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childhood vaccinations
- Thread starter anonymous
- Start date
HollyCatheryn
New member
I know that MMR vaccines are second on the list of vaccines associated with complications (first on the list is DPT). Everyone in my family has had complications (including hubby, he had siezures). It is possible to get each of the three vaccines separately. You have to push for it, though your CF doc might help. Separately they have a lower complication rate and a higher effectiveness rate. The other thing you can do to reduce the risk of problems is to space out your child's vaccinations more and to delay their start. The other the child's body is (as opposed to being an infant) the better they are able to handle the vaccine. The current vaccine schedule is a suggestion and it can be manipulated and varied quite widely. Make sure you get a mercury/thimerosol-free vaccine. This is especially important for people with CF because we get many more vaccinations over the course of a life-time than most people and the preservatives do add up. They have passed laws to stop producing vaccines with thimerosol, but you want to be sure that the one you get wasn't produced before the law was passed. It is also important to make sure that the child is totally well when the shots are administered. There is a much higher rate of complications and lower rate of effectiveness if your child is at all ill when the immunization is given. Also make sure you check the list of ingredients for allergens. Most vaccines cannot be given to a person who has an allergy/reaction to eggs, but sometimes they don't give you the paper saying the contraindications for vaccination until after the shots have been administered. (Yes, we've experienced this and others we know also)Personally, I'm not a proponent of vaccines anyway. My best advice is to look at the benefits versus risk of each vaccine with regard to each child. We have chosen to selectively vaccinate our daughter over a longer period of time and starting later than the recommended schedule. This has worked well for us, though she still suffered complications with the MMR shot (we did not know at the time about separating them out into 3 individual shots).I would also caution parents about the chicken pox vaccine. The possible complications associated with the vaccine (among them is sterility) are the same as for catching the virus. Unless your child has a truly depressed immune system and is in overall poor health, the risk from chicken pox, even a pretty bad case, is small. And in the case of poor health, the vaccine may actually be more risky than the virus. Like I said, I believe the best policy is to weigh each vaccine carefully for its benefits and its risks to each child individually. It is a lot of work, but for the short and long-term health of your child it is worth it. I would be glad to help find resources and information for you to look at and weigh.
NoDayButToday
New member
I received the MMR vaccination and didn't have any problems with it as far as I know.
Thank you HollyCatheryn, since you seem to know more abt this than I do, do you have any idea by chance if these live vaccines could cause a problem for a friend with a comprmoised immune system, if my children get them? Could they give something to this friend as a result of the vaccine?
Thanks again, to everyone who responded.
Thanks again, to everyone who responded.
HollyCatheryn
New member
Yes it is possible to pass along a live vaccine to an immuno-compromised individual. It is less likely with a shot (IM - intramuscular) than with something like the FluMist inhaled vaccine.As to the risks of vaccination...each disease has its own risk considerations and each vaccine has risks. Some diseases have been irradicated in the West (diptheria) to such a degree that their risk is neglegible. But, the vaccines still pose risks. Especially when vaccines are grouped together in a single shot. There are not only risks to the actual immunization, but to overriding the body's learned immunizations. The body has two kinds of immune systems: the developmental and the exposure-related. If you overstimulate the exposure half of the immune system you neglect and inhibit the developmental immune system. They must work as a unit for a person to be considered fully well, fully healthy. Many doctors do not tell their patients that they are not at risk for certain diseases because it is not politically correct to single out some people for certain kinds of vaccinations and not others. For instance, few people are truly at risk of contracting Hepatitis B, but so that no one feels scrutinized, we are all told to get the shot. Though, it is newer and not as safe. In addition to this, the cumulative effects of dozens of immunization shots over a short period of time when the brain and the body are going through the largest amount of growth and the body's compensatory responses are immature can have dramatic effects on a child. Some children are more susceptible to complications than others, but there isn't any way to know ahead of time. It is best to be an informed consumer and truly investigate things. You should never just do something because someone tell you to, nor should you refuse something just because someone tells you to. You are accountable for your child's health and you need to know that you have made the best possible choices with the information available to you. It isn't good enough to just spout off an unevaluated, uncritical, blanket statement. We recognize that there is some merit to certain vaccinations. This is why we chose to selectively vaccinate our daughter. We determined which diseases (for which there were immunizations) she might likely be exposed and then evaluated the risks of that disease to her as an individual, with what we knew about her health. Then we weighed the risks of the immunization and if there were formulations that were safer than others. Then we determined if there was a specific age at which it was likely to be of more benefit or less. For instance, there have been problems with vaccinating very young infants with DPT because the immunity only last about 10-15 years. So, we have had outbreaks of Pertussis (whooping cough) among older children. This is compounded with the fact the efficacy of the Pertussis part of the immunization is compromised and less effective when grouped with the other two vaccines. This is the kind of information that is not offered by practitioners because they get lots of money from people paying for shots and they buy the cheapest formulations. It is not cost-effective for them to offer not to vaccinate you because you are not at risk or to offer to acquire separated vaccines. It is up to you to research these things and find it yourself. It is time-consuming and tedious, but much of being the kind of parent you wnat to be IS time-consuming and tedious. What better to spend your time on than the preservation of your child's health.A good place to get started is <A href="http://www.vaccineinfo.net">www.vaccineinfo.net</A> they have tables in which you can look up the current status of a vaccine (does it have thimerosol, when did they remove the thimerosol, when will they). You can find out about indications/contraindications for vaccination. It is a good resource. Once you get a feel for what you're looking at there is a lot of information out there. Happy researching.
