I just brought my kids for their checkups the other day. When they were young, I didn’t question the doctors on vaccinations, and I agreed to every single shot up through age 4. Because the recommendations for vaccinations change constantly, one child had 15 shots, another had 16, and another had 17... all before age 4.
Then I started refusing the shots. There were so many shots required in our state - at one point, our state required more immunization shots than any other state. There were more booster shots recommended at age 6 and then even more booster shots at age 11-12. Two different doctors jumped all over me for refusing further vaccinations, so I “fired” them (not the other way around).
When I took my kids for checkups the other day, I mentioned to the doctor that they never had their 11-12yo booster shots. He said: “Oh, we stopped giving those boosters at that age. Now we only give shots for chicken pox and meningitis at age 11-12.”
So, (1) the medical community continually changes its recommendations; (2) vaccination requirements even differ from state to state; and (3) when you agree to a vaccination, the doctor hands you information warning that a small percentage of patients will be harmed (sometimes fatally) by the shot itself. Those are a few reasons why the decision should be made by parents themselves. Whether we choose to vaccinate or not - or whether, like me, some parents pick and choose - the decision is ours to make.
To those of you who believe all children should receive all vaccinations, I would ask: Which vaccinations? How many? How many more vaccinations are you willing to add to the schedule? Will there ever be a limit?
God bless you for being the one I charge of you and your kids’ health. Nobody else cares more about it than you do. Nobody else has to deal with the consequences either.
And of course you are right, what’s correct to do changes all the time. CPR keeps changing. Eggs, bad, now good, oops, bad again, now good again. Time to stop unquestioning trust in experts of all stripes.
“To those of you who believe all children should receive all vaccinations, I would ask: Which vaccinations? How many? How many more vaccinations are you willing to add to the schedule? Will there ever be a limit?”
On what basis are you refusing vaccinations, and which ones?
If you have a good reason, great, but if you really just don’t know, why not just go with the recommended course?
Yours is twisted and uninformed logic. That medical science evolves is a good thing, but for crying out loud.
When you doctor gives you antibiotics (You DO take those, don’t you?) it is YOUR thinking that causes drug resistant strains of bacteria. “I feel better, so I’m going to stop taking them”.
Get your vaccines, take the full course of antibiotics and stop questioning things you have no capacity to understand.