Is Mandating Vaccinations Really a Good Idea?

Okay, here we go . . . I realize that the moment I write the following, I am opening up myself to attack and ridicule for even typing certain words. . .

To that I say, "Huzzah!" Let's bask in our freedom of speech shall we? Hopefully it is a freedom that will not be taken from us soon. (Honestly, with a voice as small as mine, and a following to match, I doubt this will make much of an impact. Yet, what is a blog for but a container for all the many thoughts that threaten to overwhelm my busy mind if not organized in this way?)

There is a lot of controversy going on right now over the whole vaccine debate. Because of the Disneyland incident, people are taking sides in this heated argument. Some are pretty sure that the unvaccinated are to blame for this outbreak, and that they are compromising the health of those who cannot be vaccinated.

Yet, the other side, those who are anti-vaccination, or who believe in partial or delayed vaccination (The idea being that you must allow a child's immune system to fully develop naturally first, and to discover their specific, individual sensitivities before exposing them to certain chemicals in order to properly weigh the risks.) This side is arguing that the unvaccinated are not to blame.

I have been studying both sides of the argument, for some time, and believe that I, at least somewhat understand where each side is coming from, in my small way. Perhaps the unvaccinated truly are destroying the whole herd immunity concept, but then, if that is so, I can't help wondering about the immunocompromised, that everyone admits cannot be vaccinated. Their very existence proves that herd immunity might in fact be the myth that one side proclaims it to be. Plus, they also like to ask us, how did those people become that way? Are there really any who fall into this category who have not ever had a shot? Or was it the shot that caused them their current condition?

Still, I am not here today to discuss who is to blame. In fact, at the end of the day, I do not think it matters so much. It seems to me that the media is having a heyday adding fuel to the fire of this argument, but it seems to me that the argument in and of itself is rather pointless. No side is ever going to convince the other side of who is right. No one can win in this debate unless everyone suddenly had the same exact experience and circumstances, which is obviously impossible.

"The only reality that any individual knows is their own experience." Thus, with so many of us experiencing vastly different realities, it is a fruitless effort to suppose that we can all be brought to a single consensus about this issue, no matter how many experiences or opinions we are bombarded with. So why are we letting the media manipulate us? They are the only beneficiaries of this argument.

With that said, my only real concern today is the question of whether or not mandating every American citizen to be vaccinated is really as just a cause as people say it is.

Let us examine some different ideas for a moment, and try to put religion and specific political parties aside for the moment, shall we?
As far as forcing every American citizen to be vaccinated, even if that would protect us all to the degree that those who support the mandate state, what about those living here who are not citizens? Can there be herd immunity, if we are surrounded by people who are not only not citizens but have no way of being tracked by the government to mandate that they are injected?

Until we can guarantee that every person living in our country is an American citizen, then trying to force vaccination through governmental policy for the sake of making sure EVERYONE is injected, does not really make much sense to me.

Likewise, until we can prevent all tourists and outsiders from coming into our public places, whether they entered through legal means or not, we cannot possibly ensure that there will not be some germs passed around. Okay, so maybe the tourist worry isn't an issue because, according to the following report, it's usually American travelers who bring the diseases back with them. So should we ban world travel to American Citizens?
Also, just for the sake of perspective, let us see if we can find out about how many people are living here without citizenship right now? Okay, so say it's only 3-4% as the links above suggest. Are we going to mandate that they get vaccinated too? Or will they get off free because they are such a small group? Does that not seem like a double standard for Americans who have chosen not to get the injection? According to this article, the unvaccinated citizen is only about 2% of the population, despite what the media has led you to believe.
Of course, maybe we can't compare the two groups because one could argue that even illegal immigrants can receive the shots for free in some cases, where you can be so poor that the government covers the costs for you. However, chances are, even if some take advantage of this, (and the above article suggests that most will not), are they still living with others who are unvaccinated? Even children who are legal because they were born here, might be living with adults who are not citizens.

So one side might ask you to consider the possibility of another Disneyland scenario. Let's say in this case the person who carried an illness was an illegal immigrant. California is not only the location for Disneyland, it is also the state with the highest number of illegal immigrants as of 2013.
Anyone with enough money can waltz into Disneyland. Last I checked people were not required to prove their citizenship to go there. After all, we benefit from the funds of tourists from other countries who pay to see our attractions. Could we really make citizenship and proof of vaccination a requirement for entering the happiest place on earth?

