Wednesday, November 29, 2017

My Concerns With Vaccines

One of the reasons why I chose to get a Health Science degree was to overcome my fear of doctors and modern medicine. All of us at some point in our lives are prone to be dogmatic in our thinking, I was no exception. I had the tendency to say things in a tone that sent the message that no one else's opinions mattered and neither did scientific evidence. I acknowledge that I still today have blind spots and I hope I will never stop confronting them and I continue to learn.

I knew my narrative of doctors and modern medicine needed to be tweaked. I was scared of them, but I also wanted to have the best of both worlds--the quirky witch doctor tinctures to promote longevity and also the modern advances of science that help prevent diseases and save lives.💪

Growing up, I was anti-vaccines. When I was 21 I decided to be a missionary for my church and was required to get vaccinated. Up until that time I had never had a shot. After receiving my shots I thought I was going to get sick maybe even die--I didn't. 💀

Vaccines can be spooky.👻 John Oliver describes them as scary "needles with science juice."😨

I think this is a topic that needs kindness, understanding and gentleness from both sides. Whether you are a parent talking to another parent, a doctor talking to a parent or a parent talking to a doctor, we should all attempt to convey our concerns (or disagreements) in a direct, respectful and caring way.

I am going to attempt to address each fear and valid concern I had with vaccines and I how eventually was able to make an educated decision. Studying health science did cause me to rethink how I viewed vaccines. But my motivation to know more about vaccines increased when I became pregnant. I never planned on vaccinating my kid until I had one. It was much easier to disregard vaccines when I was childless, but things change when you become a parent.👶

