I don't vaccinate my child because it's my right to determine which diseases come back

[revjohn]

information is then the same as advice?

Information is provided, allegedly, so that an "informed" decision can be made. In that individuals are advising.

When the information is deliberately skewed, as it is at VCC and other anti-vaccination sites it is giving biased advice.

I don't know about every claim and every article VCC posts.

I am more than passingly familiar with the world of Autism and the snake oil that has historically been used to beat on the parents of those who wind up with an ASD diagnosis. As far as their articles on Autism are concerned VCC is peddling snake oil with a side of blame the parents.

Voices such as that are voices that need to be ignored not listened to.

 

[revjohn]

I too can read a study but that does not necessarily mean I understand it ...

Which is a fair point.

From what I have seen at VCC they don't often appear to understand what they are reading either. Instead of offering an honest, "I don't understand" they opt to invent understandings. From appearance the understandings invented always appear to confirm what they already believe so there is no actual learning going on.

when I was dutifully bringing my daughter to the pediatrician I do not remember once being given the option of vaccinating or not vaccinating ... and I feel guilty about not asking questions back in those days ...

I can understand the feeling of guilt. Feeling ignorant about what is best for our children is humiliating for any parent who aspires to be a good one. Feelings of ignorance don't go away unless one takes the time to do something about it. Swallowing everything VCC offers is not a remedy for being ignorant though it may give the impression than anyone who has spent time reading the articles they reference that they are now knowledgeable about the "real" truth about vaccinations.

now I ask questions ...

Good for you. I also ask questions of my physician and the physicians who treated my children. As they have all reached adulthood I no longer have that right.

how often does a Dr reccomend to parents bringing in their children for vaccinations to read and understand the MMRII vaccine insert before they consent to the vaccination ... open link below ... it's only 11 pages ... the last 2 of which list 61 additional references 'scientific'

I have never had a Doctor deny me access to that information or tell me that it is too technical for me to understand. Even if I have not been given the information before hand I always leave the office with that information to read. I have never been given a reason to think that the vaccination schedule for children is dangerous and will have negative repercussions.

My son was diagnosed with ASD-PDD so he is high-functioning and it was not diagnosed or even suspected until he reached the age of nine. Since that time I have read a library's worth of Autism research. Enough to separate the fact (no specific trigger or cause) from the fiction (Refrigerator Mother and vaccines).

Still, there is a moment where my wife and I, like any good parents will, wondered if it might have been something we did wrong. It isn't. It wasn't. VCC tells another story. They say, it was our fault. It was something we did or allowed to be done. We are to blame.

Unsurprisingly it is very easy to say that to people who are already beating themselves up and have it take off.

look no further people @revjohn and @chansen will do the censoring for you ...

[FONT=Open Sans, sans-serif]Censorship is preventing another opinion from being spoken.

Censorship is not the actual disagreeing with that other opinion.

If it was in my power to take VCC off-line because it provides false information I would do it in the blink of an eye. I don't have that kind of power. So I call "manure" when I come across it. As far as VCC's Autism section is concerned it is a big,stinking, steaming pile.

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if it comes from a source posted by @UnDefinitive ... dismiss it

That is a constant is it? Did I dismiss any source of yours without spending any time investigating it? No. I did not. And what of yours have I actually dismissed? Claims about Kevin Annett. What would I, a member of The United Church of Canada know about Kevin Annett? What would I as a minister in The United Church of Canada know about Kevin Annett? I suspect that if I had not been studying for ministry in Vancouver at the same time Kevin Annett was being stripped of his I'd not have heard anything about it. That is not the case.

What would I know about Autism? As the parent of a child diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder what would I know about it? Having lived in that reality for 14 years now what would I know about it? When I have had access to Drs Szatmari, and Zwaigenbaum arguably the top two doctors in the know about Autism in Canada who have participated in hundreds of studies and presented hundreds of papers for peer review on the subject of Autism why would I trust one doctor who had his paper retracted whom I never had access to?

... she has no credentials to direct your search for information ...

If I have ever mentioned your credentials it is in your mind. I have no idea what they might be so I won't comment on them. I have, in this thread, pointed to the credentials I could find of two papers that claimed a definite link between Autism and MMR vaccinations. Those credentials are a gastroenterologist (a doctor who specializes in digestive tract disorders--which Autism isn't) and a biomechanical engineer who may have a doctorate but certainly is not a Dr.

I have questioned the credentials of the VCC and their willingness to stand behind the crap they post with respect to Autism.

Let me know if you are any one of those so challenged.

Possibly I hit you when I said anyone who believes the link between ASD and MMR vaccines has feces for brains. If so I apologize. That is a tad on the harsh side. That said, it is an honestly held conviction of mine and I should still try to be polite.

there is a lot of pro-vaccine information links through that website as well as testimonials from people with their own well-researched reasons for being anti vaccination ... the reason I recommended the site for people who are really interested in finding out more is because it is independent and non-profit and Canadian.

Doesn't show in their Autism section. At all. That section of the site is crap even if it is independent, non-profit and Canadian.

