Ok so just to start i am pro vaccines. I have reasearched and with what i know I am pro. But i have a sister who isnt and i didnt let her or her kids near mine because i felt as if i was protecting my child.
Anyway this has put a strain on our relationship and i just wanted to hear the anit vaccine argument from a third party.
Why did you decide not to? I will not attack you and do not attack me. i just want to know the other sides reasons

Hi - I've just done loads of research into this (including trawling through medical journals to read the actual studies which have been done - not just vague articles which refer to "the latest research" but then don't reference it!) as loads of my friends are anti-vac for various reasons. The reasons I've heard for not vaccinating are:

The side effects
The belief that childhood illnesses are a positive thing for the childs development
The belief that the diseases in question are not actually as bad as they are made out to be (!?)
The issue that some vaccines are produced using human aborted foetal tissue
Disbelief in the efficacy of vaccines (and/or general distrust in the medical profession sometimes going as far as a belief that vaccines are actually intended to make us ill so that the big businesses can then make more money out of treat us)
Belief that current sanitation is the reason for the decline in diseases (such as polio, measles etc) and not the success of vaccination programmes.

...but I've ended up pro-vaccination too.

An awful lot of mistrust of vaccinations (especially MMR) seems to stem back to a study in 1998 (by Wakefield et al) which suggested a link between MMR and Autism. This study was later discredited and the link between the two has been refuted - but the fear remains.

After all of my reaseach I have decided that yes vaccines do carry a risk of sides effects but that the sever ones are rare and the benfits outweight the risks.

My friends who don't vaccinate seem to think I'm un-informed which is annoying.

If your kids are vaccinated then should you need to worry about letting them play with kids who aren't as yours are protected anyway? If you kids go to school they might be around loads of unvaccinated kids and you'd never know? I'm not going to keep my LO away from my friends kids who aren't vaccinated.

I respect your decision and would never judge you if you were pro or anti. I myself am and anti vaccine until my daughter is older. when people try to challenge me and seem to not want their children around my daughter that is their choice HOWEVER just because she is not vaccinated does not mean she is diseased and if your child is vaccinated then why should you worry if vaccines are that good? that is my take on it

I haven't done a ton of research on the topic but have done a little bit of googling, and also when articles have been posted on here for e.g. I will read them as not to go completely blindly in to something.

I am pro-vacc as well. We did delay the MMR by a couple of months, but other than that Lachlan has been vacc'd on schedule. From what I have read and weighed up on, for us the pros outweigh the cons.

Presented with more articles though I'd be happy to research further in to it, I'm sure there are some things I haven't heard about. I have some friends who do not vacc and we are respectful of one anothers choices to vacc and not to which is great.

I thought this too. Your kids should be perfectly fine around their cousins

I do believe vaccines work but they are only to prevent illness not stop. Like the flu shot. Just because you get the flu shot doesnt mean you wont get the flu thats my thinking. Thatnks for the input

My husband is very anti-vaccine, which caused some arguments between us when I was pregnant with our daughter. His initial reason is that his older sister had a very bad reaction to the Dtap vaccine when she was little--her legs swelled up within minutes of receiving the vaccine, and a day or so later she had her first seizure (she's had epilepsy ever since). Her pediatrician, like many doctors, said because the seizure didn't happen immediately it probably wasn't the vaccine that caused it; however, on the CDC's web site, they actually say that one possible, though rare, side effect of of Dtap is seizures. Seeing how his sister's life has been affected by this made my husband leery of giving our child vaccines, so he started (obsessively ) researching.

I had never considered NOT vaccinating until he began his research, which included reading medical journal articles and even a transcript of a government forum on vaccines from I believe the late 90s, which was centered on the mercury/autism debate, but which also brought up issues with other ingredients in the vaccines, like aluminum, which several of the panel participants said was potentially very toxic/problematic. He also found charts of the decline in many of the diseases we're vaccinating against, which showed that the majority of them were already in sharp decline in the States before the vaccines were put into effect (you can find these by Googling, I think).

