How do you decide, because any disease can scare the pants off you.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Two days ago, I was reading here, and found a post in which a mother who didn't vaccinate her child talked about how she resented the bad information which she said was given her by "anti-vaccinators".

Her child got measles, myocarditis and needed a heart transplant. I couldn't find her thread (her post was a year ago anyway...) , so did a detailed search using measles and heart transplant" and wonder if its been removed.

The issue actually incensed me somewhat and here is why.

In this country we had a case of an unvaccinated child that got complications, and the mother blamed the antivaccine lobby.

Now see, that was interesting, because what REALLY happened was she bandwaggoned on a group of her friends, to whom not vaccinating was a real informed choice.

This woman didn't do any reading of a meaningful nature. She didn't even read the package inserts or the pro-vaccine information. She would have had NO IDEA why she was vaccinating if she chose to, since EVEN that decision for her, would have been based on what "everyone" else she knew was doing.

She and I had a head to head, and I asked her a few questions like:

"Did you know that even a simple cold has the potential to kill your child from encephalitis if everything is 'right' for that to happen?" So are you going to blame everyone who doesn't vaccinate their children if that happens to yours!

And I stuck a few other curlies in front of her as well.

The REALITY is that there isn't ONE DISEASE that can't have radical serious consequences and could potentially scare the pants off you. And most of those diseases don't even have a vaccine for them.

But the medical profession don't talk about them, because there isn't a big stick they can wave at you to make you buy something to stop it.

Regardless of what your decision is, whether that is to immunise or not, it's my belief that parents have certain responsibilities before making a choice and these are what they are. And this applies to anyone who has a computer or not.

1) Read the actual package inserts and have a set at home.

2) Read the international physicians circulars.

3) Read the latest PDR.

4) Read, from the library, descriptions in orthodox text books of all the diseases for which there are vaccines with the worst case scenarios.

5) Do the same for things like colds, cold sores, and a whole range of other diseases.

THEN

Find books looking at diet, nutrition, its impact on the immune system and how to treat diseases in ways that the medical profession is oblivious to, or would like everyone to be oblivious to.

Now anyone without internet can do that.

Obviously internet opens up mouse hunting, which is slightly more broad ranging, so the FIRST SITE that any parent wanting to decide should read is the CDC site, then all the sites of the manufacturers.

Then they should look at various hospital sites, and Dr Offit's offerings.

Then they should use Pubmed.

THEN they should look at anti-vaccine sites, and antivaccine books if they want to. And obviously, here.

But this is the key to me.

It's no good blaming the medical profession if your child gets vaccine damaged, because its your responsibility to make a choice.

It's no good blaming anti-vaccine websites for not giving you the "right" information if your unvaccinated child gets a disease and complications, because making an informed choice means that you have to read both sides. And if you don't, you're doing yourself and your child a disservice.

Whatever decision you make, you have to make it on the basis of convictions. Unshakeable personal convictions for which only YOU are answerable for.

Blaming other people when something turns to custard is a cop-out.

Now, I can hear you all say... "What about mercury?"

Well, what about it? Those of us who did our research will say "Well, what about aluminium, what about viral contaminants, what about fetal DNA in the Hepatitis A and chickenpox vaccines, what about.....?"

There are a whole RAFT of things which cause vaccine damage.

I know a lot of autistic children who have NEVER had a vaccine. It's not as simple an issue as some would make it out to be. And its never going to be simple.

Like I said, any disease has the capacity in the right circumstances, with the right adjuvants, immune suppression, whatever, to really turn your life into custard. So when you make a decision about ANYTHING be it to vaccinate or not, be it antibiotics, be it VBAC, be it circumcision, the responsibility and choice is yours, and you owe it to yourself, your child and your family to become fully informed.

Then, if something goes wrong, whatever that is, other people aren't left being made the scapegoat. And those of you who know who I am, and what I do, probably have an idea why I feel this way, and why it is that I've become vehemently opposed to vaccine injury compensation, regardless that doctor push vaccines like frothing rottweillers.

