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Sceptical look at claims made about vaccines and health |
What surprised us when it came to deciding whether or not to vaccinate our children, was how polarised and personal the debate was. We decided not to vaccinate, not out of fear, but because the evidence clearly demonstrates that infection is part of the evolutionary process that strenthens the immune system. (I expand on this view in my response to this study in the British Medical Journal). In addition I was surprised to discover that vaccinations were not nearly as effective as we were led to believe and began to wonder if parents who decide not to vaccinate their children were really a threat to public health? The vast majority of children are immunised and supposedly "protected", so one would have thought these children were healthier or are they? My children havel contracted infectious diseases like measles and whooping cough without problems, is this whats most important rather than preventing them getting infected? I am not presenting this website as a recipe for healthy children, I am meerly describing what has worked for family, and the questions I asked about the assumptions public health officials are making about disease prevention.
Our aim is to provide information, not to make decisions for you. No doubt some will say my partner (a solicitor with a PHd in chemistry) and I are are two “ill informed liars” “selfish” "or antivaccination activists", because we decided not to do what the vast majority of parents choose for their children. I have studied the pros and cons of vaccination for my masters dissertation in Health Promotion, which examined "informed consent" in the UK for the DTaP vaccines. I was able to concluded that very few of the parents surveyed had even basic knowledge as to what they had consented to (what does the D and aP stand for). I also draw on 20 years experience providing chiropractic care to children and the trials and tribulations of dealing with childhood infections of our own children Eloise 6 years old, Isabelle and Molly 9 and Frederik 25
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Childhood
Vaccination - Medical Sacrament or Golden Calf? |
According to the World Health Organisation the two public health interventions that have had the greatest impact on the world’s health are clean water and vaccination. Nevertheless since Edward Jenner published his immunisation theory in 1798 immunisation has been extremely controversial. Diseases such as smallpox measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus whooping cough and polio are extremely rare now in developed countries. However no one knows exactly how many children die or are injured by the vaccines that have been used to reduce prevalance of the diseases. It is well known that reactions to vaccines are under reported, parent groups have been formed in many countries (UK and US) seeking justice for their injured children. GPs who question vaccinations Dr Jayne Donegan and Andrew Wakefield risk professional suicide. If vaccinations are "safe", why do Governments absolve pharmaceutical companies from responsibility when side effects are proven? Promoters of immunisation policy in US or UK rarely mention the risks.
Making the "right" decision when it comes to the subject of vaccines and vaccinations for your
children is probably not going to be easy.
Good parents are not necessarily by definition those
who vaccinate their children and bad parents those
who don't or vice versa. What may be right for one
child could invariably be wrong for another.
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Opposing views from within the medical community |
 "Disease
prevention is the key to public health. Vaccines
benefit in particular the people who receive
them, and in turn, those people cannot spread
the disease to others who have not been vaccinated.
Infection cannot spread if it never gains
a foothold. Infectious Diseases cause enormous
suffering, strain the health care system,
and deplete financial resources. For the individual,
the health care provider, the interests
of preserving human and financial resources,
it is better to prevent disease than
treat it."
The US Department of Health and Human
Services.
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The greatest threat of childhood
diseases lies in the dangerous and ineffectual
efforts made to prevent them through mass
immunization…There is no convincing scientific
evidence that mass inoculations can be credited
with eliminating any childhood disease…
There are significant risks associated with
every immunization and numerous contraindications
that make it dangerous for the shots to be
given to your child… "While the
myriad short-term hazards of most immunizations
are known (but rarely explained), no one knows
the long-term consequences of injecting foreign
proteins into the body of your child. Even
more shocking is the fact that no one is making
any structured effort to find out.
"Robert Mendelsohn, MD, How
To Raise A Healthy Child
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Healthy children and long life without vaccinations
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The picture on the right shows my children visiting their late great great aunt Daicy who was 94 in 2004. There are four generations in this picture and none of them had been vaccinated against Measles, Mumps, Whooping Cough, Chicken pox, normal childhood illness when aunt Daicy was young "children were happy to have a week off school".
None of the children in the picture has had medicine of any kind to treat illnessl, basicly we have followed the 80s advice of American Paediatrician Rober Mendelsohn They were all breast fed for twelve months. They eat mostly home cooked organic food, and get lots of fresh air and exercise.
I do not disputes that there can be complications from infectious diseases, particularly in children with compromised immune systems sometimes congenital most often due to poor social conditions. In fact in January 1959 during one of the worst measles epidemics on record; The British Medical Journal reported that "measles was the commonest infection in the world and that complications were extremely rare thanks to improved living conditions".
Almost fifty years later despite continued improvement in living standards, parents are being told measles is a killer disease, because the government wants everybody vaccinated. In April 2006 it was reported that for the first time in fourteen years, a 13 year old boy had died from complications after contracting measles. Was it the measles that killed this boy or the fact he was a traveler, with a lung disease that required immunosupressive medication. The government wants me and other parents to vaccinate our children with the risks involved so this unfortunate child is protected by heard immunity? I believe the answer is in better social conditions, vaccination helps cover up health problems in the poorest part of our society where child poverty in the UK is one of the highest in the EU.
The fact is, it is cheaper to vaccinate than deal with the social conditions that predispose many children to complications from infectious diseases. Are vaccinated children healthier than unvaccinated? No one knows, and is anybody looking? In fact there is much scientific evidence that demonstrates a link between vaccination and autoimmune disorders (i.e. asthma , eczema), which are now considered the normal childhood illnesses. I will share my experience on this website, and publish parts of my disertation and encourage comments in the NEWS Section of the site. vaccination.co.uk
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The decision not to vaccinate our children was not a difficult one, when I was a child measles and mumps were normal childhood illness, they have been replaced by autoimmune disorders like asthma.I came to the conclusion that infections entering the body through the respiratory system, rather than vaccines injected straight into the blood stream is what strengthens immunity.
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