Vinnie:
First of all: thanks for answering in such a realexed manned to my
somewhat harsh mail, where I clearly see I could have written
differently :)
> In defense of those who choose not to get their children vaccinated:
>
> first, the TB test is not a vaccination, and I know of no good reason to
> avoid it, so I'm not talking about the test (and I know nothing of TB
> vaccinations -- TB is relatively rare in the U.S., though there are
> occasional outbreaks)
TB used to be rare in Norway, too, until the recent years. It's still
rare, but in communities with a large majority of newly arrived
immigrants there have been semi-epidemic outbreaks. The problem with TB
is that it's very often discovered late, both because the sympthoms are
difficult to see and because it's most common among people who are less
likely to visit the doctor's regularly. A bigger problem, though, is the
increase in multi-recistant TB, which is pretty hard to cure with
antibiotics. Thus is TB becoming a much more serious disease even if
it's discovered early.
Actually I find it strange that TB isn't such a serious disease in US
(it's NOT like it's an emidemic in Norway either, but it's taken
seriously and it's in the vaccination programme). Does anyone know where
I can find stats and policies of US emidemics and immunization? (SOrry,
my "public health term" skills are weak so I don't really know what to
search for... and where.)
Some global stats says that about 1/3 of the world population is
infected with TB bacterias, and 8 mill get ill every year (so a HUGE
percentage are only testing positive, I guess. They are not dangerous as
long as they don't get sick (the problem is that it can take some time
before they know they are sick)).
I found a good Norwegian article on
http://balder.dep.no/nou/1998-3/kap05.htm
I don't have time for a translation, but it's full of facts and I can
translate parts of it when someone asks :)
(This is a Norwegian departemental report published by Ministry of
Health and Social Affairs in 1998. There seem to be lots of references,
but I don't find the list of them.)
> Supposedly the FDA (or possibly the CDC) keeps some record of adverse
> reactions to vaccines, but my son had seizures as a result of his 6 month
> DPT and 'hasn't been the same since' and his pediatrician tried to deny
> the seizures, and when she couldn't do that claimed that they weren't
> caused by the vaccine (even though he had no history prior and they
> started within 24 hours of the vaccine) needless to say, he got a new
> pediatrician (btw, I don't have custody, by choice, but I do give a damn
> about the quality of his life). Another pediatrician told me that the FDA
> had consistantly ignored her requests for info on reporting adverse
> reactions, and discussions with other parents who's kids had adverse
> reactions (even the known reactions -- never mind 'contraversial'
> reactions) have led me to believe that the number of adverse reactions is
> probably very underreported. Whether that's the fault of doctors or the
> FDA I don't know. But I'm very suspicious of the published numbers, simply
> because I know of too many cases that were not reported and none that were
> (literally, I don't know one person who had a bad reaction that was
> reported)
I am really sorry for your son and I definitely see why you are sceptic
about vaccination. We also have the information problem in Norway, it's
often difficult to find information about what bad reactions tehre are
and how common each of them are, even if it's always mentioned that you
can have low fever etc. And the contents of vaccines are unknown - it's
simply a drug and drug companies usually keep their products and the
contents of them very closed. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health
(Folkehelsa) was going to produce their of vaccine against diphteria (I
think), but they stopped the project as it simply became too expensive
to buy the rights to produce the vaccine from the company holding the
patent rights.
> So I can't really reliably calculate base costs. In addition, there are
> reasons *other* than weakened immune systems for children not to recieve
> specific vaccinations. One is allergy to any of the componants of the
> vaccine -- for instance, MMR contains eggs. Even though N.'s ped knew of
> his egg allergy she never suggested that he might be at increased risk for
> a reaction to the MMR vaccine. I don't even know if she was
> aware. Predictably, he also reacted badly to the MMR vaccine. Finding
> reliable information on contents of individual immunizations and allergy
> reaction information has also been problematic.
In Norway the advise is that a child should never be revaccinated if
s/he has reacted to the vaccine before, but I doubt they are very
conscent about allergies in general towards the vaccine components and I
also don't know if children are advised not to have other vaccines if
they react to one of them. I'm afraid the usual reaction from doctors
and public health nurses is that "oh no, this is another vaccine, it's
different and not dangerous".
