Older person here. I grew up in a very small town pre-measles vaccine and just at the time before the polio vaccine reached full penetration. In my first grade at school of the sixty to seventy children, two had permanently weakened legs from polio, one had permanently weakened eyesight from measles, and another was permanently severely spastic from measles.

There was no pneumonia vaccine. When I was three or four I was among 20 or so children of that age who came down with pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. We were all put in one room as a sort of quarantine; three of us died.

Chicken pox was a rite of passage for all; I don't remember anyone had ill effects from it. When my two children were young the chicken pox vaccine had just come in and there were mixed views on it. As I was deciding, fate intervened and both got it--one suffered a post infection neuropsychiatric disorder, luckily transient.

Vaccines are not just life saving; they can prevent life altering physical damage.

That said, I sometimes wonder if vaccine proponents are having their case undermined a bit by advocacy of vaccines against HPV and maybe others down the road, whose merits are less clear cut.

Not the best written commentary, but certainly to the point:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/13/thanks-anti-vaxxers-you-just-brought-back-measles-in-nyc.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I question the whooping cough thing. My son got this last year and he had been vaccinated for it. I also know of two other families in the area who got it and their kids were vaccinated too. The ER doc at Fairfax said they were seeing this more.

Just saying… I wonder whether the increase in whooping cough is actually due to kids not being vaccinated. Not the case for my son.

+1 It was pretty awful.

I'm on my 8th week of whooping cough. In China they call it the 100-day cough so I guess I'm past the halfway mark - woo hoo, I mean Whoop Whoop.
My 8th grader, who was vaccinated 2 1/2 years ago brought it home - he just had a cough, no whooping, and antibiotics cured him. My other (also vaccinated) kids didn't get it but DH and I did. Didn't even know I had whooping cough until I woke in the middle of the night unable to breathe.
If you haven't had a Tdap booster, please get one. It works better than nothing. Trust me, whooping cough sucks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vaccines are awesome. Without them, most of us would be dead. Why in the world would you not vaccine your children. that is neglect.

Not quite, but "A" for effort. I fully vaccinate my kids (and I probably need to get some more boosters myself), but I don't think the mortality rates of most diseases for which there is a vaccine would be "most" of us.

You're right, probably not "most," but you might be surprised how pervasive the impact would be. The most significant impacts would be in children. See http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm.

Anonymous wrote:I question the whooping cough thing. My son got this last year and he had been vaccinated for it. I also know of two other families in the area who got it and their kids were vaccinated too. The ER doc at Fairfax said they were seeing this more.

Just saying… I wonder whether the increase in whooping cough is actually due to kids not being vaccinated. Not the case for my son.

+1 It was pretty awful.

Anonymous wrote:Vaccines are awesome. Without them, most of us would be dead. Why in the world would you not vaccine your children. that is neglect.

Not quite, but "A" for effort. I fully vaccinate my kids (and I probably need to get some more boosters myself), but I don't think the mortality rates of most diseases for which there is a vaccine would be "most" of us.

Vaccines are awesome. Without them, most of us would be dead. Why in the world would you not vaccine your children. that is neglect.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But my naturopath said his homeopathic remedy was just as good and wouldn't cause autism, provided I waved the appropriate energy crystal over my child for at least 7 1/2 minutes a night three nights in a row!

I don't think you know what homeopathy is. Vaccines ARE homeopathic.

Please explain how vaccines are homeopathic?

...And four days later, no answer. (But no surprise.)

I disagree with every aspect of the original post, which is offensive to parents like me who have children who have been injured by vaccines. OP do you have a child injured by a vaccine? If you did, you would not post such a biased article by a person who has no qualifications to weigh on on vaccination.

Could you expand on how your children were hurt by vaccines? That would be interesting information.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See:

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-antivaccination-movement-20140120,0,5576371.story#axzz2rFlecsTK

In my own view, any parent that refuses to vax or go by an alternative schedule than what empirical scientific research recommends, deserves to have their children removed from their custody and be declared unfit.

How do we know that these outbreaks are due to antivax-ers? Could there be something else contributing?

Such as ... ? These are diseases for which there are vaccines. Presumably, if everyone got a vaccine, the disease would be eradicated. There hasn't been a mention of these specific illnesses mutating, so the vaccines don't work anymore. What do you think is the cause??

I don't know, that is why I was asking!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But my naturopath said his homeopathic remedy was just as good and wouldn't cause autism, provided I waved the appropriate energy crystal over my child for at least 7 1/2 minutes a night three nights in a row!

I don't think you know what homeopathy is. Vaccines ARE homeopathic.

Please explain how vaccines are homeopathic?

Anonymous wrote:See:

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-antivaccination-movement-20140120,0,5576371.story#axzz2rFlecsTK

In my own view, any parent that refuses to vax or go by an alternative schedule than what empirical scientific research recommends, deserves to have their children removed from their custody and be declared unfit.

The author of this column, Michael Hilzik, is a business columnist for the LA times. He won a Pulitzer for reporting on corruption in the music industry. He has no medical background of any kind, not even a science background. His assertions are subjective and sound hysterical, not clear, ordered or based on objective reading of fact.

I disagree with every aspect of the original post, which is offensive to parents like me who have children who have been injured by vaccines. OP do you have a child injured by a vaccine? If you did, you would not post such a biased article by a person who has no qualifications to weigh on on vaccination.

There are many good reasons not to vaccinate or to vaccinate selectively based on the needs of the individual. No other area of medicine is "one size fits all" except vaccination, which is applied uniformly to every child, regardless of family or medical history, which is clearly wrong.

Calling someone "idiot" over and over again does not prove your points, pp(s). This thread is a tirade, nothing more, as is the LA Times article by Michael Hiltzik. Neither is well-reasoned or rational, and not likely to change any minds.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See:

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-antivaccination-movement-20140120,0,5576371.story#axzz2rFlecsTK

In my own view, any parent that refuses to vax or go by an alternative schedule than what empirical scientific research recommends, deserves to have their children removed from their custody and be declared unfit.

Amen to that!

--parent of a child who was born so medically fragile (not premature) that she couldn't have been vaccinated on a normal schedule.

Have a heart and vaccinate your kids. Some kids have no option but to rely on the health of their community.

THIS is what really gets to me. Why should a choice based on studies that aren't scientifically based or even worse, the opinion of a "celebrity" take precedence over the health of other people? I'm beginning to think that if you want to not vax or alter the schedule go ahead, but keep your own kid home! Your personal choice doesn't get to put others at risk.

I know that isn't really the answer but sometimes I wish it was.

Anonymous wrote:But my naturopath said his homeopathic remedy was just as good and wouldn't cause autism, provided I waved the appropriate energy crystal over my child for at least 7 1/2 minutes a night three nights in a row!

I don't think you know what homeopathy is. Vaccines ARE homeopathic.

Anonymous wrote:See:

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-antivaccination-movement-20140120,0,5576371.story#axzz2rFlecsTK

In my own view, any parent that refuses to vax or go by an alternative schedule than what empirical scientific research recommends, deserves to have their children removed from their custody and be declared unfit.

Amen to that!

--parent of a child who was born so medically fragile (not premature) that she couldn't have been vaccinated on a normal schedule.

Have a heart and vaccinate your kids. Some kids have no option but to rely on the health of their community.