Since California has now declared whooping cough an epidemic, there’s a push to make vaccines mandatory—eliminate all exemptions for everyone, regardless of religious or philosophical beliefs. In other words, close the chapter on vaccines. Discourage any discussion.
Yes, there are no studies proving a correlation between autism and vaccines. And yes, we have to acknowledge that many, many kids get vaccinated without a problem, and many diseases have virtually disappeared since we’ve vaccinated children.
But I don’t think the topic of vaccines is as black-and-white as many would like us to believe. Here are some facts that are generally swept under the carpet.
1. A vaccination actually doesn’t guarantee that you won’t get the disease it’s targeting.
Yep, you can still get the disease even if you’re vaccinated (although this fact is seldom mentioned in articles). Moreover, there’s no predicting who is more vulnerable to the disease.
2. The medical community is not sure how long immunity lasts.
Booster shot guidelines (as to when and how often we need them) are so often changed.
3. Different countries have different vaccine schedules.
Since there’s no universally accepted schedule for vaccines, the timing and number of shots given at one time could be important variables to consider.
I may have some personal experience with the timing of vaccines. Within an hour of my youngest daughter receiving her first vaccine, her temperature shot up, and she started experiencing convulsions. We were lucky—no brain damage as my doctor feared may have resulted, but I’ll never forget that agonizing night.
My daughter was born six weeks premature. So in a sense, she was really only two weeks old when I dutifully took her to get her shot at the two-month mark. Would she have had the severe reaction if I had waited until she was older? Who knows? After that night, our doctor wrote emphatically all over our daughter’s medical chart that she should never, ever receive any future whooping cough vaccines.
4. Today’s seniors have not received the same number of current vaccines as today’s kids.
That means we don’t have medical studies that prove there are no long-term effects from vaccines. In the absence of such data, I’m guessing we won’t find even the strongest proponents of vaccines giving their patients a signed guarantee that there will never be any adverse effects as a result of being vaccinated.
Those are just a few of the facts that need to be included in a general discussion on vaccines. And then, throw into the mix all the parents who swear their child’s neurological development significantly declined after getting a shot. I’ve met many of them. These parents often have pre- and post-videos that underscore their convictions of the change. You’ll never get them to believe that there wasn’t a correlation between the vaccine and the change in their child thereafter.
So that’s why we have to keep talking about vaccines, why we have to keep all parts of the discussion alive. Most importantly, we should be concerned about trends that automatically dismiss parents who question health and safety issues as ignorant victims of sensationalized media. Instead, we should all want to encourage healthy discussions that focus on unfiltered factual information—until we find answers that are truly satisfying to everyone.
