When my sons were born six and a half years apart I made decisions. The second time was easier because I had had a baby before and knew the choices I had made and I made the same again, including having my children vaccinated, which is not done all at once or in the hospital as some people believe.
My older son had a bad reaction to the pertussis vaccine, so I decided not to have my second son get that one, since you can get the DT, dyptheria, tenitinus, without it, the DPT. I did not think twice about it.
When my younger son David was fourteen he came down with a really bad cough that would not clear up. He also has asthma which made it even worse. We went to the doctor a few times. He was not getting better. They took blood and his white blood cell count was over 50,000, so the doctor hospitalized him. They found fluid near his heart. He was tested for everything, TB, cancer, leukemia. He was in a room where you had to wear a max. If I was in there without a max, the nurse said, "put your mask back on."
Finally lung fluid was analyzed and he had pertussis, whooping cough, which is extremely rare. It was like an episode of House.
The health department contacted us at the hospital wanting to know everyone who he had been in contact with so they could bring them free antibiotics. My other son and I had to take them too.
Back home I looked over his vaccination records, because I did not remember that I had chosen not to have that vaccine for him.
Sure enough I had not. It said DT.
Later I went to see a doctor about some small issue of my own and mentioned that my son had not so long ago had whooping cough. He asked me who my son's doctor was and I told him. He said, "Oh, I had dinner with him recently and he told me he had a patient with whooping cough." It made doctor's dinner conversation, because it is so rare.
The reason these diseases are so rare and small pox is gone, and we do not see polio, etc. or German measles which can cause birth defects if the mother is effected, is because we have vaccines.
I realize there is some reason to believe that the pertussis vaccine could cause autism. I believe this is highly possible in some cases, but having had my son so sick with whooping cough, it would have been better had he had the vaccine. The disease also scars the lungs, which is not good. Thank God Medicaid for children payed for all this, which was 2003. I hope the Republicans do not destroy health care for poor children. That would be a tragedy.
Well, that is my story and I have my opinions which remain firm from experience and intuition. You can make whatever choice you want for your kids, but as far as I am concerned, not vaccinating is endangering other children who are too young to be vaccinated yet, for example with the measles vaccine. Make an educated decision, not one based on popular fads and new age doctrine.
The picture above shows me with my son in the winter of 2010, and as you can see, he is a big, strong, healthy, handsome man now.
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