my good friend mary has given me many issues of her pre-loved mothering magazines which i have become totally addicted to. she recently bought the july/august issue and had it mailed to me (how wonderful is she?) because it spoke about some key issues she is very passionate about (vaccinations and breast feeding) and that she knows i am too (ok, so maybe i’m not quite as passionate, but i am definitely interested and try hard). (let’s be honest, i would totally opt for the lazy man version of lobster, if i liked it.) so last night, i ditched new moon (which is so not easy to do) and read the article ‘vaccine debate,’ by jennifer mugulis.
i know there is SO MUCH out there on this topic and honestly, i try to take the soak-up-as-much-knowledge-as-you-can-without-loosing-your-mind approach to things like this, because i guess i think that’s the healthiest way (for me). on my way to work this morning i couldn’t stop thinking about the article (it was really good) and how it’s possible that the allegations of something so serious can be so unknown. wtf?
so here i am, among 400 gazillion other mommy bloggers, going to go there. well, not super-duper-into-it-there because i really don’t have enough knowledge or any credentials to speak (write) on the topic of vaccinations. but i have a child, and one on the way, who i care insanely about and want the absolute best for… and last i checked i don’t live under a rock.
every time we go to the pediatricians office it seems as though there is a new, hip, trendy, all-the-kids-are-getting-it vaccine ready for our son’s perfect, meaty little thigh. try as i might to research what each of the vaccines (that we know we’ll be offered) are and why they are recommended and whether the risk out weighs the benefit or vice versa, i still feel overwhelmed, undereducated, and down right unsure.
although we have mostly followed the recommended vaccination schedule with jackson, we have opted to postpone some vaccines until he is older and/or we’ve had more time to make a confident decision and have declined others which we feel are totally superfluous. whenever we’ve declined a vaccine our pediatrician hasn’t batted an eyelash. is it because she’s so freaking sick of parents like us who are scared shitless about the ingredients, the side effects and the general hysteria that seems to be in every book, magazine, article and blog we come across? does she think, ‘here we go again, this crazy ass lady who thinks her son’s going to get autism after the MMR shot’?
well lady, from what i know there are a lot of parents out there who say yes, and that alone is enough for me to proceed with caution. (not to mention, in my opinion, the evidence disproving a correlation between autism and vaccinations is lacking some major must-have components.) after you read an article like this one and learn about a mother who’s walking, running, talking, smiling, happy toddler is now immobile, mute and diagnosed as autistic just weeks after receiving a vaccination is enough to make me want to move to a deserted island with my family, a few goats and maybe a chicken or two. seriously.
i’m not really sure where, if anywhere, i’m going with all of this. i guess just sharing, venting and realizing more and more how seriously effed up this all is. i am not anti-vaccinations. i do believe that many have more benefit than risk. but i also feel strongly that my two hour old infant does not need a shot to prevent a blood disease derived mainly from sexually transmitted diseases. i also have to wonder what was so wrong with the immunization schedule from the 1980′s, when only seven vaccines ( diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella and polio) were administered and they were all given separately (The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, http://www.chop.edu/consumer/jsp/division/generic.jsp?id=75700)? in fact, many european countries still follow a schedule similar to the one from the 1980′s in the US and guess what? childhood autism and asthma are not the epidemic there that they are in the united states. and seriously, if so much of the controversy lies around these vaccines being administered together instead of in individual shots why won’t companies like merck and glaxosmithkline manufacture them separately? when i asked our pediatrician just that she said her office had been trying to get them individually but so were everyone else and their brother; it just wasn’t going to happen. a friend who’s children see a different pediatrician in the same area said he could get the shots separately but they wouldn’t be covered by insurance. so if you had a few thousand extra dollars sitting around you might get lucky? why is this so not right on so many levels?
so i guess for now the bloods are proceeding with caution. at least until we can round up some goats and chickens and a parachute to land us safely somewhere between vanuatu and figi.
i know it’s kind of a loaded topic, but what are your thoughts?








