Hi,

I appreciate that given the nebulous nature of how we contracted PD in the first place, many of us suspect or fear vaccinations. It's good for us to question the status quo. However, we should also be willing to open our minds to the possibility that misinformation may be the basis for our skepticism. Where does the CNS News source find this information, specifically that "State Vaccine Teams to Conduct 'Interventions' in Private Homes"? If one links to the actual bill; this is the exact wording provided:

‘‘(E) providing for home visits that promote immunization through education, assessments of need, referrals, provision of immunizations, or other services;"


Is there another section that I am missing on this topic? I interpret this in an entirely different light. Home visits to promote, refer, provide or other "services". Services, does not to me, equate with enforcing immunization; instead, I see it as funding provision to educate people. Keep in mind, states, have the option to use use funding for this purpose, not the mandate to enforce vaccination- nowhere does it state that the CDC has the right to enter homes with the intent to inject citizens. The bill simply spells out funding options at the state level; I don' fear that the immunization police will show at my doorstep, but I do fear that people who choose not to vaccinate their children may be creating some very serious problems that only future generations will know.

If parents continue not to vaccinate, I hate to see what sort of diseases will have a welcome mat, if not an open door, not only years from now, but as we speak. Didn't we just discuss how avian flu may provide a pathway to PD through inflammation of cells? Isn't the deadly flu strain of 1918, as a killer of millions, linked to people "awakening" years later to PD?

From the World Health Organization:

"Vaccines are among the most important medical interventions for reducing illness and deaths during a pandemic...During the 1957 and 1968 pandemics, vaccines arrived too late to be used as an effective mitigation tool during the more severe phases of the pandemics. Influenza vaccines had not yet been developed when the 1918 pandemic swept around the world, eventually killing an estimated 50 million people."

Can the vaccine be both villain and hero? You bet, all depending on our perspective. Let's look at this through the lens of living with PD. Let's say scientists establish without a doubt that viral infections cause PD for some people. Would any one of us, knowing what we do now, turn down a vaccine that prevented this causative flu strain? Would we want our grandchildren to forgo this intervention? I'm already compromised, but I'd like to know that someone is looking out for my son and future generations. Many of us may opt out of any vaccination, but isn't that because we look at it from a healthy person's perspective- my likelihood of contracting xyz disease is low, so the vaccine itself becomes the villain. I bet a person who contracted Polio might see it see it quite differently- the risk in the vaccine itself would most likely take a back seat to the larger benefit of disease prevention.

Just some of my thoughts as devil's advocate,

Laura