While I'm not going to chastise myself for anything I said previously, because it was all true to me at the time, I wanted to post a bit of an update on where I currently stand concerning vaccines.
Over the last three years, and especially ever since that dreaded first vaccination day in September 2011, I have done more and more looking into this whole idea of vaccinations, because it just never sat well with me--or my husband, to be honest. Neither of us could put a pin on why at first, but we decided after our daughter's first shots experience, that we would spread them out more, only doing a couple at a time. This way we wouldn't be taxing her body so much with too many vaccines to fight off at a time. It seemed like a safer way to go to us, and even now knowing the wealth of information more than I did then, I agree it was probably better that we chose to administer them that way rather than all at once. And I can't tell you how glad I am that I declined the Hep B vaccine at birth! The reaction from the medical staff to our idea was less than welcoming. They had very little tolerance for it, in fact, and treated us with scorn and disapproval, although it seemed they had no other choice but to try to "educate" us about it, but then let us make the final decision. After all, it was our daughter.
The reason this change of heart all came about in the first place was in part due to the reaction my daughter received on the day following her 2 month vaccines. The day following my blog entry in September 2011. Of course she got the fever and tiredness and fussiness that doctors tell you is "normal" on the first day, but they didn't tell me she would look like this:
The day after the vaccines, she awoke with dark red circles around her eyes. This is just a cell phone picture, from a really crappy cell phone at that, so it doesn't do justice to the reality of it, and doesn't show the red patchy splotches that appeared all over her body with it. I took this picture to send to my mom (a nurse) to see what she thought it could be from. But I had my suspicions then, and so did she. I'm even more confident now that it was from the vaccines. She had just gotten 8 different vaccines at once. It was just far too much for her tiny 7 pound body to deal with. After reading about what's actually in the vaccines and how they are made, I realize not even one single vaccine is safe.
After her first vaccines, something huge changed in my daughter's behavior. She developed what is commonly referred to by pediatricians as "colic". Any parent who has been through it can tell you it is far different than the average baby cries for food, naps, etc. She screamed and cried for hours at a time, never calming down for any reason whatsoever. We tried rocking, nursing, shushing, swaddling, baby-wearing, car rides, giving her liquid colic remedies, changing my diet in case she's reacting to something in my breast milk, and even just lying her down in her crib by herself. Nothing, nothing, nothing ever worked. So we just took turns rocking her until she cried herself to sleep. It was a tough year. She was like that off and on until about 18 months when she gradually morphed into a happy, contented little girl. Most notably, though, over the course of her first year, I began to notice a pattern to the colic. Each time we went to get vaccines, it would intensify. Every time she got vaccinated, she would cry until I nursed her, then she would sleep all day, and cry all night. The day after vaccines were the worst. She'd be fevered and swollen from the shots, and absolutely nothing could make her happy.
I realize that upon reading that, most people will just scoff at me and say that's exactly what vaccines are supposed to do, and brush off the connection I made with her colic episodes, saying they are purely coincidental. Believe me, I was telling myself that at the time. I had been so indoctrinated into believing that vaccines are "safe & effective" that I was battling with my own mother's instinct to stop them. It took me my daughter's entire first year, plus my pregnancy to come to terms with the very legitimate idea that vaccines are NOT safe or effective! Many long hours of research, reading article after article, watching videos of lectures, talks and interviews, documentaries and classes, scouring websites like the CDC, medical journals and vaccine research and manufacturers, giving myself history lessons on vaccines and diseases and familiarizing myself with immunology--all of this stuff absolutely amazed me, and angered me even more so because of the realization I felt upon discovering my own ignorance to the ugly world we really live in.
Knowledge is power, I keep being reminded as I uncover yet another unturned stone on my walk of life. I hate that I am sometimes the epitome of what I can't stand in most people: ignorant. Some people call it "trust" or "faith", but I think it's pure laziness to just mindlessly follow what others do instead of doing the research yourself and deciding for yourself what is right or wrong. I read a quote recently that made me think. "When you base your life on principle, 99% of your decisions are already made." So couldn't that then mean that you should stay the heck away from pre-designed principles and make your own decisions? Or better yet, make your own principles and then this quote will ring true.
I would love to go on believing the lie that we live in an amazingly caring world where everyone's best interests are in the lives of the citizens, but I can't. Why is it so readily believed that our government has our back? When have they actually cared about us? I mean really? When do they actually listen to the people when it doesn't benefit them on a powerful or financial level? One thing makes this world go around, and that is money. Once you realize that, then you can understand how everything in the world works.
Maybe vaccines once were a grand idea to end disease back in the day, but after everything I've read, I can honestly say I believe whole heartedly that they were barking up the wrong tree. We didn't need man made immunity, we needed better sanitation and nutrition practices! People were disgusting when disease was rampant, so naturally it was bad. You know what happens when you don't play in the same street where your own crap is dumped, wash your hands and actually eat real, clean food? A health epidemic, that's what. But that's not all. There's far more to the idea of vaccines that I just can't get on board with, but that I'm saving for a whole new post because it's far too extensive for now. Just know it's a work in progress. I intend to answer each and every argument people have against my decision. Given the nature of vaccine arguments, it's going to be one heck of a researched post, and will therefore need time.
So yes, I suppose you could now consider me an anti-vaccine extremist. Although I will make one minor correction: using the term "anti-vaccine" was a bit of an uninformed mistake on my part since it is stating that I am against vaccines, and the science that developed them. I'm not against science. I'm I'm only against junk sciences such as the kind that only work in a biased favor like vaccine science and the well known "tobacco science". It's a bit harsh to use the term "anti-vax", so I prefer to say "non-vax" because it simply means I don't vaccinate rather than sounding "anti" anything. So I will correct myself, I am not anti-vaccine. I am pro-vaccine choice. I believe in the science behind vaccine development, and understand why it was put into place, but it went horribly wrong, and until our scientists are allowed to do the necessary unbiased studies to find out what happened and fix this huge mess so vaccines really are "safe & effective" instead of lying to us, I will remain "non-vaccine" and "pro-choice", meaning I don't care what you all do, but don't force me to vaccinate myself or my children. That is MY choice.
