I just can't let this pass entirely even though I admit that there is no doubt good reason to keep monitoring the outcomes of vaccines closely.

In the meanwhile, remember polio? Whooping cough? Small pox? Remember the millions who died of these diseases? It is naive to think that the vaccines had no role in containing these diseases and that we can possibly discontinue vaccines and continue to enjoy the level of health we currently do. Sparing ourselves the chronic conditions attributed to vaccines will bring little joy if we die prematurely of infectious disease.

Ideally we could combine the benefits of the vaccine without the purported complications...

Thanks for your consideration...

Sasha

reposted :
My prejudices concerning vaccines are based on the following: that 1) adult vaccines still contain thimerosal and the flu vaccines given to infants and mothers also contain thimerosal 2) too many vaccines given at one time or at times too close together; at least one, Hep B vaccine, seems unwarranted in most cases to me 3) ages at which vaccines are given are much too young--I am not anti-vaccine. i am fully aware of the achievements in publich health thru their use; I just think the way these are manufactured and the administration schedule are harmful.
Hepatitis B vaccination is begun at birth--a major goal is to protect infants of the estimated 19,000 women who have chronic hepatitis B infection. What about pre-testing pregnant women to determine if they have this chronic infection instead of administering the vaccine to all newborns? I understand the goal is to eradicate the virus worldwide; starting with vaccinating newborns is the only method considered? Transmission of the virus from caregivers could be dealt with by mandatory pre-testing all caregivers. -why should all newborns be exposed to a vaccine for an infection the odds of the majority of them having are miniscule?

i do not know the answer to this problem. ...madelyn

Hi all!
How are you? I tried my best to stay out of this discussion about vaccines, cannot resist it anymore! I am honestly shocked when I hear a parent saying that they do not want to vaccinate their kids. But its their choice, as long as they keep their kid with an infection at home for the required period and not spread the bugs .......

I fully admit I am biased and believe in vaccinations. My bias is based on what we know at present about human biology, specially immunology. oh, one more clarification! I donot work for a big pharma nor get paid for advocating vaccines. I got into vaccine research because I believe its the only way to be free from diseases, most efficient and cost efficient way to deal with viruses and bacteria.

From tHis thread and the other discussions I have had in the past I see 4 0r 5 independent points getting mixed up in vaccines are bad discussion.

'1. Babies are too young and their immune system hasnot developed"
Immune system develops in response to challenges, sort of like the brain. Challenges in the form of vaccines (dead bugs essentiallY!) are safer than the full blown infection. In fact, acute, full blown infections and chronic, low grade infections are bad for the baby, both modes leave immune cells dysfunctional and donot give any protection. Can a baby survive a severe Rotaviral infection? Imagine the dehydration problems and kidney failures associated with it?

Vaccinating babies when they are months old is better in my opinion, because most of their immune cells are naive and respond better to antigens and they are protected for life. THe minute a baby is born, whether we like it or not, babies are getting immunized with not only pathogens but various other components of our air, water, food etc., For a baby's immune system everything it sees is "foreign" and therefore it responds.

I do agree that chemicals in the vaccines are not desirable, we can do without them. New generation of vaccines are coming out that donot need the preservative (mercury containing compound), adjuvant (Alum or aluminium) or formaldehyde. Hopefully its soon.
Recombinant vaccines and DNA vaccines are a lot cleaner and give you better efficacy.

