Would you trust the h1n1 shot after this...

[BrandiCanucks]

I have some questions:
1) How do you all feel about animal vaccination? Here the research is much more easily done as the ethical requirements for study are much lower. Do vaccinations magically work in other animals but not humans? Or do you not get your pets vaccinated for anything?
2) How do you feel about charitable movements to get mass vaccination programmes across the developing world? Does it really sit well with your conscience that these people should be deprived the chance of health, and life even, because your own experience had been unfortunate?

Unfortunately, we don't have our cat anymore. One of our neighbours snatched him off our property back in July and took him to the Humane Society who put him to sleep 3 days later.

I used to support vaccinations. I used to think that vaccine companies and our doctors wouldn't tell us these are safe if they truly weren't. It wasn't until my daughter's development began to decline that we started to look into them. We thought she had autism.

After our research, we honestly didn't look into animal vaccines, but we loved our cat like he was our child, and therefore decided not vaccinating him further was best for us. Unless absolutely necessary, and it is a very common and life-threatening disease, any further animals, I more than likely will not vaccinate either.

As for the charitable movements, I don't agree with them. It upsets me to think of how many more adverse reactions are happening worldwide that we don't know about by supporting these programs. I don't believe they should be deprived of health and a long life, but I also don't believe that vaccinations should be the first line in promoting health and a long life.

Again, if circumstances were different, and had my daughter's condition not become apparent and began developing right at the same time as her first vaccine, I would probably think much differently.

 

[Chaos]

It's always a question I've asked my self! Why don't the immunities we develop from vaccinations cross over to our kids?

I don't really understand this question. It seems to be implying that every disease a mother has had should through BF confer immunity on the baby. But it doesn't happen like that with natural immunity so why should it with that developed through vaccination?

If you went back and read it in context, it had nothing to do with breast feeding. It was regarding someones comment about getting a vaccination while PREGNANT and them assuming their child would be protected as they thought immunities where passed via pregnancy .. and I stated it was something that was untrue, but not a thing I really understand.

 

[PeanutBean]

Sorry Chaos I wasn't attacking in anyway, as I said I didn't understand what you were asking. Everything seemed to be about BF so I thought that was what it referred to. Mother's and baby's blood doesn't mix so I don't think any antibodies could get across to the baby. Babies get temporary immunity through antibodies present in breastmilk but it isn't permanent because they aren't producing them themselves.

On the breastmilk as a treatment thing, Byron had sticky eyes for like a year and we tried breastmilk a few times as everyone went on about it but found it did nothing at all. Possibly irritated his eye! lol He grew out of the stickiness eventually.

And sorry BrandiCanucks, now I'm looking at your post I see I got your name wrong in my last, just tried to remember it!

 

[lisaf]

I strongly disbelieve that hygeine improved so dramatically that it alone would have eradicated these diseases. First off, it was not some sudden revelation that washing your hands stopped the spread of disease, even doctors didn't believe in washing their hands between patients until decades after some of the vaccines had been introduced. If hygeine works so well, they why, in our antibacterial-loving society are we still seeing these diseases pop up? I mean our hygeine must be a thousand times better than it was a hundred years ago with daily bathing etc.

I think its naive to just blanketly state that unvaccinated children will not be getting mine sick. They have traced several outbreaks of diseases that had been thought to be eradicated and it was traced back to an unvaccinated person/child who traveled out of the country and brought it back. And to be honest, my fear is only that an unvaccinated child will get my child sick before they can be vaccinated. After my child is vaccinated, I could care less - I just worry about those who are not able to be vaccinated because their immune systems are too weak/compromised or if they are sensitive (both Brandi and blutea fall into the category of those too sensitive to be vaccinated and deserve the protection of others getting vaccinated).

The charitable organizations are probably the best proof that vaccines work... the death rates from these diseases have dropped despite deplorable heath and hygeine conditions.


I'm sorry you don't find vaccines safe enough Brandi, and do understand why you have concerns. But to state that it would have to be 100% safe is asking for the impossible. We take risks every day by driving in our cars, taking public transportation, letting our kids outside to play. There are millions of things that can go wrong and you cannot be 100% safe. Those of us who choose to vaccinate just see the reward as outweighing the potential risk. There have always been known reactions to vaccines, but its so much lower than the risks of all children getting the disease that its considered a trade off for society. Is it worth the tradeoff to the parent whose child is injured? Of course not and nobody expects it to be.

