why i question vaccinations

About half way through my pregnancy I discovered a reason to question vaccinations. While researching it not only did i realize that being a mother would not be an easy task, not that i had assumed it would be... but making any decision is hard, not knowing how the decision will effect your child... and the fear of making the "wrong" choice.

As a child, I was vaccinated like everybody else and never had any adverse reactions. However I know many people who weren't so fortunate. Like many other mothers and fathers I went to google and typed in vaccines here is some of what i found, I am not going to go into my beliefs only that I question them, your decisions are purely yours...

Why should you study vaccination?

Did you know 'bleeding' was practiced for over 1000 years before the public realized its worthless and harmful nature?

Do you know 89% of doctors get their 'information' about vaccination from Pharmaceutical sales agents?

How much time would you spend on research before you purchased a washing machine, a car, a home? Would you spend an equal or greater amount of time researching an "Immunization Program", a decision which has life and death consequences for yourself and/or your children?

Q1. If reforms and improvements in Sanitation, Nutrition, and Hygiene are treated as a collective force, is "sanitation, nutrition and hygiene" a primary, a secondary or insignificant factor in controlling contagious diseases?

Q2. Is vaccination a primary, a secondary or insignificant factor in controlling contagious diseases?

If the following factors are useful in controlling contagious disease:

Sanitation. (Includes clean water, clean air, clean food, clean environment.)

Quality nutrition, year around, not just seasonable.

Hygiene.

Insect control

Belief that one is immune.

Joy, optimism, thankfulness and confidence, and all other factors

which make for rational scientific living, also known as "Godly living".

Quarantine.

Does vaccination belong in this above list?

Did the use of vaccines save millions of lives? Did smallpox vaccine eradicate smallpox? Did polio vaccine eradicate polio in the United States? Can immunity to contagious disease exist without experiencing disease and without vaccination?

Are vaccines safe? Are vaccines effective? Are vaccines necessary?

Today, we know that sanitation makes a tremendous contribution to preventing disease and keeping people healthy. ...

7,000 YEARS AGO

The Babylonians discovered that contaminated water could cause disease. They brought in fresh water every day.

2,000 YEARS AGO

The physician Hippocrates discovered that cleansing could prevent infection.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Made great progress in the area of sanitation. Built aqueducts to bring in fresh water, and built sewer systems and public baths. However, with the fall of the Roman Empire, much of the knowledge the Romans developed was lost, and was not passed on.

MEDIEVAL TIMES

Were truly the Dark Ages as far as sanitation was concerned. Towns were dirty and crowded, and disease and epidemics spread unchecked because of the lack of sanitation. Water was contaminated, and personal hygiene was virtually unknown. Tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, smallpox, yellow fever, all were rampant. As many children died as lived, and the average life span was under 30 years. The worst epidemic during this period was the Black Death, from 1438-1441, which spread to such proportions that 60 million people died, which at the time was one-fourth the population of the world.

19TH CENTURY

In New York City, living conditions were as nearly as [sic] filthy as in the middle ages, and yearly epidemics swept through populations, killing many. The average life span was less than age 40.

But during the mid 1800's, it [the connection] was discovered between germs and disease was proven. [sic] Soaps, disinfectants, and pharmaceuticals began to be developed, and it was first recognized that disease could be controlled.

This began the Sanitation Revolution, and public health practices such as garbage collection, water treatment, public health departments and regulations, as well as personal bathing, became part of the culture. The death rate in children dropped, and the average life span increased over the years, to age 74.

This article and others on Sanitation can be found at: http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/index.pdf