I don't think either vaccines or organic food are the direct correlation to autism ... what I do think is that people are looking for answers to questions that have been posed around the validity of mass vaccinations ... and so they should!

And yet VCC has definite conclusions about the ASD/MMR link.

 

[Lastpointe]

I thought CBCdid a good job last night with their medical panel. Discussing flu, flu vaccine and prevention.

The cardiologist had an interesting point. They were commenting that the current flu vaccine is only about 25% effective.

He remarked that if he had a med that would stop 25% of the heart disease we would put it in the water foreveryone That25% is worth doing.

They also discussed how we now just keep on going with colds and flu. We go out, we cough over others we go to work. Its hard but we need to stay home

 

[Lastpointe]

I also think one of the reasons that wild conspiracy theories flourish is because of how we view medicine. Its kind of like teachers

W were all students so we figure we know a thing or two about teaching. So we make lots of uninformed commetns

We all get sick and get better. So we feel we know a thing or two about medicine. So we make lots of uninformed decisions and others, on line with similar medical knowledge validate it

But we dont necessarily know much about say micro economics in third world countries so we dont spread our views

 

[Seeler]

• Undefinitive quoted:
• 
  
• Autism – increased about 200 times in the last fifteen years

And I dare say it increased about 100% in the last fifty years. In fact I never heard of it when I was a child.

My husband-to-be introduced me to his brother after telling me 'Eddie is different.' I'll say he was different. Not stupid, but entirely lacking in social skills - his brothers 'looked out for him', the community accepted him. I have no doubt that if he started school now he would be referred for diagnosis as autistic.

In Teachers' College we learned that some children were dyslexic and some were slow learners. About that time we also learned of ADHD. But it was years later before I heard the word 'autism'. I guess people didn't have it back then.

 

[revjohn]

I guess people didn't have it back then.

I'm hoping this is sarcasm.

Autism wasn't "invented" in 1910 any more than gravity was "discovered" in the 1600's. What happened is that both were defined. They were always present.

Historically a fascinating case study, "The Wild Boy of Aveyron" which focuses on a feral child captured in 1796 France, is thought by many to be about a young man abandoned because of his autism.

The term Autism did not come into vogue until the publication of Leo Kanner's "Early Infantile Autism" in 1943. To show you what was thought about Autism then (long before today's vaccination regimen) you need to understand that Autism is a translation Autismos which means (morbid self-admiration).

Not really a fair label if you ask me.

Initially Autism was thought to be caused by unaffectionate mothers which led Bruno Bettleheim to coin the phrase "refrigerator mother syndrome". Bettleheim was to his day and Autism research what Wakefield is to our day and Autism research. For unexplained reasons Bettleheim was considered a leading light in the field of Autism research advancing the refrigerator mother theory in The Empty Fortress (1967) and mellowing slightly by the time he published "A Good Enough Parent" in 1987 but only because he thought children's natural resiliency compensated for any parental lack of compassion.

So it is easy to see why parents of children on the Autism Spectrum of Disorders are routinely blamed for their children's diagnosis. First we actually wished we didn't have children and now it is because we are so pathetically ignorant we stick them with needles.

What is also key to this ignorance is the notion that Autism is curable. For Bettleheim the best cure was a parentectomy. Take the child with Autism away from their parents and find somebody who will actually love them. For Wakefield the best cure is not to vaccinate.

Autism has always been with us.

What is changing, as with many different diagnoses in the Mental Health spectrum is that now we can identify what is going on, label it, work with it and help people who have it.

Prior to that we locked them away from society as embarrassments.

It isn't all sunshine and roses now though. Try dealing with a school administrator who wants that child out of their school. Or worse all the whining and mewling parents of every other kid in the class who insist that their child doesn't feel safe.

 

[ChemGal]

Having a discussion here is so much nicer than other places. Generally, I find these conversations to fall to either extreme. You guys know the antivax side.
The other side can be just as extreme. I've actually heard from people that everyone should have all the vaccines. Really? All North Americans who don't travel need typhoid, yellow fever, smallpox and rabies vaccines, including babies who are too young for the to do much good. Try bringing up any criticisms of them within that type of conversation.

 

[Lastpointe]

I travelled to Brazil last year, the Amazon. Had to get all those yellow fever, hepatitis, shots. No rabies unless i got bit

But now cant give blood for a year. Even with vaccines.

I do think we should all be vaccinated for the ones in our area. Unless you have an illness that prevents you from getting them. I shudder when i hear young parents talk about chicken pox parties. They forget the encephalitis risk. The sterility risk from mumps, the risk of deafness from measles, not to even mention the risk of spreading things to those compromised people,

But we do seem to have developed a "first world" feeling of "me first, my plans, screw you..." I am glad i didnt see polio, rampant disease, people dying from pneumonia, bacterial infections run amock, ........ People think these disease are innocuous. They arent

 

[revjohn]

The other side can be just as extreme.

The pin-cushion crowd? Never had to deal with that.

