Vaccine Preventable Illnesses
Vaccines have done such a good job of controlling diseases in developed countries, such as the United States, that parents sometimes forget just how important they are and what life would be like without them.
You don't need a time machine to see kids dying of measles, pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae type b disease, rotavirus, or Streptococcus pneumoniae meningitis though, just a few of the vaccine preventable illnesses that kids in the United States are routinely immunized against. Unfortunately, these infections are still killing millions of children around the world.
The fact that these infections haven't been eradicated yet also means that they are just a plane ride away, which was clearly seen in the recent California measles outbreak, and could begin to increase if childhood immunizations are delayed or stopped by too many people.
Learn about how current vaccines and past vaccination programs have now controlled 10 major infectious diseases in developed countries and are protecting kids from other vaccine preventable illnesses.
And if you have ever seen a child with measles, a baby born with congenital rubella syndrome, or an infant with whooping cough who can't breath, you likely wouldn't follow a "bring it on" approach to these infectious diseases or advise that parents not immunize their children.
Related:
Immunization Quiz
Alternative Immunization Schedules
Vaccine Safety
Immunization Schedule
Comments
Vaccines do work but repeat vaccines can lead to anaphylaxis which can cause death. This was well researched more than 100 years ago. (Charels Richet et al) Anaphylaxis without immediate medical attention or with the wrong medical attention leads to sudden death; not one example of which has ever been laid at the door of normal but unwanted vaccine reactions.
A one in five hundred risk of death is a high price to pay for less than 10 deaths for example from measles in a population of more than 50 million.
A plane trip to a fully vaccinated country makes a nonsense of limited vaccinations.
There are many ways of reducing transmissable illness which do not risk sudden death or destruction of the brain cells and such actions have made many illnesses almost unheard of today.
Smallpox is one example of how mutli actions including vaccines have worked.
The increase of AIDS and the non interest in its origins rather like that of not finding a single cause of autism leaves the suspicion that vaccinations as the old scientists showed is not without risk.
Pity that people dropping dead on the vaccine table or becoming ill soon after are never put down as vaccine harm but are routinely excluded from any epidemiological analysis of benefits and risks.
Peer review some call it. I rather like the word propaganda.
less than 10 deaths for example from measles in a population of more than 50 million.
Statistics like that only hold up for industrial countries where most people are immunized. In developing countries, such as India, where immunizations rates for measles is low, measles is still a leading killer of children. But when immunization rates drop, the number of cases of disease and death will likely climb.
The risks from the vaccines do sometimes begin to outweigh the benefits, which is why we switched from IPV to OPV in the United States (OPV can rarely cause vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis).
And serious allergic reactions, such as anaphylaxis, is much less common than 1 in 500. For example, the risk of a severe reaction, such as anaphylaxis for the DTaP and MMR vaccines is less than 1 out of a million doses.
I will never give my child vaccinations!!! I recommend all parents look deeply into the evidence, positives and negatives involved! I did and have made up my mind accordingly!
My oldest child has mild autism since he was two. I have a 25 year old child that still lives with me. I had a feeling that it was from the shots he was given years ago. It was blown off as me being an overwelmed house wife. So, I did a test of my own. I started false shot records for my other children. (They never got sick) Have great immune systems and are all very smart. I didn’t get caught until 2003 or 2004 4 when my youngest child needed a second MMR and It wasn’t on the chart. I had to take the child to get the shot, which by then the doctor saw how many shots the child NEVER had.