 

[BrandiCanucks]

I strongly disbelieve that hygeine improved so dramatically that it alone would have eradicated these diseases. First off, it was not some sudden revelation that washing your hands stopped the spread of disease, even doctors didn't believe in washing their hands between patients until decades after some of the vaccines had been introduced. If hygeine works so well, they why, in our antibacterial-loving society are we still seeing these diseases pop up? I mean our hygeine must be a thousand times better than it was a hundred years ago with daily bathing etc.

I didn't say the improvements in hygiene would have eradicated the diseases, I said they were on the decline with the improvement of hygiene. I'm not talking about just washing hands, but taking your urine and feces off the streets where people are breathing in these diseases, etc was enough to decline the rates. It's very true, before the invention of public and private restrooms, the restroom was wherever on the street in public you found, wherever you were. Taking away such exposure was enough to lessen the rate of contracting these diseases.

Why are we seeing these diseases still popping up? Because in our anti-bacterial-loving society, we're not being exposed to the germs that help in building our immune systems. We're doing their exact opposite. Our society has become a society of germophobes. We've been told that germs are bad and we need to kill them. Because we've been told we need to kill them, we've come up with anti-bacterial soaps, hand sanitizers that not only kill the bad bacteria, but the good. We need the good to help build our immune systems.

Also, exposure to vaccines, while I don't believe it has been proven, nor disproven, but there is a theory that states that exposure to vaccines rather than the actual disease itself has contributed to the weakened immune systems in society today. We may not be contracting these huge diseases, we are more and more often being exposed to and catching other diseases that every year, we cannot protect ourselves against because of the mutations. It's the same with kids and getting sick at school. When I was in elementary school, I probably missed one week my entire elementary school attendance. We didn't have hand sanitizers and germophobe parents, doctors, etc. We were simply taught to wash our hands, wipe from front to back, sneeze into a kleenex or your sleeve, not your hand, and if you sneeze into your hand, wash them. My daughter has been in daycare for 5 months now, and has been home sick at least 3 times, today included. Her daycare uses hand sanitizer like it's candy. My daughter, who already has a weakened immune system, isn't being allowed the opportunity to build her immune system because of the germophobe mindset.

Funny how influenza didn't begin mutating until after we developed a vaccine against it, and now that vaccine can't fully protect us. The truth is, we don't know exactly why it mutated, but had our immune systems not weakened from artificial exposure, we probably wouldn't even need the vaccine against it in the first place.

EDIT TO ADD: I'm not sure what your policies and procedures are in CA, but here where I live, if there is any outbreak at all, even if it's on the other side of the country, all the unvaccinated students, whether exposed to the disease or not, are removed from schools and daycares until after the outbreak is over. I also am smart enough and care enough about other children that if my children, or myself, happened to be exposed, out of respect for other students and parents, I would voluntarily already keep my child out of school or daycare, regardless of whether they are showing signs or actually break out with the disease.

 

[KandyKinz]

On the breastmilk as a treatment thing, Byron had sticky eyes for like a year and we tried breastmilk a few times as everyone went on about it but found it did nothing at all. Possibly irritated his eye! lol He grew out of the stickiness eventually.

Just wondering if your son just had sticky eye or an eye infection??? They are too entirely different things. Sticky eye is the result of the tear duct being physically blocked and being unable to drain the eye which results in a build up of icky gooey stuff. Breastmilk cannot fix the physical blockage. Eye infections are when a viral, bacterial or fungal overgrowth occurs and there has actually been evidence to suggest breastmilk does aid in treatment of that.

 

[PeanutBean]

Funny how influenza didn't begin mutating until after we developed a vaccine against it, and now that vaccine can't fully protect us. The truth is, we don't know exactly why it mutated, but had our immune systems not weakened from artificial exposure, we probably wouldn't even need the vaccine against it in the first place.

This isn't correct. Flu has always been a disease that is particularly prone to easy mutation. I can tell you how it works. The H and the N refer to proteins on the coat of the virus. When the virus infects a cell the cell begins to produce H and N following instruction from the virus RNA. All these proteins are kind of mixed about. If a second flu virus is present (very common, lots of flus can infect a variety of animals) it will have different H and N proteins and within the same cell these easily mix to form a slightly different sort of flu. On of the reasons swine flu is a particular concern is because humans and pigs are susceptible to the same flus and pigs and birds share flus too so the very scary bird flu can infect a pig, mutate with a flu shared with humans and then be able to infect us. Vaccinations are not able to keep up with the speed flu mutates which is why we need a new seasonal jab each year for vulnerable people.