What about grocery stores or restaurants? Can we deny people the right to buy our food based upon the fact that they are not citizens, and have not been mandated to be injected?
So we have this individual who comes into a public setting, and perhaps is carrying a disease. Maybe they contracted it from a visit back home, or maybe they had visitors or packages sent to them by their relatives in one of various countries (I'm not just talking Mexico here, there are other people who come here illegally, including those from India, China, The Philippines, etc.)
Now let's say that in this scenario, this person is the only one in the public place who has not been vaccinated. Despite the fact that every American surrounding that individual is vaccinated, because the injections cannot guarantee that they will protect you, then as everyone on both sides has already agreed, this person could pass on that disease to a fair number of people, even if every single one of them, our subject excluded, had been injected. Then as they leave and go to other public places, it can spread to others who have been injected and so forth.
I believe this is why many people believe that herd immunity is a myth. Unless the whole world over could be forced to be injected, there is no herd. The borders of our lands are too blurred. We are tied to the world through airlines, among other things, that make complete isolation impractical.

So here arises the question of choice. If you truly believe that removing an individual's choice in the matter is the right answer, then by the same logic we should also outlaw anything that might cause anyone harm.
Thus, knives of all types, weapons, any sharp object down to nail scissors, sewing pins and toothpicks would be illegal.
Cars would easily be illegal as they kill so many. Mosquitoes, which top the list for number one killer, should thereby be illegal. On that note, nearly all, (if not all) animals, both wild and domesticated would be illegal, based on the chance that they might cause yourself or another person harm either through direct injury or the spread of parasites or disease.

Those are obviously some of the most extreme examples, let's look at some less extreme ones that are probably already being debated.

In fact, I know that the marijuana issue is definitely being debated. Because it can be harmful when burned into a vapor of smoke (and I'd like to ask, how many things can you list that aren't harmful when turned into smoke?) many people agree that this substance should remain illegal.
Others, seeing the benefits of the plant when used in other ways, would disagree with the idea that it needs to be wholly banned.

Then there's the other smoking issue. What if cigarettes and other tobacco products were made completely illegal in the US? Studies have proven that secondhand smoke is harmful and can cause lung cancer in individuals, even if it does not immediately cause it in the person who is smoking firsthand.
Think for just a moment with me, back to the Disneyland incident. Can you recognize the parallel there? Should a person be allowed to smoke when he might possibly infect others and cause them harm or even death?
This article reports that 145,000 deaths were attributed to measles world wide last year.
Yet, tobacco products reportedly cause 148,000 deaths every year in the US alone.
Comparing the US with the rest of the world, I might also point out, is not comparing apple to apples. There are many other contributing factors to the cause, spread and ability to recover from a disease.
So let's see how many deaths were attributed to measles in the US alone last year. Wait? Zero? Hmm, okay. let's say in the last ten years . . . Still zero? Okay. I think I've made my point.

Still, I think most people, especially those who smoke or who have smoked will agree that it's not fair to force people to quit. That they should be allowed to do what they want with their bodies, knowing fully what those risks entail. Everyone also ought to admit that making tobacco illegal, despite the obvious risks to us all, will not entirely eradicate those products from society. It would only give the black market one more product to capitalize on.

And for those who think capitalism is a dirty word, consider that the pharmaceutical industry capitalizes on the distribution of vaccines.
Just imagine as a business owner, what the mandating of your product for every law abiding citizen by the government would do for your industry! You'll need to order that indoor swimming pool soon, so you can swim in your profits!
But please, try not to squeal too loudly; loud sounds should be illegal because they can cause deafness.

So you might sit back an sigh. . . If only everyone wasn't an idiot. If only everyone shared my point of view.

Yes, to be sure. If only we could just make germs illegal. Then we might get somewhere, but germs will not be controlled by ridiculous laws anymore than people will be. Sure, maybe a percentage of people will allow themselves to be controlled, but remember how there is always that 1% of germs left over by your 99% antibacterial soap? Why should we expect people to behave any differently than germs? In fact, haven't we recently discovered that killing so many germs is actually harming us? Now we're back to square one.
So maybe we should consider that it takes all kinds. In regards to people and germs, maybe we should be less judgmental about which ones have value and which ones don't. Perhaps nature has known what she is doing all along. Isn't that what Darwin would argue? Survival of the fittest? By that logic maybe we should let the diseases take whom they will and stop fighting against nature who is sure to adapt and bite back. Hmm, the mind boggles. . .