He wanted me to come back and get”caought up”. I never did. I want you to know that I have had a wopping cough shot myself in the past 7 years and 2 years ago I got wooping cough. I was ill for weeks. So can I get my money back for the shot that was to prevent this event? No. Do people get the flu even after a flu shot? YES! What gives with the B.S. As a mother I have had enough. And when we parents ask doctors not to combine shots Like MMR, they say they can’t get it. That’s a lie too. My children age from 14 to 25 and they eat healthy and seem to be “normal”..all except my oldest who had shots as an infant. It is too much to soon. The body of a baby can not handle all that they want to “cattle prod” into them before age 5. Wake up America. I would rather take the risk of the death of a child than have one damaged by immunization. As parents, we have no say in the matter. After baby #1, I learned fast how to protect my children. They are mine, and I should have the right to make them grow in my way if I want to. And if something goes wwrong, I have no one to blame but myself for it. I am not sorry that I missed giving them shots. I feel guilty that my oldest has to suffer. Who will take care of that child that was damaged after I’m dead? The state? yeah, right… that’s not going to happen. I will never believe that shots are not why 1 in 150 kids have autism. Back in 1950, kids got sick, some died. But most lived and grew up normal. I’m sure if a report is done on number of births then and number of births now..death rate by age five would be higher now not then. (Not including car accidents without seat belts) or murders. Let me see that study.
The demonization of vaccination as the cause of everything from autism to anaphylaxis is a sequela of two converging social illnesses: the highly profitable pressure to be perfect parents, and the economic necessity of both parents working paid jobs.
Until Madison Ave. and profiteering “self-help” mavens stop jumping up and down on parental guilt, and economic equity allows a parent to stay home with the children, vaccination will continue to take the rap for the regrettable phenomenon that not all children are above average.
Why wouldn’t doctors & scientists create a screening test to filter individuals with potential sensitivity to vaccines? Obviously we are not the same, and most people are fine after vaccination, but a few *die* or get chronic illnesses like autism. These cases are never investigated, and some parents are even blamed after a case like that, see shaken baby syndrome.
Why, after a vaccine is certified to be ‘mandatory’ by FDA, the vaccine manufacturer is not liable anymore if something goes wrong with it?
I will not vaccinate my baby until such tests are made and proven to be reliable. It’s my responsability, all mine, and I say no.
It’s interesting that the current measles ‘outbreak’ here in Toronto, Ontario has affected a vaccinated population. Also, that my niece is experiancing a classroom ‘putbreak’ full of vaccinated children with pertussis, and she has ben sent home as she is unvaccinated - and not sick like her ‘immunized’ peers.
I hope my older child contracts measles, before he reaches the new age bracket of measles cases which is affecting the +15 populaiton putting adults at increased risk of measles complications (the same risk does not affect children in the same way) as I did as a child, to receive his own lifelong immunity. Seven to ten years of possible immunity from a vaccination is just not enough, and puts future infants at risk of the deasease in a time of their ife where it could indeed harm them greatly.
I also hope that my daughter contracts measles, chickenpox, etc as well once she is no longer an infant protected by my own antibdes through breastmilk. Ths way, she can pass on and protect her own future newborn until that child is old enough to contract this rather harmless (in an industrialized nation) childhood disease. Her chances of dying are statistically greater from the vaccination than from the diesease; I would never make the choice to put her at increased risk due to the profit-driven scare tactics of our medical system.
Vaccines must pass the safety testing mark of 7 years before you put your child on the line. And while we’re at it, don’t ever bother with those useless flu vaccines. They are preserved with a form of mercury.
“And if you have ever seen a child with measles, a baby born with congenital rubella syndrome, or an infant with whooping cough who can’t breath, you likely wouldn’t follow a “bring it on” approach to these infectious diseases or advise that parents not immunize their children.”
This statement doesn’t even make any sense. If a baby is BORN with rubella or whooping cough, how is a vaccine going to help them anyway? Vaccine is purportedly designed to prevent the disease… not CURE it! If anybody thinks that a vaccine at birth is going to provide their child with instant immunity, they are grossly misinformed. Take, for instance, Pertussis. The vaccine’s efficiacy isn’t 100%, and that’s after SEVERAL boosters over years of a child’s life. New parents need to research, use their own brains, and make thier own decisions… not rely on the advice of other doctors who are just spewing forth regurgitated information from a textbook probably put together and funded, in some way, by the big pharmaceutical companies, who only care about their bottom line, not your child’s health.
