Too late for a vaccine debate?

mcurban · March 2012

KateAggie:
MrsAJL:
KateAggie:
MrsAJL:
Stephiehun:
Didn't some of us have a FB debate with the woman who insists her son has a vaccine injury, and wasn't it decided she is completely bonkers? I can't remember who was FB friends with her...
She is on my local board and I'm FB friends with her. I don't agree with just about every opinion she holds on vaccines, however I do believe that he son did have a serious vaccine related reaction.
It was on my FB wall. She is my FB friend. At the risk of getting defriended, I do have to say the line about her son being given 6 months to live is new to me.
Yeah that was new to me too, and I totally give it the .
Honestly, I do not want to have it out with her anymore. Last time I did it was by refuting her "heard immunity is a myth" statement and she basically told me I was stressing her out and she and "my baby" just didn't need that kind of bad energy. So she took her apple cider vinegar and went home.

I hear ya. At times I find it so hard not to respond, but when I do, I'm reminded that it's just not worth wasting my time.

I have walked away from all things Carlinlp related on thebump. But tritto. I question the 6 months thing. We all would have heard about it on the local. It seems that w/ each retelling of events it becomes more and more life threatening.

tartaruga · March 2012

ohhh we ruined the integrity of their group.

http://community.thebump.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/64603792.aspx

RedheadBaker · March 2012

The responses that you ladies post in response to the anti-vax nutters are what made me fall in love with this board.

Mamasaurus · March 2012

LaPiscine:
Mamasaurus:
orangeblossom:
Mamasaurus:
Oh, wow. I am looking at the comments on this board and realizing I am apparently the only vaccine skeptic on here.
(For the record I am not one of those tin foil hat, Jenny McCarthy ones. I am only planning to skip two for my daughter and space out a few others, and I had my DTAP booster well before TTC. I still think that people who act like the CDC is God but don't raise an eyebrow when they change recommendations back and forth are a lot closer in mentality to the Jenny McCarthyites than they will ever admit. Blind obedience is blind obedience.)
I'm going to bed now but anticipate waking up to a river of flame.
I don't think the CDC makes drastic changes recommendations that often.
In my mind,more research could result in recommendation changes, and I could be wrong, but the only major changes they've made in the last couple of years is recommending the flu vaccine for those ages 6mos and up, boosters for dtap for middle school aged children and using the cocooning technique with regard to newborns and close family or caregivers getting Dtap.
Are their specific changes you're referring to?

