Childhood Vaccines

Parents are increasingly becoming concerned at the push by government to “have your child vaccinated or else.” Some parents may be philosophically opposed, some may believe that vaccines go against their core beliefs about health and wellness, some may object to what seems to be a painful assault on their child, and others may believe that the benefits of immunization do not justify the risks. More and more childhood vaccines are being offered and this in itself concerns parents as it is truly an overload on such a small body.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which strongly endorses universal immunization, acknowledges that physicians may need to tolerate parental decisions with which they disagree if those decisions are not likely to be harmful to the child. Parents are free to make choices regarding medical care unless those choices place their child at substantial risk of serious harm.

While there is some confusion about vaccinations and the requirements for school entrance. It is actually quite simple: Although each state has laws addressing recommended childhood immunizations prior to school entry, vaccination is not strictly mandatory. You do not have to vaccinate your children so they can attend school. They all have provisions for parents to sign a waiver stating that all or some of the vaccines have not been given because of medical, personal or religious reasons. Parents have the absolute right to determine whether or not their child receives vaccinations, and it is not legal to interfere with that right.

Some children have had bad reactions to vaccines involving very high fevers, seizures and other problems. Some of these reactions are severe enough to suggest that giving another dose of that same vaccine be prohibited. Other reactions might not, from a purely medical point of view, mean that another dose should not be given, but the parents may prefer to be cautious and skip the rest of that particular vaccination series.

The First Months

The hepatitis B vaccine is routinely given to infants, sometimes before they even leave the hospital. It is very unlikely a child will contract or spread hepatitis B. The virus is spread by coming in contact with the blood of infected persons, most of whom are considered to be in “high risk groups.” These groups include adults who inject illegal drugs with contaminated needles, or are chronic alcoholics; or sexually promiscuous individuals (homosexual or heterosexual) who have been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease.

Hepatitis B is a liver disease caused by a virus. While a person can be quite ill with this infection, fifty percent will develop no symptoms and thirty percent develop only mild flu-like symptoms. Most patients recover within eight weeks without any long term complications and likely will acquire life-time immunity to the virus.

If the hepatitis B vaccine is avoided in the hospital at birth, then it is scheduled to be administered during the routine two month office visit, along with five other vaccines:

• Inactivated Poliovirus [IPV] (three serotypes)
• Haemophilus influenzae type b conjugate vaccine [Hib]
• Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine [PCV]( seven serotypes)
• Diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine DTaP]
• Rotavirus vaccine [RV], (four serotypes) {oral vaccine}

That is a total of 5 vaccines (19 vaccine serotypes) and multiple doses of chemicals injected on the same visit into an eight week old baby. Vaccine ingredients are risky. They include dangerous preservatives and adjuvants (chemicals which increase immune response) and other potentially harmful substances, including aluminum phosphate, phenol (carbolic acid), MSG, formaldehyde (a known carcinogen), and gelatin. Toxins can accumulate and eventually suppress the immune system, cause brain damage, and lead to a myriad of health issues and developmental disorders. Exposure to toxins during the critical stages of development before age two is especially dangerous to the brain.

Parents are starting to question whether it’s right to inject numerous different viruses and bacteria, mixed with a multitude of different chemicals and solvents into babies’ delicate, developing bodies to “protect” them.

It is important to investigate the risks of your baby acquiring any of these diseases baby’s well child checks, rather than being rushed into acquiescence at the time of the visit. You should be prepared with your questions and concerns. You can inform the pediatrician as to which vaccines you feel are appropriate for your child or you might prefer to postpone the decision until your child’s immune system and nervous system are less susceptible to the potential toxic effects of vaccines.

By the time they go to kindergarten, children receive 50 vaccines (some in combination injections) against 15 diseases.

The Varicella Vaccine

Chickenpox (varicella) is one of those childhood diseases that we used to hope everybody would catch in childhood (before we had the vaccine). A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 1985 determined that the vaccine was not necessary. However, in 1995 it was promoted as “cost-effective”—rather than essential—because parents would not have to miss work and stay home to care for their sick children. If working mothers could keep working instead of taking time off to care for their sick children, businesses would save hundreds of millions of dollars. It was licensed shortly thereafter.

Before the chickenpox vaccine was licensed, doctors would encourage parents to expose their children to the disease while they were young. That’s because the disease can be much more severe for adults and can entail many more complications, requiring hospitalization. In young children, chickenpox is a relatively mild disease, especially compared to other diseases for which vaccines have been developed. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advised in its 1996 brochure, "Most children who are otherwise healthy and get chickenpox won't have any complications from the disease."

