On Wed, 11 Oct 2000 08:44:47 -0700, Cheyenne Loon <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>
>My first impulse is to agree with those who have made the decision to
>avoid vaccines for their children.  But I can't help but feel that
>these children are only safe because everyone else around them is
>vaccinated, ensuring they'll never get exposed to these viruses/germs.

This is not true.  From the Center for Disease Control's web site:

"...no vaccine is 100% safe or effective. Differences in the way
individual
immune systems react to a vaccine account for rare occasions when
people
are not protected following immunization or when they experience side
effects."

I know many people, including myself and my wife, that received
vaccine
shots as children and showed no immunity to certain diseases as young
adults and adults.  Vaccination does not guarantee immunity to
disease.

>But what happens if the number of unvaccinated children rises in the
>future?  Other than smallpox, none of these diseases has really been
>eradicated. So if no-one is vaccinated, everyone becomes vulnerable.
>Has the anti-vax movement addressed these questions effectively?
>

Not everyone is vulnerable.  Children with poor diets and living in
poor
sanitary conditions are more vulnerable to all diseases, rather than
just
"vaccine-preventable" diseases.  If a healthy child contracts a
"vaccine-
preventable" disease, there is a great chance that the child will be
fine,
and his immune system will be greatly strengthened from the
experience.
For breastfeeding children, immunity is obtained through the
breastmilk,
and the nutrition obtained further strengthens the immune system.  My
5.5
month old girl has not been vaccinated, and never will, and is exposed
constantly to other children, people, things, places, etc. which helps
to
strengthen, rather than weaken, her immune system.

The rise in autism and other autoimmune disorders is due to a
combination
of poor diet (particularly formula and junk-food), the number and
frequency
of vaccinations at such an early age, and other factors.  In Japan,
children do not receive vaccinations until after the age of two.

Here is a post I made to another list regarding vaccines:

The human organism expects to encounter a vast array of different
bacteria,
viruses, etc. after 3+ million years of evolution, and is adequately
equipped to deal with these diseases given good health and sanitary
conditions.  It is only within the last 10,000 years that many of the
diseases, that we now vaccinate against, have appeared.  We have not
had
adequate time to build a naturally strong resistance to these
diseases.
These diseases have arisen generally as a result of animal husbandry,
humans
in close, regular contact with animals that carry a strain of the
viruses.
Because farmers/herders were generally less healthy than
hunter-gatherers,
and sanitary conditions were poor until the latter-half of the 20th
century,
humans were very susceptible to these diseases.  The Black Plague, for
instance, killed one-third of the affected population and was
successfully
combatted by improved sanitation in many instances.  No one ever talks
about
the 2/3 that survived the disease.

My point with all this is that our bodies expect to be healthy, expect
to
encounter bacteria and viruses (through the mucus membranes, our first
line
of defense), and expect to build resistance.  We compromise this
expectation
when we are not healthy, do not eat healthy foods that strengthen the
immune
system, do not live in sanitary conditions, etc.  In my opinion, if
these
conditions can be met, there is no good reason to vaccinate.
Vaccinations
bypass the mucus membranes and introduces potentially harmful toxins
into
the body for which there is not always a defense.  Vaccinations are in
no
way similar to contracting the disease naturally.

Our culture believes that we must eradicate all diseases.  We continue
to
identify diseases, and develop vaccinations for them.  When will it
end?
When our children receive vaccinations for hundreds of diseases?

My 2 cents...

Brad