I have been ignoring this thread but this recent conversation made me chime:
Me to our family pediatrician: "I heard you might be accepting new patients again. Is that true? Shall I start recommending friends to you again?"
Pediatrician: "Yes, I am open to new patients. Please check to see how they feel about vaccinations first. I won't accept any more patients who don't believe in vaccination. We have too many already because other practices keep kicking them out."
He now has a book in his waiting area now which is basically a photo coffee table book. Each pair of pages has a brief description about a disease that can be vaccinated against, some stats, and then the page on the opposite side has a prosperous-looking adult posing with a photograph of their child who died from that disease.
The only way I would not vaccinate would be if my child had a life threatening allergic reaction to one. And I mean actually life-threatening. One of my children has had some minor reactions (redness, swelling.) We keep vaccinating.
Some background about me:
My Mom had polio as a child and still has some post-polio paralysis problems with her throat. She has said a couple of times that she will probably die by choking to death because of this, so she has it documented thoroughly so that the police will never accuse family of killing her by choking or smothering her.
I think I nearly died one year from the flu (I probably would have died if I hadn't been extremely healthy and in my mid-20's.) Since then I have gotten the flu shot every year. It doesn't matter if they "miss" the strain one year, it matters that my body is slowly building a memory bank of antibodies against various strains of flu. Maybe some day one of these will be close enough to a new strain to save my life and I won't even know it happened! :-)
Chicken pox vaccine didn't exist when I was a kid and I got chicken pox as an adult. It really sucked and left me with some scars.
I understand that everything around us (the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the protein and DNA in our body) is a chemical. Chemicals are, in fact, necessary to sustain life. Anyone who says that the face cream she sells is "chemical free" is not only uneducated but ignorant and somewhat proud of it, although I would resist telling her that to her face.
The traction of this anti-vac movement just indicates to me that we are moving rapidly toward an idiocracy.