Not Gunshots, But Explosive Nonetheless

One hundred twenty-five.  That's how many comments there are at last count in an active thread on Facebook on the subject of vaccinations.  Joel started it by posting the story of an unvaccinated child who contracted tetanus.  Hans reposted it and the minions promptly came swarming out of the woodwork to weigh in on the yea or nay side.  I had seen about a half dozen of the comments before I went to bed last night.  When I woke up early I reread those few comments and decided to add my two bits.  Right after I did so I spied a whole host of fairly rabid intervening comments, mostly on the "nay" side.  I'm not sure how I missed them at first, but my lack of appetite for controversy would have prompted me to scuttle back into hiding before anyone saw me if I had known what a minefield the thread had become.

Here's what I said:

All our children were fully vaccinated with no apparent long-lasting harm done, and presumably some (or a lot of) good done. I still would caution every parent who chooses vaccination to be alert for abnormal reactions and discontinue the shots if this happens. I know two children personally whose mothers had concerns about the reaction after the first vaccinations, but those concerns were dismissed by the doctor who administered the second vaccination without further ado or parental consent. Both children nearly died immediately afterward and were severely multiply handicapped since then. In one of those cases, that's 40 years and counting--of parents having to "pay" for a doctor's arrogance or ignorance. These "character qualities" don't look any better in a medical professional than in a parent. Two other things I think I would pay attention to if I had young children now are these: 1) Don't have a child vaccinated who is not completely healthy at the time of vaccination. 2) Spread out the shots over more time so that children's little bodies can deal with fewer introduced "pathogens" at once. I have an uncle in his 80s who has been handicapped since he suffered polio at one year of age. Can you imagine the relief with which polio vaccine was greeted in our extended family? I remember the "whole community" flocking to Elreka school one evening when Sabin polio vaccine was offered in a pink drop on a sugar cube. Such a simple salvation from such a dreaded alternative.

Fortunately no one attacked me on Facebook, and I remain fairly unscarred by my involvement.

Hiromi reminded me over breakfast that in the past some vaccines have been contaminated with mercury, which is a vaccination  hazard I hadn't been thinking about.  I have some confidence that this is less of a problem than it was in the past.

In further support of vaccinations, I thought today of how little control we have over situations where our children may contract a serious infectious disease.  If they become ill, it happens because pathogens have invaded their body and have overwhelmed their natural defenses.  Having contracted the disease normally confers immunity, provided the child survives, of course--and they usually do.  Why is it irresponsible to introduce those pathogens at the time of the parents' choosing, when conditions for the child are more optimal for dealing with the pathogens, and when the particular strain of disease has been selected for its immunity-conferring benefits, and weakened or killed so that the symptoms are largely bypassed?  Granted, vaccinations might result in exposure to a greater variety of disease pathogens than would occur over a lifetime otherwise, but that's the nature of almost every preventive measure we undertake.  We seek to leave a margin of safety around the most dangerous possibilities.  In the process, we often over-protect, because we can never be sure which hazards will present themselves.

Has anyone heard of a child who became permanently handicapped after only one dose of vaccine?  If so, under what conditions was the child vaccinated--age, number of vaccines received at the same time, health at time of vaccination, family history of severe reactions, etc.?  If I had ever heard of permanent handicaps after one dose of vaccine, I would likely reconsider the approach that makes the most sense to me now:  re-evaluation after one dose.  My impression is that, when the first exposure is problematic, the long-term consequences are usually not severe.  Repeated exposures can be devastating, however.

All I've said so far sounds like I'm an enthusiastic proponent of vaccinations.  Almost, but not quite.  Actually, our decision to have our children vaccinated was almost entirely Hiromi's.  I followed along because that's what I thought I was supposed to do, and I didn't have any solid reasons to object.  I'm very grateful that it worked out well in our family, and I realize that our good experience is not everyone's experience.

I am not extraordinarily trusting of the pharmaceutical industry.  I believe the bottom line for these businesses is profit, and that goal sometimes circumvents proper caution about making sure ingredients are safe and pure.  Neither am I confident that the regulatory agencies are capable of protecting consumers from harmful pharmaceutical products.  Forceful lobbying from the industry side of medicine is a fact of life, and employment records for people on both the regulatory and the manufacturing side reveal way too much overlap to guarantee objectivity.  My opinion, of course, but not mine alone.  For these reasons, I'm  not overly inclined to swallow whole what comes to me from these sectors.

The plethora of information on vaccination hazards is overwhelming to me--and I'm far more inclined to delve into such matters than most people are who are not medical professionals--and more used to sifting through volumes of information than most people are.  (I think this is an accurate evaluation.  Correct me if you know me and you disagree.)  How can it help being overwhelming to almost everyone else around me who tries to sort through it?  It's far too tempting to buy into something--anything--rather than to continue for too long with the dissonance that that results from the din coming from everywhere.

I've concluded that, for any individual person, the answer is not nearly always more information, although I am in favor of being as knowledgeable as necessary.  The answer is not to place blind trust in professionals either.  Neither does the answer always lie in being as scientific as possible, although being unscientific is hazardous also.  Scientific research is never useful unless it undergoes a lot of interpretation, and I can't vouch for the integrity of everyone who does the research or interprets the data before it reaches me.  I want to preserve a sense of optimism about the good intentions of those around me, so I will choose not to dig up and sling around every piece of dirt that might exist.  I will choose to leave some of it undisturbed.

I must, first and always, rely on God to show me what to do when a decision must be made.  He alone is big enough to cut through all the confusion and guide me aright.  Sometimes that might be through Hiromi.  At other times, it might be through something I read or hear.

I don't feel a need to try to dissuade those who choose not to vaccinate their children.  My own experience gives me a bias toward vaccination being OK in most cases, but I am not in the habit of arguing the point.
I've had students do research papers on the dangers of vaccination--their choice of subject.  I've pointed out how their research could benefit from consulting more sources.  Just this week a mother who was present in the child development class said they have chosen not to vaccinate.  She told us what her pediatrician's response was to that:  "I respect that decision, but I would recommend vaccination."  My students could verify that I said nothing to challenge the mother's decision.  Hiromi probably would have, but not me.

If you care at all about this subject I've probably made you a little unhappy because it's unlikely that I come out exactly where you do.  I'm hereby offering to extend grace to you for your "blind spots."  I hope you will do the same for mine.