The 'V' word

There's a growing concern out there about vaccinations causing more harm than good. Unfortunately this seems to be a topic that ranks up there with religion and politics when it comes to conversations that you shouldn't have, because there are many impassioned people on both sides who focus more on feelings than facts.

A lot of this is based on fear. Mainstream parents don't want to hear that these magical elixirs may cause some serious damage, nor do they like the thought of their doctors lying to them about it. On the other side of the fence, a growing number concerned parents feel trapped in a system that essentially forces them to inject toxins into their children. The medical profession doesn't help matters by refusing to perform any kind of serious studies on the matter. Vaccinations are remarkably easy to get passed through, and the long-term effects are unfortunately not known.

I really wanted to write up a comprehensive, well-researched posting about this but discovered that Alan Phillips had beaten me to it. I'll do some summing up, not just of him but also a few other sources I've read.

The basic premise of mainstream America is, "Vaccinations keep my child from getting a serious illness."

Well, that's not really true. What happens is that a weakened or dead strain of a virus is injected into your child's bloodstream, where his immune system learns to combat it. Nice in theory, but somewhat lacking in execution.

First, there's no guarantee that it works, with up to a 50% failure rate. Second, there's actually a chance that the vaccination will give your child the disease in question. Third, your immune system eventually forgets how to defend against the weakened strain so you are vulnerable again in six to ten years, and many diseases (like mumps and measles) are much more serious when you get them later in life. Fourth, there's no real evidence that they prevent epidemics. Countries with no vaccination policies have shown similar drops in illnesses, due largely to improvements in sanitation and nutrition. Polio was already on the decline before the vaccine was introduced, and in fact it made a big comeback in the years immediately following the vaccinations.

Okay, so even if they don't do much why not get them? There are some serious reasons.

First is all the stuff that's injected into your child's bloodstream along with that weakened virus. There can be animal and human tissue (including fetal cells) as well as preservatives such as mercury, formaldehyde, and/or aluminum. There has been no serious study about what this can do to a developing brain, especially one that gets subjected to these toxins a dozen times or more over the course of a couple years. (Or even longer, if more states follow New Jersey's lead and make annual flu shots mandatory.)

The second reason was mentioned earlier. Your child only gets a temporary immunity from the vaccine (assuming it works at all or doesn't actually give your child the disease in question). This means they (and we) are vulnerable to exposure later in life and some of these diseases are much more dangerous to adults than children. People like to blame unvaccinated kids for causing epidemics but the odds are good they got it from a vaccinated friend, and passed it along to older kids who have outgrown their immunity. There's a reason people have pox parties.

The third reason is the fact that the pharmaceutical companies often stick more than one virus in a shot, even as many as three, in the belief that your child is scrappy enough to handle it. There has been some question as to whether or not this is a good thing, naturally.

Finally, there is the question of how serious is the threat of these diseases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have a weekly pdf download that shows how many cases have been reported. Last year, for example, saw 31 cases of measles in a population of 300 million.


So there you have it. At best vaccinations are a short-term solution to an immediate problem, like if you're traveling to Africa or there is an actual epidemic, but other than that they're just crippling the population's long-term resistance to diseases and potentially causing neurological damage to infants and children.