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Can't quote long ones on iPad, but FootFace, I find that incredibly odd. The thimerosol thing I mean. Also, not really sure if I think adding a thing which has since been discontinued from use to vaccines is ethical?

I absolutely think people have an obligation to protect other people from disease by having vaccines if they are able. Regardless of where you live you are part of a community and willfully exposing others to disease is wrong. You would think so too if your child was somehow immunocompromised and you had to rely on the vaccinations of others to protect them.

It was ethical, because they shot up monkeys with it, not humans.

Phew!

When I was pregnant, I thought mothering.com would be the closest to my views. But now that I went through it, and 7.5 months of being a mom, I've gone completely in the opposite direction. I feel like most everything I read there steered me the wrong way, and it is most responsible for making me realize I'm not nearly as much of a hippie as I thought I was. I still pop into those forums once in a while, but it mostly makes me shake my head.

This whole vax discussion makes me super duper nervous though. It is so hard to be unsure if you did the right thing or not! Especially with kai not babbling yet, I mean I know he's probably fine, but I will feel a lot better when he is older and I know he doesn't have autism....

The following statement does not prove that your first link is inaccurate or incorrect:

Mercola is a quack. He shows up on quackwatch.org a lot.

The CDC pdf is pretty dry and sure looks pro forma to me.

Oh well thank god.

Autism is mysterious and terrifying. Our fear that vaccinating will cause autism in our kids is unfounded.

Here is an example of the kind of arguments Mothering Magazine/its writers make and how I have seen them easily refuted. This post talks about an article Mothering Magazine ran about a soy scare mongering author and John Robbins' reply ( he quoted information from the Japanese health ministry which blew the author away ):

http://beforewisdom.com/blog/soy/but-as ... ot-of-soy/

After 14 years of ill health, losing my education, career, family prospects, marriage and many friends I wish someone had given me the chicken pox vaccine. So did my dad when he nearly died from it at 29.

That crasshole really did a number on people. I wonder when people will forget that shiitake. I hate fear mongerers, especially those who prey on the fears of parents.

Which fear monger are you talking about?

Not a parent, but I did receive boosters in preparation for pregnancy. I got the seasonal flu because I always do, I got the tdap because my doctor recommended it before getting pregnant, and I got an MMR, I believe, in 2005 because I needed a booster before grad school.

That "vaccines=autism" crasshole. What with his made up science and all.

Apologies for not replying sooner...had a long work day yesterday. Thanks for all of the thoughts. This just seems like one of those "big" decisions that affects a child well, forever, so we're trying to get ahead of the game. For the past two months, I've scope out three message boards relating to parenting. Here, a mainstream board about saving money (with a pregnancy section), and mothering.com.

This about sums up what the mainstream board folks thought. I watched another mom raise the idea of not vaccinating and she was crucified.


Mothering.com (from reading) gave me the opposite impression....the "how could you poison your babies" sort of idea. Agreed that bashing is not productive, but just saying that for this particular issue, they seem to have really closed ranks. (ooh, and if they ever found out I am a nanny, I think I would be banned :p)

I'm not at all convinced of the vaccine/autism link (in previously studied or not yet studied ways), but I am concerned with thimerosal still in some vaccines along with other ingredients like eggs, etc. Giving 5 vaccines at once to an infant and vaccinating for some things that seems unnecessary (like the chicken pox) raise warning flags in my mind too. I'm not a zealot, but I do want to be discerning. :) Aubade got it on the head for me...the feeling "unsure" is killer. That I might contribute (either by vaccinating or not) to some medical trouble for my child...urgh. I'm already flummoxed enough about whether or not I can eat peanuts while I'm pregnant! :D

Regarding the legal obligations, we're in the UK, and it seems that *all* vaccinations are voluntary, even with regard to school attendance (though there's been some effort to change that part). I received a reference to a clinic in London that does single vaccine jabs if we decide to go that route. Largely, it's about trying to decide what's *necessary*. I wouldn't give my child (or myself) medicine without good cause, so I want to make sure that I treat vaccines the same way. Does my 2 month old need a tetanus shot? I know my kid could contract measles, but polio? Sooo many questions.

