First they came up with a chicken pox vaccine.
This, as anyone with an ounce of common sense should have been able to forsee, led to an increase in adult shingles.
So what did they do?
They came up with a shingles vaccine too.
It's sheer profit brilliance.
(Oh, but it's not about the money. Really.)
Oh yes, and did you hear? There has been an increase in measles outbreaks recently. Measles are, after all, a "potentially deadly disease". Darn those religious homeschooled non-vaxers.
A few years from now, they'll be writing the exact same article, only about chicken pox instead of measles. Forget normal childhood illness (with lasting immunity, unlike the chicken pox vaccine's immunity). No, no, chicken pox is a "potentially deadly disease". Beware!
Wow, I haven't heard of this one. That's crazy! Yeah,darn those non-vaxers ha! When will it end? Where will they stop?
ReplyDeleteI love articles like the measles one, because then I get these random links from my mom in my email about the need to vaccinate and her suggestions that I "talk to the doctor about what diseases are the most deadly."
ReplyDeleteWhere I live it's harder to get around vaccinations (they won't accept a philosophical waiver, it has to be medical or religious, and documented), so I cringed but still got all the "normal" vaccines.
ReplyDeleteBut when they tried to give us the chicken pox vaccine? No way no how. It's too new and definitely too unnecessary.
"Wouldn't the logical solution be to STOP the chickenpox vaccination and allow this mild virus to do its job?" Indeed.
And yet it is also now required for school and day care. Makes me want to move to a different state.
AMEN SIS!! THANKS FOR THIS POST!!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny to see two posts labelled under vaccines together. One has you ranting about the 'supposed' risk of childhood illnesses. The next about risk warns that you shouldn't invalidate someone's experience just because it didn't happen to you. So, epidurals=bad even though it didn't happen to you. But measles=ok, because you weren't unforunate enough to have had a bad bout. I did. I almost died. Another girl who contracted them from me did die. Another girl in my neighbourhood suffered severe brain damage from complications of chicken pox. Maybe you should not invalidate our experience and consider the real risks associated with vaccines, just as others should validate the potential negative outcomes of epidurals.
ReplyDeleteFrom a mom who makes her decisions based on real facts from actual studies, not just as a reaction to what the mainstream or anyone else is doing.
@Anon - I'm not seeing the incongruity that you apparently see. I'm sorry that you are feeling invalidated, but I don't understand what it is that made you feel that way.
ReplyDeleteDo you disagree with my statement that chicken pox is a normal childhood illness? There are certainly rare cases where complications arise. I didn't say otherwise - in fact, I said very little at all.
What I was writing about - and very briefly, at that, which makes me even more confused as to the depth of what you seem to have drawn from what I said - was the ridiculousness of media hype, of medical organization's exaggerations, and of the pharmaceutical company's unethicalness.
I didn't suggest in any way that parents should or should not choose to vaccinate their children. I wasn't writing about parents' decisions in those matters at all. I wasn't suggesting that the diseases are without risk. I wasn't suggesting that the vaccines are without risk. As you yourself pointed out, I have very clearly said in other entries (here and here, for example) that the vaccine decision is a very personal and difficult decision to make, and not one that should be taken lightly or entered into without much research. We seem to agree on that, so I'm confused as to why you would insinuate that you have done research while I have merely gone along with what others are doing.
I would also question your apparent defensiveness over what I can only assume is your decision to vaccinate. You say you have made your decisions based on real facts from actual studies (and not just as a reaction to what anyone else is doing - nor, I presume, based on a knee-jerk emotional response to your own childhood experiences), so you should have no reason to feel so threatened.
At any rate, I'm not interested in entering into a vaccination debate - you can leave that back at MDC, thanks.