Several years ago House had an episode where a mother came in with a sick baby and she told Dr. House that she didn't get the baby vaccinated because vaccines were a scam by big pharma to make money. I loved House's response: You know another really good business? Teeny tiny baby coffins. You can get them in frog green or fire engine red. Really. The antibodies in yummy mummy only protect the kid for 6 months, which is why these companies think they can gouge you. They think that you'll spend whatever they ask to keep your kid alive. Want to change things? Prove them wrong. A few hundred parents like you decide they'd rather let their kid die then cough up 40 bucks for a vaccination, believe me, prices will drop REALLY fast.

I saw her book the other day at Barnes and Noble, something like "Mother Warriors". Her big stupid face on the cover. I found myself filled with rage. The deaths of all those infants from something as stupid as whooping cough is partially on her head.

What's sickening is that people like her will never pay any price for what they've caused. She'll still be famous and rich and listened to, but the children that died will still be dead.

People have to stop listening to these celebrities, they are not scientists, and they don't know what they are talking about, and most of the time they are hypocrites (I'm looking at you Al Gore, who has a carbon outhpu in one day greater than mine in a year, but you still want ME to have to turn off my AC and die in the August heat in this desert while you private jet around the world. Tool).

I am not anti-vaccine but I am now very careful about which vaccines get the go ahead and which ones I decline. My son had a pretty nasty reaction after the DPT vax when he was young. Nasty like a fever high enough to send him to the hospital, dramatic swelling, soreness and unrelenting crying. Even the pediatrician agreed that my guy should not get that particular combo shot in the future.

Ther is an even bigger idiot than Jenny; her former consort Jim Carrey. This buffoon has been yakking on with great frequency about how we don't need the tetanus vaccine anymore. Nice until you read about what dying from tetanus is like.

If you haven't heard of Dr. Tenpenny a leading authority on vaccines, you should check her out:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/vaccineinfo
Btw, she DID go to med school.

Statistically, those who have been vaccinated against whooping cough are more likely to get infected than those who don't. Contrary to what most people believe or have been told, vaccination does not stimulate an immune response, it actually suppresses the immune response.

Also, the US Gov. just awarded a family $1.5 million in the first vaccine injury case, virtually admitting that vaccination caused a girl's autism. For the Gov. to find in her favour, the case must have been quite compelling.

I would also point out that it is illegal to sue the phama companies over vaccine injury. They have a "victim's compensation fund" where they will award up to $250,000 in certain cases where it proves likely that the vaccine killed or injured a child. Why do the pharmaceutical companies need this kind of protection from the FDA? Have any of you ever even asked what is in the vaccines?

According to these folks, Dr. Tenpenny is an osteopath who sells homeopathic medicines on her web site. While I didn't see anything on my brief look at her retail page that screamed "homeopathic," I did notice that descriptions of her Neurotransmitter Supplements (?) all contained the obligatory "These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."

By the way, Dr. Tenpenny's Facebook page, which Kim linked to in her comment above, already mentions this blog post. Miss Alkon, you're such a disser!

Kim,
BTW - Tenpenny did NOT go to medical school! According to her website she has a BA, and attended an Osteopathic medical centre (no mention of a degree on her CV) - that means her business is alternative medicine so of course she is against real science.

To learn more about homeopathy check out DR. Ben Goldacre's (an actual MD) website badscience and read his many articles about homeopaths.

Re: the court case..."The vaccinations received significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder," the concession says, "which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of ASD." In other words the child had a preexisting condition. Who knows why there was a settlement but it happened a couple of years ago and there has not been a slew of other cases settled so apparently even the courts do not believe there is a link.

There has never been a study showing a link between vaccines and autism. Ask a real doctor who specializes in autism research (I did) and they will tell you autism is genetic. Ask an honest parent of a child with autism (I did) and they will tell you their baby displayed symptoms from birth.

Anyone who does not vaccinate their children puts others at risk. Those children should NOT be allowed in public school. One unvaccinated child can kill people with legitimate reasons for not being vaccinated or people undergoing chemotherapy and therefore have no working immune system.

My coworker has never looked upon the faces of her children - she lost her sight because of the measles. She hates anti-vaccers and who can blame her.

re: whooping cough (Kim, where did you get your figures please share)
from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/151443.php New research from the US suggests that children whose parents won't let them be vaccinated are 23 times more likely to get whooping cough compared to children who are fully immunized.
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/diseases-maladies/cough-toux-eng.php
Whooping cough is the most frequently reported, vaccine preventable disease in Canada.

Kim is an excellent example of the nonsense "facts" these idiots spew out. I doubt that was your intent, Kim, but thank you.

And Amy, for all your tirades against kids on planes, you care about what counts, so thank you for helping spread the (actual facts) word!

"autism (I did) and they will tell you their baby displayed symptoms from birth"

Ingrid is right, I've been following autism since I was 14. There is an interesting computer program that has been developed that can tell from a baby's BABBLE whether they are autistic or not. Apparently there are patterns since birth that can be picked up. SINCE birth. Good luck blaming it on vaccines, accept it its in your imperfect genes.