2".in developing countries, vaccination makes a bigger impact than in developed countries at least with regards to infant mortality rate. "
In today's world there are no barriers for viruses and bacteria to travel, bugs travel without passports an visas. there may be economic barriers and walls between the countries, Example: Swine Flu

3. Vaccines are responsible for other horrible diseases
If one is not vaccinated and if this trend continues, several forgotten diseases are sure to re emerge and thats not a pleasant scene> If a disabled organism can cause so much damage to induce other diseases like cancer etc., the real on could be deadly. Within a few days after infection, some bugs are dead/dying in the body, they are taken up by macrophages and dendritic cells . and that is no different than a vaccine.
yes, there is a potential for activating the wrong type of cells with vaccines. If one is prone to more Th1 type immune responses, he or she will develop auto immune diseases even if there was no question.. Most of the vaccines that are in the market have alum=aluminium hydroxide which rarely ever promotes a Th1 response, in fact it promotes more Th2 type response
Cigerette smoke, pollutiion, pesticides, chemicals dumped in the water are more to blame for cancer aand series of auto immune disorders than vaccines

4. let nature take its course
YEs, that would be good in an ideal world where there is no pollution, we eat right , exercise, not stressed out ....... then we are on the equal footing wiht the bugs to fight the war, but until then, we need help!

5 chemicals in the vaccine are bad for you.. (this may be one point I sort of agree!)

6 .too many vaccines together: we are bombarded with hundreds of organisms every day and are either reacting to it or just ignoring it . evolution taught us how to multitask with pathogens....... other than watch the baby being fussy, I dont see any harm in it
I better stop here, already wrote a lot.
These are my thoughts on this subject, just stating strongly, no intentions of insulting or disrespecting anyone. Ultimately, any parent is doing what he/she thinks is the best for his/her child/I respect that.

Girija

Girlja,

I appreciate your response, especially since you come from a scientific background. While you make some good points, mostly ones that agree with my view (lol), I do disagree with others.

First, the vaccine immunity is NOT for life! All parents are told that vaccines confer lifelong immunity and that is simply not true. I have read that most folks in their thirties, and definitely by their forties, if their titres were tested, would need boosters of nearly every vaccine they had as a child! If the vaccine doesn't confer lifelong immunity, why bother?

Second, the vaccine is virus-specific, and virus mutate all the time. So the vaccine I received as a child for virus A does me no good if that virus mutates into virus B and I get it. Many of the things I was vaccinated for as a child may have mutated and I seriously doubt the pharmas are actively revising their vaccine stockpile to keep up with the changes...they have to sell the lot already manufactured as well as come up with new vaccines to sell everyone (did you know they are claiming to be working on a vaccine for Parkinson's-yet we don't know what causes it? Lovely). Just remember the flu virus, almost every year they guess the wrong strain, yet millions of folks get the flu shot. Too bad it confers no protection for the flu that year! Oh, well, big pharma says, maybe we'll get it right next year, but in the meantime, we sold ten million vials of useless flu vaccine!

Third, every "outbreak" of a disease for which a vaccination exists has included a significant portion of fully vaccinated kids. While the media is quick to latch onto the portion of kids whose "mis-guided parents" refused to vaccinate them, the reality is that in many such outbreaks, the majority of those who fell ill were vaccinated for that disease! Did the virus mutate? If so, what's the point of vaccinating? Or did the vaccine "wear off" a mere few years after vaccination, and in that case, well, I guess "lifelong immunity" wasn't achieved as represented.

Fourth, there are many diseases the risk for which is greatly diminished (or eliminated) once the baby is older than a year, two years, etc. If your child is past those ages, why bother with vaccination for that disease? I read that one Japanese doctor tells his patients that if the baby is older than one year, most of the vaccinations will not do anything to protect the baby over and above his own immune system, which has by that point been able to develop sufficiently.

Would you disagree with that line of thinking, particularly if one is lucky enough to not have to put their baby in daycare?

I have read so many, many cases of babies or toddlers who were developing perfectly until they had their vaccines. While we can poo-poo the parents' testimony for this reason or that, the videos of these children before and after vaccination cannot be interpreted any other way. There is even a senator whose own grandson was altered by vaccines, and he has been brave in speaking out about it.

