[FLPERMACULTURE] vaccines and public health/personal choice

Tue Jun 3 08:30:05 PDT 2008

I tried to post this before, but I haven't seen it appear, and it seems like
a good follow-up to Kry's balanced and thoughful post:

I think caution is needed about WHICH vaccines are mandatory, and what the
exceptions should be.  Aside from religious opposition, other reasons for
caution include people who are allergic to eggs (in many vaccines), the use
of mercury or who-knows-what-other potentially dangerous "inactive"
ingredients, and the dangers from poorly researched vaccines themselves.

I had a rubella (German measles) vaccine in 1974, the first year it came
out, because I worked with children and pregnant moms, and because my sister
and some of my friends had suffered because of rubella exposure in utero.
 But then that vaccine itself triggered a latent auto-immune condition in
me. But I wasn't the only person with a bad reaction and Merck pulled that
version from the market, and then changed their vaccine a couple more
times.

Point is, companies like Merck would LOVE to have lots of different
mandatory vaccinations.  BUT we need careful, unbiased discussion from a true
public health perspective (not a corporate wealth perspective), as well as
ways for appropriate--and very rare-- individual exceptions.

Because of my family's genetic predisposition to damage from both rubella
AND from its vaccines, we have gotten cooperation from doctors so that my
kids only got vaccinations when they were extra healthy AND if their blood
tests showed no immunity.  That may not be possible with new legislation.

I am also concerned that cats have been given MANY new vaccinations over the
past 10-15 years, and are now coming down with all sorts of new cancers.  I
suspect the systemic flea medicines are more likely to be causing the new
cancers, but let's make sure vaccines aren't made mandatory until they are
proven to be safe (tho I'm not sure how to do that in an ethical way).

I was unwittingly part of Merck's first long-term rubella test (and I PAID
them to participate): their previous studies had lasted 6 weeks, and they
knew people had side effects that lasted at least that long when they made
the vaccine available "to the public."  BTW, the current vaccine is much,
much safer than what I had, and I recommend it for MOST people.

I get flu shots every year because I tolerate eggs, but my adult children do
not, since eggs are a problem for them.

We need to maintain options based on accurate info, not scare campaigns from
companies like Merck.

Margaret

On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Krys Cail <krys.cail at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks, Bethany,
>
> That was a very thoughtful post about vaccines and public health.
>
> It is, indeed, a very complex and difficult topic, which is made more
> difficult by our profit-driven medical establishment in the US, and the
> influence of corporate money in government.
>
> I did want to just add my own family's experiences, as sometimes it is easy
> to see the experiences of others who share our point of view, but more
> difficult to be aware of the experiences of those who are a bit different
> from us.  My brothers' families, each with 7 children, were not vaccinated
> as young children due to their religious objections.  Both families were
> raised as fundamentalist Christians, home-schooled, and came into contact
> with very few other children (or adults) who were not a part of the same
> subculture.  Nationally, most parents who do not vaccinate their children
> fall into this category, I believe.  All 14 of those nieces and nephews have
> now reached adulthood. As children, 3 of them suffered from Whooping Cough
> (Pertussis), although only one has been permanently disabled due to lung
> damage from the disease.  When there was an outbreak of Pertussis, which was
> mostly within the fundamentalist Christian community in the Northeast, most
> of the others (other than the 3 who contracted it) were vaccinated.... not
> clear how many of them would have come down with it if they had continued to
> refuse vaccination.  The 3 nieces and nephew who contracted the disease were
> in the family who maintained some contact with the outside world (i.e.,
> allowed the children to go to stores with parents, play with
> non-fundamentalist children in the neighborhood, etc.).  Conceivably, the
> complete isolation in which the other 7 children were raised might have kept
> them from contracting the disease even if they had not been vaccinated
> (although, it did also lead to serious social maladaption and various
> anti-social behavioral problems, including serious crime and teen pregnancy,
> in late adolescence for most of them).
>
> Cases of pertussis have increased recently, primarily in this subculture
> that does not vaccinate children.  This does have public health implications
> for all of us... as, if the disease continues to find hosts and thrive, it
> can mutate into forms that the vaccine will not protect us from (the
> anti-social and criminal behavior of children raised in isolation has some
> costs, too... and, of course, many of these parents also refuse medical care
> when the children are ill, due to their strong belief in prayer-based
> healing).  Keeping children safe from contracting disease through social
> isolation also has its impractical sides-- for instance, my mother's older
> sister (who I never knew, as she died as a child) was badly burned at age 2
> in a kitchen accident.  She contracted contagious meningitis in the hospital
> while recovering, and died of the meningitis. A fundamentalist family might
> have prayed over her instead, and had her die of burns.... and been liable
> for serious child abuse prosecution from a state that also prosecutes
> medical malpractice (although differently).  Or, a family today might choose
> the meningitis vaccine instead.  But, if it is a matter of personal choice,
> some subcultures will keep the disease cultures alive and spreading in the
> population.
>
> Complicated business.  Definitely takes a village to raise a child, IMHO.
> New parents often learn too late that the accumulated wisdom of others is
> worth some consideration.  At some level, US sensibilities seem to overvalue
> the individual and undervalue the group-- an outgrowth of our religious and
> cultural heritage, certainly, but contrary-wise to the ecological principles
> that science shows us make the world work as well as it does.  Some parents
> will always stray too far into exerting control, based on their personal
> beliefs and opinions, over their children's lives-- and it will always be a
> tricky business to determine where the line is, what kind of parenting is
> not fair to the children involved (abusive) and what kind of parenting poses
> undue risks to the community (raising risk of need for social controls/aides
> such as prisons, healthcare and financial support for the permanently
> disabled).  But, the parental choice process should ideally have
> consideration for both the well-being of the individual child and the public
> health of the community.
>
> Krys
>
> --
>
>
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