I just went through all of this last week. I have a kindergartener this year and I was mystified by how many vaccines they are supposed to have by the age of 5. Now, I have been taking her to get her shots on a regular basis, but I'm a young mother and thought this was best. I mean, the doctors really didn't even act like there was another option. You walk into the office and they immediately want to pull out the needles. No one, not the doctors, nurses, daycare workers, school nurses, tells you that you have the option of not immunizing. Honestly, any good doctor would sit down with a new mother and explain the options. The pros and cons of immunizing versus not immunizing. Unfortunately, the doctors would lose a lot of money if people decided to stop immunizing their childern.
I don't have the choice to tell someone to or not to do something, but I have informed several people, patients and practitioners, that immunizations are not REQUIRED for public education. You would be suprised to know there are young practitioners out there who had no idea.
I am not against vaccines, but I am not supportive of the number of vaccines given at one time. I have to do what I am told to do...the doctor is the one who signs my check and most parents find it inconvenient to make multiple trips into town for shots, but if I ever have a child - they will be vaccinated, but they aren't going to receive the number of shots sometimes necessary all in one visit. It breaks my heart to see it and do it.
I am also not supportive of newly developed vaccines being so highly recommended, so quickly - especially in the case of "high risk" populations....Swine Flu for example. This is a vaccine they are saying will be available, at least in this area, by October. When was the initial outbreak...March-ish? That's a 6 month development period. No way in hell do I believe it is something that needs to be administered to pregnant women, young kids - particularly the ones already immunocompromised, elderly, etc. Just read something the other day saying the outbreak has lasted longer than expected....which to me means "yeah, it is still around and we didn't expect it to be around this long...but we are still working on a vaccine for it, even though we don't know how much longer it will be a threat"
WTH?
