“I am the 70s child of a health nut. I wasn’t vaccinated”

Mamamia ^ | 01/03/2014 | Amy Parker

[MD Expat in PA]

I was brought up on an incredibly healthy diet: no sugar till I was one, breastfed for over a year, organic homegrown vegetables, raw milk, no MSG, no additives, no aspartame. My mother used homeopathy, aromatherapy, osteopathy, we took daily supplements of vitamin C, echinacea, cod liver oil.

I had an outdoor lifestyle; I grew up next to a farm, walked everywhere, did sports and danced twice a week, drank plenty of water. I wasn’t even allowed pop; even my fresh juice was watered down to protect my teeth, and I would’ve killed for white, shop-bought bread in my lunch box once in a while and biscuits instead of fruit like all the other kids.

We only ate (organic local) meat maybe once or twice a week and my mother and father cooked everything from scratch – I have yet to taste a Findus crispy pancake and oven chips were reserved for those nights when mum and dad had friends over and we got a “treat.”

As healthy as my lifestyle seemed, I contracted measles, mumps, rubella, a type of viral meningitis, scarlatina, whooping cough, yearly tonsillitis, and chickenpox, some of which are vaccine preventable. In my twenties I got precancerous HPV and spent 6 months of my life wondering how I was going to tell my two children under the age of 7 that mummy might have cancer before it was safely removed.

So having the “natural immunity sterilised out of us” just doesn’t cut it for me. How could I, with my idyllic childhood and my amazing health food, get so freaking ill all the time?

[Auntie Mame]

I smell a wiff of Bovine Scat.

I smell it also. My child was basically unvaccinated (only had two shots when she was about 3 and 4 months of age, got really sick both times and I said enough of that), was fed healthy food, no sugar until she was at least three, breast fed until the age of one, and had no childhood maladies, not even colds or flu.

But the new god, materia medica, will set us free.

[porter_knorr]

Yes, but the only way polio is transmitted at all is because of the oral vax that is used in other countries.

[porter_knorr]

or if they will take the liability for a child becoming ill after vaccinations.

[riri]

Same here. However, my throat is still my achilles. Whenever I get over tired or run down, it is a sore throat for me. Though, I have not taken an antibiotic for my throat/illness in my entire adult life. I have never taken my kids in for strep tests or antibiotics either.

[porter_knorr]

it’s still happening.

http://www.who.int/features/qa/64/en/

[Black Agnes]

10+ years ago I didn’t know any non vaxing MD’s. I know 5 of them now. One of them is a pedi specialist. My own internist didn’t follow ‘the schedule’ with his own kids. They haven’t received the varicella vaccine although they had chickenpox with no ill effects. His big concern was the waning immunity allowing them to contract cpox as adults and the possibility of one of his daughters doing so while pregnant.

[mountainbunny]

My little brother had polio, but it wasn’t serious, maybe it was lessened because of the vaccine, but I don’t remember the timeline.

My husband's uncle had it. Crippled him.

Still has it.

It turns out that polio isn't a one-time thing - for many, it is a lifetime of illness. Called "post polio syndrome", I think. A lifetime of pain and yet more crippling.

[Texicanus]

As adults, my children are free to make their own choice regarding whether to vaccinate or not. They know our bias against vaccination, but they are now responsible for themselves and their children.

Maybe we were lucky or maybe we were wise. All are healthy and that is the main thing. I would never tell someone else what we did as parents was right for them.

[radiohead]

My sister and I had scarlet fever back in the late 50’s. We were quarantined as well; folks would drop food off at the door and run back to their cars. You don’t hear of people getting it today.

I had a classmate whose mother was in an iron lung. They wheeled her in for her daughter’s first communion and graduation (Catholic grade school). Thank God we have medicines that make it so that people don’t have to live in an iron lung.

[conservative cat]

I had the same. Kid in the 70’s and 80’s with chronic tonsilitis. Hit 18 and ended up with an abscess. The doctor gave us his home number in case it worsened over the weekend. The ENT who took them out said they disintegrated on removal, and he had never seen worse.

