*rant alert- you have been warned :-)*
There's been a lot in the news and on social media about the vaccination debate over the last few weeks. I have held my tongue as my view point could be viewed as contentious but an article here threw me over the edge.
I have had enough.
My children are unvaccinated and I use that word carefully. Vaccination is NOT the same as immunisation. Immunisation is never guaranteed with vaccination. This is shown in a simple incident in the news lately. Close to half the the children who got measles at Disney world were vaccinated. Nearly half! If you chose to vaccinate you are not immunising your child from that disease. You may (and I use that word lightly) be preventing the likelihood of the said disease but not always.
I am fully vaccinated. It was never questioned in our house. Before I had kids I met someone who was not vaccinated and had never been. She was one of the healthiest people I had ever met. So I started researching this out of curiosity. I read and read and read and what I read blew my mind.
Our choice not to vaccinate up to this point has been made with a huge amount of research. It is not a finite or completed choice and one that we hold open.
How many people who follow the crowd and vaccinate ever research what they are doing? How many actually READ the insert of the vaccination box instead of the laminated sheet of potential side effects the doctor or nurse gives you to look at prior to taking the vaccine? I mean read the actual vaccine insert? We read and research constantly. We listen to talk back, read medical articles, listen to medical podcasts, attend lectures, look at what goes into vaccinations and read the inserts.
We look at what Pharmac brings into the country and assess if we want to put that into our child. Sometimes we are very nearly swayed.
But.
I am over being blamed. The fact that a child gets measles is not my fault. End of story.
Am I sorry that a small child suffers? Absolutely. But my child's immune system trumps most of the general population's. Does this mean that my child will not get sick? No. Both my children got chicken pox for instance. But it was a mild dose.
Shall I tell you about my children's health? Neither of them (and they did not score a lucky genetic trick, they are not genetically related) has ever had a consistent high temperature. Neither has had a significant infection, like pneumonia or strep throat. Does this mean they won't? No. But the statistics are in our favour, Grace has been on antibiotics ONCE in her life and Luka 3 times. They are 4 years old and 6 years old.
I would say they have pretty healthy immune systems. And this means that in theory they are less of a threat than someone with a compromised immune system. They have both been in the public education system from the age of two and neither the preschool or primary school has had an outbreak of some kind of disease with them attending.
What this also means is that we consistently work at their immune system to strengthen it. We use probiotics, essential oils, and supplements (Zinc, iodine, magnesium and selenium in particular which are things NZ soil lacks) on a twice daily basis to make sure they are strong. We eat a diet low on dairy, sugar and gluten. It's hard work and I dare say a lot harder (and more expensive) than having an injection.
Our personal viewpoint stems from the question of how holistic can we be if we vaccinate? We have made an empowered choice from research. We read the stories from both sides, the studies and the medical trials. The general hysteria from main stream media is misleading to say the least. I encourage anyone to RESEARCH both sides themselves.
I am happy to work with the community. If there is an outbreak and my kids make people nervous, I will keep them at home. If there is a vaccine that does not have the preservatives, binding agents and metals in it, I would be happy to consider it.
Until that time we will assess each and every situation that our children come across without emotion or bias. With a whole lot of research and an open mind. We are NOT non-vaccers. We are undecided but nothing I have come across to date has convinced me of the need to vaccinate my children.
So I want the haters to leave us alone and stop blaming us. To top this "offensive" post off I am closing comments on this post.
*End of rant.*
