Please answer this about vaccines moms ? Thanks.?

Question

my 6 mo old is getting more shots tomorrow and with all the parents bad mouthing shots lately... even though I had my 5 other kids vaccinated it makes me wonder why lately parents are so against shots .
I dont do the flu shot, or chicken pox. He already started the other shots. Should you really worry ? are they safe or not ?

Answer 1

I had to attend several trainings about this for my job. Although there are always risks, they are very small in comparison to what the diseases your child is being vaccinated against would do to your child. I had no hesitaion in getting my 2 year old all her vaccinations, and the one on the way will get them all too.

Answer 2

"Are they safe or not?"

Hmm... no, not safe. No toxin injected into an infant's body (or adult's for that matter) is "safe". Are they effective? Sometimes. Should you vaccinate? That should be decided by your own research.

Deciding not to vaccinate my daughter was a difficult decision and was ultimately made by doing some math -- admittedly not my strong point. However, my decision was based on the following:

Given her family history, my daughter was about equally at risk for having an adverse reaction to a vaccination as she was for contracting the corresponding disease (given where we live). Having a *severe* reaction to a vaccination can equal permanent brain damage, physical disability, chronic illness or death. Contracting the diseases can bring the same consequences; however, most of them can be handled by the child's immune system without imparting permanent damage AND, in most cases, will give the child lifetime immunity from the disease (vaccinations do not).

The "problem" with the vaccination debate is the bevy of bullsh!t information on both sides of the argument. Anti-vax groups blame vaccinations for every *modern* problem from childhood asthma to autism. Pro-vax smile and say "vaccinations are completely safe and effective" while thousands of children continue to have severe reactions from which they do not recover. Just as formula companies have a lot to gain by making mothers think powdered milk is innocuous, Big Pharma has a HUGE vested interest in all children being vaccinated. Since when is varicella (chickenpox) a _deadly_ disease? What are the chances that my infant daughter is going to contract Hepatitis B when no one in her family is a carrier? Flu vaccine? "Effective" against a small number of influenza strains and not worth the risk.

It's easy to get caught up in the alarmist rhetoric on either side of the fence, and reading the hundreds of stories of vaccine damaged children will make one sick; but, ultimately, the decision must be based on what you think is best for your child. If your previous five children have not had severe reactions, then odds are this child will not either. And, in my opinion, you are smart to avoid the unnecesary and widely inefective flu and chickenpox vaccines.

Edit:

Belinda, if you want to know what is in a particular vaccine, many drug company inserts are available online. The inserts list the ingredients and explain how the virus was attenuated.

http://www.vaclib.org/chapter/inserts.htm#human

Answer 3

I feel for the majority of kids, the shots are fine. For a small percentage of children though, the shots can have adverse effects. That is why the govt has a fund set up to help pay for the care of children neurologically damaged by vaccines. But like I said, for most children the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the risks. I am waiting to start my daughters shot series until she is a bit older because of the VAST amount of autoimmune disorders we have that run in the family, and we want her immune system to be a bit more mature before we mess with it :). The pediatrician supports our decision. I think if you already have started the shots, and adverse effects do not run in the family (and your other kids seem to have gone through the series just fine) then go ahead and continue with the vaccinations. I think in your situation you have very little to worry about. Also, the person who said follow your heart is right on target. As a mother, you know what is best for your child.

Answer 4

This is something you need to research for yourself and find your answer. Going off of someone elses opinion, even that of a pediatrician or government organization, is not always the best approach.
I personally do not vaccinate, for many different well-researched reasons. The autism concern is not really an issue for me, as I am not 100% convinced of the link anyways and I feel there are much greater concerns to vaccinations besides that one.

http://www.909shot.com
http://www.vaclib.org
"What You Doctor May Not Tell You About Childhood Vaccinations" by Stephanie Cave

Those are a few good places to start looking for information, but there are many other resources out there you can find, though there are a lot of un-helpful anti-vaccination sites which go more into conspiracy theories than information, and tend to have a lot of uncited opinions.

