I am a retired medical researcher and physician/scientist. My work was in immunology and immunopathology, so I know a lot of science that the general public has no understanding of and has great ignorance. Therefore, this opinion piece is well-informed, but just my opinion.
Where to take a vaccine should be personal choice. Hugh Fudenberg, who was one of the leading immunologist in the country was ostracized because he found a correlation between the number of flu shots a person gets and the chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease (increase with more flu shots was nearly linear).
Remember in Illinois alone, just one shot brings big pharm a profit of at least $33 million-15 years ago, so there is a big money interest biasing the national and state committees that determine whether to mandate a vaccine. I discovered that at one point at least 1/2 of the committee had financial connections with big pharm.
Personally, I had the Hong Kong flu, so I know I am immune to a certain strain of flu and it is rational to not take the flu vaccine when that type of influenza is circulating and the vaccine is for that type of influenza. (you can look up the strains and the strains vaccines are made to in a particular year at the CDC web site) More research is needed as I believe Dr. Fudenberg was correct. Perhaps a lawsuit is in order to protect such individual choice to lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
There are families with a genetic tendency towards life-threatening reactions to certain vaccines. I know of one family where the first and second child died within 24 hrs. of DTP vaccine administration. When the mother refused vaccine for the 3rd child, child protection tried to take custody and force the vaccine. Only because Illinois State Senator O’Malley intervened was this prevented. His daughter suffered a severe vaccine reaction with fever and stopped breathing. He performed CPR, but she remained mentally impaired for life due to hypoxic brain damage (caused by lack of oxygen due to the respirator arrest).
When a family has lost a child due to complications of vaccinations, then they likely have a genetic problem making them susceptible to these rare complications and they should not be forced to have their other children vaccinated. These families should be exempted until we understand how to identify the genes that permit such bad reactions and exempt such people carrying such genes. We need to devote more money to vaccine genetic research to solve this problem. Therefore, for a small number of people getting a flu shot is actually Russian roulette. They would be perfectly happy wearing masks during flu season and being vigilant about hand-washing.
The facts about the numbers of injured children and the federal compensation system are generally not told to the public and I believe messaged due to influence by Big Pharm and corrupt politicians and their accomplices.
All vaccines are different. All infections are different. They have different modes of infections, different hit rates or “infectiousness”, different types of immunity that the body uses to fight them. You should not generalize and make the same statement about all vaccines. Some are live virus and some dead virus vaccines. Live virus vaccines can endanger those with autoimmune disease and cancer or inherited problems with immunity.
Vaccination laws must have exceptions that protect those that are vulnerable to their complications or family members who are vulnerable to complications. Complications include death and brain damage. Making vaccine laws without exceptions are like making a law that everyone has to have their right hand amputated if they have cancer, despite the type of cancer they have. It is pure insanity.
Most measles deaths (145,000 annually) are in undeveloped countries where children have malnutrition. Without malnutrition, very few die of measles.
Most chicken pox deaths are actually deaths from overwhelming infection with bacteria that invade an open sore. Even this can be greatly reduced with education, hygiene, and vigilance.
On the other hand, polio is an overwhelmingly disastrous infection for the overall population and most people should get the polio vaccine if traveling abroad or show proof of it if entering this country until the all clear is given around the world. However, most baby boomers are not aware that the first few batches of polio vaccine injected were contaminated with a monkey virus that increases chances of cancer, so all is not well, even with this vaccine. In addition, the first rotavirus vaccines were pulled off of the market due to increased numbers of acute abdomens (life-threatening ) due to intussusception, which requires emergency surgery.
Tetanus is a horrible way to die and more common than one likes to see when no vaccines were available, so this vaccine falls into the probably should get it category for me. To the layman who is a natural health enthusiast. Please NEVER use any cosmetic mud for an umbilical cord (bellybutton) open wound on a baby as this often contains tetanus germs and has killed many babies over time.
I am one of the few physicians who would treat kids of parents who refused vaccinations. This is because there are some idiosyncratic reactions that can kill a child. I was often able to convince parents to give some vaccinations on a more prolonged schedule, but never would kick them out of practice for not vaccinating their kids. In addition, if the vaccines are required, they should be free. Some could not get them from local health departments and the cost was excessive.
I also believe that certain vaccines are unnecessary such as the hepatitis vaccine, unless you live in Asia, inject illicit drugs, or have unprotected sex with multiple partners.
There are many things the doctors, drug companies, and government do not tell you about vaccines, such as the enhancing antibody effect that may actually increase the chance of chronic active hepatitis B and liver cancer if your anti-hepatitis antibody titers drop and you are exposed to hepatitis B. The average person’s titers drop with time. This is an immunological phenomenon where a person who is given a cancer vaccine develops increased rather than decreased cancer growth if too little antibody is given (low zone enhancement). I believe this is the yet unknown mechanism by which babies of mothers who are hepatitis B carriers get infected and both are later susceptible to increased cancers. The vaccines are all quite different and do not necessarily give lifelong immunity as the diseases do. If you get the hepatitis vaccine, I would suggest you get your titers checked every ten years and get boosted if they drop – for at least the hepatitis B vaccine if you choose to get it.
Bottom line is that I don’t like the public being used as guinea pigs unless the evidence of risk versus benefit is overwhelming and the illness has such a high serious complication or death rate that the vaccines are rational. So, show me the data for each one over several decades. Not just the messaged data from Big Pharm. There is a long history in this country of hiding facts from the public for profit, such as in the tobacco industry and the weed killer industry.
Dr Linda Shelton 