Conscientious objection to vaccination

There’s a huge media, government and medical beat up underway.  Us ‘anti-vaxxers’ are apparently responsible for the measles and whooping cough epidemics in the UK, Queensland and Northern NSW, as well as a mumps outbreak in WA.  Scare tactics about potential Rubella (German Measles) epidemics are now being used to force parents to have their children immunised.

The myth is widely propagated that these sandal and tie dye wearing hippies are putting the whole of society’s health at risk because they believe some disproven research by a discredited doctor, which linked MMR to Autism.

But we’re not hippies.  We are educated, well informed, intelligent people and parents who have decided not to vaccinate our children for a number of very good reasons.

Firstly, we were all exposed to measles, mumps and rubella in our childhood.  These were common childhood illnesses, together with chicken pox.  Our parents took us to chicken pox, measles and mumps parties where we would consciously play with children with active viruses so we would get them ourselves, and ‘get it over with’.  Exposure to viruses, dirt and germs was seen as necessary for building healthy immune systems and most of us have remained pretty healthy throughout our lives as a result.  We are the children of the Baby Boomers, and we grew up alongside the Thalidomide children, which gave us an early, healthy, scepticism of the wonders of modern medicine.

Secondly, we believe in the sanctity of childhood and the precious and remarkable nature of the human body.  We don’t want our children pumped full of drugs, E Numbers, pesticides, sugar or other additives.  We want them NATURALLY healthy with a strong and vibrant immune system, a love for health filled food choices and outdoor and rigorous play. 

I don’t see the sense in routinely injecting babies and young children, whose bodies and brains are largely undeveloped, with cocktails of chemicals.  We do not know what the long term ramifications of mass vaccination might be.  This generation are the mass vaccination guinea pigs just as my Mother’s friends were the lab rats for Thalidomide. 

Why are we immunising newborn babies (and again at age 2 months) against Hepatitis B?  Do you have any idea how hard it is to contract Hep B?  How many newborns do you know who are intravenous drug users or sharing bodily fluids, razors or toothbrushes with an infected person?  I lived with junkies with Hep B for several years and regularly cleaned up blood and disposed of needles and I don’t have Hep B.  Sure, if a baby is at risk, in a high risk environment, they should be protected, but blanket, across the board immunisation for Hep B for all babies – that’s absurd.

Diptheria has been eradicated in Australia, the UK and the US.  Only in Australia and the UK are children immunised against it at 2 months.  I appreciate that this is a horrible disease, readily spread, and is still prevalent in third World countries.  Perhaps, rather than immunising babies, we need to instil firmer vaccination protocols for travellers, in order to protect those innocent and developing immune systems.

Tetanus can be curbed when the child or adult presents at hospital for stitching.  Neo natal tetanus is caused by cutting the umbilical with unsterilized equipment.  Surely, in Australia, this does not happen?

Pneumococcal may well be necessary for vulnerable children in day care from a very young age, but not for all children, everywhere.  While it certainly sounds like a great idea to prevent meningitis and pneumonia in children, surely good preventative medicine at home and vigilant monitoring of fever for dangerous indications, combined with a great hospital system and abundant antibiotics, are better than routinely pumping chemical and biochemical cocktails into our children?

Perhaps it is BECAUSE we are pumping our children full of chemicals from such a young age that they are so sickly.  The Hygiene Hypothesis states exactly that – by curbing our children’s early exposure to parasites, bacteria, dirt and allergic diseases, we are compromising their immune systems and creating illnesses hitherto unknown.

While ‘anti-vaxxers’ are damned for believing discredited research, there are many thousands of anecdotal and actual stories of children normal one day and not the day after MMR.  Perhaps the combined cocktail of viruses is simply too much for the developing immune systems of some children.   Maybe it’s the cocktail of viruses, maybe it’s the chemicals (including aluminium, ammonia, formaldehyde, sodium chloride, anti-freeze [phenoxyethanol], carbolic acid and MSG) which form the solutions the vaccines are suspended in.