Image via Wikipedia
This article posted at Sott.net gives an alternative view to the concerns of vaccinations being potentially dangerous. There is nothing clearcut in this issue, there is evidence supporting both sides of the argument. What is clear is that some aspects of some vaccines are definitely cause for concern. Similarly some aspects of choosing not to vaccinate involve increase health risks.
It is a great pity that the resolving of this dilemma is being left to the public, because the medical fraternity mostly have some ‘barrow to push’.
This whooping cough epidemic is currently very localised to areas around Sydney.
Author: Jane Hansen The Sunday Telegraph
“Doctors have warned parents to keep newborn babies at home to protect them from a whooping cough epidemic triggered by the “chardonnay set and alternatives”.
There have been 4580 cases of whooping cough so far this year, new data from NSW Health reveals.
Northern Sydney and South Eastern Sydney have led the way in this year’s resurgent epidemic, recording the highest incidence of whooping cough, with 669 and 522 cases respectively. The Illawarra region was next highest followed by Western Sydney and Southern Sydney.
National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance deputy director Dr Rob Menzies said it was unsurprising which suburbs had the highest rates of infection.
“It’s a phenomenon where highly educated people feel they need to do their own research on what is best for their child and there is scepticism of official government policy,” he said.
“But a lot of people are likely to find wacky anti-vaccination sites where a lot of the information is distorted. It is not helping that people opt out of vaccination.
“It puts their children at risk and it puts other people’s children at risk.”
The epidemic has infected one in five children at a school near Lismore, prompting doctors to warn parents to cocoon newborns to minimise the risk.
“With vaccination rates so low in this area we say to the mothers of newborns, do not take them out in the community,” local paediatrician Dr Chris Ingall said.
“We’re appalled at how many kids are getting whooping cough because the chardonnay set and the alternatives don’t vaccinate their children.”
Areas with low vaccination rates had 300 per cent more cases of whooping cough between 2008 and 2010, according to figures from NSW Health.
The national average of conscientious objectors to vaccinations is 1.1 per cent but, in Mullumbimby, 21 per cent are conscientious objectors, as are 16 per cent in Byron Bay, meaning that as many as one in five families have children who are unvaccinated.
The epidemic of 2008-09, which affected 12,000 people and claimed the life of four-week-old Dana McCaffery from Tweed Shire, began on the north coast and spread to affluent Sydney suburbs such as Bondi, Vaucluse, Coogee and Manly, where up to 8 per cent of children are not vaccinated.
Dana McCaffery’s parents Toni and David now have baby Sarah, 14 weeks, who they are cocooning, until she has all three shots to cover her against the epidemic.
“We know it is out there and rather than it be a silent predator, we are not going out and not working,” Mrs McCaffery said.
Her husband is a schoolteacher at St Joseph’s Primary School in Alstonville which is in the grip of a whooping cough epidemic.
Doctors say adults, whose shots have worn off, can pass on the disease to infants.
“We have tried to make some sort of difference ourselves, when we were standing over our daughter’s grave and thought people need to know about this, but still only 18 per cent of adults are vaccinated,” Mr McCaffery said.
Comment: Parents would be wise to consider the risks of vaccines and to do their own research. There is an ongoing controversy about the dangers and efficacy of vaccines. The following quote is from from Roger R. Gervais, D.C., N.D., a naturopathic physician. The full article may be found
here.
Finally, there is understandable concern among public health officials and parents alike as to what would happen without the vaccines. In the case of at least one (the Pertussis vaccine), the vaccine, which is known or suspected of causing infantile encephalitis and sudden infant death syndrome, would appear to be worse than the disease. It has also been implicated in bacterial infections including meningitis.
Many years ago, Sweden banned the Pertussis vaccine because of these dangers. For similar reasons, Japan delays the vaccine until after two years of age, whereas in North America, it is usually administered at two months of age. Both Sweden and Japan are credited with having the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. This fact would tend to discredit claims that the Pertussis vaccine is necessary to prevent an escalation of infant mortality in North America.