Concern #1: Ingredients
  • The mercury that is used in most vaccines is different from the kind of mercury that is found in some types of fish and the environment. 
  • Methlymercury is found in the environment and in some types of fish and can be very toxic to people. It is not in any vaccines and never has been. It takes an average of 70 days to be excreted from the human body. It is found in the earth's crust. Because of the build-up and the slow process of eliminating this toxic mercury from the body, it puts us in the danger zone. By just living on this planet, we will be exposed to traces of methlymercury. Infants generally ingest 360 micrograms of methylmercury before they are six months old. People can be exposed to methylmercury through air, food & drink. Although it's impossible to live on earth and be methylmercury-free the EPA and FDA make efforts to inform and protect the general public from collecting toxic amounts of it in our food, buildings, products, etc.
  • Thimerosal is a preservative which contains ethylmercury. This is used to prevent bacteria growth in the vaccine. It takes the human body seven days to eliminate this type of mercury. This is less likely to be harmful to people. The amount of ethylmercury that infants receive in vaccines is finite.
    • Thimerosal was removed from vaccines routinely given to infants except for the flu vaccine (but there is also a thimerosal-free flu vaccine option). 
    • The mumps, measles & rubella (MMR), chickenpox, pneumococcal conjugate and inactivated polio vaccine never contained thimerosal. 
    • The vaccines need to be preserved and stored. Vaccines aren't perfect but scientist are working on improving them. In the future, we'll hopefully see patches instead of needles. If the patches prove effective, then we most likely won't need preservatives in the vaccines. 
  • Aluminum
    • By the time a baby is six months old, he or she will typically ingest 6,700-10,000 micrograms of aluminum in breast milk or 116,600 micrograms of aluminum from infant formula. 
    • From birth to six months old, a vaccinated infant ingests 4,400 micrograms of aluminum from vaccines.  
    • So compared to the amount of aluminum an infant gets when they ingest breast milk or formula, the amount of aluminum in vaccines is pretty low. 
  • Living on earth is far more toxic than the ingredients we receive from vaccines. 
Concern: #2: Vaccines cause autism
  • People have claimed that the MMR vaccine causes autism due to the mercury content, but as you just read, the MMR vaccine never contained ethylmercury. 
  • In 1998 an ex-Doctor by the name of Andrew Wakefield conducted a study on 12 kids. 12 is an extremely small sample size and is not reliable. The smaller amount of participants means your margin of error will be bigger. Wakefield's study "found" that the MMR vaccine caused children to have autism. His findings were questioned when other researchers could not reproduce his results. Later they found out that Wakefield had not disclosed how he was being paid to do this study by lawyers who wanted to sue the vaccine manufactures. After his study was scrutinized they found out how he fudged numbers in his data and acted unethically. Because of the seriousness of his actions, he lost his license and is no longer a doctor. 
  • There is a plethora of studies that show that vaccines do not cause autism. But sometimes we still miss this point because we're not used to how Scientists talk. Science and English are two very different languages. John Oliver points out how when scientists say there is no evidence that shows there is a link between autism and vaccines, what they mean in plain English is they are as positive as someone can be that there is no link between autism and vaccines. 
Correlation and Causation are different
Concern #3: Vaccines are made from aborted babies
  • Right to Life of Michigan, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating people on right to life issues. They teach the following concerning vaccines,  
  • Jack Willke, M.D.  former National Right to Life Committee President also agrees that vaccine use is morally acceptable. 
  • Some of the current vaccines were made from two main human cell strains that originally came from two abortions in the 1960's. The purpose of these two abortions were not performed to be used for vaccine development. 
  • The law allowed this to happen in the 60's, but currently federal law is very specific concerning fetal tissue donations. Jay L. Wile, who is a Christian and also has a PhD in Nuclear Chemistry explains the current law surrounding abortions, "The law does not allow for an abortion to be performed for the purpose of donating tissue, and the law even explicitly states that the abortion procedure cannot be changed in order to collect the tissue." Dr. Wile continues, "Anti-vaccination advocates play on a person's proper moral indignation about abortion, claiming that if a person gets vaccinated, he or she is supporting the abortion industry. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Whether or not you get vaccinated, the same number of abortions will be performed, as abortions are not necessary to make new vaccines."
  •  The official position on vaccines according to the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) is the following: "One is morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion. The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine. This is especially important for parents who have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them." Along with this, the NCBC points out that, "Descendant cells are the medium in which vaccines are prepared. The cell lines under consideration were begun using cells taken from one or more fetuses aborted almost 40 years ago [now 58 years ago]. Since that time the cell lines have grown independently. It is important to note that descendant cells are not the cells of the aborted child. They never, themselves, formed a part of the victim's body."
Concern #4: There are too many vaccines given at once to infants
  • As you read above in the Ingredients section, living on this planet is far more toxic than receiving vaccines. 
  • Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (an environmental attorney), Dr. Bob Sears (author and medical doctor) and others will say things like, "I'm not anti-vaccines, but..." They are concerned about giving infants and toddlers too many shots at once. I was too. This is a valid concern. 
  • Kennedy has advocated about the dangers of mercury and other ingredients in vaccines. To the best of my knowledge, I don't believe they are dangerous.    
  • Dr. Bob Sears created the alternative & selective vaccine schedule to appease parents' concerns. He has openly acknowledged that his schedule is not based on empirical evidence. So far there is no evidence showing that spacing shots out is beneficial. In fact, children are at risk of getting a preventable disease when spacing out or delaying vaccines.
  • The March 2, 2015 edition of New York Times reported how 93% of doctors stated that in any given month, parents are asking them to do the alternative vaccine schedule. 
  • Because Dr. Bob's alternative & selective vaccine schedules have gained popularity, parents are flirting with his idea. These schedules are attractive because it soothes the fear of getting too many vaccines too early (valid concern) or it helps people feel justified for skipping certain vaccines altogether. 
  • Dr. Bob's Selective Vaccine Schedule: Parents who choose this schedule will have children who may not receive the mumps, rubella, measles, flu, polio, hepatitis A, varicella (chickenpox) or a booster dosage of the pertussis vaccine.  
  • Dr. Bob's Alternative Vaccine Schedule: Parents who choose this schedule will have kids that: Won't have the flu shot until they are 5 years old, won't have the Hepatitis B shot until they are 2.5 years old and won't get the measles vaccine until they are 3 years old. In addition to this, the kids will have increased office visits to the doctor (ages 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 18 and 21.). These kids will most likely have decreased immunity and will have an increased risk of being susceptible to diseases.   
Concern #5: It's not hurting anyone else if I don't vaccinate my kids. Why is the government forcing me to vaccinate my kids?
If the above video clip is not working, here is the link. 
  • I have never been forced to vaccinate my kid. No one is to my knowledge. But if you want your kids in daycare or school, etc. then the institutions are justified in requiring kids to be vaccinated so they don't put the other kids at risk. 
  • Traveling is another risk because that is how diseases are spread.
  • Babies, elderly, kids with cancer, etc., cannot get vaccinated and so they depend on those who have been vaccinated. 
Concern #6: How does a vaccine work?

Final thoughts
Today LDS Charities posted an article on Facebook from this month's National Geographic Edition entitled, Here's Why Vaccines Are So Crucial. The very first line in this article points out,

"If children in poor countries got the shots that rich countries take for granted, hundreds of thousands of young lives could be saved."

This is where I'll lose most of you (if I haven't already), but the truth is that because we have this privilege in America we tend to be nitpicky about things rather than being grateful. Yes, we have every reason to question and learn and be nervous about things that are unfamiliar and scary. It's our job as parents and doctor's to think critically with each decision. But I wonder what would happen if we learned about what it's like for a child to live in Uganda, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc. Maybe we would realize how privileged we are. 

 Our ability to prevent diseases is a blessing and a privilege. Not every child will as lucky as our children are. Are the vaccines perfect? Not at all. Are they helpful for now until we come up with something better? I think so.  

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