Back to the whole vaccine debate: Why don't we make it illegal for anyone to state an opinion about vaccine safety unless they have studied all of the warnings on the vaccine package inserts, and passed a comprehensive test on the same subject?

(After all, people who argue a thing based only upon what they have been told by others, with no personal research of their own, give me a headache.
Headaches should be illegal.)

Once we have perused those package inserts, it becomes a bit more clear why some have chosen to take the risk of disease which could be cured with the right treatments, over the risk of permanent side effects and life debilitating diseases.

By the same logic that anything potentially harmful should be illegal, then vaccines themselves should be illegal.

When all is said and done, I'm really not going to stress myself out about what you have decided is individually right for you . . . in regards to anything really. Which is the entire point of this post.
YOU should be allowed to decide what risks you are going to take, yes, even if those risks that you are taking might somehow affect others around you. 

If we lived in a perfect world, where every citizen of this planet was law abiding and everything was always fair. . . Where every single person---men, women and children have all of their basic needs met, and where no one ever entertains a selfish desire . . . Then we might discuss the possibility of passing a law that will benefit 'the greater good.' Until then, perhaps we could use all this energy to try and make that perfect world a reality rather than displacing our anger on each other.

Be angry at the harmful things themselves, not at the people who are trying the best they know how, to solve the problem. Actually, I might suggest that anger is pretty pointless even when directed at the source of harm. I would suggest understanding your enemies is the best way to know how to defeat them. I think we can all agree that this is our real goal. Trying different methods to defeat a common enemy. So we should not be opposing each other at all. If harm is the enemy, and we are all seeking to remove or avoid harm, then we ought to be treating each other with a huge degree of regard and respect, if not love. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

There, I said it. Perhaps you are seething with anger right now, so for your own sake, take some deep breaths, count to ten, and exercise your smile muscles. You are alive, and breathing, and you can read!
How awesome is that?

Now, I sincerely want to thank you for reading this through to the end. If you did not read every word I wrote, please do us a favor for the greater good and do not bother posting any comments. Obviously, such an action would be like drawing a consensus from a survey based on only a piece of the data.

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

I will be the first to admit, that my opinions are obviously very biased to my side of the debate. (This is MY experience after all) But for me, it's still a very personal decision, based on what I have learned through studying package inserts and reading various articles, studies, and reports. If you are interested in further reading, here are some interesting tidbits, (besides what has been linked to above) that I have collected on this subject:

Here's another great article about why we should be allowed the choice.

Package insert for the Trepedia Vaccine. (Page 11 of this Vaccine is particularly interesting as it actually lists Autism as a possible adverse effect. That's from the manufacturer.)

Here is a little paradox. While this NBC news report claims that older children are more at risk for febrile seizures as a side effect from vaccine's, This site, which is where adverse effects are officially reported, states in the second paragraph down that babies are at greater risk for high fevers, seizures and SIDS. The last of which most concerns me. It also states that these things could be coincidence.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the only way to be sure they are would be to not have the vaccine, at least not in a child so young. Then if your baby did suddenly die of SIDS you could be sure that the vaccine had nothing to do with it. Otherwise, you would always wonder if you chose to allow an injection that had the side effect of killing your baby. The risks are there, you can decided which ones are worth taking.

The package inserts on every vaccine I have read, clearly state that the administrator of the vaccine needs to go over the possible risks of the vaccines and deliberating with the parents of a child before deciding if a child is eligible to receive a shot.
I don't know about you, but this is not what my pediatrician did when she injected my oldest child. The most she did was hand me a multi-page list of warnings (The package insert, perhaps?) that was overwhelming at best for any first time mom, and asked me if I wanted to read it. All the while giving the impression that her time was limited and I really ought to hurry this appointment along.
If that's not manipulation, I don't know what is.