Course I realise that I live on the wrong planet and always have.

End of rant.

[applejuice]

ITA with everything you have ranted about.

[Sherra]

Great post!



Sherra

[MindfulBirth]

Well said.

Can I also add that it is our responsibility as parents to learn how to CARE FOR our children when they get ill rather than running off to the doctor with every sniffle. By that, I mean, proper care that will allow the body's natural immune system to heal, not pumping the child full of Tylenol.

I think that part of making the choice not to vax must include the willingness to deal with the diseases if need be. Gitti gave some excellent resources to me a while back talking about the BENEFITS of getting childhood diseases. I think I will try to find that post and bump it up because it is worth re-reading.

-t

I have a feeling this soap box is going to get crowded, so I will step off.

[mamabohl]

very well-said and ITA.

[alegna]

ITA

It never ceases to amaze me how many sheep there are disguised as humans. People who only follow and will not think for themselves. One of these days I'm going to stop holding my tongue and tell them all to stop coming crying to me just because they won't read and make up their own minds on anything....

sigh

-Angela

[Rainbow Brite]

[dallaschildren]

MT....
As always you give me food for thought. I found myself nodding my head in agreement. BUT one thought that crossed my mind in response to your statement regarding your stance on vaccine damage compensation (and its relation to being fully informed about the consequences of your choice either way); what about the lies, decit, doctored tests by the pharm industry, false advertising, etc. that some parents may read in their research that these assholes release? Mind you, this shouldn't be the only thing parents read or the only factor by which they make an informed choice, but by putting the false infomation out there and knowing it is false, makes the drug companies partly liable for damage in my opinion. Or on the flip side, NOT putting out all of the information...look at the Bextras, the phen-fens, baycol, lotronex, vioxx as examples.....what about testing drugs on adults and then allowing physicians to prescribe them for kids? There is no such thing as informed consent when the information you read and consent to, ends up being a load of bunk or a half truth.


DC

[sohj]

Great post, MT. I, too, get so frustrated with people who just want someone else to tell them what to do: They want the "guru", the person they can set up on a pedastal to take responsibility for all the stuff that they themselves should be looking to do.

I found the mention of un-vaccinated children getting autism interesting. The "common" wisdom among the anti-vaccine crowd seems to be that vaccines are the way mercury gets into someone's system. (Witness the recent pieces in the Washington Times about the Amish.) (Not to mention that vaccine-induced autism might require more than just mercury, as you point out that laundry list of things that get directly injected, none of which looks appetizing.)

However, on the topic of mercury alone, I've got an article that refers to a study that I haven't got my hands on yet about loons ( http://www.ns.ec.gc.ca/wildlife/loons/ and, no, the links from that page to the articles listed about mercury are not available on the web. I do, however, have their citations and have been meaning to get them from the library.) in the north woods who are exhibiting autistic-like behaviour (as much as bird behaviour can be compared to human). What is interesting from that article is two things: (1) high levels of mercury have been found in the loon corpses; and (2) these are all found under the plume of pollution from the coal-burning electricity generating plants. From this article, it seems to be a larger plume to the west...implying the plume is bringing in pollution from China -- a place with a huge amount of coal-buring plants because that is a local resource. (This is interesting for the notice of the rise in autism in California...also the west coast.) Of course, we have many coal-burning plants in the midwest here as well as in Canada, so there are plenty of sources of it on this continent, too.

There are, I'm sure, other compounds in that plume, though. And there must be environmental stressors that would aid in the loons having a reduced immune function, too.

This reminds me that I really have to get that study in my hands and read it for myself. The magazine I read about it in is a "trade" journal directed at foresters in the lumber industry. It was apropros of protection of the loon.

