Its not just a personal choice - Page 8

[tonttu]

Originally Posted by Bokonon 

Your posts continue to be offensive and grossly inaccurate.

I've done thousands of hours of research.  Did you know that the smallpox vaccine was responsible for causing smallpox and killing many recipients?

It is absolutely not a "known fact" that if you don't have a fever, you won't suffer an adverse reaction from a vaccine.  Not at all.  That is absolutely preposterous.  A vaccine is a drug like any other, and adverse reactions happen all the time.  Why do you think there are vaccine information sheets about possible and known adverse reactions if they don't happen in healthy patients?  How dare you assert that those of us who have WATCHED our children have reactions are lying?  When we've had doctors agree that our children have vaccine injuries?

A germ bomb?  You've got to be kidding.  You have no idea what you are talking about.

Really ? Did you also know , that smallpox ALSO killed thousands ?

Of course , there are risks to everything , but that is like saing " I won´t take antibiotics , because it MAY have side effects "

The fact , however , remains , that the benefits far outweigh the risks !

For those , who don´t know , I have a severely handicapped child as well , but there is no way in hell , that on top of all the other problems he has , I would deny him vaccines , it is especially crucial in his case , that he remains as healthy as possible .

[Bokonon]

Originally Posted by tonttu 

Really ? Did you also know , that smallpox ALSO killed thousands ?

Of course , there are risks to everything , but that is like saing " I won´t take antibiotics , because it MAY have side effects "

The fact , however , remains , that the benefits far outweigh the risks !

For those , who don´t know , I have a severely handicapped child as well , but there is no way in hell , that on top of all the other problems he has , I would deny him vaccines , it is especially crucial in his case , that he remains as healthy as possible .

As a matter of fact, I did know that.  Are you saying that the thousands of people who were sickened and died from the smallpox vaccine don't matter?  That they were lucky to not have had to get smallpox?

It is your personal opinion that the benefits outweigh the risks.  Many of us do not feel that way, especially considering there are no long-term studies about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine schedule.  What we inject into our infants now may have dire consequences decades from now.

You think that vaccines make you healthy.  I disagree.  My great-grandparents who lived into their 90s would have disagreed as well.  Do you keep older people away from your children because they have not been immunized against everything that is on the current vaccine schedule?  

Edited by Bokonon - 8/18/12 at 4:38pm

[Mirzam]

Originally Posted by tonttu 

Really ? Did you also know , that smallpox ALSO killed thousands ?

Of course , there are risks to everything , but that is like saing " I won´t take antibiotics , because it MAY have side effects "

The fact , however , remains , that the benefits far outweigh the risks !

For those , who don´t know , I have a severely handicapped child as well , but there is no way in hell , that on top of all the other problems he has , I would deny him vaccines , it is especially crucial in his case , that he remains as healthy as possible .

Sigh, more smallpox revisionist history. Antibiotics don't "MAY" have side effects, they ALWAYS have side effects in that they destroy all bacteria, "good and bad" and should only be used when absolutely necessary. Alexander Flemming was very clear to say they should only be used in life threatening cases. Lastly, for the nth time, vaccines DO NOT CONFER GOOD HEALTH, they create dubious humoral antibodies and many, many health problems.

[Imakcerka]

Didn't say that.  I just find the divisiveness ridiculous.  This is the same argument over and over and over.  It's tired. 

[Mirzam]

Originally Posted by Imakcerka 

Didn't say that.  I just find the divisiveness ridiculous.  This is the same argument over and over and over.  It's tired.

This we can agree on.

[fruitfulmomma]

Smallpox isn't even on the the schedule anymore, except for at-risk populations like military personel. Why is that? Perhaps because the risks outweigh the benefitsfor the general population??? We know that it sheds and spreads the disease, especially to people with certain health conditions such as eczema. The cdc itself lists eczema as a contradiction for smallpox vax for *anyone* residing in the same household with someone who has ever been diagnosed with it. That is a pretty significant portion of the population who would be at risk from the *vax*.

And antibiotics, yeah some of us prefer other methods of dealing with infection in most cases. I've dealt with numerous cases of mastitis w/o needing to resort to them. Only 3 of my 6 kids have needed them, a total of 6 times in 12+ years. 

Tetanus, well my kids are not in the at-risk population (elderly and diabetics) and we practice proper would care. If they received an injury that put them at risk for it we would get tig. My daughter sliced her finger open and the er did not even ask about it. Considering the number of rabid animals found in our immediate area this year, I am more concerned about it than tetanus or pertussis or anything else on the vpd schedule. 

