VACCINES
Yes, I am addressing this issue. IT is very important. Topic is from an episode of Frontline on pbs.org. It adresses vaccines and autism and other things blamed on vaccines.
Watching PBS monday night(month or two ago), a show on vaccines. Listening to the people interviewed and seeing who they interviewed, they didn't interview anyone who was blue-collar(working class) about what they hought about vaccines. All I saw was upper-middle class white women ( I am white) who live in the coastal states complaing about being told they had to get their children vaccinated and trying to blame the fact that their children aren't perfect on anyone but themselves.
The scientists in the program even showed research that proved that there is no link between vaccines and autism, the oh-so-publisized debate. This proven research wasn't good enough good enough for them so they found something else to blame it on. They chose the age at which the vaccine is given.
Autism presents itself at 15-18 months of age. The age that a child reseives the vaccine ( no parent specified which vaccine the child was given), and so there is no real way to know if it is the vaccine or just the disease. Yes I know there is a lot more cases of autism than there ever were before.
Personally, I am very thankful for vaccines. Without vaccines. Without them our children would be crippled or killed by polio. We still have cases(even with vaccines, from unvaccinated people) of whooping cough. Whooping cough kills babies and children. IT is so rare now(because of vaccines) that most doctors don't know how to recognize it. Vaccines also protect our children against measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitus, influenza, diptheria(youknow, the one that almost whiped Achorage off the map), and chicken pox.
One woman interviewed said we don't have certain diseases anymore because of vaccines. Wrong! The only disease that has been irradicated by vaccines is smallpox. The only sample of that left is locked away in case it ever comes back so that we can innoculate against it again.
All other diseases are PREVENTED not IRRADICATED. They still exist, they still have outbreaks of them because people are not getting vaccinated or are not vaccinating their children.
To stress this more, one of the scientists interviewed contracted polio. there was not a vaccine for polio until the 1950's. I have a few aunts and uncles who were children when polio was a problem. they are lucky the didn't contract it. I have a deceased cousin who contracted hepatitus while she was still in the hospital as a baby. Although a vaccine for it would not have had time to help her, I know that my own daughter recieved a vaccine for it the day she was born. I am very happy that she will not have be very sick for a very short life because of this vaccine. I am also glad that my child or neices or any future children in my family will not ahve to suffer through chickenpox. At least not if they do not contract it before they ar eold enough to recieve the vaccine. I have a scar from my own episode of chikenpox when I was 4. My 2 yr old sister caught it as well as I and my twin.
I am a strong believer in vaccines. i will get my children vaccinated. I will not only be protecting my children, but other children as well. If my children can't get it, they can't give it ti someone else.
Th
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