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Did You / Would You Vax Your Child?
Replies
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Yep, my boys are up to date and where I live there is an app that even lets me know when they are coming due for a vaccine. I did my research, lost a couple acquaintances over such discussions, and made an educated decision. I refused to simply read scare tactics, I needed both sides so that I could see what was out there for proof for either argument.1
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Christine_72 wrote: »I vaccinated both my kids.
Here in Australia they've brought in a law, no vaccs= no government benefits.
A little baby died here the other week from whooping cough, apparently caught from an unvaccinated child
Not the first time down there, either. The anti-vaccination crowd in Australia is extremely cruel towards the parents of such a baby - Riley, I think her name was. It's ugly.
California got its act together, a bit, after the measles outbreak at Disneyland.1 -
Christine_72 wrote: »I vaccinated both my kids.
Here in Australia they've brought in a law, no vaccs= no government benefits.
A little baby died here the other week from whooping cough, apparently caught from an unvaccinated child
Not the first time down there, either. The anti-vaccination crowd in Australia is extremely cruel towards the parents of such a baby - Riley, I think her name was. It's ugly.
California got its act together, a bit, after the measles outbreak at Disneyland.
Yeah it can be truly sickening!
I also get a flu shot every year, and haven't been sick once since getting it!0 -
Man, this thread is refreshing.
Yes, my kids are up-to-date and will remain so. We get our flu shots every year. The spouse and I get our boosters. Personally, I'm quite happy that we keep developing new vaccines. What's the alternative?6 -
“Ignorant non-vaccinators”? Wow Positivepowers, you sure area a negative caregiver. The WHO’s mission involves global concerns, with no concern for your individual child. Here is a study for you.
Medical Model Errors
Preventable medical errors by doctors and nurses persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year.
So as you can guess, I did not vaccinate my kids. They are now healthy, lean, nice young men who participated in school, sports and anything else they desired. My decision was based on much study and research. It was not an “ignorant” choice. Ignorant would have been me blindly following orders. I do not judge those who decided to vaccinate their kids. We are all doing what we believe is best.
My oldest kid got vaccinated two weeks ago. He is starting college and elected to get the shots. He is going into nursing. I hope his experiences help him to be a little more open-minded and kind than some others here.
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Reimagining wrote: »“Ignorant non-vaccinators”? Wow Positivepowers, you sure area a negative caregiver. The WHO’s mission involves global concerns, with no concern for your individual child. Here is a study for you.
Medical Model Errors
Preventable medical errors by doctors and nurses persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year.
So as you can guess, I did not vaccinate my kids. They are now healthy, lean, nice young men who participated in school, sports and anything else they desired. My decision was based on much study and research. It was not an “ignorant” choice. Ignorant would have been me blindly following orders. I do not judge those who decided to vaccinate their kids. We are all doing what we believe is best.
My oldest kid got vaccinated two weeks ago. He is starting college and elected to get the shots. He is going into nursing. I hope his experiences help him to be a little more open-minded and kind than some others here.
How would you feel if one of your kids got whooping cough and infected an unvaccinated baby, and the baby died? This is exactly what happened here a few weeks ago..1 -
Well Christine-72, since I don’t know the specifics of what happened there, but you asked me the question, I of course, would feel horrible. How would you feel if a child was vaccinated and then died? That’s what happened here last year. See, its not a fair question.
Adults are the most common source of pertussis infection in infants. Once an adult gets the Tdap vaccine, they should get the Td (tetanus and diphtheria) booster every 10 years from then on, but who is really doing that? My kids did not infect anyone, nor did they get infected.
The question was did I/would I vaccinate. And no I didn’t and wouldn’t. I am not trying to tell anyone else what they should or should not do. I am not anti-medicine. If my kids were sick and needed medical help, I’d get it. If we traveled to a county where certain shots were recommended and after research I agreed, I’d get them. But I do not agree with the American dosage/timetable of vacines. US babies 26 doses of vaccines before age one, which is twice as many vaccinations as babies in Sweden and Japan get.
Thank you for an honest, non-attacking question.