> So benefits, or, what am I saving my kidlet (and the kids he comes in
> contact with) from -- and this has been problematic, too. I've had a great
> deal of trouble finding statistics on how likely it is than an unimmunized
> child will get Diptheria, pertussis, tetnus, polio, measles, mumps or
> rubella (german measles) in the U.S. While stats from previous generations
> or other countries are somewhat useful, I suspect that hygiene and other
> 'standard of living' things would affect the totals, and similarly, that
> statistics on serious complications and death rates would be affected by
> modern health care.
Yes, of course. Diphteria is increasing in Russia, basically because of
poor hygiene and the bad economic situation, and also because of
several wars forcing people to flee. The situation there can't be
compared to Norway, fex, so one could think that Diptheria isn't any
danger to Norway. The problem (in this case) is that the society is more
globalized than before, so first we get the refugees from Russia and
other countries with more diphteria and thus are more exposed to the
disease. Then we all travel more so if one (geographic) place is
infected it can more easily spread. 50 years ago the disease was more
likely to spread just within this society and get detected before it
could spread very much.
On the other hand there are several reports of "enclaves" where specific
diseases suddenly has spread. I mentioned the Rudolph Steiner
(Antroposophic) environemntas in Norway, others mentioned polio
outbreaks in Netherlands. I guess these places don't have poorer hygiene
than the majority of USA or other countries in the western world, so it
shows that such diseases can appear and spread also in our parts of the
world.
> I can certainly sympathize with any parent who is afraid to vaccinate
> their kids. There's a lot of horror stories out there, which are
> anecdotal, but still scary. There's a lot of 'vaccines are a safe as
> water' information out there, but plenty of ways to shoot holes in it. I'm
> a pretty good researcher with a fairly broad scientific background, and
> *I* haven't been able to come to a solid conclusion. To ask a parent to
> value the health of other children over the chances of giving their own
> child brain damage, autism or a number of other serious problems is
> unfair. If it would cure AIDS, would you go club your kid over the head?
> Didn't think so.
I see what you mean, but I dont agree with you. I think. I understand
that you are uncertain, especially due to your son's history, but I
still think the evidence of the positive effects of vaccination is
stronger thant the negative effects, even though we know the negative
effects too little. But to me there is still enough evidence that
vaccination is positive for the society and thus should be something any
parent should concider.
When THAT is said, I ALSO mean that there should be more research into
the negative effects of vaccination, both so that parents know what
specific vaccines they should avoid due to allergies etc, and also
because it's VERY important that also the negative effects of immunization
of as big majority as possible of children are known. As well as the
positive, of course - except for the obvious immunization aspect, a
vaccine could probably also have positive side effects, but how many of
those are know. So I think it's really important that there is more
research on the aspects of immunization.
> All that said, I think the conclusion I've come to (for now, I expect that
> when I actually get around to parenting I'll want to retrace my steps) is
> that I would vaccinate, but significantly differently than the 'suggested'
> routine -- I would wait until my child/ren is/are three years old (as the
> immune system is fairly well develooped at that point, the child is old
> enough to have some language and therefore can tell of problems rather
> than having to guess, the child is old enough to have a 'baseline' -- it's
> highly unlikely that a child older than three is going to start regressing
> into autistic behavior or suddenly start having seizures) and have the ped
> give them immunizations one at a time. I think this is a cautious and
> reasonable way to go about it. This would pretty much mean that my kids
> wouldn't be in daycare (which would be how I'd prefer it anyway -- for
> reasons much broader than vaccination) until they were three.
This sounds like a wise desition, at least based on you experiences.
Personally I wouldn't do it this way (unless there are special
circumstances, like allergies etc, but that's the special cases anyway
(even though there can be many of them with some allergies)), but it's a
lot better than skipping all the vaccination programme. I guess it's
safe enough when you are conscent about it and decide not to expose you
child too much to "dangerous" situations, like daycare (generally
daycare is good for the immune deficiency, but not when it comes to most
of the diseases we immunizate against). Also, some of the diseases are
most dangerous if gotten as a grown up, and they can also be more serious
then, like rubella for pregnant women or mumps (or measles?) for men. A
colleagues of me got on of the usual children's diseases recently and he
was really sick. High fever and 2 weeks in bed. When I had the same at
the age of 5, my fever was 38 C and I stayed in bed for about an hour.
Magni :)
--
sash is very good for you.
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