This is a true story and is rewritten with permission of the mother:
"...Some of you know I'm one of the parents who's always been freaked out by vaccinations. Aluminum as a preservative in them, questions about links to autism, rare cases of paralysis, neurological disorders & even death. I don't like it at all. I also understood the only reason it might be safe for me not to vaccinate my kids was b/c for so many years U.S. children have been vaccinated. The almost complete eradication of these diseases from the U.S. is what makes me able to consider not getting them for my kids. Last year when we moved we finally decided to get the boys vaccinated. Each time at least one of the boys has run a high fever w/malaise afterwards. Each time I call my oldest sister and get calmed down. "No, it's not an early sign of neurological damage." "No, that's perfectly normal." "No, probably not a first symptom of autism." When I called her yesterday about my youngest (18 months) she calmed me down again and told me to watch him. Give him Benadryl to see if it's an allergic reaction. Watch him. Trust my guts, she said. If it really seems abnormal take him to the doctor and if nothing else it'll reassure me. So when I got home from church to find my youngest standing in his crib screaming, and his rash full-bodied and bright red I decided to check the internet for photos of rubella, mumps and measles. The rash looked exactly like all the pictures of the measles and his symptoms were textbook: about 8 days after exposure he got a cough, runny nose & high fever; fever dropped and he began to get a rash on his face and some diarrhea; as the fever rose and fell off and on the rash spread from the face down to the torso and finally to the arms and legs. I was pretty convinced and took him to a clinic down the road to get the diagnosis confirmed. Yup, the doctor says, he has measles. "This is just extremely rare," he says. He just wasn't very informative. They sometimes treat it with vitamin A, which is easy to overdose on and which they don't have at the clinic. He told me to wait and call our pediatrician. They'll definitely want to document it and keep track of him. 'Kay. And until then I'm making phone calls to my friends who have been with us the last week, one of whom has an unvaccinated, not nursing eight month-old. So, there you have it. There were 44 cases of measles in the U.S. in 2004. Of course one of the very few kids who get it from the vaccine is the child of a mom freaked out by them anyway..."
Then this update came...
"Our pediatrician's office called us back and said basically they didn't need to see him and that what he has isn't the measles, but a "reaction" to the measles. What the Physician's Assistant told me was this: He gets the fever, diarrhea, runny nose, cough & rash exactly like those who have the "real" measles. But it's not the measles. Apparently the difference is the level of something in his blood such that he is (supposedly) not contagious nor do we need to worry about the complications that make the measles so scary (blindness, death. . .). The difference is obviously academic to my poor son but allows me to now leave the house w/out worrying about starting a Measles Outbreak of 2007 and causing birth defects in my neighbor's unborn baby. I still have my doubts and remain skeptical as to what kind of research has been honestly conducted regarding the difference b/twn "real" measles and the "reaction". I wonder if anyone out there has an opinion on why this case is called a "reaction". Re: It seems to play better to the public and allay fears to call something like this a "reaction" rather than the "real" measles."
As I searched all over the Internet looking for a description of this so-called measles reaction, I found nothing. In fact, I found nothing that even listed a measles-like reaction as a possible side effect of receiving the MMR vaccine. Has anyone else ever heard of this reaction? What is the difference between real measles and a measles-like reaction? It seems a bit fishy to me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I'm sorry to hear your son had a reaction from the mmr...I would also like to add that there is no logic or proof that any disease contracted by someone who has been vaccinated against that disease would be milder, think about it, how would a person know since they already had a shot?
I am a parent of a child who developed autism after his vaccinations, my boy developed typically until 2. Praise God that He led us to natural biomedical treatments that have improved his life greatly. We have since had 2 more children and are expecting our 4th in Nov. We will never be vaccinated again. Our other 2 children have been and are healthier than their same aged counterparts, and have never needed an antibiotic, like their brother, and others. Remember, Doctors mean well, but they are not toxicologists. Also, vitamin a is a treatment for measles, and overdosing on vit. a would be from using SYNTHETIC form of vitamin A..not a natural form such as Cod liver oil, it is, in fact, very hard to overdose on a natural source. I am also aquainted with 2 families whose children suffered neurological damage from the Dtap...please trust your instincts, that's why God gave them, I wish I had listened to mine. God made YOU the protector of your child, not the Doctor. And while, many children may not show any signs of harm now, how will you ever know that a disease that they MIGHT get later in life is NOT from a vaccine? There are no long term studies on what injecting foreign (animal) dna into the human bloodstream has done or will do. I could go on and on, it has been my burden to forewarn every new parent. I'll say a prayer for your little one!!
I applaud you for waiting to have your children vaccinated. As someone who is also freaked out by vaccines and generally skeptical of them I know for sure that I will wait until my child is at least 2 years old, if ever, before having any vaccines administered to him.
Please be sure to report this reaction to the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System (http://vaers.hhs.gov/) or make sure that your doctor does it. It is really his responsibility but so many reactions to vaccines go unreported. Also, you can visit www.909shot.com for information about vaccination from the National Vaccine Information Center. I am so sorry to hear that your children have suffered from vaccination even if the reactions have been generally mild. Thank you for sharing your story.
Post a Comment