And why is it so hard for people to accept they aint got perfect genes anyways.

Kim, this is tantamount to claiming that 2+2=5. It doesn't pass the giggle test. Are you aware of the history of vaccine development? Have you ever heard of smallpox?

Our grandson has a very severe form of autism-like disability. It's caused by a genetic defect that makes it impossible for the body to produce a protein that is needed by nerve cells. My wife had suspicions within days of his birth that there was something wrong with him.

Fink-Nottle:
"You know another really good business?..."

like

Right Ho, Fink-Nottle.

I understand the science argument, but I still have reasons to doubt the totality of "everyone must vaccinate" to save the herd. I think there is room for individual cases to not vaccinate. Of course, there are actions the parents must take to compensate for that (ie, not going to a location where a given disease is endemic, breastfeeding).

I wonder who those kids were. Where they south of the border migrants? Maybe this outbreak is more about an outbreak in Mexico than California. (Although here you could argue California is Mexico...) Were the parents affluent and selfish taking their kids to bars because the parents needed a break? Were they Christian Scientists? Were they Jenny McCarthy-ites? As per the article, at least one of the kids had been vaccinated. And the vaccine isn't given to kids that young anyway. The parents were taking those infants to places with an active virus. That sounds like it may be a parenting issue.

Also, vaccines are not always effective, and on any given year a particular strain might be more virulent than another. It's unreasonable to expect this country to be 100% free from any communicable disease.

There are simply too many details in this case that the OCReg article doesn't provide. I know plenty of people who weren't vaccinated and who had good parents who kept their kids away from diseases. But I also know a few kids in California who had pertussis. One of those kids lived in what I considered to be a disease pit. I don't know what happened to that family, they moved away before the child go better.

Lauren - "Herd immunity" is conferred on groups when the number of immune people reaches a certain level. It is not necessary for all members to be immune to confer "herd immunity". There are of course going to be certain people (who may or may not be identifiable ahead of time), who probably should not receive vaccinations because they will react badly to them.

That said, for a large number of people to decide NOT to have vaccinations defeats the "herd immunity" effect. Thus, as many people as possible SHOULD vaccinate their children, simply to protect them against those who don't.

Wayne- I totally agree that herd immunity is good in general. I think I was responding more to Amy's tone towards anti-vax folks, whether followers of Jenny McCarthy or not. It seemed to me to be approaching vitriol, if not in this post than maybe it was another one on the same topic. So I spoke up and shared some of what I've witnessed. Truthfully, I don't know much about Jenny McCarthy or her agenda and I haven't cared to learn more because I haven't found her interesting. But I took this topic somewhat personally because I haven't vaccinated my child. I'm not super anti-vax, though, and I rarely mention to people at all, unless they ask.

For the record, I don't think Amy is blogging with vitriol, not at all. Passion, yes, but not malice. My comment on this topic (as other comments I've made) are for me to add a voice to the conversation. It not only helps me be a better writer and communicator, I get to hear new perspectives on my point of view.

And why did you not vaccinate your child?

"I think there is room for individual cases to not vaccinate. "

Absolutely right. Those of us who can, should, so that those who can't because of allergies, or depressed immune response, or other, can still be reasonably safe. It's when people who could vaccinate, don't, in large numbers, that we get problems.

With infants that young, the issue is adults and older sibs not being vac'd. They didn't let me leave the hospital with #4 till I got a booster.

A fellow twin mom I know had a daughter allergic to eggs, so she can't get the flu vac. She got the flu 4 times year before last. Nearly killed her. Even with tamiflu. How? Kids going to school, with the flu, because they hadn't gotten THEIR flu shots. Selfish.

Short story for my anti-vax stance: They make me feel bad.

Long story: My daughter comes from at least three generations of highly sensitive, allergy prone individuals. We have weak guts and defective livers. We can't tolerate stimulants to our system, although we have not received an official autoimmune diagnosis. Our symptoms fall within the range of "minor" side effects, so really we don't have a "good" reason to avoid them.

Although I appreciate modern medicine, I'm a little skeptical of the dogmatic approach of man subduing nature irrespective of the consequences or side effects. For vaccines, that means I may end up getting her the dtp or mmr vaccines in the next few years, but I will certainly avoid Guardasil, Hep B, and Varicella. I feel the latter 3 vaccines are ineffective, useless, or harmful.

Uh, I didn't get the pertussis vaccine because I'm allergic to a certain component. Guess what wonderful disease I got at age 7?

Guess what happened after that? My little sister was born, and almost immediately caught the disease from myself and my mother, who hadn't had a booster. And if my father hadn't known CPR (and been home) one particular day when my then-three-week-old sister started coughing and choking, she wouldn't be here.

Yeah, sure. Vaccines are teh ebil!!! (Did I mention that I went and got a polio shot as an adult to protect against this anti-vax lunacy that's bringing back such lovely diseases that were, until recently, almost completely eliminated?)