Something to think about - Children need to be immunized!
 

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/...06/3776327.htm

A lot of children have needlessly suffered, and some have even died from diseases that have been almost unheard of in our lifetime.

What an eye opening report!

How awful!

don't forget we adults need boosters for tetanus and pertussis every ten years (Tdap).

I think it's just plain stupid not to immunize a child against tetanus. However, I am not in favor of the standard approach to immunizing children, which is to combine three shots in one. I required separate injections for my daughter, spaced a reasonable time period apart, so that her immune system had time to adjust to each one.

Edit: I should add that adults who are going to be near infants and young children *really* need to get the pertussis vaccination. Many adults don't, and it puts the children at risk.

A researcher in England faked studies about immunizations causing autism. Parents started freakng out and not immunizing their kids. These young parents are not old enough to know what measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, etc. do. They don't know because they were vaccinated against it by their parents. I remember my sister and cousin being very sick with mumps and measles. I had mumps younger and somehow escaped measles. I remember going to school with kids who suffered from polio and could never walk again. I'm a retired university professor in the field of special education. Immunizations do not cause autism. The numbers have increased because of better identification. Just like many years ago ADHD became part of the federal law for special education and kids with ADHD quadrupled. Once a definition and description is made public people can suddenly identify what has been going on. My sister is ADHD and has leaning disabilities. She's 62 years old and was tutored by nuns just to get her through school. ADHD kids and kids with autism have been around for a long time. People just didn't know how to teach them. They are both caused mostly by heredity.

Thank you, EllieGirl. I wish the word would get out more so understanding could spread.

And what about the adults who don't immunize their children like these folks and put the ADULTS that work with children at risk? I taught for 31+ years, and volunteered in my children's classrooms for another 10 years. When I grew up eons ago, the MMR vaccine wasn't available. One of my fourth grade students came down with mumps...and then I got them. The school district did not charge me sick leave for the 20 days of work I missed (as a new teacher, I didn't have 20 days of leave built up), and I was thankful for that. There is a lot of "junk" information on the Internet and responsible parents ask and listen to professionals who deal with these things every day. Autism caused by vaccines? Maybe. But what about the increasing use of sonograms...putting all those vibrations into a tiny, but growing fetus? It's as good a thing to "blame" autism on as vaccines which do prevent illness. IMHO

Thank you so much for this. I spent the majority of my nursing career working with mentally and physically handicapped individuals as well as dual diagnosis individuals. It aggravates me that the researchers faked this information just so they wouldn't have to admit they were wrong. Unfortunately, the common public only knows that the research determined that the vaccines caused autism but so few know that the research was bogus. You are right on when you say that there are more diagnosed cases of autism now mainly because of more appropriate diagnosis. There should be a pamphlet handed out to every pregnant woman during her prenatal care that explains the falsified research and the dangers of not immunizing your children.

I have always found it interesting the number of people who go off and do things differently with their children than what their parents did successfully for them. These are tiny human beings you are using to prove what?

Thank you for sharing this article. My niece is newly pregnant and she shared with her mother and me that her MIL and so her husband are anti-vaccine. My sister and I came down hard on the side of vaccinating (although we encouraged her to discuss it with a pediatrician and to bring her husband along to voice his concerns).

I think this article makes it clear what kind of fire you are playing with if you don't vaccinate.

I wished one of my coworkers would understand this, she thinks her child can die from vaccines which is extremely rare. She doesn't understand her child can die from the diseases vaccines prevent. It probably why we are seeing more whooping cough and other things because of peoples fear. I work with animals and have seen tetanus in animals that died with treatment. It is no joke how serious something like tetanus can be. I think it is like that person said, our generation was not around in the days when polio and other things were more common when vaccines were just starting to come out. Me personally I couldn't tell you what polio was about. I think people just really need to be educated about the benefits outweighing the cons of vaccines. Look at the new HPV vaccine that can help prevent this disease which can cause cancer of the cervix or throat. A

Thanks for this link...We need to understand as parents the importance of immunizations. The diseases that were once killers of children when I was growing up were no longer a worry after vaccinations came into play...Now too many people think it is no longer necessary to vaccinate. My friends daughter almost lost her baby last winter to whooping cough. She still did not go get the other children vaccinated. Many diseases are making a come back.

The Chinese word for whooping cough translates as "100 day cough". Think about that - who would take a chance on their child getting that? Unbelievable.

This topic is much more complex than most people realize. From a public health perspective and from a statistical standpoint, it's a no-brainer to vaccinate all children against all major diseases. However, the view from an individual perspective is different. There are risks associated with each type of vaccination that are entirely unrelated to the autism study cited by so many. Here is just one example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/39253
I am totally in favor of pertussis vaccination, but it does double an individual child's risk of encephalitis. This doesn't matter unless it's ***your*** child who develops encephalitis. This is the perspective of the parent.