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Reimagining wrote: »“Ignorant non-vaccinators”? Wow Positivepowers, you sure area a negative caregiver. The WHO’s mission involves global concerns, with no concern for your individual child. Here is a study for you.
Medical Model Errors
Preventable medical errors by doctors and nurses persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year.
So as you can guess, I did not vaccinate my kids. They are now healthy, lean, nice young men who participated in school, sports and anything else they desired. My decision was based on much study and research. It was not an “ignorant” choice. Ignorant would have been me blindly following orders. I do not judge those who decided to vaccinate their kids. We are all doing what we believe is best.
My oldest kid got vaccinated two weeks ago. He is starting college and elected to get the shots. He is going into nursing. I hope his experiences help him to be a little more open-minded and kind than some others here.
Your children are healthy now thanks to the population around you that chose to vaccinate. Had others made the same decision (which was ill-informed, IMO), your kids may not have been so lucky.25 -
Of course my children are vaccinated - there was never a time when it even occurred to me not to vaccinate. I like my children not having polio.
It amazes me what people in the first world worry about. And how quickly they forget that they live in the first world thanks to scientific and medical advances, such as vaccines.10 -
In a different world, at a different time, in a different country, I may have made a different decision. But I have to factor in the actual world I live in. My kids have also never had antibiotics. I've never feared them getting chickenpox or spiking a fever The body is an incredible machine and for the most part all we have to do is get out of the way. But I get what you are saying. Thanks for your opinion.1
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myheartsabattleground wrote: »I most certainly would! Growing up, you weren't allowed to attend school or participate in intramurals without proof that you "had all your shots."
Is there a link between vax and asd / downs? MAYBE
Has it been 100% Proven? NOPE
Are there blatantly ignorant people wasting air? YESSIR
Link between vax and downs? Say what????
Whoever made that claim doesn't understand how some syndromes are formed. Down syndrome is a chromosome abnormality, which occurs even before conception. There is absolutely no way that vaccinations could have anything to do with it.
And the only study that "found" a link between vax and ASD was fabricated. Numerous other studies have found no link at all.
So, yes, my kids get vaccinated. Why would I risk a debilitating or life-threatening disease that I can prevent?6 -
Reimagining wrote: »In a different world, at a different time, in a different country, I may have made a different decision. But I have to factor in the actual world I live in. My kids have also never had antibiotics. I've never feared them getting chickenpox or spiking a fever The body is an incredible machine and for the most part all we have to do is get out of the way. But I get what you are saying. Thanks for your opinion.
What if your son had contracted mumps as a child and was unable to have children as a result of your decision?
I understand having a false sense of security since you have not experienced devastating and preventable diseases first-hand.
What you don't seem to understand, though, is that your way of thinking is dangerous in that if it became the norm, this would become a different world.
Hygiene has improved, yes, but people still spread colds, the flu, and stomach bugs. Imagine a world where picking up polio was as simple as catching the flu, or a world in which people regularly died excruciating deaths as a result of tetanus, or where babies were routinely born with birth defects to mothers with rubella. Because that's the world we would live in if your way of thinking was the norm.15 -
My 3 younger children are not fully vaccinated.
My oldest was fully vaccinated...when she recieved her last mmr shot, she had a severe allergic reaction that landed her in the hospital. The reaction triggered the gene she carries for Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. She was 4, and developed JRA in her feet and ankles. While not debilitating, having rheumatoid arthritis from the age of 4 in your feetvand ankles is very limiting. There are day where she is nearly immobile.
Because my other children also carry the gene for JRA, we (along with our ped) have elected to not give the other kids the MMR in the off chance that they also have an allergic reaction. They have a medical exemption, but attend a private school where they would be allowed to attend regardless.
Had no one had a reaction, they would be fully vaccinated.
This is another great argument for herd immunity. Your children are at higher risk from the vaccinations, but as long most people around them are already immune (through vaccinations), they have much less chance of getting the illnesses.
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Ok, Losing it, (if I may be so bold as to call you by the part of your name that I find the most amusing), You can ask me a scary question, that if i am being honest I have to agree with, (yes i would feel horrible if my kid couldn't procreate ) , but my counter question would be, what if he had died or been made sterile from vaccination, how would I feel?