KandyKinz, sticky eyes are not just caused by blocked tear ducts, they are also caused by viruses. Byron's was the latter. The virus infects, a bacterial secondary infection occurs and can easily be treated with antibiotics (I think we reluctantly tried three times with them, certainly two) but because the underlying infection is viral of course the antibiotics only treat the secondary infection. The reason I tried BM in the first place. In the end we just had to wait for his immune system to get the better of the virus. He still gets occasional recurrances if he is very under the weather with something else.

 

[UkCath]

Funny how influenza didn't begin mutating until after we developed a vaccine against it, and now that vaccine can't fully protect us. The truth is, we don't know exactly why it mutated, but had our immune systems not weakened from artificial exposure, we probably wouldn't even need the vaccine against it in the first place..

I don't know where you got that from, but the very nature and strength of the Flu virus is it's ability to mutate and it always has been.

From 1918 - 1920 Spanish flu killed 20-40 Million people and this was 20 years before the modern inactivated vaccine was developed by the US Military.

 

[BrandiCanucks]

I stand corrected.

Going back to why we tend to be more prone to illness, take obesity for example. I know, someone is bound to say I can't compare obesity to vaccines, but hear me out.

The rates of obesity have increased because of inactivity (and overeating...but I'm focusing on the inactivity). Children these days are becoming obese because they're choosing to stay indoors and play video games and play on the computer. In most cases, obesity is preventable. Now take these kids becoming obese and staying indoors and look at how their immune systems could be weaker than past generations. By staying indoors, they're staying indoors, where they are only exposed to the same germs that their bodies are used to. Now, if they were going outside and exposing themselves to other germs, they would be helping to build their immune systems by allowing their bodies to build an immunity to said germs. I'm not saying they won't get sick, I'm saying if these children went outside and exposed themselves, they would have a stronger immune system, and would probably end up less sick, and if they are to become sick, their bodies would more than likely be able to fight it off faster and better, and lessen the risk of complications.

On another note, my daughter has a weakened immune system. When she gets sick, she is always the statistical 1 in 10 child who is hospitalized. Her body is unable to fight fevers on its own, even with intervention with Tylenol. She always needs an IV to keep her hydrated. The way her body works is that she doesn't sweat. Instead, when her body temperature increases, her body aborbs what she would excrete as sweat, thus causing her to overheat and fast. She is at a slightly higher risk of catching diseases that could potentially take her life, and if she does, is at an increased risk of passing from complications.

For most parents, this would be motivation to vaccinate. I'm the opposite. Not only because of what I have researched and feel uncomfortable with, but also because, in all honesty, I do believe vaccines triggered her condition. While we vaccinated, she deteriorated. Since we stopped vaccinating, she has regained some skills and shows improvements every day. Her brain has even grown! Now, it could also be pure coincidence, but this is what I believe.

According to her geneticist and neurologist, she should be quickly deteriorating, but she's not. She should be entering a wheelchair, she shouldn't be able to walk or talk, but she does. I'm afraid if I vaccinate her again, she will begin to deteriorate again. I don't want that for her. We know there is a strong chance that she will pass away, when, we don't know, but until that day comes I want to ensure for her that she has as much of a quality of life as possible, and if not vaccinating prevents her from deteriorating further, thus losing the quality of life she does have, then vaccines stay away.

 

[KandyKinz]

KandyKinz, sticky eyes are not just caused by blocked tear ducts, they are also caused by viruses. Byron's was the latter. The virus infects, a bacterial secondary infection occurs and can easily be treated with antibiotics (I think we reluctantly tried three times with them, certainly two) but because the underlying infection is viral of course the antibiotics only treat the secondary infection. The reason I tried BM in the first place. In the end we just had to wait for his immune system to get the better of the virus. He still gets occasional recurrances if he is very under the weather with something else.

Okay... the majority of infants with sticky eye have it as the result of a blocked tear duct.. There are exceptions. And your son is an exception.

 

[PeanutBean]

Brandi. It sounds like you have complicated and difficult circumstances and I can fully understand why you have made the decisions that you have. I think those of us who are advocates of immunisation are not about sacrificing the rare individual who is known to have a bad reaction or who has other serious contraindicated health conditions. Rather like lisaf said by immunising most people we minimalist the risks of transmission to the most vulnerable in society.

 

[PeanutBean]

Okay... the majority of infants with sticky eye have it as the result of a blocked tear duct.. There are exceptions. And your son is an exception.