Yet another reason to find ways of eliminating fossil fuel from the energy generation issue.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Originally Posted by dallaschildren

MT....
As always you give me food for thought. I found myself nodding my head in agreement. BUT one thought that crossed my mind in response to your statement regarding your stance on vaccine damage compensation (and its relation to being fully informed about the consequences of your choice either way); what about the lies, decit, doctored tests by the pharm industry, false advertising, etc. that some parents may read in their research that these assholes release? Mind you, this shouldn't be the only thing parents read or the only factor by which they make an informed choice, but by putting the false infomation out there and knowing it is false, makes the drug companies partly liable for damage in my opinion. Or on the flip side, NOT putting out all of the information...look at the Bextras, the phen-fens, baycol, lotronex, vioxx as examples.....what about testing drugs on adults and then allowing physicians to prescribe them for kids? There is no such thing as informed consent when the information you read and consent to, ends up being a load of bunk or a half truth.


DC

So why is it when people buy a house, a car, a toaster or whatever, its is automatically assumed that there will be lies, deceit etc involved? Particularly a used car. You always assume, that there is something being hidden. Has the car been in a crash? (No, says the smiling salesman) Is the house over a sewer main, fault line, or toxic dump? Of course not, says the house agent with eyes widening in amazement.

In every other area of life, people are cautious and tend to double check. And yet, those are areas that don't matter that much. If your toaster craps out, you take it back. And if it takes your car mechanic has 20 attempts to fix the engine he totally ruined, you carry on at him like a squeeky wheel, and make him pay the cost himself until its right.

So why is it then, with babies people are so naive?

If something is done wrong to a baby, its not like with a car. You don't have multiple goes at putting it right?

I believe compensation should go, regardless of the lies and deceit, for the simple reason that if everyone knew there was no compensation, they would treat the issue seriously for once in their lives. They would hold doctors and pharmaceutical companies to account, because life would no longer be cheap. There would be no-one else to pick up the pieces. They would value the responsibility that goes along with parents far far more, instead of thoughtlessly handing over that area to people they THINK have more brains than they do.

Every area outside of medicine has liars, propaganda merchants, and double dealers. Parents know that. So how is it that parents ever thought that the medical profession is pristine perfect and would never have its own inaccurate spin is beyond my understanding.

The figures for medical error ALONE... the third largest killer in the United states surely are testament to the inability of human beings to get it right on any front.

We have one chance with our babies. And its the responsibility of parents, and the right of the baby to be protected by that parent. When parents on either side of the debate, abdicate that responsibility they are shortchanging themselves, their babies and in a sense the system.

Because we get the medical system we deserve.

SOHJ, when you find that article PM me... I'd love to see it.

Yes, there are many things that cause Autism. I've said it here before, that autism is immunologically based. A child has to have a predisposition to that, and with regard to humans and mercury its the Apo-E genotype regardless of source. Obviously, mercury will have physiological effects on any life form, loons or otherwise. But that also is dependant on other things, not least of which is selenium.

You might like to consider mercury alongside selenium deficiency, and see what that adds up to in your head.

Since we're talking loons/mercury, have a look at bighorns/selenium:

http://www.bighorn.org/bio.html

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Oops... that URL has gone...

I'm searching the site too see if I can find the original one I had.

Here is another one, but its not the same.
http://www.bighorn.org/BJ.asp?id=1

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

I'm going to put up the whole of the original one, since its been pulled and a google search indicates its nowhere that google gets its tentacles into:

Nation & World : Sunday, September 09, 2001

Fighting a battle for little bighorns

By Gary Polakovic
Los Angeles Times
WIND RIVER MOUNTAINS, Wyo. - The baby bighorn sheep stumbled and collapsed on the stony hillside, too sick and wobbly to keep up with its mother.
Jon Mionczynski, a wildlife researcher who followed the pair, had seen this before. For some reason, lambs born into the largest herd of bighorn sheep in the Rockies were not surviving.