And my decision was not "ill-informed". It was super-informed, mega-informed, colossal-informed! and given the outcome, the right decision for me.
I will give you this though,
1) with the current ease of travel and access to and from the US, (we have 4 know cases of Zika in Nevada, all from people returning from other countries), consideration should be given to this.
2) I appreciate the way you frame your opinions. They are smart, but non-combative and make me want to respond, rather than just say f this.
3) I'm glad hygiene is improving. I'm very much pro-hygiene.
4) I love that my thoughts are "dangerous". Some of the best parts of my life were when i felt dangerous.
So at this point, we just disagree on this issue. I've got 400 calories left today and a sexy beautiful bourbon 18 year old bourbon calling to me. So good night, and its been fun.
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People who do not vaccinate their children should be locked away for child endangerment. It's one thing to let your ignorance and massive stupidity have an effect on your own life, but quite another to make that same decision for a child.10
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OneHundredToLose wrote: »People who do not vaccinate their children should be locked away for child endangerment. It's one thing to let your ignorance and massive stupidity have an effect on your own life, but quite another to make that same decision for a child.
het.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/05/04/0960327111407644.full.pdf+html
@OneHundredToLose what are we as parents in the USA doing wrong that makes us rank dead last out of 34 developed countries at keeping our infants from dying. It can not be that we are making them obese that much faster than the other 33 nations. Are you aware it is often the parents with advanced/terminal degrees in science and healthcare that have vaccination concerns of their infants?
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GaleHawkins wrote: »
@OneHundredToLose what are we as parents in the USA doing wrong that makes us rank dead last out of 34 developed countries at keeping our infants from dying.
There are many reasons why our infant mortality rates are not as good as other nations.
Not all countries count live births in the same way. In the US, every birth of a living baby is counted. In some other countries, babies born below a certain size or before achieving a certain gestational age may be excluded. This can make international comparisons challenging.
The US has a higher rate of preterm birth than other countries, which seems to be closely linked to race and socioeconomic status. Additionally, babies born to mothers of lower socioeconomic status have a much higher death rate than babies born to mothers who are wealthy and well-educated. Access to and the ability to pay for health care during pregnancy and an infant's first year of life is not universal in the US.
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Sorry to double post, but I forgot to add that, yes, I vaccinated my children. I stay up to date on my own vaccinations, especially my annual flu shot.
I also make sure my dogs are vaccinated - believe it or not, the ideas behind antivaccination are now starting to infiltrate the veterinary world. Yeah, there are people even choosing not to vaccinate their pets for rabies - it is quite alarming!1 -
Not vaccinating is not a "thing" here so everyone does it. Vaccines for infants are provided by the government, and additional school age vaccines are also free. Children get vaccinated at school every year and extensive records are kept where special appointments are scheduled for children who missed the vaccination days and children with a medical history of certain vaccine allergies are handled appropriately. So basically, even if parents are less educated about vaccines the school takes care of that.3
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Reimagining wrote: »Well Christine-72, since I don’t know the specifics of what happened there, but you asked me the question, I of course, would feel horrible. How would you feel if a child was vaccinated and then died? That’s what happened here last year. See, its not a fair question.
Adults are the most common source of pertussis infection in infants. Once an adult gets the Tdap vaccine, they should get the Td (tetanus and diphtheria) booster every 10 years from then on, but who is really doing that? My kids did not infect anyone, nor did they get infected.
The question was did I/would I vaccinate. And no I didn’t and wouldn’t. I am not trying to tell anyone else what they should or should not do. I am not anti-medicine. If my kids were sick and needed medical help, I’d get it. If we traveled to a county where certain shots were recommended and after research I agreed, I’d get them. But I do not agree with the American dosage/timetable of vacines. US babies 26 doses of vaccines before age one, which is twice as many vaccinations as babies in Sweden and Japan get.
Thank you for an honest, non-attacking question.
I get mine and so does my husband. I have had cancer. I go for check-ups. Last thing I want to do is infect someone on chemo. We get flu shots for the same reason.
