Vaccinations: A Shot In The Dark?

I think it is finally time for me to delve into the much disputed argument of vaccines in Autism. While I’m not entirely sure of my stance on the subject, I will tell you my thoughts on the situation, and what my wife and I are doing as parents.

Let me start by saying that I’m not opposed to vaccinating children. In fact, I am all for it. It is a very effective way to help children fight off diseases that could potentially kill them.  I feel that we should continue to vaccinate our children. I just wonder what we are injecting into their tiny bodies.

Think about this; within an hour of your child being born in a hospital someone will give them a shot. Their bodies are anywhere between 4 pounds to 11 pounds on average. Is there a reason why we need to? Well, the short answer is maybe. This is a vitamin K shot that helps with blood clotting. This will help keep children from hemorrhaging. This was major concern years ago, prior to the shots. However, the need for a shot is questioned. There are oral vitamin K drops that can be given to prevent the vaccine from being given. Another is the Hepatitis B shot which well will get to later.

Let’s start by asking a question. Do we really know what is in the shots we are giving our children? The main shot that has caused all the controversy in the past few years is the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccine. According to the FDA, MMR-II never contained thimerosal, a potentially dangerous chemical used in some vaccines. Other shots still include the thimerosal though. The flu shots include this. However, the mist that is given through the nose does not. The FDA also stated trace amounts of mercury were detected in an earlier MMR formulation. We all know that mercury is poisonous to our bodies. It is said that there is no mercury in the shots any longer. Guess we’ll just have to take “their” word for it.

And what about aluminum, which is used as a preservative? Jenny McCarthy, who has an autistic son, is opposed to over-vaccinating children. In her book Mother Warriors there is a foreword by Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director of National Human Genome Research Institute. He states that the FDA has staggering numbers concerning vaccinations, including:

[The] toxic dose for a baby, 20 micrograms, and the amount found in the Hepatitis B vaccine given on the day of birth, 250 micrograms. At two months of age, this same infant could receive immunizations containing as much as 1,875 micrograms of aluminum. This is disgraceful and dangerous.

While there is a decrease in cases of these childhood diseases following the vaccinations, they do not stop all children from getting them. Just like the flu shot, you can actually contract the diseases from a live strand.

I’m not saying that vaccines cause Autism; I’m also not saying they don’t. Truth is we just don’t know. The only thing we do know are studies provided by pharmaceutical companies saying that there is no link. I’ve yet to find a study from an independent company with no bias toward the money generated by these drug corporations. I won’t even get into the idiotic act of Dr. Andrew Wakefield.

My stance is this: until we know more about what we are injecting in our children it is better to be safe than sorry. This is why, with our second child, we have spread out his shots. We don’t do them all at once. This caused a little trouble at first. Our pediatrician said that he would not spread the shots out, so we had to seek a second way of getting them. The Health Department was kind enough to give them in whatever order we wanted them (within their guidelines of course).  This does not mean that we are always behind on his shots. In fact we are on schedule with what is required by the State Health Department.

I found some helpful information on ehow.com about making a delayed immunization schedule. The link is: http://www.ehow.com/how_2104549_schedule-delayed-immunization.html.

It’s not that we thought the shots would cause him to be autistic. We just don’t know, and when you have one child that is autistic you do what you can to help the other one. The main thing that we wanted to do was to guard his little body from too many chemicals.

With the MMR, should we give them all at once? Experts have said that we do not need to give them all at once. The only reason behind this is convenience. So, it is more convenient for the doctors and drug companies to give doses of who-knows-what than to keep our children safe? After all, isn’t that the most important thing, and their jobs? Instead they just load our children with a solution that, I suspect, they probably don’t really know the full ingredients of themselves.

I’m not a doctor. I don’t pretend to be one. However, I am very concerned about what goes into my children’s bodies. I’ve said this before; I don’t even like to take an aspirin if I don’t have too. I really don’t want to pump my child full of unnecessary chemicals.

Disclaimer: I am in no way claiming to be an expert. I’m just a father who is trying to learn as much about Autism as I can to help my child. I hope that you all can learn from me, and I from you. I ask anyone who has questions or comments about something I have written, or autism, please contact me at pervasiveparenting@hotmail.com. I will try to answer questions as I have time, and if I find it interesting enough I may touch on it in my column.