"Some mothers have long suspected that vaccines may not be appropriate for their children, but they worry about whether they can make the decision not to vaccinate and still be strong enough to face their pediatrician, family and friends."
In this entry I will quote a few different books, all by different authors. The titles and authors can all be found on the parenting book list on the left side bar. My hope is that I can share just a glimpse of what I've learned about the polio vaccine, without you having to read a bunch of books. I do urge you to do your own research so you can fill in the dots and come to your own conclusions. Lets start at the beginning.
What Is Polio? (from Vaccines: Are They Really Safe & Effective?)
"Polio is a contagious disease caused by an intestinal virus that may attack nerve cells of the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms include fever, headache, sore throat, and vomiting. Some victims develop neurological complications, including stiffness of the neck and back, weak muscles, pain in the joints, and paralysis of one or more limbs or respiratory muscles. In severe cases it may be fatal, due to respiratory paralysis."
Now that we know what it is, lets learn some more facts about polio, and the polio vaccine. These are the things that my pediatrician never told me. We were encouraged to give Kyle the vaccine, with no discussion...and we did. Why didn't I ask more questions...?
"Many people mistakenly believe that anyone who contracts polio will become paralyzed or die. However, in most infections, caused by polio there are few distinctive symptoms. In fact, 95 percent of everyone who is exposed to the natural polio virus won't exhibit any symptoms, even under epidemic conditions." (Vaccines: Are They Really Safe & Effective?)
"No cases of wild polio have occurred in the United States since 1979. The risk of a child acquiring polio in the United States is zero, except from the vaccine itself. All cases of paralytic polio in this country since 1979 were either caused by the oral vaccine or contracted in a foreign country during travel. The risk of acquiring wild polio in the United States is zero." (The Vaccine Guide: Risks and Benefits for Children and Adults)
"One of the little known facts about the early polio vaccine is that millions of doses were contaminated with a monkey virus (SV40) that causes cancer in laboratory animals, but which government officials insist to this day is not dangerous to humans. Not everyone agrees with that claim, however. SV40 appears to also have been involved in causing or contributing to a type of lung cancer called mesothelioma. The contaminated polio vaccine [with SV40] was administered to ninety-eight million Americans before the Food and Drug Administration required manufacturers to screen for the virus." (What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children's Vaccines)There is another important debate about the polio vaccine... the link between the polio vaccine and the spread of HIV. I won't discuss that here, you can read about that more on your own, if you wish to do so. The book, Vaccine Safety Manual, By: Neil Z. Miller (page 71 and on) goes into detail about this subject and the author sites the references for all of the information he provides.
Several studies have shown that injections increase susceptibility to polio. I would guess this has to do with the lowered immune system that vaccines create. Our bodies are built with a strong immune system to fight off these diseases, but then you go and mess with the immune system, and now it can't handle the load if it has to. Some will argue that the decrease of polio was because of the vaccine, but there are many studies to support the argument that polio was on a steady decrease before the polio vaccine was ever introduced.
Many people don't know that most vaccines are made in either animal tissue, or aborted human fetal tissue. It's true. I certainly didn't know this until my recent research into vaccines. The polio vaccine specifically is grown in monkey kidney tissue.
"The danger in using monkey tissue to product human vaccines is that some viruses produced by monkeys may be transferred to humans in the vaccine, with very bad health consequences. Desrosier (Harvard Medical School professor) also warned that testing can only be done for known viruses, and that our knowledge is limited to about "two percent of existing monkey viruses." ......
Despite the polio vaccine's long history of animal-virus contamination, today's inactivated shot is manufactured in much the same way as earlier versions. "The viruses are grown in cultures of a continuous line of monkey kidney cells....supplemented with newborn calf serum..." The vaccine also contains two antibiotics (neomycin and streptomycin) plus formaldehyde." (Vaccines: Are They Really Safe & Effective?)
That makes me want to run right out and get one! Geez! And we are putting this stuff right into our children's blood stream! We don't know what kind of contamination is happening in these vaccines...and it sounds like even the experts don't know for sure either! And did you see the word formaldehyde? I am learning that this is a common additive to some of our popular vaccines. Personally I would never let Kyle drink any amount of formaldehyde, so then I think to myself...why would I allow anyone to inject any amount of it into his blood stream? Formaldehyde is being studied, and according to the National Cancer Institute, is possibly linked to several different cancers. In the case of the polio vaccine, why take the chance of vaccine side effects (whether it be short term or long term), when the likelihood of getting wild polio is slim to none! Needless to say...Kyle will not be receiving another polio vaccine!
Again, I loose trust in the system, when 98 million people were vaccinated with a contaminated polio vaccine before the FDA required the manufactures to screen for the SV40 virus. It makes me think...what contaminants are in our current vaccines that are known (or not known)...but are not being screened for...? Especially when we are talking about a brand new H1N1 vaccine that we don't know for sure what the effects will be. I think you can guess our families position on the H1N1 vaccine by now. :)
I want you all to understand, I am not trying to tell anyone what to do regarding vaccines and their children (that is your own decision to make)...I merely hope to share some information that makes people think! It certainly has gotten me thinking, for sure! We, as parents, need to ask more questions. In my experience, the information that the pediatrician who is recommending the vaccine, tends to be one sided (on the side of the vaccine, and not the risks of them). I wish I had asked more questions...but I didn't know what questions to ask! I now know.
