The British Society for Ecological Medicine’s conference next week on the ‘health hazards of prevention – vaccinations and pharmacoprophylaxis’, at which Dr Andrew Wakefield will be a guest speaker, tallies well with the recent publication in the USA of The Vaccine Epidemic, a compendium of 26 chapters by a wide range of scientists, doctors, lawyers, human rights experts and those whose families have suffered vaccine damage.
Subtitled ‘How Corporate Greed, Biased Science and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health and Our Children’, there can be little doubt as to where the authors are coming from. But when faced with an ever rising number of what are effectively compulsory childhood vaccinations (refusal to allow your child to have the full course, while not against the law, can bring serious repercussions in terms of withdrawal of medical support and exclusion from certan schools and activities) parents who are concerned about the fallout from the multiple vaccination of very young children might wish to read this book.
They might also like to read the articles which the BSEM sent out from others involved in the debate around how ‘bad science’ can be, and is, misused for political ends. And… Heather Fraser’s History of the Peanut Allergy Epidemic (reviewed here) – another seriously worrying investigation into the fallout from vaccinations. Then, in a couple of weeks time, they can also read our report on the BSEM’s conference… Watch this space.
BSAEM are strange and sometimes contoversal. When Zoe, my daughter was given the single measles vaccine, 30 years ago, + she was covered within hours in a brilliant rash with a very high temperature. Thankfully she survivied. Comments please.We are an allergic familly.who cares.
It’s unfortunate and sad when a person, no less a child, has a negative reaction to a vaccine. They are, after all, biological substances we are injecting into our bodies. Check out this article on a recent study done indicating that while, yes, there are times when someone might have a reaction to the vaccine, that does not make the vaccine itself ineffective as a protective measure to barrier society form illnesses that would otherwise infect many more members of the population than if vaccines had been used.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/01/23/vaccination-anaphylactic-shock.html
There is also a wealth of literature available on the internet on both sides of the vaccine topic. Try familiarizing yourself with the medical science of it. What are they, how are they made, what are the ingredients and in what amounts are those ingredients found. After all, just saying vaccines will kill you because they have mercury in them is laughable when you likely ingest far more mercury from a can of tuna than you would ever find in a vaccine. Some might tell you that vaccines have formaldehyde in them, not knowing you actually produce small amounts of it in your own body.
Learn what it is that scientists are doing when they make these things, how they know that they work with double blind placebo controlled clinical trials. Read some studies and ask some qualified people.
*Note, Jenny McCarthy is not qualified. Andrew Wakefield is not creditable and has been found to be a fraud
Hope your fears are abated.
Dear Choyles –
Thank you for your post. While there are a relatively small number of people who believe that all vaccinations are a bad thing – I am certainly not amongst them. However, I do recognise, as does medical science, that while vaccinations can provide major benefits in largely eliminating certain illnesses/diseases, they come at a cost. There are always a small number of people who will have adverse reactions to those vaccinations, some slight, some even fatal. (See the early chapters of Heather Fraser’s book the History of the Peanut Allergy Epidemic or my review of it here.
(Incidentally, your link only refers to those suffering an anaphylactic allergic reaction to a vaccination but they constitute only a very tiny proportion of those suffering adverse reactions.)
As with most medicine vaccination seems to be a question of balancing evils and benefits. As long as the illness being vaccinated against (smallpox) is horrendous enough, then a high risk of adverse reactions is probably acceptable for the greater good. But if the this balance gets tipped in the other direction (the risk of the illness is relatively low/the efficacy of the vaccine is uncertain and the risk of adverse reactions is high) then the acceptability of that vaccine needs to be revisited.
Today, especially in America, the number of vaccinations given to small children, even to new born babies, has escalated hugely. Given the inherent risks of vaccination, especially when given to an infant with a very immature immune system, I believe that we need to ask whether all of these vaccinations are really justified and what unexpected consequences they might actually be having.
To take another currently very controversial vaccine, the HPV vaccine. There seems to be both genuine questions over the efficacy of this vaccine – indeed, even questions as to whether it increases the likelihood of getting cervical cancer rather than lessening it – and a very high level of adverse reactions to it. While the latter do not mean, necessarily, that the vaccine should be abandoned, they surely do mean that it efficacy should be very carefully scrutinised to be sure that the risk of adverse reactions is outweighed by benefit.
For more on the Gardasil question see a lengthy Mercola post; for a very balanced approach to infant vaccination see Vaccines – a brief primer for concerned parents by Dr Richard Halverson.
For the record, I accept that Jenny McCarthy is not qualified – but then nor are many of the most expert people in many fields; I do not accept either that Dr Andrew Wakefield is not creditable or has been found to be a fraud.I do not believe that the facts support either assertion.