I wish I had arrived earlier, and taken the advice many have given you about not sharing your choice with others (unless you knew ahead of time they are supportive.)  I've lost half of my family as a result of not vaxing.  I try not to blame myself, but it still makes me sad.  Fear is a very powerful thing, and it make people act in irrational ways.

My first child had horrid vaccine reactions and is now mildly autistic.  I cannot go back in time, but I'm glad I stopped when I did and that my second son is unvaxed.  Every day is a challenge with Thomas, but we undertake it with love and keep moving forward.

I give you kudos for your courage and your willingness to keep learning. 

hugs,

Suz

[draigunfly]

I was to scared to indroduce foreign bodies "vaccines' to such a small new person! At first i was totally against Vaccines, but then i did decide to have him receive the tetnus shot only because tetnus can do damage and kill quickly, and hes one of the crazy jumping off of things, and always trying to play with dangerous objects type of child, and I just couldn't make myself risk that! However that is the only one i'm doing, the rest i refuse!

I personally don't really know any other parents who have chosen the same path, and it's impossible to talk to my friends that are strickly provacs! it can be really annoying!

I'm glad you found a place that you can feel comfortable to talk about things that matter to you most!