All she needed to say was something to the effect of:

"If you choose this vaccine, your child could be one of thousands who experiences the following adverse effects:

Blindness, (7 reported last year, 2014)
Autism (46 in 2014)
Death (133 vaccine related deaths reported in 2014)

Of course these will only be blamed on the vaccine if they occur within a short amount of time.
By accepting the vaccine you also run the risk of Leukemia or other autoimmune diseases, though these side effects will take months to develop and are therefore not proven to be a result of the vaccine. Dyskinesia is another adverse effect. This one is a sign of autoimmune sensitivity and could mean your child will develop cancer or another disease later on. 123 cases of vaccine related Dyskinesia were reported in 2014."

In case you're curious about were I got the above numbers by spending a LOT of time looking through the 2014 VAERS report. You can follow the link and do your own research on the adverse effects that have been reported.
Thanks again and may you have a healthy day!

My Journey as a Truth Seeker

It is not uncommon for me to post or share articles or opinions on my blog or Facebook that can be considered controversial topics.  From my support of home birthing to alternative health care and anti-drug healing, I realize that most of my current views are not popular among the mainstream media- watching public.

However, I have found that usually such posts are all but completely ignored.  Until recently.
I have gone through numerous paradigm shifts and changes in my beliefs for the past five years and the influx of these shifts, new ideas and knowledge have greatly accelerated in the past two years or so.

It all started with my first pregnancy.  Being completely new to parenting, I of course felt like a stranger in a foreign land and was willing to go with whatever people told me was normal and the thing to do in regard to my health care and the birthing of my baby.  The one exception being my choice to use nurse midwives as opposed to a typical OBGYN (A decision I made for myself at a very young age, and which I have inexplicably always felt very strongly about.)
At any rate, I was ready to have my baby in a regular hospital and the choice of getting an epidural seemed like my only real option since everyone I knew seemed to think that it was the only sane thing to do.

Then my dear sister who'd had her first baby only a couple of years before and hadn't had the option of an epidural due to having rods in her back from a previous surgery presented me with the idea of hypno-birthing.  She wondered if I would be willing to consider it for my own birthing since she wished she had known about it before her own.  I read up on the idea which lead me to doing a lot of research and for the first time in my life, my eyes were opened to the danger of blindly following what the mainstream consensus is without doing one's own research.

For those of you who care, I also received strong spiritual confirmation that hypno-birthing was right for me.  So I bought a study course and practiced the system so much that when I was in the throws of birthing waves the midwife who had just come in to replace my midwife from the night before, marveled to my husband, "Woah, she is textbook."

After an amazing birthing experience I received less than perfect postpartum treatment from nurses who, in retrospect, seemed rather hostile to be allowed to tend to a weak and exhausted young mother who had just had her first baby naturally.
I mention this only because it contributed later to my decision to have my second baby in the comfort and safety of my own home, an idea that I would never have imagined I could be okay with, but once again I opened my mind to the idea that I ought to do my own research before completely discounting an idea.
Once again, the research not only rang true and changed my paradigms, but that choice is continuing to be confirmed by both personal experience as well as new scientific study.  Having said that, let me emphasize that these decisions are based solely on my own choices and what I know to be right for me. I completely acknowledge the important role that the medical system plays in millions of lives.  I am not telling anyone that they should consider natural home birth as the only right option.  I knew it was right for me as a fairly healthy, low risk, young mother with no pre-existing conditions.

Back to the story of my first child, she had all her regular pediatric visits and we followed the book as far as getting all her shots and having her immunized by two.  You have to understand that she was an extremely healthy, even robust baby, (being born an ounce under eight pounds, and never dropping below her birth weight, as well as continuing to this day to range in the 90th percentile for her age.) but over time I began to notice more and more health problems cropping up in her.  She is very prone to both skin problems as well as getting sick easily.  She also has an extremely short attention span and there have been random acts of uncontrolled aggression in the past, as well as other behavioral problems.
I would not be sharing this if I did not feel it relevant to the issue at hand.  It has been painful for me to have many other mother's talk to me about my daughter as if they are trying to say that they think she is mentally not right. Most recently another Mom basically told me that my child has ASD.  I was shocked and hurt that someone who doesn't even know my child would try to diagnose her.   Still, it got my mind working and I began to wonder and pray a little to understand if I should even consider such ideas enough to research and find out if it could be true, which honestly, I felt reluctant to do at first. I mean what Mom in their right mind wants to be told her child has a mental disorder?  