This statement doesn’t even make any sense. If a baby is BORN with rubella or
whooping cough, how is a vaccine going to help them anyway? Vaccine is purportedly
designed to prevent the disease… not CURE it!
Unvaccinated women who did not have rubella as a child can get rubella when they are pregnant, giving birth to a baby with congenital rubella syndrome. So the vaccine is going to help prevent them from getting rubella when they are pregnant (or other times and exposing a pregnant woman to this contagious disease).
Before you say that is a reason to let everyone have rubella as children - the article describes the many cases of congenital rubella syndrome that we used to see in the US before use of the rubella vaccine.
So much misinformation and propoganda out there! It’s pitiful. Sometimes I think to myself, you can’t blame the doctors, this is the garbage that they are being taught in the Universities and paying thousands of dollars for to boot! Then I think, well, no, they sopposedly they have a brain they should be able to put 2 & 2 together on their own eventually when they see all of these ill and brain damaged children! I don’t pity them, they turn my stomach.
My 2 1/2 year old son has never been vaxed because I was fortunate enough to educate myself and learn the TRUTH! That vaccines are poison! Alluminum, formaldehyde just to name a few are being injected directly into the bloodstream! That could NEVER happen in nature. Vaccines are changing the DNA
of all humans and creatures being injected with this garbage.
Oh yeah, back to my son whose never been vaxed. We go out all of the time. We’re involved in playgroups so he is socialized and exposed to sick children often. He’s by far the healthiest kid! Shiny hair and bright eyes. Never gets sick ever when his friends are always getting sick! Diarreha, vomiting, ear infections, high fever that the parents freak and take them to the emergency room. How can this be? Real simple. It’s called good nutrition. We eat organic as often as possible and stay away from toxic personal care products! Even most baby shampoo’s are TOXIC!!! Read the labels.
Sorry, straying from the point. There are many, many books and dvd’s that warn of the dangers of vaccines. Do your homework!
The government and media use fear to get you to think and do what they want. PLease stop listening to the propaganda and fear campaign and educate yourselves and use your own brains that God gave you!!
ill and brain damaged children
vaccines are poison!
vaccines are changing the DNA of all humans
Who exactly is waging a “propaganda and fear campaign” here?
Sometimes fear is warranted. And just because something is presented as propaganda doesn’t mean it’s untrue. You should know this from your years of education, dear Doctor. (But then, you should also know when to use the word “breathe” and not “breath”. Hmmm.)
Medical journals are full of documentation supporting the delay or non-use of vaccines. They abound with information about vaccination dangers and lack of effectiveness. What they AREN’T full of are the result of that gold standard of scientific study, the double-blind study. Why? Because not ONE vaccine has ever gone through a double-blind trial. Of all pharmaceutical products, vaccines are the quickest to hit the market with the least stringent testing behind them. I was a guinea pig myself for the pneumonia vaccine and can tell you firsthand what a joke vaccine studies are.
It doesn’t take a doctor to pick up a medical journal and read it. (I highly suggest the British Journal of Medicine as a start, Doc - it looks like you could do some research on the subject yourself.)
I find it really interesting that the most aggressively marketed pharmaceutical products in the US are vaccines - it’s a HUGE business. Tell me, Doctor, can you honestly tell me you’ve never once indulged in a perk offered to you by a pharmaceutical marketing agent in exchange for the marketing of their product to the individual patient? Most doctors can’t. Makes their “expert” opinion a little suspect.
As far as vaccines saving the world, no one likes to mention that around the time vaccines were introduced, we made leaps and bounds in nutrition and hygiene too, which is more likely the reason we saw declines in these diseases in the western world. But since mass vaccination was introduced in the west, we’ve seen a sharp rise in cancers, metabolic diseases, and auto-immune diseases that were virtually unknown before. Oh, what reading medical journals can tell you!
Perhaps you should inform us about exactly how much intensive study and research on vaccines a pediatrician does during his education. My pediatrician has admitted that it’s virtually none - they learn about the schedules and that’s that. But who needs education when the pharmaceutical companies are so darn convincing with their incentives?