Your kids, your decisions but so far I haven't read a rational reason from you.6 -
Reimagining wrote: »Well Christine-72, since I don’t know the specifics of what happened there, but you asked me the question, I of course, would feel horrible. How would you feel if a child was vaccinated and then died? That’s what happened here last year. See, its not a fair question.
Adults are the most common source of pertussis infection in infants. Once an adult gets the Tdap vaccine, they should get the Td (tetanus and diphtheria) booster every 10 years from then on, but who is really doing that? My kids did not infect anyone, nor did they get infected.
The question was did I/would I vaccinate. And no I didn’t and wouldn’t. I am not trying to tell anyone else what they should or should not do. I am not anti-medicine. If my kids were sick and needed medical help, I’d get it. If we traveled to a county where certain shots were recommended and after research I agreed, I’d get them. But I do not agree with the American dosage/timetable of vacines. US babies 26 doses of vaccines before age one, which is twice as many vaccinations as babies in Sweden and Japan get.
Thank you for an honest, non-attacking question.
I get mine and so does my husband. I have had cancer. I go for check-ups. Last thing I want to do is infect someone on chemo. We get flu shots for the same reason.
Your kids, your decisions but so far I haven't read a rational reason from you.
Yup. I get mine, too. I'm not as good as I should be about getting a flu shot every year, but I actually got the MMR booster when I was 17 because the documents were lost.1 -
My 3 younger children are not fully vaccinated.
My oldest was fully vaccinated...when she recieved her last mmr shot, she had a severe allergic reaction that landed her in the hospital. The reaction triggered the gene she carries for Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. She was 4, and developed JRA in her feet and ankles. While not debilitating, having rheumatoid arthritis from the age of 4 in your feetvand ankles is very limiting. There are day where she is nearly immobile.
Because my other children also carry the gene for JRA, we (along with our ped) have elected to not give the other kids the MMR in the off chance that they also have an allergic reaction. They have a medical exemption, but attend a private school where they would be allowed to attend regardless.
Had no one had a reaction, they would be fully vaccinated.
This is another great argument for herd immunity. Your children are at higher risk from the vaccinations, but as long most people around them are already immune (through vaccinations), they have much less chance of getting the illnesses.
The other thing for @mkakids to consider is that when there is a trigger for an auto-immune disease (I know... I have the same problematic HLA genes on my chromosome 6, and triggers for type 1 diabetes and Hashimoto's have happened for me), it can be anything. So unless your kid is going to live in a bubble for his life and never be exposed to any illness ever, s/he has the risk of developing auto-immune diseases. Yes, a vaccination means being exposed to an illness. So does going to school or just being around people, animals, or places. Getting the vaccine prevents an illness. NOT getting a vaccine, contrary to your understanding, does absolutely nothing to prevent an auto-immune disease. If someone has the genes, there are a tremendous number of things that can trigger it. My type 1 auto-immune response was triggered by a cold. I'm not telling everyone that I got type 1 diabetes because of the common cold virus... that would be dishonest. In the same way, telling everyone that your kid got rheumatoid arthritis because of a vaccine is dishonest. That logic completely ignores the real process involved with development of auto-immune diseases. It happened because 1) they have genes for it and 2) the auto-immune response was triggered. If they were vaccinated and later on, a cold triggered it, then what?!3 -
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All mine are. The only thing we don't do is get a flu vaccine.0
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I don't have children, but if I did...I believe I would have them vaccinated. However, I would look at the schedule and see if a delayed schedule might be better medically and psychologically. I have a friend who did that and it seemed to work well for her.
I also have a close friend who has not had her children vaccinated. While I disagree with her decision, I choose to have calm, educated conversations with her about it. I highly respect my good friend and know she isn't uneducated, so if I look to understand why she made the decision for her family that she did.
I do not get the flu shot anymore. I find for myself it is not worth the risk.
That's how I handled it. I expressed how nervous I was. The doctor quickly explained the delayed schedule. It has been years so may not be remembering correctly but I think the delayed schedule was standard in his practice.
I doubt I would get the flu vaccine if I didn't have to go to the cancer center for check-ups.1 -
My daughter was vaccinated and received boosters. I also booster again recently before a trip to South Africa.