This vaccine was developed for its economic benefits to business. This was the fist time that healthy children were vaccinated against a childhood disease that was largely benign (although, like any disease, there are rare instances of severe complications). The vast majority of children who contract natural varicella recover completely and have lifelong immunity. Sometimes the disease is so mild that an exposed child develops antibodies without actual illness even being noticed.

The Rubella Vaccine

Other than a rash, the adverse effects of rubella (German measles) for children are minimal. Twenty-five percent to 50% of infections are subclinical meaning that there are no symptoms and the illness goes undiagnosed. For those who have symptoms, the condition lasts for about 3-5 days with fever, skin rash and swollen glands. Most make a complete recovery without complications. Vaccination against rubella is of no clinical benefit to a child. Rubella vaccination is probably the only vaccination for a disease which is, in itself, probably less serious than the common cold.

If the only consequences of rubella were a few days of discomfort, there would be no need for a rubella vaccine. However, if a pregnant woman contracts the rubella infection during the first three months of pregnancy, this poses a risk to the unborn child who could be born with congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), involving multiple congenital abnormalities.

Babies are vaccinated against Rubella ONLY because they are accessible. The severe effects of rubella exposure to the unborn child make the rubella vaccine unique in that it is not given for the purpose of protecting the child who is being immunized. We vaccinate all babies—boys and girls—against rubella out of concern that a non-immune pregnant woman’s unborn baby might be exposed. You might wonder why the campaign wasn't geared toward women wanting to become pregnant. The fact is, in some other countries, there is no universal immunization. Only young women of childbearing age who have not developed natural immunity (checked by a simple blood test) by the age of puberty are given the vaccine.

Tetanus

Tetanus vaccination is unlike the others because tetanus is a disease that is not contagious —it does not spread from person to person. The vaccine is given to children in combination as the DTaP (diptheria, tetanus and pertussis) vaccine. The toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium tetani causes tetanus by entering the body through a wound. If public policy is designed to protect against broad threats to public health, then tetanus vaccination, which offers protection only to the individual receiving the vaccine, does not come under this mandate.

Yet another vaccine for perfectly healthy young girls

One of the recently marketed vaccines, Gardasil, is meant to cause immunity to certain genital warts, those caused by four particular strains of the human papilloma virus (HPV), allegedly the cause of cervical cancer. Merck & Co promoted Gardasil primarily to "guard" against cervical cancer, rather than promoting it as a vaccine against HPV viruses or sexually transmitted diseases. The ubiquitous “One Less” campaign led girls and their mothers to feel empowered by getting this vaccine “against cancer” when HPV is really an extremely common virus that most people contract and get over rather quickly without incident. HPV is transmitted by sexual contact. School children are not placed at significant risk for contracting HPV simply by virtue of being around unvaccinated individuals. In this way, HPV (like tetanus) strays from the initial reason for giving vaccines—stopping the transmission of highly infectious agents that were capable of infecting others through ordinary close contact.

The marketing of the vaccine was so successful that in its first year, Gardasil was named in the industry journal Pharmaceutical Executive as the "brand of the year" for building a "market out of thin air."

Nine or eleven-year-old girls inoculated with the vaccine will be adolescents when they pass Gardasil's five-year effectiveness span, yet infectious disease specialists and cancer pathologists say the incubation period for HPV becoming cancer is 10 to 15 years. Most women are in their 40’s and 50’s when they are diagnosed, so the vaccine would offer no protection in the overwhelming majority of cervical cancer cases in the United States.

Vaccine Nation

American children are now the most vaccinated on earth. There are so many vaccines—most unheard of not that many years ago—but do we really need to forcibly inject children with vaccines for every disease on the planet? The vast majority childhood infectious diseases are benign and self-limiting. Getting the disease usually imparts lifelong immunity, whereas vaccine-induced immunity is only temporary. In fact, the temporary nature of vaccine immunity can create a more dangerous situation in a child's future, once they become adult. Whether or not you decide to have your child vaccinated against any or all of these diseases, it is important to do everything that you can do to keep your child healthy—to promote the strength of your child's immune system, and avoid things that can weaken it.

If the government were to endorse a campaign to increase Americans' breastfeeding rate, it would prevent more childhood diseases -and deaths- than all of the current vaccination programs.