Thursday, October 16, 2008

Vaccine research day

Well I am settling in to do a good few hours (or more) of vaccine research. Ezekiel is now a little over 2 months old, and we got a call from the doctor 2 days ago "just to let you know that we are starting his vaccines today." We told them no, they cannot start them yet. We want to look them all up first, and decide which ones he will be getting, or if he will get any at all.

So yesterday I asked for a list of the vaccines they would have started, and they gave me information packets on 5.

Polio
Hepatitis B
Haemophilus Influenzae Type b (Hib)
Diptheria Tetanus & Pertussis (DTaP)
Pneumococcal Conjugate

Just from reading the packets, we have decided NO on the hepatitis B, and I am thinking no for the DTaP. I think we may get the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, because the doctors say Ezekiel has cronic lung disease (we're praying about that!) and that is apparently a risk factor in getting pneumococcal disease.

One thing I found interesting is that on these information packets from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (center for disease control prevention) it says, "Children who are moderately or severely ill should usually wait until they recover before gettting ----- vaccine."
Alrighty, NICU doctors, I love and respect you all very much, but Ezekiel is still recovering from mrsa and pneumonia, and you were going to stick him with all these vaccines that clearly say to wait until a child is healthy before administering them?? What's up with that???

I'm sure some of you are concerned that I am even considering not vaccinating my child. And some of you are concerned that I would consider giving him any vaccines at all. I'm not on either side of the fence here.... I am leaning towards the non-vaccinating side, but I do see the benefits of vaccination, and I understand a certain percentage of the popluation needs to be vaccinated to keep polio, etc, from resurfacing. Or at least I understand that argument.... I don't know if it is valid or not. Anyhow, I am certainly not going to stick my child with a bunch of vaccinations without knowing what they are, what their side effects could be, etc. Reading the information put out by the U.S. Dept. of Health is not satisfactory to me. I can't even imagine what sort of corruption could be going on between them and say, merck. I'm sure many of you already know I have little to no trust in the FDA. Sigh.... Maybe Daniel will write a blog for me about that....

Alright, with all that said, I want to be objective and fair. I don't want to harm my child either way-- vaccinations or not. Aimee, your wish has come true! I'm doing your vaccine research for you!

3 comments:

J. Pike said...

Yay! I am FOR your research....(to be continued.)

J. Pike said...

Sorry about that....I was just leaving work yesterday when I had to cut that comment short. I just wanted to say that I support your research and you are doing a good thing to not just have the doctors stick him with anything and everything. Especially since he was sick, and you're right, they say you should wait until fully recovered before getting vaccinated. The best advice I can give (which you probably already know) is to ask for the vaccinations to be administered separately on different days and not in a big pack of 3. Ugh, I despise Merck and their lies about so much stuff. The more I read, I learn about how as mothers that breastfeed, you pass along alot of immunities to your child. So, if I was vaccinated for everything under the sun, doesn't that technically mean that our baby doesn't have to? Just wondering... Good luck and let us know what your final decision is about all the shots!

Kristin said...

We haven't decided for sure on all the shots yet, but we are not going to get hepatitis B nor the DTaP shot. Still researching the others. We are going to have him get the RSV shots (technically not immunizations) because he is particularly suseptable (SP???) to RSV, and for him that would be a life threatening illness.