Off the top of my head, I know they have changed their recommendation for pertussis vaccines in pregnancy a few times. At one time, it was said you should not get it while pregnant. Then it was safe to get at any time while pregnant. Now they are saying it is safe during pregnancy, but only in the third trimester. They may change the recommendation again to indicate a recommendation during pregnancy only for women in high-risk fields like health care, however, because now studies suggest that getting vaccinated for pertussis while pregnant may make the vaccine significantly less effective for the child when he or she gets it in childhood. Kaiser Permanente and others are studying this now to see if the waning of pertussis vaccine efficacy they are seeing in children is because of an increase in use of acellular vaccines, an increase in pregnant women getting the vaccine, or both. Depending on the results of these studies, the CDC might switch to recommending only non-acellular pertussis vaccines in pregnancy and/or for children.
Similarly, they have changed the recommendation for the vaccine against meningitis. I don't remember precisely what the schedule used to be, but now they are recommending it as early as nine months. I believe the change was made in June, and the recommendation was previously to give this sometime after the child turns two but before starting kindergarten (again, don't remember the exact age that used to be on the schedule, just that it was not recommended under 2). When the vaccine was first released, it was recommended only for children ten and older.
The rotavirus vaccine was also once pulled by the FDA, and then they released a different version that is now considered safe. Yet, as of October, the FDA was still studying it for the same side effect (intussusception). In European studies, the rate of intussusception for infants in the week immediately after receiving the vaccine is much higher than in the American studies, and a lot of experts think it's because of how the CDC's VAERS system works, small test group sizes, and how/where the data was collected. None of the non-American studies rely on self-reporting, for example, and all of them were done in large hospitals. I will not be surprised if this vaccine's recommendation changes to an older age sometime in the next couple years because of more rigorous studies.
Meanwhile, Fluzone is the only influenza vaccine recommended for use in infants and children 6-23 months of age by many state agencies, but other brands of the vaccine with much higher incidence of febrile seizures are still commonly used because the CDC does not differentiate between different vaccines available in its recommendation (with the exception of the nasal spray during pregnancy). I suspect that this recommendation will also soon change; it is "under review" right now.
FWIW, I think the rates of side effects are also under-reported through VAERS. I, for example, had a reaction to a flu vaccine and wasn't aware at the time that VAERS existed, and who knows if the pharmacy where I got it ever contacted them. I'm fine now and just get a brand of the flu vaccine that doesn't contain the ingredient I am allergic to (sulfa antibiotics), but to me the troubling thing about it is that it happened at all--my records clearly state that I am allergic to sulfas, and it is a known ingredient in several brands of the flu vaccine, yet I was given one of those brands. This is why I now research the ingredients of vaccines. I didn't before, I got very sick because I didn't, and medical professionals are apparently not aware of the ingredients, either. So, if the CDC does not distinguish between brands of vaccine based on their components, doctors and pharmacists are not aware of possible allergen ingredients, and customers are not necessarily aware either, who would report it when it happens anyways? If you aren't even aware that your symptoms are being caused by a vaccine, why would you call VAERS to report it? I am not against vaccines at all--I just think that people should be more careful and informed instead of necessarily assuming that whatever the CDC says right now is what's best for them and their children.
You know what recommendation they have not changed? That you should get your damn vaccinations and boosters. Timing is one thing; caving to public hysteria simply to increase compliance is one thing. Utterly refusing to vaccinate because you're "skeptical" despite literally mountains of evidence on the safety and efficacy of vaccines is dumb. I'm sorry to be that blunt and yes I did give up being reactionary for Lent, but this is such a huge and consequential public health and safety issue, people who refuse to vaccinate their children really should be ashamed. They should be embarrassed to tell people they haven't vaccinated in the same way if I lost my temper and slapped some stranger's kid in the face, I would be ashamed and embarrassed (and also liable).

That isn't what I'm advocating or even suggesting. I think most kids should get most of the vaccines. I myself plan to get most of the vaccines fairly close to the CDC schedule, for my child. I am skeptical of the way the CDC makes its decisions and recommendations, so I read ingredient lists and try to check out medical journals at least every couple of months. I try to find out what the diseases we are vaccinating for actually are, which I have discovered is not something some of the rabidly pro-vaccine parents even know--yes, I got flamed for wanting to skip rotavirus by somebody who later admitted to not even knowing what the disease was, how it is spread, or how many kids even become seriously ill from it. I am not skeptical that vaccines save lives. I am skeptical of the blind acceptance, kneejerk reactions, and frequent ignorance I see around the topic of vaccinations, even in the medical community. (I say this as a person who had a vaccine reaction and was pressured by a doctor to get the same vaccine again while pregnant and in the first tri, and her response to my concern over the fever was that "vaccine reactions don't really happen," so of course it was safe for me to have it.)

I became skeptical a few years ago because I was fed a load of bullsh*t by rabidly pro-vax people and medical professionals. I was told I couldn't get pertussis or spread it since I was vaccinated. Then I got a bunch of people sick because what I had must have just been "unusually severe seasonal allergies." By the time I realized that doc was on crack and something was really wrong with me, then had the pertussis diagnosed, I had already put a child in the hospital. I feel horrible about it to this day. Yet, if you want to talk about the CDC promoting a less effective version of the vaccine, you get the crazy eye. OF COURSE it's people who don't vax responsible for the outbreaks we are suddenly having, despite them occurring even in areas where vaccination rates have increased, not decreased. OF COURSE it has nothing to do with the actual vaccine being less effective than the old version. OF COURSE the recommendation to vaccinate mothers in pregnancy rather than immediately after birth has nothing to do with it. You can't question the CDC! If you do, you're in the tin foil hat pack.

Too late for a vaccine debate?

Re: Too late for a vaccine debate?

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