First disclaimer- this is purely my opinion on vaccinations. Second disclaimer- this is purely my opinion as a parent.
Okay- now that we've gotten that out of the way, I've noticed that the vaccine discussion has been a hot one recently. I tend to frequent parenting groups on facebook and other parent related resources and this is a somewhat common topic. I think that the discussion has been fueled recently by this article: http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/dear-parents-you-are-being-lied The author, Dr Jennifer Raff, does a great job of giving all of the peer reviewed research reasons for vaccinating. I will be very upfront- I am in support of vaccinations and felt that she did a very good job of providing research based evidence of why vaccinating is important. Further, I loved that she raised two other points- first, the fact that the studies she cites have been replicated and yielded the same or similar results. And second, the concept of herd immunity, which I'll circle back to in a moment.
I have a fair number of friends and former students who hold advanced degrees in the medical field (most are MDs, several are PharmDs, some RNs and other roles- PT, etc). I take extra notice when they weigh in on this topic as they have advanced training in several arenas- human physiology and science (mainly biology, chemistry, and biochem). This is not to say that other folks don't have an understanding of these topics, but in my opinion this has more weight than I googled the topic and Dr Google told me x, y, or z. I am the type to research and weigh my/our options on different topics and over and over again, I've found there is very little, if any, scientific evidence supporting no vaccinations. The few studies that do exist have been disproven or have not had a credible follow up study that replicated the results. I'm not saying that trained medical professionals are not the only source of information on this topic, but when someone who has an ADVANCED degree in this area and is an expert in public health or immunology weighs in, I listen. I am an expert in my field and I feel strongly that there are limits to my area of expertise and I owe it to other professionals to listen and trust their professional opinion and information. I know a chiropractor or two and find that they often are the most vocal against vaccinations. Thankfully, the one that I would call a friend has mostly been vocal against the flu vax, which has had studies show support for both sides- vax and no vax.
From a personal standpoint, we are in a very interesting situation. Our son is 2 1/2 and is up to date on all vaccinations for his age. I considered doing a delayed vax schedule and ultimately decided that it wasn't the best option for our family for several reasons. Either way, he would be fully vaccinated at this point because the delayed schedule typically puts more vaccinations between age 1-2 and has the child fully vaccinated by or shortly after the second birthday. We send our son to a wonderful in-home daycare and I recently found out that her newest child is not vaccinated. In many ways this isn't a problem for us- our son is up to date on his vaccinations and would be more of a threat to the non vaccinated kid than he is to our son. Where this all gets a little more sticky is that even with a vaccine, there is no guarantee that someone can't contract a particular illness. The vaccine helps build immunity to the illness and will lessen the severity, but in some cases won't completely prevent the disease from happening. Again, this is a relatively rare occurrence and probably won't be an issue. We are expecting a second child and putting a newborn into an environment with a kid who is not vaccinated is concerning to say the least. I know at least one family whose kids were exposed to something that would have been covered by vaccinations due to a non vaxed kid at their daycare. In their case, their twins were preemies so they were on a slightly delayed vax schedule and had not yet received the vax that would have protected them from this disease. Thankfully, they did not get sick, but the fact that they were exposed because of someone else's selfishness and total lack of regard for their community is by far the most frustrating thing for me as a parent.
I'm all for not vaccinating your kids, but then I also expect that you plan to stay home with your children. homeschool them, and refrain from vising public places. Your utter lack of regard for your community and the common good (i.e. herd immunity!) makes me and most parents that I know very upset. I've actually had a non vax parent tell me "vaccines are good for the community and bad for the person". This was several years ago so I nodded and smiled to the comment. I've since become a parent and researched the topic in depth and have learned that vaccines are good for the person AND the community. Besides, there are so many things that we can't prevent or control as parents, why would you choose not to prevent a set of very serious, often deadly, illnesses? This makes absolutely no sense to me!
I'll end with a final thought/challenge- please provide me with peer reviewed journal articles that show that vaccinations are not effective (and I'm not talking about the journal article linking vaccinations to autism that has since been debunked- multiple times- that ship has sailed). I'm all for being educated further on this topic and would love to read more supporting no vaccinations. I have not been able to locate REAL research that actually proves that vaccinations are not effective or good. REAL research is from a peer reviewed source and has been replicated. Bloggers are not reputable sources (I love bloggers, but let's face it- they often aren't experts on the topic- just like I'm not in this case!).
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