I wrote about Charlotte's 12 month vaccines here. We ended up deferring her chicken pox and I wrote about struggling with that decision here. Now we are facing a whole onslaught of vaccinations..... the 18 month ones. Here is the list for 18 months:
Pneumococcal (Pc Vaccine) - contains aluminum
Diphtheria
Pertussis
Tetanus (DTaP, three vaccines in one) - contains aluminum, mercury in Tripedia brand
Polio IPV - contains animal tissue
Haemophilus Influenza Type B (HIB Vaccine) - may contain aluminum (PedVaxHIB brand)
Measles
Mumps
Rubella (MMR vaccine, three in one) - contains animal tissue, may have some serious side effects, live vaccine
(The information in italics is generalized from "The Vaccine Book" by Robert Sears. I am definitely not a vaccine expert and as science changes all the time, I could be mistaken in some of these statements. Different brands of vaccines contain different substances and are made in different ways.)
Yikes. That's all in one appointment. Of course many of the vaccines are lumped together in one needle, which is good for the babe in one way (9 needles would be insane) but not so good if she has a reaction. You would never know what caused the reaction.
It is time for me to go back to "The Vaccine Book" (by Robert Sears) and figure out which ones to request right away and which ones to defer. (Or whether to get all of them together.) Besides the Hep B at birth and the Chickenpox vaccine we have gotten all the other ones according to the recommended routine. The other thing is, she has gotten all of these vaccines at one time or another in the schedule. My main concern is that so many vaccines that contain aluminum are given in one appointment. My plan is to request that she only gets one aluminum containing vaccine at a time and defer what is possible to defer to another appointment. (Some vaccines, if they are on the second or third dose, have time limitations.) I hope to have a chat with my doctor about it and I'm really hoping they will be understanding. It is going to depend on what vaccines they put together in the needles (I heard yesterday that they only have three needles) so I can't really pick and choose in advance.
Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes! If you are interested in reading about Aluminum in vaccines, check out the mothering.com website and in particular, this article by Robert Sears.
If you are looking for specific Canadian Content on vaccinations, I have a link to a Canadian site (blogger won't let me post it for some reason).
ReplyDeleteWe delayed our Chicken Pox and my son's Dr. he had at the time would never give more then 2 needles at once. Which is what Dr. Oz reccomned too.
Good luck these decisions are hard.
I've had lots of the same concerns and have deferred quite a few of Samuel's vaccinations. The doctor I'm seeing now is great, totally understands why we've decided to put off getting some or not get them at all, and largely agrees that not much is know about some of the vaccine combinations we give. He definitely doesn't agree with the chicken pox (varicella) vaccination and when I asked him about the polio vaccine he said there was no need for concern since so few children get it these days and there's been no major outbreaks recently. It was such a relief to speak with someone in the medical field who understand my concerns and wasn't going to force me into doing something I really didn't agree with. I have lots of concerns over the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine and will likely defer that one or go with a homeopathic vaccine instead. I've been to quite a few great websites (including Dr. Sears') to read more about the medical concerns raised over immunizations. Hope you and Tim figure out what's best for you, Charlotte and baby.
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