Does the Mnookin book (Panic Virus) that was recommended talk only about the Wakefield/autism drama? May try reading that one and the Dr. Sears one at the same time to really make my head spin. :D

Mnookin's book does not talk only about Wakefield, no. But it hammers that a lot. It talks about the history of the anti-vaccination movement, which didn't start with autism fears.

Ooh, where? I think I will want to selectively vaccinate my kid and there are some things I haven't made up my mind about yet.

It was worrying me that I was told you can't have separate measles mumps and rubella any more (especially as I am apparently not immune to rubella even though my mum says she thinks I had it when I was a kid, so I'm down to have a vaccine once I've given birth, however I've already had measles (which was actually quite fun!) so I don't want the whole MMR!)

I think you still can!
I only got immunised against measles and mumps as a child (my GP was unconvinced by how long-lasting the rubella vaccine was, so he suggested waiting to see if I'd catch it, like chicken pox) and I got vaccinated against rubella alone just a couple years ago.

The last time this came around, I found a reference from somebody plausible (either an immunologist or a pediatrician, or some combination) who had sat down and done some research in the relevant literature about giving multiple vaccinations at once and had determined that a healthy immune system (that is, an immune system that isn't compromised by something like HIV) can handle anywhere up to 10,000 infections at once without problems. Your immune system is constantly working, dealing with minor infections- 2 or 3 vaccines at once might not be totally pleasant for the kid getting jabbed, but isn't threatening if they're reasonably healthy. Either way, spacing them out and skipping the dubious ones (chicken pox) is pretty understandable.

I believe thimerosal is no longer used anywhere, but that might just be in the US...

http://www.babyjabs.co.uk/index.htm
This is the place. I know absolutely nothing about them though, other than that one of the moms elsewhere said that she knew you could get single-vaccine jabs here. I do like that they list on the website, the specific vaccines which they use (brand names, etc.)

I was able to get just a rubella shot from my GP, on the NHS, btw. I'm not sure if she had to do something special but I don't think so. When we were trying to make the bean, I tested negative for rubella antibodies as well, so got the jab.

I think you're talking about Paul Offit, as quoted in this article in Wired.

Thimerosal is still in some vaccines according to this report by the FDA-- however, with the exception of one brand of DTaP (has trace amounts) and some influenza vaccines, it's not in any of the vaccines that children routinely get.

That's the one. Thanks, sweetywoojums!

(tee hee)

We are a selective vaccination family in a community of families who frequently do not vaccinate at all. I know it's not a popular choice, but I just didn't see a point in vaccinating my children against things like chicken pox when they can get it naturally, stay home, itch for a bit, and then get on with life. I absolutely see a value in vaccination, it certainly benefits communities and individuals alike.

This is a discussion I don't like having with people because they often jump to extremes in defending their beliefs. For my family, I felt it better to allow them to develop some things naturally, have their titers checked for other things, and vaccinate for the things I really thought of as concerning. Vaccines are drugs, and like all drugs we have a right to say 'no' to them should we choose to.

We live in a pretty strongly anti-vax area too. Our pediatrician was pretty surprised the first time we came in when we were like "yeah, we want him to get all his vaccines on pretty much a normal schedule". (His office's policy is to do a slightly delayed schedule anyway.) I think he had been already to argue with us about why you should vaccinate. He looked visibly relieved.

Personally-- and I'm not a doctor, so what the hell do I know?-- I think a really good compromise on the chickenpox vaccination would be to wait until a kid is 9 or 10, and if he hasn't had chickenpox by then, then vaccinate. Chickenpox in childhood is generally no big deal, but if you haven't had it by like 4th grade, chances are you're not going to and you don't want to deal with that shiitake later in life.

Interesting quote. One article I read about the anti-vax movement stated that the majority of anti-vax folks were educated, but not the most educated. In other words, people with little education just accept what pediatricians tell them, accepting their expertise over their own ignorance. People with a LOT of education, like researchers, read the research for themselves and accept that vaccinations are the best way to go. People in the middle are educated enough to know that mistakes and BS happen, but they aren't educated enough to evaluate the research for themselves.

Technically they're not-- they're biological preparations containing actual micro-organisms (or something like them) rather than chemical compounds. But for the sake of your argument, I will only be informatively pedantic rather than aggressively pedantic. 8)

I didn't think you were pedantic at all. It is a bit lame that someone who knows something can't correct a mistaken impression without having to walk on eggs.