Does vaccination work? Is it too dangerous and immoral to use?

Your thoughts.

Isn't vaccination just jabs that protect you from diseases. Surely they're fine? :confused:

Vaccination works - and is far less dangerous than the diseases they prevent.

My father had polio as a child, so I know how much it affected his life. Now, in recent years, people seem to have forgotten how bad these diseases were, or don't know someone who was a victim, and find fault with vaccinations.

I think it should be compulsory - there's no reason why a child shouldn't have them (barring actual medical reasons, rather than parental objections) and parents should not be given a choice.

I think vaccinations are great to use. Except the flu vaccination. My mother got the flu vaccination, and still ended up with the flu. So I don't take that kind of vaccination at all. Ever since she stopped taking the vaccination, she hasn't gotten the flu, and neither have I.

They are great. I don't see why any sane parent would refuse to have their kids get vaccination.If it wasn't for them it's no telling how many of us, like Calalily pointed out ,would have polio especially in a country like the U.S.

Vaccinations are a no from me. DPT almost killed me. And another probably is the reason for my and my brother's health problems. That's why a parent would refuse a vaccination.

True, but some people now believe that vaccines can cause Autism in children. *Link*

There are lots of different types of flu and the vaccination for only for one type so she probably came in contact with a different strain. Sometimes vaccinations don't give total immunisation but lessen the symptoms if you catch the disease.

I do support vaccination, as ChocolateCake said some people can have severe reactions or even die but the numbers are very few compared to how many would die without vaccinations. My children all had the MMR vaccination but I waited till they were older before they got it, the health visitor tried to frighten me in to getting them done earlier by telling me there were some cases of measles locally. I didn't fall for it!

What do you make of this:

www.cogforlife.org

I think vaccinations are a good thing. Problems from them such as ChocolateCake's and others are often due to alergic reactions and/or not enough stability in their blood and bodies to fight against a vaccine - let alone a full blown dose.

I'd imagine there are slip-ups sometimes, although they are in their few now that most of the process is done by machine and then checked afterwards.

You are more at risk without them then with. Anyone who suffers from vaccines is one in few.


((And I fail to see how a disease can start off a what is supposedly a genetic learning disability. *reads linky*))

Hmm..

My Mother got epilepsy from a hooping cough (sp?) vaccination and ironicaly, she still got hooping cough - five times.

I fully support vaccination. A small needle prick is preferable in comparison to the disease it's preventing. Why any parent would refuse something that could save their children from a lot of misery is beyond me.

I am not talking about the pain - I'm talking about the risk and morality.

I've had loads done and had no side effects and I've been perfectly fine apart from my Cold Urticria condition, but that isn't connected.

Well, because of situations like ChocolateCake's, I think that parents should be allowed to veto certain vaccines if they have a reason (i.e. family members having medical problems related to it, or an allergy obviously). But - morality? I'm not trying to insult or question anyone else's beliefs, but how could a vaccine possibly be "immoral"?

The only thing I can think of is maybe it's something to do with the way Jenovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions.

I assume because some hardcore religious groups might consider it "playing god", and because I think some have been made with cells of aborted fetus, I'm not sure if that's true, that website I just checked seemed quite fanatic.

I really don't think it's immoral, there's some dangers, but I'd rather vaccine my kids, the chances of it going bad are much lower then the chances of the kid getting sick.

Except the flu vaccine, it seems a bit overkill to me.

We don't know yet what causes Autism and since it's on the rise in the U.S. why not look into what's really in our food or enviroment instead.It's scary to imagine our society without vaccinations

I hope no one minds if I post another link about the use of aborted fetuses in vaccinations, but this one from a non-religious source:
http://www.immunizationinfo.org/vac...etail.cfv?id=32

Now, I must say that I am against abortion. However, if babies are going to be aborted (I don't delude myself into thinking that abortion will actually be outlawed despite my stance against it), we may as well make something good come of the poor choice. My children have both been vaccinated. In my opinion, vaccinating them is far better than risking them contracting the actual disease.

My father always used to tell me this story back from when he was in the U.S. Air National Guard. A new vaccine had recently come out and it was required for all the pilots to receive it. My father, feeling it was unnecessary, kept putting it off. It turned out that particular vaccine given to pilots at that air base was tainted. Many of the pilots got sick, but none of it was serious, thank God.

I think immunizations are useful, when used wisely. We'd be in some serious trouble if we didn't have them. The only one I don't agree with is the flu vaccination. The little bugger that causes influenza changes itself so often to resist antibiotics and vaccines it's not really worth getting immunized for it. I think some important vaccines should be mandatory, and with others parents should be able to choose whether or not they want their child to have it.

Scientists do not yet have proof that vaccinations can cause autism, and my mother (she's a nurse) told me that is the case with epilepsy as well.