[pers]

Originally Posted by fruitfulmomma 

Smallpox isn't even on the the schedule anymore, except for at-risk populations like military personel. Why is that? Perhaps because the risks outweigh the benefitsfor the general population??? We know that it sheds and spreads the disease, especially to people with certain health conditions such as eczema. The cdc itself lists eczema as a contradiction for smallpox vax for *anyone* residing in the same household with someone who has ever been diagnosed with it. That is a pretty significant portion of the population who would be at risk from the *vax*.

And antibiotics, yeah some of us prefer other methods of dealing with infection in most cases. I've dealt with numerous cases of mastitis w/o needing to resort to them. Only 3 of my 6 kids have needed them, a total of 6 times in 12+ years. 

Tetanus, well my kids are not in the at-risk population (elderly and diabetics) and we practice proper would care. If they received an injury that put them at risk for it we would get tig. My daughter sliced her finger open and the er did not even ask about it. Considering the number of rabid animals found in our immediate area this year, I am more concerned about it than tetanus or pertussis or anything else on the vpd schedule. 

Absolutely the risks of the smallpox vaccine (probably the most dangerous vaccine ever in widespread use for humans) outweighs the risks of a disease that now only exists in a few frozen samples.  Just to clarify, you can not get or spread smallpox from the smallpox vaccine.  The vaccine actually infects you with vaccinia, a disease that is closely enough related to smallpox that immunity to it also protects against smallpox.  Vaccinia usually says localized to the vaccination area and can be covered with a bandage, but occasionally it can spread to other parts of the body or to other people.  While usually it is an extremely mild disease, it can in rare cases be serious or even deadly, but it kills even less often than chickenpox does.  

In the early days when vaccination occurred by taking puss directly from one person and inserted on a wound on another, or later when it was grown on a wound on a cow and the same instrument would have been used to cut many people to insert the disease probably not being sterilized that well (or maybe at all at times) between uses, I have no trouble believing that the vaccination process may, at times, have spread smallpox (if someone was already infected the people vaccinated after them could  be at risk) as well as all sorts of other communicable disease.  But in today's world of carefully controlled manufacture and alcohol wipes and disposable needles, that is extremely unlikely to happen - it would take deliberate sabotage or health care workers intentionally breaking the rules and re-using single use instruments.  

At the same time they started vaccinating military and key medical personal, they also were worrying about stockpiles of vaccine and making sure they had enough to vaccinate everyone if the need arose.  I'm not sure of the wisdom of vaccinating even military personnel with just a theoretical risk, and no way would we have gotten it for us or our kids if had been offered to the general population.  But if smallpox actually were to be used in germ warfare and began to spread again, my family would be lining up for the vaccine. 

That is awesome that your kids haven't needed vaccines very often.  Mine haven't either - out of three kids, with an eldest who is nine, only my middle son has had antibiotics, though he did have them twice.  I'm not sure if you would have thought any of mine needed them though, since I accepted the antibiotics the doctor offered on the first day of an ear infection rather than waiting to see if it cleared up on its own, and I'm sure some here would have suggested I try to treat is impetigo with tea tree oil or honey instead of going directly to oral antibiotics.  My fully vaxed kids are reasonably healthy, but I don't think them exceptionally so (only one ear infection out of all three of them, but they do get the occasional cold and have a few stomach bugs each), and find little value in comparing the number of times antibiotics were used or how many time a person has had strep or whatever, or anecdotes in general.  Good nutrition and healthy living certainly is important, but a lot of it comes down to luck and what you happen to be exposed to & how much of an exposure you get, and the internal structure of the ears make some small children extremely prone to ear infections while other kids have little chance of getting them - ear structure is among the things you can't control.  

[Mirzam]

For anyone interested in learning a bit more about the history of smallpox than the revisionist history taught in schools and parroted in the media, I highly recommend reading this article by researcher Jennifer Craig, BSN, MA, PhD, Smallpox Vaccine: Origins of Vaccine Madness. For those that believe that smallpox only exists in government labs, sorry it is still alive and well and infecting humans today.  There is more on smallpox/monkey pox in Suzanne Humphries MD's article "Herd Immunity", The flawed science and failures of mass vaccination.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

I am currently going through this thread and removing insulting and personal attacks.  Again, please debate the post, not the poster.  People's access to threads will be removed if they can not stick to the UA. 

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

Bokonon-

Please remove the last line of your post.  It is a personal attack. 

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by stik 

How nice for you. It must be great to have the healthiest kids on the block.
Didn't we have this conversation in the Case for Vax thread just about a month ago? Is there a time limit now on how long we can go without someone using the words "survival of the fittest" and then acting surprised when other people get upset?

