Vaccination/Immunization -- Why is there a problem?
 

I have a cousin who is a mother of two children and she rails against vaccinations on Facebook 24/7, 100 percent of it being simply "vaccination is bad" and doesn't let her children get vaccinated against any diseases. Initially I'm inclined to simply call her another paranoid victim of some screwed up agenda I don't know about... but I realize that I know next to nothing about the movement against the vaccination of children. Something about Mercury comes to mind, but I'm pretty much in the dark about it. I've tried to do research but everything I've read so far that opposed vaccinations were composed of a lot of distrusting opinion based on very little factual information.
I, being a reasonable guy, decided I would seek out the facts and stances on this issue before I rip her a couple new ass holes and threaten to call child services on her or something.

She doesn't even let her children eat salt, btw. And she's a Vegetarian, so she doesn't let her children eat meat either. Just letting you know the kind of person I'm talking about... The kind that takes parenting beyond parenting.

So you can see why I'm interested in the opinions on this.

That's extreme. My best friend is studying microbiology and part of the problem is we sterilize to such a point that we don't develop immunities and natural resistance in our body. Also, the side effects of some vaccinations can be scary. Though I do think, in general, both are good things. People just shouldn't get carried away to either extreme because both have their own negative consequences.

A lot of anti-vaccination people think vaccines can cause things like Downs Syndrome, but there's really no evidence to back that up. The whole thing was started by some British scientist who, if I remember correctly, has himself renounced the hypothesis.

Either no one got the memo, or there's something else fueling the fire.
Are there any actual studies on this? Neutral or otherwise?

After a bit of googling I realize I had part of that wrong. The belief is that the vaccines can cause autism not Downs syndrome. What I was right about is that it was a British doctor (Andrew Wakefield) who pretty much singlehandedly caused the hysteria. He wrote an article about it in The Lancet which I guess is the reliable source believers point to. It was revealed to contain falsified information though, and he lost his medical license.

Wow. I need to check this out, seriously. It's just weird that so many mothers (from what I hear) have a hard-on for this, even when something like what you said is apparently known information. But I guess since I didn't know about it, it's completely possible that others don't as well. I would just have assumed that when a person's own child's safety is at stake, they would want to be sure.
I get the feeling that my cousin does nothing but research (and uses that as a substitute for instinctual/common sense parenting) so I just had the feeling that there was some source I wasn't aware of.

I guess the mechanism of a vaccine does spook people a bit.

I could maybe understand if she was spooked by a very recent immunization, but the testing that they undergo before release is pretty extensive. My mother manages a clinical research company in charge of testing drugs and immunizations before they're released to the public. I'll ask her her thoughts of said parents and if their fear has any sort of rationality to it.

Another aspect of this is that a lot of people are relying on the idea that they don't need to vaccinate their children because everyone else's children are being vaccinated, thus their children are theoretically protected (there's a term for this that I can't remember for the life of me...herd immunity maybe?) The problem with this is that there are more than just a few people that have this idea, so loads of kids just aren't being vaccinated. Things like this are what lead to things like the recent Whooping Cough outbreak here in California - it's not coincidental.

That being said, I'm definitely not in favor of getting vaccinated for everything, and I do think that a lot of vaccines that have come out (especially in the last five years or so) are purely for making money by feeding off of fear. I refuse to get the H1N1 vaccine and I don't get flu shots. I do understand why people would, but it's my choice not to. I think it's dangerous to get every vaccine that's thrown at you, but it's just as dangerous not to get standard vaccinations for chicken pox, polio, MMR, etc.

I definitely agree with what Ethan said there are good and bad factors on both sides, and in general we have become too sterilized for our own good and we aren't acquiring immunizations naturally. I hope I'm not completely off the point of the thread, but working in Early Childhood Education I hear a lot about this on both sides of the arguments and feel like I have some insight.

My daughter, at 4 years old, still hasn't had any of her vaccinations and with any luck, will not ever. The many of the vaccinations given to children have mercury as a component and there has been shown a direct correlation between childhood vaccinations and autism. Of course the FDA and other agencies vehemently deny this, but the evidence is overwhelming.