I too wish they would clean up the vaccines, in terms of toxins and additives and even how they are made (monkey kidneys, who may be carrying the AIDS virus-are the labs even testing the kidneys for any virus before using them to manufacture vaccines?), reduce how many there are, increase the age at which kids receive them (why did the CDC change the time from giving vaccines from kindergarten to birth?), and test kids before vaccination to be sure they won't have any tragic adverse reaction.

It is easy to argue in favor of herd immunity until it is your child who is the lone victim damaged for life. What parent, armed with the facts, wants to take that risk? Even if you discount the baby/toddler horror stories because you cannot "be certain" they were really developing normally before vaccination, the girl teenagers whose lives have been ruined by the new cervical cancer vaccine are indisputable: twelve year old girl, star athlete, straight-A kid, in perfect health, gets the shot, within hours is sick, within days is paralized, now a vegetable or worse. Many stories like this. How can they keep recommending vaccination in general and this vaccine in particular after these developed, mature girls are so clearly adversely affected after being vaccinated? Their refusal to take this vaccine off the market and acknowledge the risks makes all vaccines suspect, in my view. And, IMHO, it is no different than when a drug maker conceals or manipulates data about the safety or efficacy of a drug/device which then ends up harming innocent people...we just had a recent thread here about this very subject. It's awful.

Thanks! That was a quick response to my essay on vaccines! I do want to answer some of your comments

It is easy to argue in favor of herd immunity until it is your child who is the lone

I understand how horrible it feels when vaccines that are supposed to save a child destroy his/her life. Even if the chances are one in a million, there is that child and the parent wondering Why me? I feel for them, buy I am looking at those million-1 kids who are better off being vaccinated, survived deadly infections and have no vaccine related complications. I think this is where we differ, you are looking at one child and yes I am looking at the herd. I wish and hope we reach no risk only benefit stage soon.

First, the vaccine immunity is NOT for life! All parents are told that vaccines confer lifelong immunity and that is simply not true. I have read that most folks in their thirties, and definitely by their forties, if their titres were tested, would need boosters of nearly every vaccine they had as a child! If the vaccine doesn't confer lifelong immunity, why bother?


I am glad you said this, because I get a chance to give my response. If a vaccine is good, immunity generated to that vaccine is life long. Memory cells generated for a pathogen remain in the body and are constantly self renewed. they dont actively produce antibodies or cytokines unless they see the pathogen again. In the absence of exposure to say smallpox, yoour small pox specifc cells are sort of dozing off and not making antibodies to kill small pox, so titers will be low. thats the normal way. booster shots make these cellls divide and grow, make antibodies, titer is positve and every one is happy. If you ask me, I would say if a vaccine is good, 2 shots one to prime second to boost are enough for life
The techniques used for titer s are not sensitive enough to measure whats in the body


Second, the vaccine is virus-specific, and virus mutate all the time. So the vaccine I received as a child for virus A does me no good if that virus mu

true, vaccines are virus specific and a good vaccinologist will find a component of a virus that is highly critical for viral survival, hence remains the same most of the t ime. This makes the vaccinre last a life time. Most vaccines are made foor attacking the pathogen at several sites,or components for eg., A to F sites, even if A mutates B. you still have antibodies to CDEF!
Flu virus and HIV are very tricky and they mutate a lot, newer strategies for flu vaccine are in the works and they avoid those annoyinG, mutTING components is what I heard recently

Yes, i know about the vaccine for PD, may be a bit ambitious at this point, I agree with you. But the strategy is not bad, its targeted to modified alpha synuclein. It may work~

Getting a vaccine to clinical trials is a huge task, believe me FDA is pretty good! they ask for a lot of info. Well atleast from the small companies, may be not from big pharma!!!!!!

Its pretty late should get some sleep,,,
thanks for a good discussion.

Girija






,

I wouldn't call it discipline; I've just had no appetite and/or eating takes too much effort. It would actually be easier for me to eat every other day than daily! But my loss of appetite got me thinking...maybe it is the body knowing how to protect itself when disease strikes, trying to increase longevity by reducing intake. Any thoughts on this?