Vaccines, Religion, Philosophy, and Science

I'm still trying to sort out this whole vaccine business, trying to find a happy medium between "do whatever the nice doctor tells you" and "don't let anyone near your kid with a syringe, it's all a scam."

Here's what I thought was a reasonable approach to deciding whether to get a particular vaccination for the Treefrog:

I will do some research. If the vaccine is shown to be safe (ie, the side effects are less likely and milder than contracting the disease it's supposed to protect against) and effective (ie, people who have been vaccinated don't subsequently get sick) then I will say "yes" to it.

Then I find out that most of the vaccinations have aluminum in them. In some cases, pretty large amounts. In studies done on metal toxicity, a safe amount is something like 5 micrograms per 2 lbs or so of body weight. Let's say a two month old baby weighs about 12 lbs... that would put the "safe" amount of aluminum at about 60 mcg.

The vaccines scheduled to be administered at two months old have anywhere between 130 to 640 mcg of aluminum. Each.

I'm not a doctor or a medical researcher or or a genius, but, WHAT THE SHIT?

Then when you look for justification for such large amounts of aluminum, you're told that they help the vaccines work better (which I'm sure is true). Look for reassurance that there are no long-term side effects, and you find that there haven't been any studies done to measure them. (Edit: Or have there?)

When I raises these questions with educated friends, they insisted that since the introduction of the various vaccines, the disease-related deaths have dropped dramatically, and continue to drop. That NOT vaccinating your kid is an irresponsible thing that only a Bad Parent would do.

So I did some more research... and I found that yes, the mortality rates for these diseases have been dropping ever since the introduction of the vaccine. But... they had been dropping at the same rate long BEFORE the vaccines were introduced:





So that tells me that it's not the vaccines themselves that are causing the mortality rate to decline, but something else, like maybe improved hygiene & medical care overall. (Remember soap?)

Then there are the vaccines against things which are not deadly. And this, I believe, is a gross misuse of the technology. Polio, yes. Hepatitis B? Maybe not for a newborn, but sure. But a vaccine for chickenpox? Seriously? Chickenpox is annoying, but not deadly. Hell, when I was a kid it was practically a right of passage. But now it's part of the standard vaccination schedule and it seems that we've traded the relatively benign Chickenpox for the much more serious Shingles.

Then I started looking into the implications are of refusing vaccines altogether, at least until I'm reasonably convinced that each one is safe, effective, and necessary.

If I want to send my child to school, my only option would be to try to claim a religious exemption. Some states have philosophical exemptions as well, but not New York.

So let me get this straight. My neighbor can walk into a school and say, "My religion forbids vaccines" and she's clear. But I can do hours upon hours of research, crunch numbers, gain as thorough an understanding of the manufacturing process and final ingredients of each vaccine as my limited training and background will allow and make an informed determination that it's not in my daughter's best interest to get them, and THAT'S NOT FUCKING GOOD ENOUGH???

AAAARRRRGHH!!!!