Individual reactions to vaccines vary. Health professionals need to take this into account. Until they do, parents will continue to try to protect their children from low-probability vaccination reactions at the expense of high-probability public health epidemics.

There is nothing preventing the adults who work with children from getting vaccinated, is there? My sister worked in a nursing home for years and routinely got the flu vaccine to protect herself.

My son had a reaction to the child shots. That didn't stop me from having him immunized. They ended up giving him the adult one, but had to have a lesser dose more often. He was a very hyper child & the Dr put him on meds for this. I did not like the reaction he had on this med, made him like a zombi, so I got to checking things out & found that taking away any foods that had artificial coloring, flavoring, sugar, additives & preservatives totally turned him around. It was almost impossible to find products at the store with out any of these items in it. So I made everything from scratch so I could control what was in them. It was so much more work for me, but well worth it. His teachers, at school, could hardly believe the difference in him. Believe me when I say that a lot of problems are caused by what is being added to our foods.

after watching a newborn colt die from tetanus, that was enough for me. my kids were vaccinated!

Food allergies are no joke. ADHD is different than a food allergy although a food allergy can mimic some similar symptoms. ADHD is a neurological chemical imbalance in the brain. There's a group of several tests that a doctor should preform before diagnosing and putting a child on meds for ADHD. A kid who has ADHD will still have ADHD unrelated to the diet issues.

It would be like saying if you take sugar away from a diabetic child, the child will not be diabetic. It's not sugar that makes the child a diabetic, it's the child's body isn't making insulin to process the different sugars. No sugar and the child will still be diabetic and need insulin. Diet can help or make it worst, but it won't fix it. Same with ADHD.

I have a great niece who just had a baby and posted a link on facebook page how Amish kids have lower rates of autism because they don't get vaccinated. I shared with her the high rates of birth defects and the higher infant morality rates. I hope her peds doctor can make her see reason.

I agree with everything being said here. To add to it our country has so many people from other countries.....do we know what or if they or their children have been vaccinated? All of the children need to be vaccinated. Adults, too.

Hugs

Worst part is, your child might not have a problem, get sick and get better and some child they come in contact with could become very sick or die because they got it from your child. So many people today are clueless of what the older people know, and someone else pays for the stupidity.

Um...the flu vaccination is different than mumps, is it not? I did and do get the flu shot every year. I was immunized for mumps as a child and had no idea I needed to be re-immunized to teach. No, there is nothing preventing the adults who work with children from getting vaccinations, but if they have already had the vaccination, they feel that they are protected, as I did. Sheesh!

There are a lot of doctors who refuse to accept babies into their practice if the parents refuse to immunize. It's because when the babies come into the office carrying mumps, measles, etc they expose everyone to it.

I had both of our sons vaccinated at the proper times.... then I started hearing about the problems... so I started delaying there shots at least 3 months - 'oh I just forgot', I do believe that shots are given at too young of an age. I personally know parents whos kid was perfectly fine when they went in to get there shot and 6 months later were totally deaf, after having been sick from the shot. I do not believe that all vaccine's are created equal. (properly)

I remember getting the mumps but don't remember about 20 days after that because I was sick. Also, when I was a child, our family had a few adult friends that were disabled from the effects of polio. While I do understand the fears that parents have, I believe that the vaccines are the best defense we have against these horrific diseases. Although if I had it to do over again, I think I would've done as a previous poster suggested by spacing them out some.

When I was pregnant, we were told to eat this but don't eat that. Now pregnant women are told to eat totally different. We were given medication for morning sickness, now they have to tough it out because that medication is dangerous. Babies weren't supposed to sleep on their backs, then no tummy sleeping - who knows how they're supposed to sleep now. It seems that medical rules keep changing but that doesn't mean we just ignore those rules. At some point, we have to say this is the best we have at this moment and go with it!!

For those friends of mine that had polio, I think they would have taken the chance on the vaccine!!

Here, in GP, we have had some new cases of pertussis and it reminded me that when I got my tetanus shot I got the Td and not the TDap which protects against pertussis. As I turned 65 recently, and am no longer working where immunizations were required on a timely basis I need to do this. Also, we need to make sure we get our pneumonia vaccine as well as our shingles vaccine. Let's have a healthy old age!

As a retired pediatric nurse most of my years were in an office) I have always promoted vaccines. I am old enough to remember polio and iron lungs,have seen tetanus (the child died a terrible death),meningitis,etc. The discomfort from the vaccines is minimal. Most of the adverse press is based on inaccurate information gleamed from poor studies and have been proven inaccurate--but this part doesn't usually make the news!

Something that doesn't get mentioned by those rejecting vaccines because of the dangers of heavy metals related to the shots is that the real issue is that those who react adversely apparently have an issue with the way their body processes the vaccine and that is something that should be known and dealt with instead of just avoiding the shots.