19 Things You Don’t Know About Vaccines

19 Things You'll Want to Know Before You Vaccinate

The whole subject of vaccination is very polarizing. Are you pro-vaccine or pro-informed choice?

All I hope is that parents do their homework and research vaccines the way they research a new car, computer or smart phone. That they be informed just as you would before you have surgery and consider the risks and benefits. More parents are starting to question vaccines with good reason.

Both my grandfathers were doctors, so I grew up in a home that honored mainstream medicine. Chiropractors were a “no-no” and I wanted to be a “good” mother so I vaccinated my kids. Now, I’m a skeptic. In my 50+ years, I’ve seen too much not to question.

Vaccines are drugs and every year more than 100,000 people die from legally prescribed, properly dosed medications.  Merck pharmaceuticals made the drug Vioxx that killed 60,000 people. They also make 15 vaccines.

Today, children receive up to 49 doses of 14 vaccines before age six. That’s more than 22 times the number of vaccines given in 1983.  An increase of over 200%!  By the time your kids are 18 yrs., they’ll receive 70 doses of 18 types of vaccines.

In the 1980’s, when I was raising my kids, autism rates were one or two per 10,000. Autism rates today are 1 in 50. You can draw your own conclusions on whether or not there is a correlation between vaccines and autism.

Medical doctors are very convincing when it comes to vaccines. After-all, what parent doesn’t want to protect their child from illness?  Still, there are many things parents don’t think about before they make this all-too-important decision. We’d all love to have the confidence in modern medicine to freely vaccinate without reservation – but experience tells us differently.

19 Things You Don’t Know About Vaccines

So – here’s my list of things you might not know and I hope you’ll consider in making an informed choice on vaccinating your children:

  1. If your child is harmed or killed by a vaccine you cannot sue the manufacturer of the vaccine or the doctor.
  2. If your child is harmed or killed by a vaccine, you’re on your own for medical expenses and therapies.
  3. If you think VAERS (the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System) will provide a safety net, guess again. Two of every three submissions are excluded and the cases that are accepted linger in court for years. The system is designed to make you give up.
  4. Having said that, for those brave parents who fought to the end, more than 2.5 BILLION  has been paid out in compensation. Where does the money in VAERS come from? From YOU – every vaccine has an excise tax (from $.75 – $2.25 depending on the vaccine) that you pay.  Shouldn’t the drug companies pay that? Silly me, that would take money from the lobbyists!
  5. Vaccines contain very questionable ingredients  like thimerosol which is 50% mercury (no it hasn’t been removed from all shots and others contain trace amounts), aluminum, formaldehyde,  polysorbate 80, antibiotics, yeast protein, fetal bovine serum, monosodium glutamate, chick embryo cell culture, aborted fetal tissue (WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts), egg protein, latex rubber, Latham medium derived from bovine casein (think milk allergy!) monkey kidney cells, 2-phenoxyethanol, pig blood, horse blood, rabbit brain and many more. And now, the newest flu shot contains dog DNA.
  6. Vaccines are publicly traded pharmaceuticals – drug companies have an obligation to the shareholders to generate revenue.
  7. Because you can’t sue the drug company for a vaccine reaction this is where the drug companies are putting their future profits. Forget new antibiotics, lets pump out more vaccines!
  8. Just the Hep-B vaccine given to newborns makes ONE BILLION dollars annually for Merck and unless you’re an IV drug user or a prostitute, your child really doesn’t need it.
  9. Once you vaccinate (and damage is done) you can’t un-vaccinate.
  10. Thanks to better hygiene, clean water and sanitation, childhood illnesses like polio, measles and mumps, were all declining before the introduction of the vaccines (too much credit is given to vaccine efficacy!)
  11. If you have older children and are considering adding the Gardasil HPV vaccine to your child’s vaccine schedule, it might interest you to know that 121 young girls (and one boy) have died from this vaccine and there have been nearly 27,500 injuries.  
  12. Read the package insert on the vaccine your child may receive BEFORE it’s given – pay close attention to the adverse reactions.
  13. If you decide to vaccinate make certain you ask these eight questions from the National Vaccine Information Network before you proceed.
  14. Vaccines by-pass the body’s normal immune response. When a child gets an illness like measles they have lifelong natural immunity. Vaccines provide only temporary immunity.
  15. Antibodies in the blood stream do not necessarily mean immunity. This is likely why many outbreaks of measles and whooping cough occur in fully vaccinated children.
  16. Vaccinating a child for chickenpox increases the chances of shingles as an adult.
  17. Not all doctors think vaccines are safe and effective.
  18. If you want to know if the number of vaccines your child will receive are right for your child, use this Vaccine Ingredients Calculator.
  19. If you do vaccinate, learn to recognize the signs of a vaccine reaction.