When presented with the information, I believe I have plenty to fear from these little injectable magic bullets. I’ll err on the side of caution, myself.
This is certainly a controversial subject. The bottom line, however, is that parents need to do their research and make a determination whether or not vaccines are necessary for their children.
We didn’t vaccinate our daughter, and won’t vaccinate our son either. If I were to choose to vaccinate them, I would cut down on the number of vaccines given and would wait until they are at least 5 years old.
Here is a well-written article by Byron Richards, a clinical nutritionist about the subject.
Read it and then go and do some more research.
http://www.wellnessresources.com/newsroom/index.php/content/articles/cnn_helps_autism_debacle_blow_up_in_governments_face/
I can’t believe the anti-vaccine propaganda out there, and the gullible—and irresponsible parents who fall for it. For those parents who trumpet that “they never vaccinate their kids and they never got sick”—it’s “herd immunity”, i.e. the RESPONSIBLE parents who did vaccinate their children that is making your children safe.
FEELINGS are not science. There are NO serious, scientific, large-scale studies (i.e. what you need to make a true determination) that show ANY link between autism and vaccines. Mercury (in the form of Thimerosol) is no longer used in childhood vaccines, and there are large-scale, scientific, peer-reviewed studies that there are no statistically significant link between it and autism anyways. This means that some kids may have received vaccines and they may also have autism, but coincidence is not causality: I can have blue eyes and blond hair, but the blue eyes didn’t cause the blond hair either. Tying cancer to the introduction of vaccines as one commenter did is thoroughly ridiculous. Maybe the use of airplanes caused it? Those happened around the same time as the rise in cancer rates… Again, coincidence, two things occuring at the same time, does not mean causality.
My husband’s mother refused to have him vaccinated, and he came with diphtheria at age 6. Had he not been immediately diagnosed, he may not even have survived. In the case of the former Soviet Union, when it collapsed, vaccination rates fell dramatically and diphtheria went from 2,000 cases of diphtheria in the USSR in 1991—by 1998, there were as many as 200,000 cases. And what about Polio? Again, if you are an anti-vaccine advocate, be thankful that most parents vaccinate their children against it so that your child doesn’t develop that horribly debilitating disease that haunted families until the vaccine was developed.
I have “done my research”, and I put a lot more stock in science than I do in people’s feelings and intuition, and certainly much more stock in physicians than in mystical new age quacks and their “precautionary principle”. More children will die from NOT being vaccinated than will die from vaccines. And yes, my children are vaccinated.
There is a lot of information and it IS hard to figure out what to do…I was vaccinated once, and I am not sure what is was for. My mother was forced to vaccinate me in the mid-eighties, but I only got the MMR and one other. I am not immune to rubella now though that is one of the vaccinations I got, but I AM immune to chickenpox, which I never was vaccinated for and never contracted (at least not enough to get the actual pox). I have never had the flu shot and have only have the flu once (if it was the flu) when I was 10. My daughter has been partially vaccinated (Hib and DTap) and has never even had a cold at the age of 17 months. i am a substitute teacher and EVERYONE but me has gotten sick working in the schools this year. My dughter is breastfed. We gt sick less than everyone we know. EVERYONE. So, that doesnt prove anything, but I dont think the vaccinations have done us any good. Recently I had to switch pediatrictians and the new one was SO coersive and belittling to me concerning vaccinations, that I think she may have made up my mind for me to stop completely. It was a sickening visit. She was trying to guilt me into vaccinations.
I have made my educated decision. I think vaccination could be beneficial, but the way we are coerced into getting too many has made me feel safer if I dont get any. I was told that my daughter was to get 21 shots in her first year. we only got 8 in the first year when I was a kid. And not many kids died from infection diseases back then either. Hepititus B at birth? GIVE ME A BREAK!