Within a matter of days I find this article which rings completely true for me and aligns with all of the other eye opening truths that I have been discovering in the past year or so.  It also seems blatantly obvious after reading the article, that my oldest daughter could very well be suffering from the effects of toxins administered to her as a baby through the needles of vaccines that where meant to protect her.

My second daughter, as I mentioned, was born at home and has never been vaccinated.  This is not actually because I actively chose not to.  (Though I knew of others who had chosen not to, and sometimes vaguely wondered if there was something to that.) Our financial circumstances at the time of her approaching birth were such that they largely contributed to our choice to look into the possibility of birthing at home.  These same circumstances made birthing at home also appealing because we didn't have a car seat, couldn't immediately afford one and knew we would not be allowed to take out baby home without one, so having her at home in the first place made a lot of sense.  (For those of you who are wondering, yes, we did have medical insurance at this time.)
These of course were not the only reasons we chose this route but I will not deny that they were contributing factors.

I bring up the financial point only because this also contributed as to why we never got around to vaccinating our baby.  I wasn't against it, but after our regular pediatrician moved away immediately after our eldest's final immunization, and we had trouble finding a new pediatrician (the one recommended to us was no longer taking new patients.)  combined with the fact that suddenly having two children instead of one changed things enough that while we often mentioned that we really ought to go in and get her shots taken care of, it was repeatedly put on the back burner, and what do you know?  Two years have passed.

At the age of two our second daughter is remarkably different than her older sister, and I'm not talking about the obvious age difference.  She has never had the skin problems her sister is still dealing with or been as prone to getting sick.  She has an amazingly long attention span even for a child older than her, and she has no apparent behavioral problems.  I grant that this may be pure coincidence.  It may be simply that the two girls have different personalities.  The thing is, if I really think about it, their actual personalities really aren't that different, only the maturity with which they handle the same situations. I may be completely up in the night, but I feel that I cannot completely ignore the evidence that my own experience has provided.  As you can see by the evidence I am currently living with, perhaps you too can see why I feel justified in leaning toward the side of this issue that I am leaning.


Oh, I guess it's also relevant that during my second pregnancy a friend of mine shared this article which led me to the decision to refuse the flu vaccine despite the then current swine flu paranoia and the fact that I was offered the vaccine at every single prenatal visit until I switched to my home birthing midwife. I know you can get vaccines at an affordable rate, in this case, money has not been a contributing factor in my not getting vaccinated. After reading this article I decided to forego the flu vaccine and instead try supplementing with vitamin D to see if that would prevent the flu.  It has been two years and I have not had the flu since.

So, with all this in mind I shared a link to this article about vaccines on Facebook. That was on Friday, December 9, 2011 at 11:25 AM.  By Friday night I had not only received 17 comments on the post but I was approached by at least three people at my ward Christmas party who all had something to say about it.  One of whom told me to delete the post and never post anything so controversial again.
To this I say, I am not afraid to state opinions or ideas that I am considering anymore than I am afraid to consider other peoples ideas and opinions. Bring it on!

It is now Monday December 12, 2:44 PM I myself have not yet commented on the post but I already have 27 comments (some from repeated commentators) and at the current rate there may be more to come.  This probably shouldn't have surprised me due to the controversial nature of such a topic, but it did surprise me, mainly I guess, because of the lack of attention given to my controversial posts of the past.  I figured that if people don't like what I've shared they simply won't comment on it, they are welcome to roll there eyes and proceed down their news feed.  Maybe that's just me though. :}

Yet, what surprises me more is how obvious it is which of the commentators actually read the whole article and which simply assumed they knew what it was about based solely on the title.
Please friends, let's not insult both my intelligence and yours by ever commenting on an article you have not fully read.
It is insulting to my intelligence for you to assume what I share is not even worth reading before you try to contradict it.
It further makes your own intelligence look rather lacking to post a comment which blatantly shows that you did not read the posted article, yet are accusing others of ignorance and closed mindedness.  If you can't bother to read the whole article, please do not bother leaving a comment.  Thank you.

That being said, I will now respond more directly to the comments I received.  I apologize that it has taken me three days to respond, but I wanted to read all of the responding articles that my commentators posted (and then some) before responding.  I would like to think that others would offer me the same courtesy when responding to any related links that I post.

