Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Frontline: The Vaccine War

I have no clue how many people who might be reading this would've watched this show. But I saw a posting about it on Facebook & set my DVR to record it.

I also saw some comments about it on Facebook where a lot of people were upset about it, saying it was pro-vaccine & didn't present the info fairly. I have to say that I don't agree with that at all.

I actually thought the info was presented very well & from every angle possible.

I am not anti-vaccine, I just want SAFE vaccines. And because I don't feel they are safe I am not vaccinating my son.

I can see & appreciate what the medical (pro-vaccine) side is doing. They want to protect against & eradicate these awful diseases. And they did accomplish this with smallpox. Had I lived prior to that I never would've thought it was possible, but they did it.

This show discussed the possibility of future outbreaks because more & more people are choosing to not vaccinate their kids. And they mentioned the fact that most parents right now didn't grow up with some of the diseases (ie measles, mumps, rubella, polio, whooping cough) & it makes it easier for them to dismiss the need of the vaccine, which I would have to say is true.

The problem I see is that the govt is sitting back & complaining about the people choosing to not vaccinate their kids. Yet they refuse to listen to the people, they refuse to work on making SAFE vaccines. They are just hard-headed, insisting that they are already "safe enough". The problem to me is that the govt has a god-complex. They only see the big picture & that what they are doing is so important for the good of the people that minor (to THEM) issues of a few kids being seriously injured or dying is not a big deal. They have their statistics (of the cases that are proven, most are not & so many cases aren't even counted in those statistics) & go on & on about how so few get injured or killed, blah blah blah. This is the whole problem to me, they simply don't care. When that kid that's hurt is YOUR KID it really is a big deal & that's what the govt is just not getting & it's simply because they don't care enough in my opinion.

I am 37, soon to be 38. Vaccines these days are VERY different from vaccines when I was a kid & I think a lot of people don't realize this. They differ a lot in how they are engineered. And they also differ in the fact that there are SO MANY MORE now than there used to be, I do think they are getting a bit carried away I have to say. And it also differs in how many a child receives at one time with each visit to the doctor--they get soooo many at a time now it's unreal.

That's all for now, just some ranting based on responses I saw from people to this show.

Maybe someday the govt will get it & find a way to make safer vaccines, & also stop getting so carried away about how many diseases to vaccinate for (I mean, seriously, the chicken pox does not need a vaccine), but I'm not holding my breath.

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