However, when it was time for HPV my duaghter's Doctor did not want her to get it. She has reactions to all her shots, especially DPT, she was even given a special DPT her second time around because of the reaction to the "P" which is whooping cough. I still had her vaccinated, we just made sure she receive the right one.
Vaccines save lives, but there are risks with vaccines just like anything. Almost everything you put in your body, drug or food actually has a risk. Almost every drug can cause death as a side effect, this includes vaccines. However, the side effect risks on the vaccines or the drug is often less than the actual disease. In some instances that is not the case, this is why it is so important. When someone with a weak immune system can not receive a vaccine then they are dependent upon others to help prevent the disease. The worst is that those with weak immune systems are more likely to die if they get the disease the vaccine would prevent. That is why Anti-Vaxers are scary.3 -
Reimagining wrote: »Medical Model Errors
Preventable medical errors by doctors and nurses persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year.
I think you underestimate just how deadly diseases are. If you add up every single human being who died as a result of every war or political action in all of history - every war, every atrocity, every genocide throughout our history - that total isn't even half the number of people killed by smallpox in the 20th century alone. That's the death toll for one disease for one century. Actually less than one century, since vaccination eliminated that disease during the century.
And while we absolutely need to work on medical errors, the number of lives saved is far greater. You're also very unlikely to see a medical error on something like a vaccine. Most errors are on complex patients in the hospital, and tend to fall into a couple of major buckets:
1. Surgical errors, such as accidentally damaging another organ during surgery.
2. Errors of omission, where a doctor may have seen an abnormal result but didn't order the right (or any) follow-up.
3. Errors of communication, where the team of caregivers fails to relay a piece of vital information, or is confused about which patient it applies to.
4. Medication errors, for example improper dosage or ordering medications that interact with other meds the patient is on.
None of those would be issues here with something trivially easy like a vaccine.11 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »
@OneHundredToLose what are we as parents in the USA doing wrong that makes us rank dead last out of 34 developed countries at keeping our infants from dying.
There are many reasons why our infant mortality rates are not as good as other nations.
Not all countries count live births in the same way. In the US, every birth of a living baby is counted. In some other countries, babies born below a certain size or before achieving a certain gestational age may be excluded. This can make international comparisons challenging.
The US has a higher rate of preterm birth than other countries, which seems to be closely linked to race and socioeconomic status. Additionally, babies born to mothers of lower socioeconomic status have a much higher death rate than babies born to mothers who are wealthy and well-educated. Access to and the ability to pay for health care during pregnancy and an infant's first year of life is not universal in the US.
From the study it seems the race thing you mentioned it seems to be the white baby deaths pushing up USA death rates for the most parts.
From the study:
Minority races
It has been argued that the US IMR is poor in comparison
to many other nations because African–American
infants are at greater risk of dying relative to White
infants, perhaps due to genetic factors or disparities
in living standards. However, in 2006 the US IMR for
infants of all races was 6.69 and the IMR for White
infants was 5.56.13 In 2009, this improved rate would
have moved the United States up by just one rank internationally,
from 34th place to 33rd place.8 In addition,
the IMRs for Hispanics of Mexican descent and Asian–
Americans in the United States are significantly lower
than the IMR for Whites.6 Thus, diverse IMRs among
different races in the Unites States exert only a modest
influence over the United States’ international infant
mortality rank.0 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »OneHundredToLose wrote: »People who do not vaccinate their children should be locked away for child endangerment. It's one thing to let your ignorance and massive stupidity have an effect on your own life, but quite another to make that same decision for a child.
het.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/05/04/0960327111407644.full.pdf+html
@OneHundredToLose what are we as parents in the USA doing wrong that makes us rank dead last out of 34 developed countries at keeping our infants from dying. It can not be that we are making them obese that much faster than the other 33 nations. Are you aware it is often the parents with advanced/terminal degrees in science and healthcare that have vaccination concerns of their infants?
What point are you trying to make here? I think you should state it straight out. Are you actually taking the position that people should not vaccinate or that vaccinating has some negative relationship to infant mortality in the US (which would make no sense)?5 -
We used a delayed schedule after an odd reaction with my oldest to two shots at once. Only one shot per appointment. They were all caught up by the time they started school.4
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