It would be hard to find a wilder, safer sanctuary, or so it seemed. But as scientists teamed up with Mionczynski to unravel the mystery, they learned that there is no such thing as pristine wilderness and no refuge from the Industrial Age.

Mionczynski nicknamed the struggling lamb "Rambo" because of its tenacity and pluck. Each time it fell, it struggled to its feet, even after blinding an eye in a tumble.

One evening, he was close to capturing Rambo for testing, but the lamb and its mother started down the mountain and, out of reach, hunkered down in a fortress of boulders near a crag called Lion Pass.

"I returned at daybreak and saw the ewe still guarding the site," Mionczynski recalled. "She made a low-pitched, throaty bleat ... brrrr ... brrrr. It was like a sheep crying, and it just went right through me."

When he got to the boulders, he saw fresh mountain-lion droppings. "The ewe had a torn ear, blood running down her face and claw marks on the side of her head," he said. "The lamb was gone. That was the end of Rambo."

In a way, the natural order had prevailed: the strong picked off the weak. But something was unnatural, too: what was making lambs so sick within weeks of their birth? Why were ewes leading weak lambs on arduous treks through cougar country to reach mineral licks at the base of the mountain?

The herd, which used to number about 1,250, plummeted by 30 percent in two years during the early 1990s and never recovered. Since then only about two out of every 10 lambs have survived.

In 1998, the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish told Mionczynski to set up a one-man camp at nearly 12,000 feet, track the herd's every move, study every foot of their mountaintop refuge, examine plants they eat and send back blood and tissue samples of dead and dying animals.

The job called for a meticulous observer and a skilled outdoorsman, someone who did not fear grizzly bears or living in a tent in snowstorms and driving winds. For Mionczynski, it was the dream assignment.

"I have the best job in the world," Mionczynski said. "I'm just a peon in this research, but I like to think I am helping these animals."

Now, four years into the project, scientists believe they are close to solving the mystery. What they have discovered suggests that profound environmental changes are beginning to ripple through the food chain and into the bodies of lambs. They are learning that even reclusive bighorn sheep, masters of evasion, can't escape pollution that falls from the sky.

As a result, Mionczynski and others fear, these icons of wild America may be unable to survive in the wild without continual human intervention.

A summer thunderstorm peels off the Winds, a fitting name for the mountain range west of Dubois, briefly spilling rain and hail over town. Tourists pull off of U.S. 287 into the National Bighorn Sheep Interpretive Center, the newest and most ornate facility in this two-lane town. It's located past the Ramshorn Inn Tavern, not far from the high school where the Rams play, a couple blocks from the Ramshorn Food Farm on Ramshorn Street.

"This town loves these sheep and we're proud of them," said museum Director June Sampson. "In the winter, people can see them with spotting scopes from their living rooms. Hundreds of people come from all over to see the sheep."

Rocky Mountain bighorns have thrived in these mountains southeast of Grand Teton National Park for centuries. They are stocky and barrel-chested with petite feet that stick to rocks like suction cups. In the fall, rams charge one another and smash heads at speeds of 20 mph in battles that sometimes last all day and all night. Shoshone and Gros Ventre Indian tribes made powerful bows from the horns, which are still prized by hunters as trophies.

The herd inhabits the northern Winds in scattered bands. When they all converge on the sagebrush hills at the edge of town during winter, they constitute the largest group of wild sheep in North America. They once were so abundant that they were transplanted to establish new populations from South Dakota to New Mexico to Idaho.

Yet there are fewer and fewer sheep for tourists to enjoy. Barely 800 animals remain in the herd, which is still in decline.

No sooner had Mionczynski set up camp on Middle Mountain in June 1998 than he saw many lambs as feeble as Rambo. Born healthy, they grew sick shortly after ewes made their annual spring migration to Middle Mountain to forage. If pneumonia didn't kill them, predators did.

"Some were crawling on their knees. They were so sick they couldn't even get up to nurse. Their muscles just seemed so stiff and they had trouble breathing. They stuck their noses in the air, mouths open, gasping for air," Mionczynski said.

