I am a little hesitant to address such a controversial topic, as there are few more polarizing issues out there than vaccines. But with the "study" released this week stating again that there is no causative link between childhood vaccines and autism, I decided to cautiously take it up. If you look at how this study is conducted, you will see that it was, at the least, poor science. Google it, go ahead, I'm moving on.
I am often asked where I stand on vaccines. If I had the chance to do it over again, would I still have my children vaccinated?? The answer is yes....but I would go about it in an entirely different way. In saying something as middle of the road as the prior sentence, I have pissed off not one side or the other, but likely both. People on both sides are passionate about this issue, and with good reason. Doctors and scientists that have staked their careers on improving public health cite vaccines as medicines' great victory....and they are right. Parents who have watched their children regress into autism after receiving vaccines or who are otherwise harmed by vaccines (and it DOES happen) argue that there is a percentage of the population for whom vaccines are nothing short of poison....and they are right. But what so many overlook is the very real possibility of being somewhere in between.
It has been argued by a great number of Drs and scientists that mothers of this generation are oblivious to the dangers of vaccine-preventable illnesses, as the vaccines have done their job and all but wiped these diseases out. I have an amazing uncle that is a polio survivor. I also had the misfortune of catching chicken pox as a freshman in college, and I had it BAD. So as a young mother, I was sold on vaccines. My babies both received the Hep B vaccine as newborns. I didn't even question it. And I kept them both on the recommended vaccination schedule....for a while.
We watched Son 2 regress into autism starting at about 7 months old, and he continued to deteriorate until we started the GFCF diet after his diagnosis at age 2 1/2. Regressive autism is so incredibly painful....indescribable, really. We had a perfect, happy baby whose face lit up when he saw us, and over that two year period we lost him a little more every single day. His smile had become a distant memory and the light in his eyes was gone. Every attempt to connect with him was met with a shrill scream and self-injury. It was as though our child had been kidnapped, even though he was still physically with us. We loved him as is, but grieved for the child we once had. Son 1 was typically developing, albeit with a few quirks, until he received the shots required to go to Kindergarten. By this time, I had started researching vaccines and autism, but felt I didn't have the right to question our pediatrician. After all, didn't he have my childrens' best interest at heart? First do no harm, right?? When I saw the needle enter my sons' thigh, I nearly got sick, which was a foreshadowing of what was to come. The weeks following that round of vaccines lauched us into the summer from hell. Son 1 became terribly aggressive, and I was usually his target. He was diagnosed with Asperger's that July. He too improved dramatically on the GFCF diet and DAN protocol.
With that said, yes, I would still vaccinate my children, but I would do so differently. When my generation was growing up, we received single dose vials, not the combination shots that are the ONLY option now. That is a real shame, as combining the shots increases the risk. There are multiple studies that document this. But new mommies are relieved when they hear "fewer needles". We also got FAR fewer vaccinations than our children do, many are new to this generation, which are the ones I would now opt out of. The chicken pox vaccine is a great example. Since I got such a terrible case of the chicken pox, I jumped for joy when this vaccine came out, and proudly took each of my boys in shortly after their first birthdays to receive it, beaming that they would be protected. BOTH of my boys got chicken pox exactly a week after the vaccine. Son 1 got a very mild case, Son 2's was less mild. I argued with my pediatrician that it could not be a coincidence, but in the end, I deferred to her expertise. Did you know that the vast majority (85-90%) of people have built up immunity after the first round of vaccinations? It's true. Why do we revaccinate, not once, but twice?? Because it's CHEAPER than testing for titer levels. SERIOUSLY. Given a "do-over" I would have had them tested for the titer that likely existed after the first shot instead of simply subjecting them to another round. We did this with Son 2, as he did NOT get his Kindergarten shots, and he does, in fact, have titer levels for vaccine preventable diseases. The third precaution I would take is an alternative (delayed) schedule. There is science to prove that spreading the shots out over a longer period of time drastically reduces the potential for harm. Yet a large number of doctors completely reject the idea that vaccines could be harmful EVER. Upon refusing to further vaccinate Son 2, we were asked to leave the pediatrician that my boys had seen their entire lives. I made an appointment at several others and was told the same, that under-vaccinated children were not welcome. Can you imagine? I finally settled on a Dr that was amenable to agreeing to disagree. Over the past five years, more doctors have started to see the light and embrace an alternative vaccination schedule in an effort to respect (or appease maybe) parents' (justifiable) concerns over vaccines. And a select few are recognizing that vaccines simply aren't appropriate for a certain population of kids. That's a win-win-win situation.
