Vaccination:
Let’s put the judgement to rest.
qualified for much-needed assistance through
the National Vaccine Injury Compensation
Program. On the other hand, if an investigation revealed that there truly was no connection, that also would be valuable information
that could help others make sound decisions
in the future. Alas, we’ll never know for sure.
Also, I don’t know if McKenzie had had any
adverse reactions to prior MMR inoculations,
but if she did, it might have prompted a more
cautious parent to delay or refuse additional
shots.
Mom Expresses Second Thoughts
About Vaccine Refusal
On the other side of the playing field, one
mother of three who decided to delay vaccinating while her children were very young recently confided in me that she wasn’t sure she’d
do it the same way again. “I wanted to delay
vaccinating when they were very little. I just
got used to fighting the medical establishment
about it. I also was part of a community that
was very anti-vaccine. Looking back, I wish I’d
started the shots earlier, when my kids were
past infancy. Our family did get the whooping cough, twice. The first time was awful.
The second time we caught it early and got on
antibiotics right away, but we still ended up in
quarantine for days. And my daughter ended
up getting a ton of shots at once (before entering college), which is what I wanted to avoid
in the first place!”
Cutting Through
a Diseased Atmosphere
34
It’s easy to point fingers at parents when things
go wrong. But doing so is both unfair and
counterproductive.
The real problem lies with the polarized atmosphere of debate that surrounds the entire
vaccine issue. The Great Vaccine Debate marginalizes parents’ real concerns and pushes
them into either unthinking compliance or
knee-jerk defiance.
Let’s do a reality check. Why don’t we start by
admitting that both points of view regarding
vaccines are valid:
Vaccines are effective at reducing incidence
of contagious disease in large populations.
When vaccination programs are put into effect
the incidence of widespread disease generally goes down – often to the point of regional
elimination of the disease. This has occurred
time and again in every region of the world.
While some argue that certain diseases were
naturally declining anyway due to increased
sanitation and other reasons, no other cause
can explain a 98-100% decline in the incidence
of 9 out of 10 highly contagious diseases in the
U.S. since widespread vaccination programs
were implemented. In addition, a quick look
at WHO’s global track record of combating
disease through vaccination programs is pretty
convincing evidence that these programs do
work. It’s also good to remember that many
of these diseases do carry a significant risk of
serious complications and/or death amongst
those who contract them.
Vaccines can and do cause injury and/or
death to some individuals. If this were not
the case, we would not have a governmentfunded Vaccine Injury Compensation Program or Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting
System (VAERS). Even the Institute of Medicine’s highly publicized report, Adverse Effects
of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality, which did