Ranchers in the lowlands reported that the ewes ate dirt at washed-out mineral licks. It helped explain why ewes were leading their sick lambs down the steep mountain to sagebrush flats that they normally visited only in winter. Something essential was missing from their diet. The route traversed some of the roughest country in the Winds, including a series of cougar ambush spots in Lion Pass.

Eventually, Mionczynski observed that lambs who nursed from the ewes that made the journey to lowland mineral licks did much better.

The challenge was to find the missing ingredient in the mountain forage.

Working in a makeshift lab fitted into a cave in the boulders, Mionczynski began testing plants the sheep eat. He discovered that the nutrient selenium had dipped to alarmingly low levels.

Selenium is a peculiar, sulfur-like element essential for many mammals. It is a naturally occurring nutrient with a twist. Just a little is needed to ensure bones, muscles and immune systems develop properly, but just a little more can be toxic.

Tests on Middle Mountain showed 5 parts per billion of selenium in forage favored by bighorns - 75 percent lower than the minimum requirement for a healthy immune system, according to veterinarians.

But how could selenium be in short supply? Soils across much of the West are awash in it. In nearby Dubois and other parts of Wyoming, range cattle are sometimes poisoned from ingesting too much of it.

The selenium content in plants fluctuates with weather, rising in dry years and falling in wet. The fluctuations correspond neatly with a 30-year lamb survival trend, with fewer surviving in wet years, scientists say.

At the same time, the chemical content of rainfall was changing. So was the composition of the soil that absorbed it.

For at least a decade, according to scientists, storms have been carrying larger and larger amounts of chemical contaminants and dumping them across the Rockies. Among the chemicals are nitrates and ammonium, which can saturate the environment with nutrients or create acidic conditions similar to those that plague forests in the Northeast and Canada. The phenomenon is known as acid rain.

At the bighorn camp on Middle Mountain, scientists tracking storms and wind currents have traced the sources of pollutants that blow in from hundreds of miles away.

On the one hand, the pollutants fertilize plants and microorganisms. On the other hand, they can saturate soil and water with nutrients, causing toxic algae blooms, harmful acids and changes in soil chemistry.

"We're pushing the first dominoes in the food chain, and there's good evidence it's increasing and probably in response to nitrogen deposition," said Mark Williams, a hydrogeochemist and fellow at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "We've reached a threshold and we're at that slippery slope where we are headed toward dead fish and dead trees."

Near Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, scientists have begun an experiment to see if pollutants are short-circuiting the selenium cycle and contributing to declines in the bighorn herd at St. Vrain Canyon, said Rob Roy Ramey, chairman of zoology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

"Urbanization and sheep deaths seem to go hand in hand. We know there's a lot of acidification of the front range of the Rockies, and this offers a perfectly reasonable and clear mechanism. It's a hypothesis, but it's very plausible," Ramey said.

[LongIsland]

We have a claim filed with the program on behalf of my 8 year old son. We filed in 2001 and all the autism injury cases are stalled right now b/c of the autism omnibus proceedings that need to take place. It has become quite adversarial.

I won't go into our whole story, but I THOUGHT I was protecting my child by immunizing him. I used to believe it was irresponsible to even question vaccination or medical authority. I was being a responsible parent - never once believing I was a "thoughtless parent."

I also want to add that the anti-vaccine movement was very different 8 years ago -- yes, it existed, however, it was "underground" for the most part. Heck, nobody we knew even had a cel phone or a computer for that matter, just beepers to communicate.

It's so different now and all the parents who now question vaccination - they are fortunate they have all the information available to them at the click of a mouse and an online community such as this.

I am taking responsiblity - this compensation (if anything does come of it) will be for my son. I owe it to him.