I'm not sure I actually believe that's true. I suspect that most parents are told by their health visitor that's the cause without any real evidence (as were we). As I understand it the blocked tear ducts prevent crying and in extreme cases might need surgery. I know lots of babies who have had sticky eyes but no problems crying. It's probably a moot point, something generally so minor probably doesn't have any data collected.

 

[BrandiCanucks]

And for those parents who vaccinate, I am thankful that they are minimizing the risk my daughter faces. I've never once said vaccination is a bad and horrible thing, I've stated my opinion on why we don't vaccinate and how diseases were reducing because of the introduction of better hygiene, and things like that.

I'd also never go on to say that a parent is bad for vaccinating their children. I have had numerous parents tell me I'm a bad mother and abusing my children for not vaccinating, and that's fine, that's their opinion, but they don't understand the circumstances behind why, nor do they choose to ask before insulting me and making accusations. To the ignorant ones, I just walk away.

My intentions never have been and never will be to change parents' minds on vaccination, nor is it, nor ever will be, to risk infecting and passing on diseases to other children, but to inform on the very real risks, however minimal, and also to share my daughter's story.

My kids' dad wants to start vaccinating our son against, in the very least, the lifethreatening diseases (whooping cough, polio, etc), but I refuse to right now. Until we can prove beyond any doubt that Zoe's condition was not triggered by a vaccine, and until we know for sure that Isaiah does not carry the same condition laying dormant, no more vaccines will be entering our children.

 

[lisaf]

As for why kids are sicker today, I do agree that we don't expose them to enough good bacteria and germs.

I disagree that vaccines are the logical culprit. The biggest and most likely influence is that we travel more than we ever did before. Travel used to be a luxury for the very rich but now its affordable and since we don't farm as much we are free to take time off (I have a friend who is a dairy farmer and they NEVER go anywhere or get time off). So we travel around and get exposed to different strains of disease. We also live in more concentrated populations. Disease was always a bigger problem in the cities than the country (with exceptions like typhoid etc).
I used to get one really bad cold every year and it was always in the first weeks/months back at school when all the kids who had gone on vacation brought back different viruses than I'd already had locally.
My husband got a cold every month for 4 months when he moved across the country.

I do think that vaccines and our healthcare in general keep more children and people alive than we would have seen historically. In that sense, we are overriding natural selection and leaving weaker members of the 'herd' around to catch diseases, pass it on to other weak members etc. I'm not saying thats a bad thing at all, our ability to extend and save lives that would not have been saved historically is one of our best achievements. But it does leave us with a 'weaker' gene pool. Ditto for fertility treatments (and I am someone who needed medical help to get pregnant). Even 50 years ago people who couldn't concieve, just didn't have kids.... now we can do all kinds of things to improve the chances for what might be imperfect genes to continue in our gene pool (I'm not against this, just stating it as a contributing factor to why we see kids as sicker today).

I also think that young children with developing immune systems used to be kept at home much longer before going somewhere public like a school which used to top out at 100, now they top out at 2,000 at some schools.

And Brandi - I do truly understand and even agree with your choices about vaccinations, I just don't think that a few bad reactions mean that vaccines are bad for everyone. Those with bad reactions should definitely avoid vaccines.
Vaccines will never be 100% safe because every person is different. Aspirin is not safe for everyone... heck, I have a friend who is allergic to Tylenol... the 'safe' painkiller they give everyone. Until they pinpoint what can cause a person to respond and predict it, they don't know until a reaction happens.

I should also share that my brother has a mental illness I've hinted at before. He was totally normal growing up but when he got to his late 20s he started showing signs (not that we recognized them at the time). And now has brain damage and cannot live on his own. He has been stable for a while and he may stay this way for another 30 years or he could start deteriorating any day now and be gone in 6 months. Doctors are not always good at figuring out the path of a disease/disorder.
I'm hoping that your daughter's improvement is a sign that they haven't found the right diagnosis for her yet and that she continues to improve and can overcome this problem. And I didn't know about her sweat/fever issue, that must be especially scary to go through.

 

[lisaf]

Brandi - I wanted to say that I appreciate you understanding and taking responsibility for keeping your kids home when there is an outbreak or when they are sick.
The scary part is that many illnesses are not apparent right away and are contagious before there are any symptoms, so you may not know your children are sick and they could be out spreading an illness. And thats not your 'fault' because you have a good reason not to vaccinate, it just makes it scary for those of us who want to but have to wait or want to space out the vaccinations in our kids.