They will be trying to give us anti-diarrea at birth soon, which is just wrong…
We are consumers of the medical industry, as in all other aspects of our lives. As a consumer, you are free to choose to whom you speak about these issues. If you don’t like the way the doctor is explaining the risks and advantages of vaccines, you not only can, but should go to a different doctor. Find a pediatrician who will answer your questions, and if they can’t, are willing to refer you either to someone else or to educational materials, or to do the legwork to find out more for you. Don’t base the decision to risk your child’s and others’ exposure to debilitating disease on a negative emotional experience. Base your decision upon fact, or at least knowledge of the statistical risk of both being and not being vaccinated.
I am not immune to rubella now though that is one of the vaccinations I got…
Some vaccines, such as those for rubella and tetanus, have a limited period of effectiveness, which is why the prior commenter is susceptible as an adult. (As an adult travelling to a foreign country, I was re-vaccinated for rubella.) Children are both more easily damaged by and more susceptible to contracting some diseases.
…, but I AM immune to chickenpox, which I never was vaccinated for and never contracted (at least not enough to get the actual pox).
Our adaptive immune system learns to fight off diseases only by having been exposed to them previously. (Also, I don’t know a way to prove that one is immune to a disease aside from blood being tested for antibodies specifically against that disease, so unless this person had that done, their claim is unfounded.) This is how vaccines work: these days, it is often pieces of virus or bacterium that are presented to the immune system by injection. Cells in our immune systems such as white blood cells then “learn” to recognize the pathogen by these pieces, and can destroy it if it enters the body later. One vaccine helps the body protect itself from one disease (though often multiple vaccines are mixed in one injection).
(Note: whether a whole virus/bacterium or pieces that are injected, a vaccine has only noninfective components in it that cannot cause disease.)
Hepititus B at birth? GIVE ME A BREAK!
Read the earlier post about how rubella can be passed to a child before birth; HIV is another such disease, and it is possible that Hep B is as well. These is an example of a fact that seems unintuitive that should be asked or read about explicitly, rather than just being assumed to be incorrect.
They will be trying to give us anti-diarrea at birth soon, which is just wrong…
If there is a rumor of an anti-diarrheal vaccine, it is poorly founded. Again, a vaccine is specific to one cause only, and there is a very large number of possible causes of diarrhea. From the outside, these causes would include pathogenic bacteria and viruses, poisons, etc. From the inside, congenital problems (such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome), against which no vaccine can be made at this time, can also cause diarrhea.
The comments that not being vaccinated as a child makes you less susceptible to illness in general are, as stated earlier, assumptive correlations. Just because two things happen in the same person doesn’t mean that they are linked. Many things determine susceptibility to illness, including strength of an individual’s immune system based on genetics, and its strength based on how many pathogens one was able to ingest and survive as a child. Did the person live in a dirty house as a child, or eat a lot of dirt? Exposure to pathogens as a child is linked to a stronger immune system. With some diseases, exposure in childhood as opposed to adulthood is quite important, such as in the case of Chicken Pox, wherein the disease is not as potentially deadly to the child as to the adult.
Or, to restate two points, perhaps the person’s nutrition is better, or perhaps they interact with a well-inoculated community. Many factors affect overall health, immune system strength, and rates of exposure to pathogens.
All parents should be free to choose whether or not their children receive vaccinations. If, as a parent, you are truly concerned about your child’s future, it is best to understand the risks and benefits of both sets of actions before taking one course. Understand when it is useful and futile to vaccinate — it you want to wait for some vaccinations, make sure you know what the window of age is in which the vaccination is effective. What if rubella vaccination is useless at five? Then, if you have waited, your child is being vaccinated needlessly.
The best thing to do for kids in this case is to use our minds to the best of our abilities — not, as previously posted, our emotions.
As in all courses to happiness and success, knowledge is the key.
“I can’t believe the anti-vaccine propaganda out there, and the gullible—and irresponsible parents who fall for it.”
Do you really think that name calling is helping you make your point?
