‘immunisation’ for her) because, basically, there was no vaccine, upon my thorough investigation, which does not seem riskier than the disease.
I spent 3 years as a laboratory technician in a vaccine production lab in the 1990’s, so have a pretty sound idea of the principals and actual production of vaccines. There is a range of highly toxic chemicals added in the processes, including aluminium, mercury (Thiomersal - less now but its still there), and preservatives. Mercury, particularly, builds up in the body’s fat cells, and aluminium causes nerve and brain damage.
Vaccines are produced from the disease organism (virus or bacteria) itself. Part of the organism, or the whole live one (usually viruses) is injected into the baby to stimulate the immune system to ‘recognise’ the disease. Use of live vaccines often causes the disease it is meant to prevent, as exact doses for different people which will stimulate the immune response but not cause active disease are impossible to predict. They are pretty hit and miss technology. They are also a very unnatural and unhealthy way of stimulating the immune system, hence the side effects.
Vaccines only protect against one or a few strains of the disease – many, like flu, are constantly changing or have other strains which are not in the vaccine. Vaccination in these cases has meant that the other, previously less prevalent strains of the diseases are simply gaining prominence.
Most disease organisms used to produce vaccine are ‘grown’ in nutrient mediums which are derived from animal tissues, creating a real risk of injecting humans with animal diseases. There are diseases now known which are created by tiny organisms smaller than viruses (BSE, ‘Mad Cow Disease’, is one) which are pretty much impossible to screen for. The contamination of both Sabin and Salk Polio vaccines with SV40, a monkey virus which has been linked to causing cancer, happened in this way. Worse, the vaccines contaminated with this virus were still given to children (‘used up’) well after the problem was known – well into the 1960’s, and possibly into the 1990’s. www.sv40foundation.org . Many vaccines are also produced using genetically manipulated bacteria, toxins and yeasts to grow the disease proteins.
Vaccines do not give the same immunity as catching the disease naturally, and immunity usually wears off. Many children are offered ‘catch up shots’ if they miss them in early childhood, despite the fact that most of the diseases were only dangerous in babyhood.
Many diseases that we vaccinate for such as chicken pox, Hepatitis A and rubella are very mild in childhood but very dangerous in adulthood, and childhood vaccination usually wears off before adulthood. This increases the incidences of these diseases later in life when they are most dangerous. Some diseases that we vaccinate babies for, particularly Hep B, are ‘lifestyle diseases’ and can only be caught by direct body fluid swaps, such as in sex or IV drug use. I don’t know many newborns who are into those things.
Vaccines are never 100% effective in preventing disease (they vary from 50% to 90 plus %), and all have side effects, which range from ‘mild’ (such as fevers and rashes) to extremely severe (brain damage, nerve damage, death). Vaccination has been clearly linked to long term problems such as autism, asthma and allergies. It is estimated that fewer than 10% of very severe reactions are ever reported – there are many families out there who swear that their baby was perfectly normal before vaccination, and damaged to some degree, often with severe brain damage, afterwards. Australia, like America, has funds in place for financial compensation of victims of severe vaccine damage. Guess you have to plan for these things.
The safety testing regimes which all other drugs must undergo before being released onto the market has not and does not apply to vaccines, for a variety of reasons. One is that the studies required would be time consuming and costly and vaccines are considered ‘too important’ to be withdrawn until they have been properly safety tested. Thus many have been withdrawn for being too dangerous after years of use, such as the Polio one which passed on a monkey cancer – causing virus, or the Pertussis (Whooping cough) one withdrawn only recently for severe side effects. Others have medically documented severe side effects, such as MMR, linked to autism (which, by the way, vaccinates against three diseases, none of which are considered dangerous in childhood), and are still injected into millions of children daily worldwide. It is also very difficult to verify long term chronic problems such as the rise in asthma, allergies and other long term problems which may be caused by vaccination.
The most dangerous way to vaccinate is with the use of combined polyvalent vaccines, such as MMR and many others. I would have considered giving my girl the Pertussis vaccine, but for one thing it is new, and the vaccine it replaced was demonstrably dangerous, (it caused screaming fits, high fever, brain damage), and for another it only comes in a combined shot with two other diseases which I do not want to inject her with.
In short, vaccination is a gamble, and after weighing up the odds I’ve decided that it’s too dangerous compared to the risks of the diseases. I plan to keep her healthy with two years of breastfeeding, never putting her in childcare (I wouldn’t for a variety of other reasons anyway), using homeopathics and other extremely effective natural medicine choices to keep her well, and simply creating a healthy immune system in her by feeding her well and avoiding noxious environmental situations.
There are various solutions of different vaccine schedules, less vaccines, safer combinations or ‘natural’, risk-free alternatives for parent who are concerned about vaccination to consider, but these are rarely if ever presented as a choice to parents by health authorities. Wouldn’t like to upset the drug companies?
Disease is a risk, but vaccination is the certainty of injecting noxious substances into tiny children to try to force an unnatural immune response. In some situations it’s a gamble worth taking, in some it isn’t. That simple. In a theoretically free(ish) society, it plagues me deeply that having an invasive, largely untested medical procedure like vaccination performed on one’s children is not presented as a choice, but enforced using at least, guilt, and at most, twisted permutations and uses of the law. So much for freedom of choice.