First of all, Rob, the Lancet article you mentioned may have been debunked and it is pretty pathetic that some guy fudged his facts.  However, I cannot find any relation other than the topic at hand that relates the article I posted with the Lancet's 1998 article.  As far as I can see everything linked in the article I posted was based on new research publish this year.
I do appreciate the information you've shared, especially the second article about how the reality is, there needs to be more research done. Like the writer of the article, I am not about to claim that I am completely "Anti-Vaccine."  In fact, I would encourage everyone to read this article.

I am certainly not about to discount anyone's views as irrelevant.  I will not deny what vaccines have done for people in the past. I acknowledge the importance they have played in all but eradicating horrible diseases as well as the fact that God surely revealed such knowledge to men in order to benefit us on our journey to improve our lives.

Conversely, I do not trust the FDA any further than I could throw them.  As they already allow horrible toxins and carcinogens into our food, cosmetics and cleaning products, not to mention pushing drugs with terrible side effects through the system (without testing) for public use; only retracting them when people start to die or become debilitated enough that they can no longer get away with offering with it.

Even products that are marketed as "healthy" and are fully approved by the FDA have been found to be laced with known poisons such as arsenic, mercury, lead and cadmium.

Honestly, does it really seem like such a stretch that they wouldn't refrain from allowing dreadful, mentally debilitating toxins into otherwise helpful vaccines?

I understand the concept behind using a small dose of a given disease to build up the bodies immunity, but if they're going to add toxic ingredients which may alter my babies still developing brain, which in turn my cause both her and her parents grief for the rest of her life, am I really being a responsible parent (in being informed of the risks) to allow that to happen to her?

Of course I know that my children are dependent on me for protection and as such it is my right to use my intelligence to question anything that could potentially harm my children, whether the threat be immediate or otherwise. I will do whatever it takes to ensure that my children have the best life experience I can possibly offer them.  If ASD or ADD are a more immediate threat than polio, I may choose to avoid the one and trust to God to help us avoid the other. Yes, Autism might be the lesser of two evils, but I'd rather avoid all evils rather than willfully pressing even a lesser evil on a helpless child who has no say in the matter and is looking to me for protection.

As Marcus pointed out, vaccines may not effect all children the same way, so it makes sense to me that in cases such as this, each parent ought to be prayerful and find out what the Lord's will is concerning them regardless of what another righteous parent may have received. (D&C 62:8)
Some commandments are given to all, but where the Lord has not given specific commandments it is probably because the answers would vary between differing circumstances.  The only one who knows if one child would suffer adverse effects from a vaccine as opposed to another child, is God.
How many of us can actually claim that you have studied out this matter and considered both sides AND prayed to know the truth concerning our own family?  My guess is not many, not because we aren't good prayerful people, but because it is so easy to passively trust what the mainstream opinions of the world dictate to us.  No one is above being deceived so I beg that instead of arguing with each other over differing views, that we instead unite in seeking the truth, considering all sides and evidences and praying for the spirit to manifest truth to us when and wherever we find it so that none of us may be deceived.  I strongly feel that now is not the time to sit idly and blindly and unquestioningly following what the world has told us is normal and what everyone else is doing.  If everyone is doing it and a government which no longer seeks to protect us strongly condones it: Absolutely will I question it!

There are times to follow and there are times to seek your own path. While I would certainly want my children vaccinated if they were to visit a foreign country where such horrible diseases are still prevalent; as my current living conditions do not immediately threaten us with small pox, I will thank my Father in Heaven for this time and the opportunity I have been given to search out the truth and if necessary, demand higher standards (new and better, non-toxic vaccines) be put into place before I allow some stranger to stick a needle into my baby for the sake of a fear fed paycheck.

I am truly appreciative of all who read through the article before commenting as well a those who posted further information. I will continue to research and consider all evidence before I make an absolute decision.  Of course relying on the spirit to guide me.

These are contentious times and it is so easy to get angry, I thank you all for striving to be civil despite differing feelings about this controversial topic.  Thank you again for the shared information and concern. I am perfectly open to receiving more evidence as to the truth behind vaccines. Especially if you can answer any of the questions in this article I found today.  I'm not a medical scientist and really would like to know if anyone out there can help me find the answers to these questions.  Thank you all so much for your help!

May the truth set us free.

~Julie :}