[Gale Force]

Thanks for the discussion guys. Interesting.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Originally Posted by LongIsland

We have a claim filed with the program on behalf of my 8 year old son. We filed in 2001 and all the autism injury cases are stalled right now b/c of the autism omnibus proceedings that need to take place. It has become quite adversarial.

I won't go into our whole story, but I THOUGHT I was protecting my child by immunizing him. I used to believe it was irresponsible to even question vaccination or medical authority. I was being a responsible parent - never once believing I was a "thoughtless parent."

I know, Long Island. I was once like that, and it took a major incident which jeopardised the life of our first son, to snap me out of that mind-set.

And that incident is the second chapter in my first book which may come out in November.

And it took me a few more years to realise that the only person I could blame for assuming that, was me, not them.

I also want to add that the anti-vaccine movement was very different 8 years ago -- yes, it existed, however, it was "underground" for the most part. Heck, nobody we knew even had a cel phone or a computer for that matter, just beepers to communicate.

That is incorrect. What you mean is that you didn't chose to take any notice. I know. I'm a workaholic, and an information junkie. I've collected all the USA newspaper articles, books TV programmes. It had a huge profile starting in 1984, and when I was in USA in 1990, there were still lots of articles about it then.

But see, the thing is when parents have mindsets, that there isn't an issue, and its like soap (dirty hands you use soap) they selectively screen out and don't listen to anything that doesn't come into their "note it" orbit.

That's why YOU didn't notice it. But it doesn't mean the issue wasn't huge.

I am taking responsiblity - this compensation (if anything does come of it) will be for my son. I owe it to him.

That is true in a sense. But the next responsibility you have is that any future decisions are made by you alone, whatever they are. Not some medical desk pusher who has his own agenda for why and what he says. And that's a much more "responsible" position to take, than the one you took before.

[LongIsland]

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

That is incorrect. What you mean is that you didn't chose to take any notice. I know. I'm a workaholic, and an information junkie. I've collected all the USA newspaper articles, books TV programmes. It had a huge profile starting in 1984, and when I was in USA in 1990, there were still lots of articles about it then.

It is not that I chose not to take notice.

The anti-vaccine movement was nowhere near what it is today. I'm sure if was significant and it was there, but the movement back then is not what it is today. These days, a parent has no choice but to take notice. I still get chills each time I read something in print or see it on the news - it wasn't like this years ago . . . even just FIVE years ago. There was hardly any mainstream media attention on the subject. It was there, but nothing like today.

Back then, it was never a topic of conversation and no one questioned it.

Times have certainly changed!

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Originally Posted by LongIsland

It is not that I chose not to take notice.

The anti-vaccine movement was nowhere near what it is today. I'm sure if was significant and it was there, but the movement back then is not what it is today. These days, a parent has no choice but to take notice. I still get chills each time I read something in print or see it on the news - it wasn't like this years ago . . . even just FIVE years ago. There was hardly any mainstream media attention on the subject. It was there, but nothing like today.

Back then, it was never a topic of conversation and no one questioned it.

Times have certainly changed!

Again, I disagree. It was a huge topic of conversation. Dr Mendelsohn's speaking schedule from 1984 onwards was manic; Dr Moskowitz was very public and out there; if you go through NVIC's archives Barbara Loe Fisher was a PITA to every congress member, and AMA, and all the other organisations automatically scanned the headlines for her and other trouble.

It was a huge topic of conversation.

And you know what? It was here too. I have massive folders of articles which I wrote, and articles about me. There are people in this country who say the same things as you to me. I bring my folders out of all the women's magazines and other magazines I appeared in, daily newspapers, major metropolitan issue glossies, and they blink, and say "Well, we never saw that!"

To which I say "Well, were you even interested in the issue then?" and they have to admit that they weren't and it wasn't an issue to them.

The one thing that kept me in this work since 1984 was the huge guilt I then felt (and have not quite managed to get rid of) that I was stupid enough to assume that the medical profession were worth trusting. It's one of two things that I deeply regret as a parent. And the other thing doesn't really come into this story...