I must have missed this earlier.

This did not happen. No one used the words "survival of the fittest." in that thread.  Reread the final few pages of the Case for vaccination if you like - it is locked, it cannot be edited.  

Edited by kathymuggle - 8/18/12 at 1:18pm

[fruitfulmomma]

Okay, it spreads *a* disease, not smallpox proper, still it is enough of a risk that the cdc warns about it and it is contrindicated in a significant portion of the population. My points being 1) that vax can spread disease contrary to what op stated and 2) vaxxes can be removed from the schedule when it is determined that the risks outweight the benefits for the general population. Why then is it wrong for me as a parent to decide that the risks of other vaxxes outweigh the benecits for my child and opt out of it without being attacked and told that we are killing our children as well as others?

[kathymuggle]

db post - sorry

[kathymuggle]

dbl post.

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by Imakcerka 

  I just find the divisiveness ridiculous.  

I don't see it ending any time soon.  

On this thread alone, non vaxxers have been accused of eugenics, racism and extreme selfishness.  2 or 3 of the posters have done most of the accusing, but they got a lot of thumbs up.

That is not something people dismiss.

(and before anyone complains that non-vaxxer throw insults too, forget about it. "Not crunchy enough for MDC" and "sheeple" are hardly in the same category as eugenic racist.)

_________

Edit to add:  I know not all pro-vaxxers think like this.

Edited by kathymuggle - 8/18/12 at 2:02pm

[Imakcerka]

Originally Posted by kathymuggle 

I don't see it ending any time soon.  

On this thread alone, non vaxxers have been accused of eugenics, racism and extreme selfishness.  2 or 3 of the posters have done most of the accusing, but they got a lot of thumbs up.

That is not something people dismiss.

(and before anyone complains that non-vaxxer throw insults too, forget about it. "Not crunchy enough for MDC" and "sheeple" are hardly in the same category as eugenic racist.)

I really don't care.  What's that point?  If someone states something that is not definitive however really makes you take a step back and think, yay.  But that rarely happens here anyway.

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by Imakcerka 

 If someone states something that is not definitive however really makes you take a step back and think, yay.  But that rarely happens here anyway.

A respectful environment is a foundation for good debate and discussion - that is how we are going to get to the point where people really discuss things  and people challenge each others ideas in a good way.  We are all responsible for what we say and how we say it - but I think there is too much water under the bridge at this point on this forum.  I think there is a tipping point with posting - most forums can handle one or two nasty posters, but we are past a tipping point.    Personally, I would like to see some heavy modding on this forum, even if just for a few months.  

[Turquesa]

Before I get jumped on (we vax for all of the scary things that media like to allude to, e.g. measles, pertussis, polio), I have to say that the selfishness argument works both ways.  You could also argue that it’s selfish to expect every parent under the sun to vaccinate their children--despite all known risks and despite the glaring dearth of independent, longitudinal, placebo-controlled research on the current vaccine schedule--just so that YOU can feel psychologically comforted that YOUR child will never catch these diseases.

Outraged Mom, there are more productive places to direct your outrage.  You could first demand that drug companies start developing a more effective vaccine for pertussis, since we now know that it is vaccine failure that is contributing to the recent outbreaks.  Second, you can demand more honesty and transparency from corporations like Merck, which is currently being sued for publicly exaggerating the effectiveness of its mumps vaccine. 

Finally, trying to appeal to utilitarian ethics to guilt parents into complying with the CDC schedule simply won’t work.  Someone *might* end up feeling like crap, but I’m guessing that they’re more likely to resent your finger-wagging than rush out to get all of those vaccines. 

On some level, we all make utilitarian choices “for the greater good” every day.  I love Thai food and my family hates it.  So we never go out for Thai food…a small sacrifice I make to keep the family reasonably happy.  Also, I actually opted for the measles vax because I’d hate to be responsible for my children spreading this disease. But this kind of altruism needs to be *voluntary* (which is why I oppose everything from vaccine mandates to the military draft, i.e. forcing people to fight for “the greater good” of their country) and certainly not the result of someone else’s mean-spirited guilt trip.

[Turquesa]

If you've got a link, I'd love to see it. 

Originally Posted by TorreyMomma 

 However, over 70% of FDA funding comes from the very pharmaceutical companies they are supposed to be supporting, so I can understand the confusing and misleading literature on vaccine safety.

[Bokonon]

Originally Posted by QueenOfTheMeadow 

Bokonon-

Please remove the last line of your post.  It is a personal attack. 

I will, but I honestly cannot see how that can be considered a personal attack whatsoever.