I would say that the “responsible” thing a parent should do is review both sides of the issue and make the choice for the benefit of your child.
To the parents out there, I would say please spend as much time researching vaccinations as you would..say..for purchasing a new car.
Your kids deserve that much.
A poster pointed out that no studies have linked vaccinations and autism…yet, in the same breath proudly announced that thimerosol is no longer used in vaccines for children.
Here is a question for you. Why is thimerosol no longer used?
The evidence is out there, it is just largely ignored by the medical community.
There are, however, some medical doctors who aren’t afraid to speak about the possible dangers of vaccines.
Here’s one:
http://tinyurl.com/2mqksl
Most doctors, however, are pawns of the pharmaceutical companies, whether they like to admit it or not.
Unfortunately for us, the marketplace for the trillion dollar pharma industry is our body.
Just think about that for one minute.
If drug companies invented and sold medicines that cured & eliminated many diseases and illnesses, they would be shrinking their own market, wouldn’t they?
By the same token, if doctors told their patients to go home and make changes in their diet and lifestyle then their practice probably wouldn’t be around for very long now would it?
Now you’re probably thinking I sound too cynical or perhaps like the ravings of some radical conspiracy theorist.
I would have thought the same thing a few years ago.
Here’s a few questions, though.
Even though mankind and medicine is the most scientifically advanced ever, what exactly have we cured in the past 50 years?
Why is the overall death rate for cancer and other major diseases pretty much unchanged despite promises of cures being “just around the corner” for decades now?
Why can we not make better medicines? Even if we can’t cure most serious diseases (they only treat symptoms) why are those medicines so imperfect that over 95% of them have side effects, and a lifetime of doctor visits to constantly adjust and add medications?
Now, if you are one of these big pharmaceutical companies, wouldn’t it be a dream come true if the government would mandate the use of your product?
“The FDA ‘protects’ the big drug companies and are subsequently rewarded, and using the government’s police powers they attack those who threaten the big drug companies. People think that the FDA is protecting them.
It isn’t.
What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it is doing are as different as night and day.”
Dr. Herbert Ley - Former U.S. FDA Commissioner
My apologies for such a long post.
Like I said before, it’s controversial and emotionally charged topic.
Please do you research and decide what is right for your kids.
Wishing all the best to you and yours,
Andy
Do you really think that name calling is helping you make your point?
Most doctors, however, are pawns of the pharmaceutical companies
Do you?
The problem here is trust.
When you have pharmaceutical companies who routinely withhold scientific results unfavorable to their product; an ineffective and overwhelmed FDA that is overrun by industry insiders and functions merely as a rubber stamp and liability shield for industry; and doctors who have financial conflicts of interest with their Hippocratic oath– why should people trust vaccines?
My mother had polio as a child. Her parents’ agony was unfathomable. Fortunately, her case turned out to be mild, and although it left the back of her throat deformed, that didn’t cause her any lingering difficulty. On the other hand, one of our neighbors also had polio and had to drag herself around on crutches for the rest of her life.
My brothers and I had polio shots, as did every child of my generation. Polio became a thing of the past in the United States. Yet it still ravages lives in less developed countries.
Hardly anyone in the US even seems to remember the scourge of polio now - or that it was a vaccine that ended that scourge.
There is no doubt that vaccines decrease the incidence of serious illnesses. Poulette gave one example - the explosive increase of diphtheria in the former USSR.
So bottom line? Right now a single unvaccinated child who catches measles can infect 11 others (see Dr. Ianelli’s article on the California measles outbreak) and quarantine many, many more. In a limited environment, apparently that outbreak was stemmed at that point. But suppose no one in that child’s school had been vaccinated. Suppose no one in that community, or on the plane the family traveled on, had been vaccinated. Suddenly we could be talking about a measles epidemic.
None of the anti-vaccine people ever seem to take their argument to the logical conclusion, which is that all parents refuses to have their children vaccinated. The inescapable result would be epidemics resulting in far more deaths and lifelong debilitation than vaccines are now purported to cause.