I have had friends who had their kids later than we did do the exposure party thing. I find that more than a little flaky. To be honest I have always thought those friends were more than a little flaky the exposure party just sort of put a bow on it.

I've actually heard from people that everyone should have all the vaccines. Really? All North Americans who don't travel need typhoid, yellow fever, smallpox and rabies vaccines, including babies who are too young for the to do much good.

Isn't Rabies a post-exposure immunization in humans? My dogs get routine rabies vaccinations every two years. The last person I know who needed a rabies vaccination got one after being bitten by a stray that attacked her dog. The good news is that the rabies schedule has vastly improved in terms of location of injection site and number of injections.

Try bringing up any criticisms of them within that type of conversation.

No thanks. The only helpful thing I can think of to say to such a bizarre idea is, "You're nuts."

 

[Justme]

At one point, a scar had to develop for the smallpox vaccine, as far as I know there's no current indicator commonly used as verification that immunity developed (the scar was a bad one IMO). For certain occupations it is done, but not for the general population.

It's interesting - I can always tell when someone my age is older than me or younger if I see their arms - 1972 seems to be the cutoff for the vaccine that left the scar. My friends born in 1971 and before have it but I and my cohorts do not.

 

[Ritafee]

http://www.weforum.org/projects/future-healthy ...

 

[chansen]

It's interesting - I can always tell when someone my age is older than me or younger if I see their arms - 1972 seems to be the cutoff for the vaccine that left the scar. My friends born in 1971 and before have it but I and my cohorts do not.

I'm born in 72 and have the scar on my left upper arm. Must have been quite the needle. Glad I got the big one.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

I think I remember my parents saying that by the time they stopped doing it, it was already being phased out. I think after that it was optional and parents did it just in case.


The last person in Canada to have smallpox was decades before 1972 and it was in developing countries, almost gone, even if not totally eradicated yet. So, chances of a kid here who never travelled to any of the pockets of the developing countries getting it were non-existant already.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

By the time they stopped vaccinating the risks would have been way higher to vaccinate than not to, it seems to me. If there were active cases in the developed world that would've been a good reason to take the chance to vaccinate, but that wasn't the case. Travel wasn't as widespread then, either.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

At what age were they giving the smallpox vaccine to kids at? It would make more sense that if they had to be a year old (i don't know i can't find it) then some kids born in 1971 wouldn't have to have it, and some kids in 1972 onwards were still getting it if their parents asked for it.

 

[ChemGal]

By the time they stopped vaccinating the risks would have been way higher to vaccinate than not to, it seems to me. If there were active cases in the developed world that would've been a good reason to take the chance to vaccinate, but that wasn't the case. Travel wasn't as widespread then, either.

Yet, some needed more than one dose due to a lack of a scar, and at least one got sick due to the increased immune response.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

I read that the chances of reactions to the vaccine were higher, more dangerous, than that although I don't know anyone, that I'm aware of, who had a reaction.

I'm not pro or anti vaccine. If it's the safest and best thing to do I'll do it, if not, I won't - I won't give a blanket endorsement to all vaccines. Like I said, I asked for one about two weeks ago for the flu, mostly to protect my husband - but they wouldn't give it to me because I was starting a one week course of antibiotics - also a just in case measure which I wouldn't normally do but the doctor listened to my chest and prescribed it to me - I didn't expect to be turned down for the shot though. Not sure if I should get it now. I also am not going to run out and get a malaria or typhoid vaccine now if the risk is so miniscule because I'm not travelling, that it's not worth it. That would be going overboard.

 

[revjohn]

I'm born in 72 and have the scar on my left upper arm. Must have been quite the needle. Glad I got the big one.

I don't have any memory of that needle going in. I do remember the pain of having the scab that left that scar coming off.

Even so, it isn't a powerful memory that wakes me in a cold sweat.

 

[revjohn]

The last person in Canada to have smallpox was decades before 1972 and it was in developing countries, almost gone, even if not totally eradicated yet.

The last official diagnosis of naturally occuring small pox on the planet is October 26, 1977.

Given the number of deaths attibuted to the "pox" aka "red plague" I think the safer rather than sorrier route is best.

It is estimated that at its peak small pox killed 400, 000 Europeans per year. Among all those infected its mortality rate ran somewhere between 20% to 60%. Among children the mortality rate was upwards of 80%. Those it didn't kill it frequently left blind.

As recently as 1967 it was estimated that 15 million contracted the disease and 2 million died as a result. That is only a 13% mortality rate. I was born two years earlier, that was the year my sister was born.

So, chances of a kid here who never travelled to any of the pockets of the developing countries getting it were non-existant already.

Yes the chances were small. They were not non-existant.

 

[revjohn]

At what age were they giving the smallpox vaccine to kids at?

I think in Ontario it was between 4 and 7 years of age. Memory is not always 100% reliable. I just remember where I was when it came off and extrapolate from there. I wouldn't have been older than 5 at the time and I remember friends with the same scab and thinking that is going to hurt when that comes off.