Con: He might be allergic to one or more components of the vaccine
Practically : He might be allergic to anything on the planet from peanuts to bees
Fix : Know the signs of anaphylaxis and treat accordingly
Pro: Not dying, going blind, febrile seizures, brain damage, paralysis, permanent scarring, or infecting someone else who goes on to have one of the above.
To Know:
- A fever, swelling, fatigue are all signs that an immunizaion is *working* because those are signs that our immune system has kicked on.
- The idea that immunizations cause any kind of developmental delay was debunked when the studies first came out (they didn't pass peer review) in the medical community, they have *finally* been debunked in the public sphere. Much the same way that "the world is flat" was never thought to be true by those who were educated, but there was debate as to the actual shape of the earth (round, ellipse, etc.) but the general population really did believe the world was flat. The original study was sooooo flawed that it was laughed out of town (it included an entire school for autistic kids in it's sample... if it had included a school for gifted kids the result would have been that immunizations make kids gifted). It's like trying to find out how many christians are in the world by polling the Catholic Church.
- Chances? Increasing daily as more and more people choose not to vaccinate (see herd immunity).
To google : Herd Immunity, Mortality & Morbidity of each illness we vaccinate for (emedicine is fantastic if you speak medicalese &/or have a science background... medscape is the english translation).
EX) Measles
Common (meaning 50% or more)
- otitis media (inflamation of the inner ear, often leading to deafness)
- 5 different kinds of pneumonia - including not just lungs but also fluid surround the heart, often causing heart failure
- encephalomyelitis (inflammation of the brain and / or spinal cord ... causes Multiple Sclerosis type symptoms either permanently or temporarily, seizure, brain damage, death)
Rare (skipping... but all are much much worse than what is listed above)
1 in 1000 measles patients develop acute encephalitis (swelling of the brain) leading to brain damage and death.
Is the leading cause of death of children, period. Case fatality is highest amongst those under the age of 5. Highest fatality amongst infants between the ages of 4-12mo. Some STELLAR organizations got hundreds of millions of measles vaccines out in the world over the past 10 years and dropped the average number of deaths down from 750,000 to 197,000. (Remember those numbers the next time the media gets all excited about 50 people dying from swine flu, or 12 people from avian flu. 750,000 v 50 or 12. Heck... even the NEW numbers of 197,000 v 50 or 12.) The only place in the entire world measles is going UP is in our own country.
A child under the age of 5 who contracts measles usually dies. Even with hospitals and modern medicine that can drill holes in their skulls to relieve the pressure on their brains and do open heart surgery to drain the fluid from the pericardium so their hearts can continue beating.
The reason why your doctor is pushing you to immunize is because that's only ONE disease out of all of the ones that we see IN THIS COUNTRY. Baby cries for less time than it takes to heat up a bottle and may be cranky feverish for a day or so versus the above.
Google the actual diseases. Learn about them. Then decide how much you want to risk an allergic reaction vs catching the illnesses themselves. Some people aren't afraid of the illnesses that we vaccinate against. That's usually because they've never actually seen it.