Why You Should NOT Vaccinate Your Children

olishea

solo im in serious stitches right now thats so funny

edit: it seems to me modelhead you are just looking for every excuse not to take vaccines.

tell me something, if you went to africa for a holiday.....on safari for example.....would you not get vaccinated?

remus

I can't answer that question Remus but neither can medical science. There are many claims based on mathimatical models but no hard facts and no process through which the effectiveness of vaccines can be qualified....if you have come accross one I do want to read about it cause somehow if it exists it has escaped me for many years.

Therese plenty of reading here: http://www.thelancet.com/search/results?searchTerm=vaccine&fieldName=AllFields&journalFromWhichSearchStarted=

im interested to know why you think its not possible to test the efficacy of a given vaccine. Surely its a case of give vaccine to x thousand people and dont give it to another x thousand people then compare rates of infection in the 2 groups.

remus

Catastrophic sense of humour failure here.

Khai

and right there is why you'll never win guys and girls.

perfect example of what I pointed out earlier. evidence is given and excuses why it's wrong are given back with NO evidence of why it's wrong. just handwavium and vague phrases.

give up. you cannot win.

remus

You will never find proof in the real world, then, as it does not exist in the form you're looking for. Do you want me to continue? as if i do so it'll be a rather lengthy explanation of the scientific method and statistics, and to be honest i dont want to type it all out if your not going to listen.

Khai

he won't listen Remus. his mind is locked in stone.

remus

Thats not the spirit of arguing on the internet

remus

So no piece of scientific evidence will convince you of the efficacy of vaccines?

wmanning

OK, we have a difference of opinion on the statistics. I believe they are overwhelming, similar to the statistical and anecdotal evidence that a building I'm about to enter isn't likely to fall down. Some buildings do fall down, but usually they don't...

So if we disregard the statistical evidence... What about cause-and-effect reactions such as those upon which vaccines are designed? You believe the body is the best at healing... that is what vaccines do: they encourage the body to create their own healing defenses.

(1) The vaccine is administered. It contains weakened or dead forms of the disease.
(2) The immune system identifies these foreign substances (viruses and bacteria), also known as antigens. (The body is doing the work.)
(3) Once antigens are identified, the immune system develops proteins that circulate in the blood. These proteins are called antibodies. They fight the infection by killing the antigens. Antibodies are made by white blood cells called lymphocytes, also known as B cells. The main purpose of B cells is to create antibodies to fight infection. (Again it is the body that is doing the work by creating the immunity itself.)
(4) The body stockpiles these antibodies so they are available to fight off the disease if exposed later on. Unfortunately, antibodies are disease-specific, so previously acquired chickenpox antibodies, for example, will be useless if faced with other diseases.

The example is from http://health.howstuffworks.com/vaccine1.htm

This is exactly how the body works to fight a full-blown disease (and there is plenty of stunning visual evidence of this under the microscope when examing blood).

Is there something about the basic methodology that you believe is wrong or ineffective, as opposed to the overwhelming statistics you ignore? Vaccinations are designed to force a body with an effective immune system to create the defenses in the same way that it does if you got the disease. The difference is that some diseases are often fatal, so having the body do this with dead or weakened versions of the disease allows the body to do it without the same order of magnitude of side-effects.

[Edit: Sorry. Didn't realize my post was so long while I was ranting...]

wmanning

I think you make one mistake in the observation -- that people claim we can contain the proliferation of viruses with a vaccine. There are vaccines for only about 30 viruses. They happen to be some of the most severe diseases to have effected large numbers of people in wealthy,scientifically advanced nations (hence the incentives for people to solve them: either money, or it affects them where they live).

There are certainly not vaccines for very many diseases, or very many of the most severe (like malaria). Our immune system protects us from many, many diseases all the time. Vaccines, good health, vitamin D, and lifestyle can all help. Vaccines happen to be one direct method to force the body to prepare a defense for a particular disease. Many others came from your mother if you were breast fed...

Some viruses mutate more frequently than others. But many mutations don't change the way in which the body recognizes them and defeats them. The good news is that measles, chicken pox, and polio are examples of viruses that haven't mutated much at all. The flu virus does mutate often, hence new versions of flu vaccines from year to year.

Vaccines tend to be the most effective to get the body to develop stockpiles of antibodies without the damaging effects of the disease. And yes, vaccines can have side effects for some individuals, but they tend to be far fewer and far less severe than the effects the diseases themselves produce.

linea

This has become a very black and white argument.

I think that is the essence of Modelhead's argument: vaccinations will not make you healthy or less prone to disease if you are unhealthy by nature. As has been said, virus strains change, so in a first world country where the risk of a serious outbreak of disease is lower, the arbitrary jab you are getting anyway needs questioning as the strain that it vaccinates against is most likely extinct, not the strain that you will need protecting against in a future epidemic. Modelhead please correct me if I'm wrong.

I am not against vaccinations but I feel very sceptical about tamiflu - a lucrative product that is being prescribed over the phone by people with no medical training, or any vaccination that we are told is necessary for everybody to have.
I have nothing to back this up except my own observations; I know plenty of people that eat well, live a healthy lifestyle but have seldom had vaccinations, if any, and don't have their kids vaccinated. They are almost never ill, their kids aren't often ill either.
I also know plenty of people who don't look after themselves properly, but go to the doctors constantly for jabs for themselves and their kids. The doctor must see them so much, he has probably carved their names on the chairbacks in the waiting room. These people seem to get every flu and cold, many of their kids have asthma, I could go on. In short, they are not healthy people.
And for the record, I have been to Africa, admittedly I knew that I would not even go near anywhere that would put me at any significant risk. I took no vaccinations and came back fine.

remus

Bruce, i dont see the fact that the body defends itself from thousands of viruses a day as a good reason not to try and protect ourselves against the ones the body cant protect against as effectively.

Take rabies for example. Theres only one recorded case of a person surviving the disease unvaccinated and it's well documented that if you receive the vaccine in a reasonable time your very likely to survive, whereas your chances are practically nill without the vaccine. Why is it unreasonable to take such a vaccine to improve your chances of surviving if you do happen to get infected?

dacad

For peak's sake, this is still here?!?

Oh, wait...i mean "yes..."

olishea

anyway modelhead....what are you trying to achieve?

do you want a medal?

you didn't answer my previous question: if you went on safari in africa.....would you get immunised before you went?

and would you take malaria tablets?