What convinced me to at least delay vaccinating our daughter (I still haven't totally agreed to never vaccinate her, but I'm leaning in that direction) is the ingredients in the vaccines. As a parent who strives to do the natural thing as often as possible (i.e. give my family organic, non-processed food; use homeopathic remedies for injuries and illnesses first; never use pesticides/herbicides in our garden; etc), there's something that doesn't quite make sense to me about doing all that, but then having her injected (I believe 27 recommended doses in the first year of 10 different vaccines) with shots containing formeldehyde, aluminum, and mercury (the flu vaccine), among other things, esp. when her immune system and blood-brain barrier are not yet fully developed.

That said, I grew up assuming vaccines were safe and effective, so I still have moments of "Oh crap, what if we're wrong about this." Although I do find the evidence against vaccinating extremely compelling, not to mention scary.

I am not going to tell you what to do but I do know there IS formaldehyde which prevents the diseases from reproducing. and i know it also has mouse brains and aluminum (most comonly found metal on earth) which helps boost antibody levels. I don't know about flu vaccines but mercury was taken out of vaccines in the 90s and there was no drop in autism(also theres less mercury in a vaccine then a tuna sandwich. I AM NOT telling you you or your husband is wrong if you believe that putting that stuff in a vaccine is wrong thats your choice I was just saying why they put it in.
Thank you for telling me your reasons and I am sorry that your sister in law had been effected by vaccines. My uncle had a brother die from polio and my aunt has a grass fed organic sheep farm and she vaccinates her sheep. she tells me that if she didnt amost half would die (NOT THAT KIDS WILL IM NOT SAYING THAT)
Thank you again for answering and please do not take me saying what I believe to be true especially sense I admit alot of it comes from Penn and teller vaccine episode (they claim they reasearch i personally believe them)

I wouldn't say I'm anti-vaccine, I think everyone should be educated and make the decision they feel is best for their child, I do think there is a place for vaccines....just not in my children, we do not vaccinate.

Just one thing to consider, vaccines aren't 100% as you know, and sometimes kids that are vaccinated can get one of these diseases but usually it is more mild for them if they have it, so mild that some times they don't even know they actually have something as serious as one of these diseases, they think it's just a cold or something like that and end up spreading it around even more because they just aren't aware. In that way a vaccinated child might be more "dangerous" than a non vaccinated. Also just because you don't vaccinate doesn't mean your kid carries these diseases around. My kids are very healthy, they go to public school and no one knows the difference. So it's also possible your kids are already around other non vaccinated kids at school or even friends, unless of course you ask all of your kids friend's parents? But it's not just public info so no one in my boys' classes even know, unless I were to say something for some reason.

My kids are no more a risk than a vaccinated kid is, like I said they aren't carrying the diseases...if they are sick we keep them home just like any other parent should do. It's also possible that a newly vaccinated kid is actually a bigger risk to an unvaccinated kid because some vaccines shed so they could give the disease to the unvaccinated kid for a certain period of time after they've had the vaccine.

Its very Interesting you said that because vaccines introduce a mild form of the diesease idk if the could get someone aick because of that but its interesting and my kid isnt even close to school age so thats not an issue for a couple years

Aaagh! This is my biggest worry at the moment. I was very pro vaccination (he has had all the ones in his first year) as we are big on travel and want him to have the same protection as us. However I started doing some research and found some very convincing anti vax material. Now I am so completely torn. He is 4 months late for his 12 month boosters and mmr, I have booked and cancelled them 3 times so far. I think we might go for the ones I am most concerned about - measles and meningitis but obviously I would have to go private and drive up to London to get measles separately.

Once they are done you cant take them back but I do worry that he could get ill in the meantime while I am making up my mind. By far the hardest parenting decision I have ever had to make