Don't get me started on this one :rant:

16 years ago I had my first MMR jab. About two years later, I had my second 'booster' before I started school. These two injections made me feel ill for a few days, but my mother was assured by my doctor this was perfectly normal. Three years after this, I was given another 'booster' jab and that's when all hell was let loose.

I became allergic to milk and oats - severely allergic may I add. I began having petit mal epileptic fits and absences. I was diagnosed with ADHD and given Ritalin. I had night terrors - waking up screaming in the middle of night. I stopped playing properly, stopped talking properly at school and all social intelligence just.. sort of dropped off. And, surprise of all surprises, I was soon after diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum - Aspergers Syndrome, to be precise.

I was one of the children involved in Dr. Wakefield's statistics. My parents were offered the opportunity to go to court with many other parents and fight against this vaccine, to stop any other kids reacting like I had. I know other kids got it worse, some have become severely autistic and will have that for life. Their personality robbed of them forever. I'm one of them statistics and I feel that, if he is right which could very well be true, I've been robbed of most of my childhood and could have been disabled for life because of a simple injection that stopped me from getting the sniffles. Who really gives a damn whether their kid gets measles? Back in the day they used to actually hold measles parties to infect their kids with the virus, thus giving them immunity. We're in a developed enough country to recognise and treat the disease so why jeopardise the lives of thousands of kids like myself for the sake of stopping that?

The stupid thing is, they actually have evidence that MMR could be linked to autism. That would be me! They clearly don't want to condemn the vaccination until the risk factor is high enough and a direct link is proven, but that's not good enough for me. You think all that happening in one go is coincidence? Maybe because I was growing up, it all decided to happen on that day?

Anyway, I'm severely biased and should step out of the debate right away. Just thought I'd add myself as a bit of statistic there I'm only very very mildly autistic now, probably unidentifiable actually. But I will be having a few more vaccinations before I go to Med school because they're compulsary, so we shall see how I react

This has been disproven in numerous studies.

A very small cross-section of the population will have ill-effects after inoculation - we're talking about less than 1%. Some people blame terrible things on inoculation or vaccination, when they have no idea whether that is the actual cause or not.

Many more lives are saved by inoculation and vaccination than could ever be harmed by it.

Smallpox, which was eliminated by vaccination, killed 1/3 of all those it infected, and left many others blind, deaf or covered in pockmarks.

The measles is not something to be taken lightly. Before inoculation against it, it was a life-threatening illness for any adult who contracted it. My mother had it when she was a toddler, and has permanent brain damage as a result. It can also cause male infertility.

Polio used to kill and cripple, and still does in some parts of the world. In its most virulent form, it infects the Central Nervous System, causing paralysis, and sometimes death. A teacher at my school lost the use of one of his legs because of polio.

Tuberculosis, inoculated against in the BCG injection in the UK, is a disease of the lungs. Whilst it can, now, be treated with antibiotics, these are not always successful, and antibiotic resistant strains are now beginning to show themselves, raising the possibility that TB might again become the virulent killer it used to be. If you can't be treated with antibiotics, and the doctors catch the infection early enough, it can be cured by amputation. My great-grandmother had to have half a lung removed because of this disease.

Meningitis is an infection of the fluid in the spinal cord and around the brain. I believe inoculation against it is now compulsory in the UK. In children and adults alike it is almost fatal. It can cause the loss of fingers, toes, and eventually feet and hands, if untreated. When it occurs in young children, the result can be profound deafness, or even brain damage. My cousin, who is nearly five months old, will have to be on antibiotics until she is 18 months old because of this disease. The sister of someone who I was at school with lost all her fingers and toes to it.

Five extremely good reasons why inoculation and vaccination are sensible options.

Didn't know that they give you vaccines for measles. In Romania everybody's naturally immunized for measles and small pox during childhood. Getting these diseases when you're old is not good at all, so maybe the reason you'er getting the vaccine is because the chances of you contracting the disease when you are small are very low. Anyway, I believe the cold vaccine is a complete waste of money, you can achieve better results with iron supplements and vitamin C. The only case I've heard of a vaccination gone bad is when a person was adminsitered by mistake an expired batch and it affected her hearing and because of the young age speech development also. On the whole, I think immunizations are good, if they properly done and treated with same caution as any drug. There's no use getting a malaria immunization if you are not living in a country with naturally occuring malaria.

You're right. Me and my fellow 1%-minority sufferers should learn to live with the fact that we're martyrs for the greater good, so children everywhere will never have to suffer from a nasty rash and a fever again. Thanks for putting it into perspective for me.

Measles kills people. So does Rubella. So does Mumps.

Measles almost killed my mother, and left her with permanent brain damage.

Forgive me if I'm less than sympathetic to your plight.