Answer 5

My only issue with the vaccines is that I can't get a straight answer from the guy who gives the shots. I asked the officer in the immunization clinic what is in the shots, and he gave me a line about "dead and inactivated viruses . . ." I know that's in there, so I asked him about the inert ingredients and he gave me the run-around. I still had him give the shots (it's the military, it's a culture of obedience) but I felt torn about it.

I don't think it's necessarily about what is good for each child individually. I think it's about trying to eradicate these viruses completely. I believe that the CDC and others who make the recommendations for the vaccines are interested in what's best for the whole country, which is OK for me. I just wish I could get a straight answer.

Ms Informed--good idea. I have looked up the inserts for other drugs before and it is helpful in deciding what to take and what to leave. Thanks. :-)

Answer 6

They are safe! The risks of getting these diseases way outweighs any small risks the shots pose. Things like Mumps and Croup are starting to reappear now because parents are not vaccinating their children. It disgusts me, really. You have 5 other kids vaccinated, so you have experience that the shots do no harm. Look at Measles for example, before vaccinations, 90% of children children got the disease before they reached 20. These children often got pneumonia with lung scarring. Others wound up with brain swelling. Could you imagine your child going through that? I could not. Do these parents want to go back to the time when kids got Polio and were paralyzed? I mean the evidence of the wonderful things vaccinations have done are obvious in the USA. If you go to a third world country where these parents have sick kids from diseases that could have been prevented.... it is so sad! Please vaccinate your child, for their health.

Answer 7

The chances of you child getting measles is much less than one in a million and NO deaths at all in any age group in 2005.
During 2005, local and state health departments reported to CDC 66 confirmed cases of measles (incidence rate: less than one case per 1 million population)
Distribution of the 66 measles patients by age group was as follows: seven (10.6%) measles patients were aged <1 year, four (6.1%) 1-4 years,

The 66 cases were reported from 16 states.

Three persons were hospitalized during this outbreak, including the health-care worker, who was treated in the intensive care unit and recovered

The vaccine is a bigger threat than the measles.

Nobody gets polio except from the vaccine.

Smallpox has been eradicated worldwide, and endemic transmission of poliovirus, measles virus, and rubella virus has been eliminated in the United States.

There were no reported deaths due to diphtheria, measles, mumps, paralytic poliomyelitis, or rubella;the same is true of all the vaccines.

You are injecting your child with dangerous chemicals for NOTHING OTHER THAN TO FILL THE WALLET OF YOUR DOCTOR AND THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES!

The fact is they are unnecesary at this time.
WAKE UP!
PLEASE VISIT THESE SITES.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Tenpenny/sh...
http://www.generationrescue.org/
http://www.909shot.com/
http://www.know-vaccines.org/faq.html
http://educate-yourself.org/vcd/howenste

Answer 8

Re. "all the parents bad mouthing shots lately" -- it might reassure you to think about all the parents who do NOT badmouth them.

UNICEF says _99%_ of American children are getting a DPT jab...

http://unicef.org/infobycountry/usa_statistics.html

The anti-vaccination campaigns are not backed by any organization I'd consider respectable, too. This is a minority, and a fringe one at that.

(More power to them for going against the grain, but I really think their research skills are lacking.)

Answer 9

I personally dont feel shots are bad. If autisum is what your worried about, my son is 7 and showed signs from the day he was born not after the shots. Also, you know what your heart tells you. If you feel like its wrong then dont do it.

Answer 10

I have a daughter, and she is fully up to date with her vaccinations... The diseases that a child can get if they are not vaccinated are far more dangerous than any risks a vaccine may pose... there are so many rumors flying around about vaccinating. Most of them are myths, or outdated risks...
Talk to the pediatrician... he/she should be more than happy to discuss any concerns you may have.