But I know where you've been, because I was once there too. But in this day and age, when discussion is as you rightly say, well focused on the issue, there is no excuse.

At least I can plead one thing. In 1981 when our first son was born there WAS NO media coverage of the issue. That I know, because I tood the time to research the media world wide to find out.

In this country, I was at the forefront of the issue in 1981, and considered the total lunatic fringe. It was only later that other people crawled out of the silence closet and started to speak out. Though all that time, there had been people who questioned. They were just to scared to do it out loud.

It took a moron called "me" whose biggest disease has always been putting both feet in her mouth with insufficient room to get the hands in, to get the feet out, to put the issue on the map in this country.

That too, has its problems! Feet in mouth disease is at times, uncomfortable....

[Sherra]

I know in America, especially 8/10 yrs ago..and longer, doctors were touted as God and were backed by the AMA with all it's rhetoric as well as promotional influence. You'd go to them with a concern, and they'd say a lot of things over your head that you could not necessarily check out. Without the internet, you were highly dependent on your local library and some are/were very limited. THAT is how it worked in the USA. Very very few publications would stick their neck out and for every controversial person brought up in them, they were countered with 100 ones in the main mass media as well as the huge big business that was behind it. This is classic USA style...happens daily. I'm proud to be an american but we need to be able to see when big business works behind the scenes and sometimes "the average joe" are inept on this subject. We have become too complacent thinking that everyone else is looking out for us, when they are not and have never been. I'm not sure how doctors are touted everywhere. These doctors make a ton of money compared to other countries as well. I am always shocked at how little docs make elsewhere in the world. We have big business that will take the good a doc does and then turn it into something bigger for profit...so it's not just the doc either of course. Some of them may actually believe what they spew...scary.

After working for a few big businesses as an engineer for awhile, I do see that the only way to keep them in check is to tie it to the threat of monetary value. Seems to be the only way they keep things safe and somewhat self monitor. From my understanding, that fund comes from taxpayer money if I'm not mistaken...that is the wrong course if we want checks and balances in. Of course I'd be all for getting rid of the compensation fund if they'd allow suing the drug companies over vaccine damage with no cap on the reward.

Of course I believe in taking personal responsibility, but there is a reason that we have a court system...just unfortunately in this arena of vaccines, it is crippled. I can almost guarantee if people were allowed to sue for vaccine damage regularly as opposed to having to go through all the red tape and then maybe they just may get a review if the reaction was bad enough 5 to 10 yrs later, people would have uprose a long time ago on vaccines. The main stream press just may have been more motivated to cover it.

Then you throw in that the gov't won't let your kid go to school (before mass exemptions) unless they have their shots and all the hammering they do if you ask questions..the actual deceit the doctors get away with because they are protected from law suits...it gets complicated. Again, this is in the usa, i have no clue about the promotion elsewhere. If there was a threat of a lawsuit like anything else they would misinform about our health, they'd make sure that we got all the info instead of just the ama promotional materials.

I'm not excusing..just explaining how it is and how it has become this way in general.


Sherra

[LongIsland]

It had a huge profile starting in 1984, and when I was in USA in 1990, there were still lots of articles about it then.

I understand what you're saying about media attention - for me personally, in 1984 through 1990 (and thereafter), I was about 14 years old in junior high school and then came college - I wasn't thinking about children back then. I didn't even read the paper or watch the news regularly when I was a teenager and immunization safety was insignificant to me, so I defininately would not have noticed this media blitz - this is why I say that it was not my choice not to notice.

Honestly, the only time I actively sought information regarding pregnancy, childbirth and healthcare was when I actually became pregnant in 1996. At that time (without internet access), I came across nothing negative with respect to immunization.