HollyCatheryn
New member
I forgot to mention that there is also a good book that has a really good, thorough section on vaccines. It includes the history of each vaccination and the timetables for irradication of the disease, indications/contraindications for each of the vaccines and information about the risks of each disease as well as the corresponding vaccine. It is called "Take Charge of Your Child's Health: A Complete Guide to Recognizing Symptoms and Treating Minor Illnesses at Home" by Dr. George Wootan. It is a good book to have anyway. It's purpose is to equip you so that you know when you really need to go to the doctor and when you can avoid sitting in the ER collecting germs!You can also go to <A href="http://www.drgeorge.net">www.drgeorge.net</A> to submit questions to him.
HollyCatheryn
New member
Unless your doc is a D.O., it would be very unusual for him/her not to recommend all the vaccinations without caveat. Unfortunately, they get pressured (and in some instances, paid) to advise and administer them. It can be career suicide to suggest partially vaccinating or refusing vaccination altogether. It is very interesting to note that most Pedi CF docs have not changed their approach at all in the last 15 years or more. They still approach every child with the "we will do whatever we have to to get you to live to adulthood" even though many of the practices that are then employed may rob them of their quality of life once they become adults. Many docs administer antibiotics every time they see a bump in a CFer's health. That may buy them some years (it may not), but when they get to those bought years they are quite possibly resistant to the antibiotics that got them there and their immune systems have been broken down because of constantly being overridden. Most CF docs administer every recommended vaccine, but we know that the increase in vaccinations (many more vaccines and more administrations of most of them) has led to an enormous increase in mental development problems/deterioration (autism, asperger's, alzheimer's) and immune system development problems/deterioration (lupus, diabetes, allergies). If we are doing all these things to GET us to adulthood, you think they'd be more concerned about our being as healthy as possible in adulthood. Unfortunately, even though there are currently more kids with CF living into adulthood (and being diagnosed as adults) than are being born each year with CF (that's right. The fastest growing population of people with CF is that 18 years and older) they would begin to focus more long-term and would develop a different approach to Pedi care. Even if it weren't so, you MUST do research for yourself. Not all CF docs are equal. You MUST know what you are talking about and what they are talking about in terms of the whole body of knowledge. This is evidenced by the fact that some clinics have an average life expectancy of 10 to 15 years more than others! We are not allowed to know which clinics are which, but there is a compiled list of clinics and their performance and there is a great disparity between the best and the poorest. Some doctors tell people with CFRD that CFRD does not respond to oral medication and immediately put them on shots. But, some people with CFRD do, in fact, respond well to oral meds. One woman with CF was on the Adults side recently relating that she was interested in having a baby with her husband, but that her doc told her that even though she is as healthy as a woman her age without CF and that she could get pregnant just like any woman without CF, she shouldn't because it would cause a decline in her PFTs. Neither the statement about her being able to get pregnant just as easily as a woman without CF nor about her PFTs dropping as a result of pregnancy are based in scientific research evidence. WE MUST DO OUR OWN HOMEWORK. You may find that in your (or your child's) case, accepting the vaccination is the best thing for you. If you find that based on research evidence, then you should accept it. But, in research, if you find that your child is at higher risk for complications from the vaccine than from catching the disease, perhaps you should reevaluate and help to educate your practitioner on the guidelines and advisability of each vaccine. Vaccine manufacturer's are VERY powerful companies and on more than one occassion they have falsified documents or covered up research or prohibited research into their vaccines by anyone outside their company. They have even admitted to harmful effects of vaccines and then back-pedaled and covered their tracks. Most of this doesn't make the media because they are too powerful and monied to allow their "good" names to be smeared. We only hear about freak accidents in manufacturing, we do not hear about the inherent flaws in their production methods. I know of too many vaccine-related complications or vaccine ineffectiveness to turn a blind eye. Please do some research on your own. Don't take my word for any of this, but don't take anyone else's either. Find the research, find the information for yourself and do some critical reading and comparison. You will be shocked!