Way back I went way into all this. Autism CANNOT be proven to be related with the vaccines. This is a very heated subject I know. I agree with you that you should do your HW tho and not take anything for granted. It's a very personal decision that only you can make for your children.

All I can say....is I would advocate vaccinating your children. I've been around thousands and thousands of children that have been vaccinated for years with no problems. I have one cousin who is autistic and he's older than I am. His parents NEVER blamed vaccines way back in the 50's when they discovered this. In fact, there are many more vaccines today than there were then yet he's a severe autistic. As far as more autism today than before.....there's more of everything than before it seems.

There is a huge amount of asthma being reported today. Where is that coming from? Nobody really knows for sure although there is all kinds of debate about this as well. When I was a kid, I don't ever remember anybody having asthma. Now it seems half of the kids are walking around with inhalers nowadays.

As far as chicken pox? My kids all had light cases of it because I made sure I exposed them when they were small. I wanted them to get it because while young it's much easier to deal with. We didn't have the vaccine back then. I agree with your take on this. Expose them and be done with it.

When my kids were born it wasn't vaccines that were debatable, but circumcision. All the talk shows at the time of my first pregnancy seemed to be taking this on. I was against it at first but then decided to have it done and haven't regretted that decision.

Human cell-line cultures are used during production of some vaccines such as varicella, rabies, inactivated polio virus, and hepatitis A. Some of these cell lines originated from fetal tissue obtained from legal abortions of infected fetuses in the 1960s. The term "cell-line culture" refers to the substance that is used to propagate a live virus (used in the production of a vaccine). Fetal tissue has not been used to produce licensed vaccines. These tissues were used to establish cell cultures, and it is these established cultures that have been used to propagate virus. Since cell lines can be maintained indefinitely, no additional aborted fetuses have been used since the cell lines were initiated in the 1960s.

The reasons for using fetal cell lines are: (1) fetal cells divide much more rapidly than adult cells, and (2) there is a safety advantage in using human, rather than animal, cell lines for development and manufacture of vaccines for humans. The decision to use fetal cell lines was scientific and did not imply support for abortions.

As of January 14, 2003, the final lots of vaccines containing thimerosal as a preservative expired. Other vaccines (packaged as a multi-dose) continue to be manufactured with thimerosal as a preservative— Current does....Link
Because thimerosal is half mercury, a vaccine with 0.01% concentration of thimerosal
= 0.005% concentration of mercury
= 25 micrograms of mercury per 0.5 mL of vaccine.
(For comparison, most commercial fish contain an average of 23 micrograms of mercury per 8 ounces of fish (i.e., 0.1 micrograms of mercury per gram of fish)).

Epidemiology of chronic occupational exposure to formaldehyde: report of the Ad Hoc panel on health aspects of formaldehyde. Toxicol Ind. Health.:formaldehyde does not appear to be a cause of cancer in man. Further, animals exposed to large quantities of formaldehyde (a single dose of 25 mg/kg or chronic exposure at doses of 80-100 mg/kg/day) do not develop malignancies. The average quantity of formaldehyde to which a young infant could be exposed at one time may be as high as 0.2 mg. all humans have detectable quantities of natural formaldehyde in their circulation (about 2.5 ug of formaldehyde per ml of blood). Assuming an average weight of a 2-month-old of 5 kg and an average blood volume of 85 ml per kg, the total quantity of formaldehyde found in an infant’s circulation would be about 1.1 mg — a value at least five-fold greater than that to which an infant would be exposed in vaccines.
Concentrations of 60–130 mg/m3 have been measured in mainstream cigarette smoke . Exposure to side-stream smoke (or environmental tobacco smoke, ETS) can be estimated from chamber measurements. When six cigarettes / 50-m3 test chamber /one complete air change/hr, formaldehyde levels were over 0.12 mg/m3 within 15 minutes This concentration found in rooms of most conventional buildings without cigarette smoke..(0.21–0.35 mg/m3).
0.2mg (vaccine) = 0.21-0.35mg (one exposure to cigarrette smoke) MUCH less than exposure to second hand smoke, car exhaust, insulation (foam) etc.

so this isn't to cause contention, just to put some stuff in persepective. I'm not saying I agree with the heavy handed vaccination approach, but information should be presented in a fair way. People seem to like scaring others with the horrors of chemicals in vaccines but they don't provide alternatives. Next time, try listing the alternative vaccines that are avalible. I looked for all of 10 min and found out what I could get that was not originated from fetal tissue or containing meurcury. It's not hard to be educated but a one sided, biased scare tactic doesn't educate people on the realities.

I prefer presenting things in a one sided, biased scare tactic way, and allowing others to educate people on the realities. Less research that way.

By the way, could you throw in some links, or do I have to wade through Google?

Sounds like you've been drinking the kool-aid.

Gulp.

Good piece, jythier. While KFC and lifehappens are right, there's a lot of propaganda, it's only fair to say the propaganda's as strong on the other side. As exhibit A I present the now notorious HPV vaccine, for which the Freedom of Information Act had to be invoked to gain access to reliable records. Those records painted a much darker picture of the vaccine than Merck did.

Oddly enough, though, I think vaccines have their place. I would not encourage any parent to consider not vaccinating their children unless they were well educated on diet and nutrition as well as many other disciplines. In the "fast food" culture that is so endemic to our society, I'm inclined to believe vaccines do more good than harm. While I personally don't endorse them, I also realize not everyone has done their homework in this regard.

As to the vaccine/autism link: while it has never been conclusively proven, the evidence was strong enough to cause the government to chaange the vaccination schedule as well as the composition of the drugs. Given the government's extreme reluctance to admit guilt, I'm actually inclined to believe they believe there is a stronger link than they let on. I could cite other instances of the government lying to us, but I think we all have our own list.

So to me, the answer to: "to vaccinate or not to vaccinate" should be: it's up to you.

Gideon, thanks for the comment. There is a lot of propaganda on both sides, to be certain.

"So to me, the answer to: "to vaccinate or not to vaccinate" should be: it's up to you."

That's why I didn't ask that question. That's the same answer I came to. But, like my inflammatory title suggests, even if you do vax, I would do a delayed schedule at the very least.

While I agree that each parent should have the ability to choose whether or not (or how/when/how much) to vax, I hope the no-vax movement does not become too widespread.

Many of the diseases we vax against are DEVASTATING. Read up on these things, please. I would never want my child to contract these illnesses.

My grandmother survived (barely) polio, and has suffered life-long ill consequences because of it.

Pick up The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston when you have some time. Some interesting vax history there.