[Politicalmom]

My nephew is severely developmentally disabled from a seizure disorder caused by his DPT shots. My son had a severe reaction, high-pitched screaming for hours on end and his leg swelled up so much he couldn’t walk. That was the last shot for any of my children, except for tetanus shots.

I had an ER doctor congratulate me when I told him I wouldn’t allow my children to have a DPT shot. I have always insisted they must have a straight Tetanus shot when they have injured themselves.

[JoeProBono]

National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

On October 1, 1988, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-660) created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). The VICP was established to ensure an adequate supply of vaccines, stabilize vaccine costs, and establish and maintain an accessible and efficient forum for individuals found to be injured by certain vaccines. The VICP is a no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system for resolving vaccine injury claims that provides compensation to people found to be injured by certain vaccines. The U. S. Court of Federal Claims decides who will be paid. Three Federal government offices have a role in the VICP:

http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/index.html

[onona]

Adelle Davis ! Let's eat right to keep fit !!

I remember Tiger's Milk....ewww

[itssme]

When my mother was a young child, sometime during 1917-1919, when there were 11 children in the family and no money to see a doctor, my mom and her brother contracted polio. My old world remedy grandparents would heat bricks in the oven and then wrap each of the bricks up in flannel and pack them on top and along side the legs of my mom and her brother, as they lay in bed. It did work well for my mom, though her brother was bed ridden for a year. My dear Slovak grandmother was known in the neighborhood as the lady with the healing hands. Stories my mother told me...

[exDemMom]

As adults, my children are free to make their own choice regarding whether to vaccinate or not. They know our bias against vaccination, but they are now responsible for themselves and their children. Maybe we were lucky or maybe we were wise. All are healthy and that is the main thing. I would never tell someone else what we did as parents was right for them.

How lucky for you that the enough of the rest of the population is vaccinated that you and your kids have never been exposed to these killer diseases. How selfish of you to refuse vaccines and endanger babies and people with suppressed immune systems who do not respond to vaccines, while taking advantage of the herd immunity created by people who *are* responsible enough to vaccinate.

I have read anti-vaxxers complaining that other mothers wouldn't allow children of anti-vaxxers to play with their unvaccinated kids. The number of pediatricians refusing to see unvaccinated children is growing. Wonderful! I have no sympathy for people who would rather see kids die or become permanently disabled because of preventable disease than fork out a few bucks to get their kid a little shot.

[Mears]

Scary stuff-——and I thought I kept up on things.

Thank heaven for FR.

.

[Yorlik803]

I was a volunteer for Plague vaccine. Got like 5 shots and now fully immunized against plague with no lasting side effects other than a third nipple.
did I mention I got paid 600 dollars. and a free nipple. Sweettttttttttttttt.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I was a child during the POLIO EPIDEMIC of 1955. I am in favor of vaccinations!

Too bad they didn’t have vaccinations back then for all the children’s diseases I caught over the years.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

****...penicillin-resistant quinsy at 21–you know that old fashioned disease that killed Queen Elizabeth I and which was almost wiped out through use of antibiotics).****

I had that. It also killed George Washington. Only a tonsillectomy cured it.

For those who are not sure what it is, it is when you start having abscesses behind your tonsils, the inflaimation traveling up the ear canal to the ear. Your tonsil will swell and fill half your throat. The pain is terrible! You can’t eat, drink causes pain and you can’t talk.

Then the abscess will break and your mouth will be filled with the most foul puss. You WILL vomit. When done, the tonsil returns to it’s normal size, you can eat and drink. A few days later, you feel a new abscess forming and it starts all over again.

[CodeToad]

“We have the luxury of developing half-baked theories about vaccines. “

Dead on. When people are not fearful for their very lives they take everything for granted. The old saying goes: Those that fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. That, and stupidity knows no bounds.