I would never 'blame' a parent or a child who isn't vaccinating for an illness my kid gets... unless they were proven to be the source, lol, you know? If my kid gets whooping cough but yours doesn't have it, I'm not going to blame you, you know?

 

[KandyKinz]

Okay... the majority of infants with sticky eye have it as the result of a blocked tear duct.. There are exceptions. And your son is an exception.

I'm not sure I actually believe that's true. I suspect that most parents are told by their health visitor that's the cause without any real evidence (as were we). As I understand it the blocked tear ducts prevent crying and in extreme cases might need surgery. I know lots of babies who have had sticky eyes but no problems crying. It's probably a moot point, something generally so minor probably doesn't have any data collected.

Blocked tear ducts don't actually prevent crying or the production of tears. Blocked ducts do however prevent drainage which leads up to bunch of sticky residue. This does not always equate an infection. In fact as I mentioned earlier most babies who have a sticky eye due to a blocked tear duct do not have infections.... However they are more prone to acquiring eye infections due to the stagnant accumulation of goop. Anyways, that is why I specifically asked you in the first post to specify whether your child just had a "sticky" eye or an infection.

 

[PeanutBean]

KandyKinz I don't understand why your responses to me seem so aggressive, perhaps you don't intend them to be but they seem to rather harsh for what was merely a passing comment about a personal experience.

I also agree that we are bit obsessed with cleanliness these days and of course not exposing the immune system to germs will prevent it developing new antibodies. I'm not sure I agree that children are more sickly today than in the past. In the past there were far more diseases caused by malnutrition, poor social hygiene, no vaccinations. These days we largely have better immunity to the bigger diseases but perhaps are more susceptible to some of the little common ones. It would be interesting to see epidemiological data for the most common illnesses over say the past 200 years in a given country. And of course we get new diseases, and as you say lisaf individual populations are getting exposed to illnesses they wouldn't ordinarily, plus on top of that as the climate changes we will get invasion of warmer clime plants and animals that are carriers of disease to all kinds of life, us included. It's a never ending battle! I bet you've all heard of the Red Queen hypothesis? Running to stand still. We can't evolve that fast and as we are forced to live closer together through overpopulation we have an ever bigger battle on our hands.

 

[Perdita]

So out of curiosity... if you were bitten by a wild animal and couldn't verify that it didn't have rabies.... would you go through the rabies vaccines?

No, I would not get the vaccine because of my history of vaccine injury and severe adverse reaction. I would go to the hospital and get treatment. One of the most effective methods to decrease the chances for infection involves thorough washing of the wound with soap and water.

I haven't had time to check on any responses to this but feel should point out that there is no treatment for rabies and it is 100% fatal. It is incredibly rare in Britain but in other countrie it's endemic and the risks are much greater. Not criticising your choice however would you make the same choice if it was your child and not you that was bitten??

 

[KandyKinz]

Peanut - I was not trying to be aggressive as all I did was ask you to clarify whether your son just had a "sticky eye" or whether there was an infection. But you came back and you replied "KandyKinz, sticky eyes are not just caused by blocked tear ducts, they are also caused by viruses" and then went on in previous posts to tell me that I am wrong even though in my first post I had very plainly written that there were two causes of goopy eyes... one being infection and one being blocked tear duct.

Sorry for wanting to clarify what occured in your personal experience.... Next time I'll just make assumptions.

 

[aragornlover8]

So out of curiosity... if you were bitten by a wild animal and couldn't verify that it didn't have rabies.... would you go through the rabies vaccines?

No, I would not get the vaccine because of my history of vaccine injury and severe adverse reaction. I would go to the hospital and get treatment. One of the most effective methods to decrease the chances for infection involves thorough washing of the wound with soap and water.

I haven't had time to check on any responses to this but feel should point out that there is no treatment for rabies and it is 100% fatal. It is incredibly rare in Britain but in other countrie it's endemic and the risks are much greater. Not criticising your choice however would you make the same choice if it was your child and not you that was bitten??

There is treatment for rabies. If someone is bitten by an animal suspected of having rabies and go to the doctor before symptoms develop, they get a dose of Human Rabies Immune Globin (HRIG) with five subsequent doses of vaccine over a period of 28 days. The prognosis is usually very good as long as the individual gets treatment before symptoms develop. If they wait until after symptoms develop to get help, the prognosis is much poorer.