Unfortunately, since we had no computer then, I did not have a myriad of parenting message boards to glean information and advice, I was brought up as mainstream as you can get and I relied solely on those trashy parenting magazines that I couldn't wait to get each month. I subscribed to every single one of them. I never once thought to request the package inserts. In fact, I used to give my son anything the ped prescribed w/o looking at the inserts . . . what is so disturbing to me is that there are so many moms out there that used to be like me. Now, I won't give my kids any medication whatsoever.

I'm scared for my parents too b/c although they are supportive and they truly believe my son was vaccine damaged and they listen to everything I have to say about the pharma industry and the medical establishment -- yet my parents have bottles upon bottles of prescription medication on their counter and don't question anything. They keep telling me they have to take it.

Yes, it does sometimes take a life-altering situation to change your way of thinking. For me personally, I don't allow myself to be consumed with guilt over what happened to my son, b/c at the time I truly believed I was being a responsible parent based on the information I had. I had no reason to question vaccination. If someone had told me vaccines were potentially dangerous, I would have laughed at them and said something nauseating like, "I completely trust my pediatrician."

Foolish and trusting - scary combination.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

I think the reason I still blame myself a bit, is because when it was all happening, my instincts were screaming out that it was all wrong, and I allowed them to be over-ridden and talked down to by the "experts". Even today... I can see him before... and after ... in my mind's eye, and the way he looked at me, and I know deep inside that I betrayed him because I didn't trust my instincts, and I didn't fight hard enough for him.

That's a hard pill to swallow. That's like a monumental "own goal".

The positive side to that is if that hadn't happened, I might not have then gone on to do the work I've done, and realise the things I now realise.

Having...

Said....

That....

I asked questions. .... lots of them. Far more than the average parent would have. But I still didn't know enough, and in the end, they still pinned me where they wanted me. Ever since then, I've fought every inch of the way, and pretty much got what was needed and protected them from what was not. And many of my dealings with the medical profession have not been pretty.

But the point of my OP was that I deeply resent it when someone who doesn't immunise their children comes to this board and blames the information provided to her by "anti-vaccinationists" for the fact that she didn't vaccinate, and her son had a serious complication to a disease, and that she wished she had known how serious diseases can be.

You sign a consent form: you have to know what you are signing for. Either way, you should know WHY you are doing something, or why you are not...

I have been on the medico-legal teams now of many vaccine damage cases, and I also deeply resent it when some of these people leach you of every ounce of your pro-bono help, energy and emotion for years on end, and put nothing back into the issue, and don't help other people.

The worst one was where after a three year battle, I won one family's case, and they went on and vaccinated their next child, and when that child had the same reaction, came back to me to ask me to waste another few years fighting for their next child. I refused on the basis that they had learned enough the first time to have made an informed decision, that that if they were stupid enough to do it again, they could fight them case themselves or find someone else who would.

They never did, and that child today, doesn't have compensation. So I guess that's how much it mattered to them.

Sherra, you know who to blame that the old tort system no longer exists don't you? NVIC. Had they not got into bed with the government and paediatric organisations, the old tort system would be a lot more readily available to parents now. But they wanted their moment in the limelight, and they thought they would get a system which would be quicker and fairer.

A lot of us, including myself, told them they were wrong and they were dreaming, and actually jeopardising children's futures, but they wouldn't listen.

And to this day, I really don't think NVIC really comprehends just how stupid they were. They can't say they weren't told. I went head to head against them myself, as did others like Marge Grant, Dr Anthony Morris, and others. But they thought they knew best, and the legal mess you have now, can be directly laid at their doorstep, as can the increased vaccine schedule. Because without that legislation there would have been no incentive for vaccine manufacturers to have spread their research nets any further than DPT, Polio, and MMR.

Don't blame the USA Government that its so hard to sue drug companies, because without the backing and capitulation of NVIC, that legislation would never have got through.

NVIC was politically and medically naive, and just didn't have a clue about the realities of what they were doing in my opinion. You never ever ever get into bed with a system, either medical or political, which specialises in shifting the goal posts during and after and forever more....