Peaceful Warrior ,
My opinion is based on my belief .I had a child die from Hepatitis A and believe me I would have done anything to prevent that .
And that is exactly my point - we're all different, we all have different experiences which lead us to where we are, and while you had that experience (which there is no guarantee the vaccine would have prevented), were I in your shoes I would have had a different set of beliefs and emotions.
Neither way is good nor bad, right nor wrong, just different. I too have lost somebody very close to me to disease.
OK, thanks, I see the religious and the "had chickenpox" exemptions. Not sure how a medical exemption would work.
As far as I know, the medical exemption is typically for people who have auto-immune diseases for which vaccines would significantly compromise their immune system. That's hearsay though, I don't actually know first-hand.
Nords said:
Getting back to that "crossing the highway with a bag on my head" analogy, you bet I would. I'd also lose a lot of sleep worrying about the "what could've happened" and re-evaluate the hypothetical decision to not vaccinate my kid.
And that's where you and I differ. I would certainly re-evaluate my decisions and look at the events leading up to that experience, but I wouldn't lose sleep over it. For me it's like that basketball saying, "No harm, no foul."
Nords said:
Our kid contracted chickenpox at the age of six months in early 1993, before any vaccine was available. Luckily she didn't know how to scratch, but I don't care to repeat the experience.
I had chickenpox at age 5 and it wasn't a big deal for me. Yes, lots of red things, lots of itches, and LOTS of baths... but all said and done, there were no lasting effects of any kind.
Nords said:
Our kid made up her own mind about the HPV vaccine. Arguably teens don't possess the critical-thinking brain cells (let alone the skills) to evaluate the statistical risks of being vaccinated or not, but she made the decision on the available numbers and the basis of whether or not it "felt right" for her.
In the end that's all we can do... base it on what "feels" right. Sometimes that feeling is more from our mind and analysis, sometimes from our past conditioning, and sometimes from what people refer to as intuition/guts.
Nords said:
I'd think that a vaccine would help avoid bad medical impacts while a baby is still developing an immune system, and I'm not sure that they'd be able to develop an immunity to the vaccination diseases in any other way.
There's still a lot of discussion on that, and I'm hoping more research. However, there is a higher incidence of auto-immune diseases in the vaccinated population vs. non-vaccinated populations. [/quote]
Nords said:
You know why Hawaii makes a big fuss over the baby's first birthday? Because in the "good ol' days" not many of them survived for that ceremony...
Understandable. However, we both know we can't correlate that directly to vaccines, but rather, to a better overall population health (for which vaccines may or may not be a contributor).