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Stand by for a load of mindless anti vaccine drivel and pseudo science that is headed your way.

(I LOVE your about page, and don't worry about missing ND, I drove through it. There's a Wal-Mart in Fargo and that's about it. Nice people though.)

Second, I hope you will allow for some of us who are neither unabashedly pro-vaccination nor anti. We take each type of vaccine on a case-by-case basis.

First, there is no need to get nine vaccines in one sitting. We prefer to spread it out.

Second, with a stay at home mom (no day care), there is no urgency in getting all of the vaccines before age two. Again, we like to spread it out.

Third, we do not want to be the first on the block to try one. The first version of the Hepatitis B vaccine had real serious problems and had to be pulled from the market. The HPV vaccine may be even worse. The Lyme Disease vaccine has a bad track record of effectiveness, and sometimes causes side-effects disproportionate to its usefulness.

Fourth, if the resulting disease is only very rarely serious or if the protection of the vaccine wears off after a while, we'd rather just get the disease and be truly immune. The custom of purpose acquiring chicken pox when very young and being quarantined works well (except for the most sickly children, who may well have problems with the vaccine). There is a real problem with the first generation of chicken pox vaccine receivers acquiring it in college, when it is more serious. On the other hand, tetanus shots have a good track record, and we get ours along with boosters as needed, as we live in the country and are at somewhat higher risk.

Fifth, we prefer variations of the vaccine that have NO (as in en-oh) chance of spawning the disease. Only a few years ago the ONLY cases of polio in the U.S. were caused by the live cell polio vaccine. The U.S. has since followed most of the rest of the world and now goes with the more expensive and somewhat less effective dead cell version.

Sixth, all things being equal, we would rather get a vaccine that where the original human donor was not purposely aborted for purposes of the vaccine. This is not an absolute requirement.

We may have other considerations, but they are not mindless, and it is not pseudo-science. We think of it as prudence.