Vaccinations: Why Not?

**We've moved!!**


Please visit our new site, ModernAlternativeMama.com.


Comments on this post have been locked and updates are no longer being made to this page. Please click here to view this article on the new site.



Vaccines have become and extremely hot topic these days. People who believe in vaccines are absolutely adamant that everyone should receive them, and that as vaccination rates fall, those who are opting out are putting everyone at risk. Many of these people deny that vaccines cause any but the rarest of reactions, that the benefits outweigh the risks, and that vaccinating is necessary for herd immunity.

People on the other side of the coin are equally upset. They believe that vaccines are poison, that they don't work, and at the worst end, that they are a conspiracy by the pharmaceutical industry to keep people sick and possibly even sterilize them.

The fight is angry and tough. No one can find common ground because frankly, choosing to vaccinate on schedule (after having researched and believing this is the best course of action) and choosing not to vaccinate at all are completely different belief sets.

That said, we don't vaccinate. Before I got pregnant with Bekah, I worked as a therapist for kids with autism. This led me to question that vaccines were really the miracle that we were led to believe they were, but I did think that they had their place in modern medicine, and that we may choose to space/delay but we'd do the vaccines. Then, once I got pregnant, I was student teaching, and I really did not want to get sick (this was in the fall of '07). That year, for the first time, health professionals were recommending getting a flu shot. Ben and I discussed it, and I discussed it with my OB, and I decided that if that was the best way to protect myself and my baby, I would do it.

Somehow that didn't quite sit well with me, though. It seemed weird that they were only just starting to recommend the flu shot for pregnant women when they had recommended against it in the past. I started to read, to try to find the truth. What I learned scared me. There is thimerosal in flu shots still -- that can't be good for a developing baby! So I kept reading, and talking to other parents.

At the time Bekah was born, we were against vaccination of newborns (no Hep B), but were considering a delayed schedule. We wanted to split the MMR, too. At that time, her doctor said "Fine, as long as you eventually do it." (She's never received a single shot, but her doctor has never said a word, either.)

I kept reading. It became somewhat of an obsession for me. Some of you may think I was reading only biased, non-credible sources to make this decision. First -- I don't believe those sources to be non-credible, because many are written by experienced medical professionals who simply don't believe what the rest of the industry does. Also, I find the government and medical journals to be quite biased themselves -- who do you think pays for the advertising that appears in medical journals? Second -- the source that absolutely clinched my decision not to vaccinate was actually the WHO's detailed papers on each disease and vaccination. So, regardless, it was an "official" source that really made me confident that this was the right decision for us.

Here is a brief summary of the reasons why we don't vaccinate:

1. The chemicals in vaccines don't belong in peoples' bodies, especially not tiny bodies whose immune systems and blood-brain barriers are still developing.

2. Vaccines haven't been as thoroughly and rigorously tested for safety as doctors would like you to believe. Most are tested only against previously licensed vaccines, and the entire schedule has never been tested. This safety data is not enough for me.

3. We believe the immune system functions better if it is allowed to develop naturally, through acute illnesses, breastfeeding, etc. We believe this is God's design.

4. There is currently no accepted explanation for the explosion in autism, allergies, asthma, ADHD, diabetes, etc. We believe that vaccines do play a role, even though there are other factors.

5. We would rather take our chances with the diseases (and we have studied how best to treat them) than vaccines.

Those are our reasons. In the future, I'll post my full argument, which includes lots of sources. Please read and research for yourselves. This is meant only to present our choice.