“What are these people thinking not vaccinating their kids?!”
“Get the facts. Vaccines save lives!”
You’ve probably heard these sorts of statements before. This blog is your chance to get inside the head of a non-faxing parent. I went out and got the facts, no, vaccines don’t save lives.
I started out like many of you. I was vaccinated as a kid. I intended to vaccinate my kids and I thought people who didn’t vaccinate were paranoid to the nth degree. I felt proud when I heard the stories about Jonas Salk and Edward Jenner.
The turning point came when I saw a magazine cover of Jenny McCarthy in a grocery store with a story about curing her son’s autism. The idea of curing autism was interesting, whether or not it was true, so the next time I was at Barnes and Noble I picked up a copy of her book Warrior Mothers and started reading it. There was account after account of children suffering serious health problems right after receiving a vaccination. Not just around the time, right after. Well, when several people are experiencing the same phenomenon, it seems unlikely that it is just coincidence.
I began to read Dr. Sears’ books on vaccines and talked it over with my husband and he was interested. I liked Dr. Sears’ work because it seemed like the perfect compromise. Vaccine still saved lives, but we didn’t need so many. After all, we and all our friends had been vaccinated less as children and we were fine.
But something still nagged at me. There were people who didn’t vaccinate at all. They said that these diseases had already declined when the vaccines were introduced. I decided that in order to make an accurate and fully informed decision about vaccination I had to look at all sides of the issue, including the no-vaccination arguments. I figured that if no-vaccination proponents were right in their arguments, that the evidence would be found not only in materials advocating their stance but also in pro-vaccination materials.
With that in mind, I started reading books against vaccination, but also medical journals, medical websites, science magazines, news articles , public health reports and books and articles on epidemiology. I compared the information I found in these sources with the information that is given to parents about vaccination and I found that what doctors, pharmaceutical manufacturers, the CDC and public health officials are telling each other is a different story than the one they are telling parents. I found that vaccination is one way to prevent disease, but it is by no means the most effective or safest.
Parents are being told to get the facts about vaccination, but what is accepted as “fact” are assertions that are not supported by data, while arguments based on data are dismissed as paranoia and deception. But for those of you who are ready to hear what health officials and scientists are really know about vaccination and are not telling the public, this blog is for you.
I’m not making this stuff. (I don’t have to since it’s all been written in medical journals, legitimate news publications, and studies.) You won’t find anything on this blog about NASA faking the moon landing (there is sufficient evidence to show that several manned missions to the moon did occur). This is not a site about “new age” spiritual beliefs (personal religious beliefs can exist with science, but they don’t constitute scientific proof anything). Nor am I selling anything. This is an examination of the documented facts about vaccination and the social/cultural beliefs and practices associated with it. Everyone should know the facts about vaccination in order to make a truly informed decision. Let’s get the real facts about epidemics and let’s make an epidemic of sharing those facts.
If you would like to get in touch (no hate mail please), you can reach me at the name of this blog (at) yahoo.com.
epidemicfacts 