Documented Vaccine Reactions

Here is an infographic with information taken straight from the package insert of vaccines and other reputable sources. It also highlights the history of the vaccine schedule and the potentially harmful ingredients in them.

Vaccine Reactions -Infographic

How to Minimize the Risk of Vaccine Damage

If you must vaccinate there are things you can to to minimize the risk of vaccine damage and this article from GreenMed Info will go into greater detail, but here are just a few:

  • Delay vaccination until age two.
  • Never vaccinate a sick child.
  • Make sure the vaccines are free of thimerosol (mercury) BTW, even vaccines labeled “thimerosol free” are allowed to have trace amounts of it in them.
  • Space them out and avoid multiple combinations.
  • Give your child vitamin C before & after the vaccine – 1,000 mg. 4x a day.

The MMR – autism Drama in the News

The CDC COVER UP from a 2004 study showing MMR vaccine causes autism was published on CNN. But somehow, the story got deleted and reported as abuse.

From the Autism Action Network’s John Gilmore,

“For those of you who haven’t heard the news, William W. Thompson, Ph. D., a senior research scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has provided information to several sources alleging that he and his colleagues, who are all senior people at the CDC, altered a 2004 study to cover-up the finding that African-American male toddlers who received the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) shot under the age of 36 months had 340% more autism than those who got the MMR older than 36 months. The alteration to the study was allegedly done to hide the relationship between the MMR and autism. Even after the alleged deception, the study still showed that children who received the MMR at a younger age had a higher autism rate than those who received it later in life. Yet the study was marketed as showing no affect.”

From Pubmed.gov, you can read the updated abstract:

Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young african american boys: a reanalysis of CDC data

And don’t miss this awesome editorial from Kelly Brogan, MD. on the topic.

Also, here are 28 scientific studies that back up Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s research on the vaccine/autism correlation.

28-studies that back up Andrew Wakefield's research

There’s plenty more I could add on this topic, but this will give you enough to ponder for now.

Has anything listed here made you question your decision to vaccinate? Am I off base? Post a comment below!

It’s my nature to keep the peace – but I’m willing to face the firing line on this one – because it’s a matter of life and death.

Raggedy-AnnSources:

http://www.vaccine-tlc.org/aluminum.html

The Refusers - http://therefusers.com/

What is a mutagen - http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-mutagen.htm

Material safety data sheet on Thimerosol –  http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9925236

http://www.drmomma.org/2011/01/cdc-mandatory-vaccine-schedule-1983-vs.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-17509/Why-Japan-banned-MMR-vaccine.html

http://thinkingmomsrevolution.com/while-rome-burns/

Thimerisol in Vaccines - http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228

http://penniwinkleb.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/vaccines-whats-in-them/

http://vaxtruth.org/2011/08/vaccine-ingredients/

http://www.nvic.org/Ask-Eight-Questions.aspx

http://vactruth.com/2012/03/13/vaccines-human-animal-dna/

http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/why-vaccines-are-scientific-fraud/

Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, MD, JD, MPH