The Vaccine Debate is NOT Black and White

This is one debate I'm getting a little tired of. Along with breastfeeding/formula feeding, vaginal/cesarean birth, homeschool/public school, stay at home/work, it's become quite the top of dissent among mothers. The idea here is that there is a right and wrong answer. Now, what that is depends on who you talk to, of course. But there are definitely two sides: you either do or you don't.

There's this idea that those who don't are selfish parents who not only do not care about their children but also do not care about the children in their community. Their unvaccinated children will bring about the very diseases that doctors worked so hard to eradicate. These children should stay at home, never play outside, never go to school until their parents get their heads on straight and do the right thing for the whole community.

There's also this idea that by vaccinating your children, you are poisoning them, chancing that they will have a horrendous reaction, chancing autism which has to be the worst thing to strike a child outside of death.

Both beliefs, I think, are a little crazy. Sadly, I've been dealing more and more with the first one since joining a number of secular/non-theist type groups. I think science is great. I totally believe in the whole idea of finding evidence for everything out there, especially for the various religious beliefs. HOWEVER, I also believe that there is more than one side to the story.

Yes, a number of diseases have been decreased, some even totally eliminated (like small pox). However, at the same time, we're seeing an increase in auto-immune diseases. Is the one related to the other? Were diseases decreased solely through vaccinations? What part does changes in sanitation/water/food have? What part does better access to food and medication have? At the same time that many of these vaccines came about, other medications arrived too including antibiotics. We learned, in general, what caused diseases and how to prevent them and stop/slow their spread. We learned about handwashing and good hygiene. We cannot simply ignore the part these things played in the decline of diseases because they are just as important! In fact, it's because some of these things are not in place that I think vaccines are still needed in many parts of the world. It is due to these other things that vaccines ARE still needed.

However, to condemn parents for deciding NOT to vaccinate, to go so far as to say that parents are SELFISH for not choosing a certain medical treatment, for looking at both sides of the vaccine issue, I think that goes too far. Deciding whether or not to vaccinate is not an easy decision in some cases. In other cases, it is. For most parents here in the US and other developed countries, who have access to clean water, sanitation methods, ways to wash their hands, and access to medicines such as antibiotics, it's not a black and white decision. Both decisions do carry risks (just as there are benefits and risks to ANY medical treatment). We are not facing life and death situations on a daily basis like we did at one time (back when many children did not live past the age of 5 or even 1). Outbreaks of these diseases ARE rare and if an outbreak does occur, the diseases CAN be treated. Not to mention, if there was a wide scale outbreak, many parents probably would reconsider vaccinating and in some cases, there is even time to do so even in the middle of an outbreak. For example, you can get vaccinated for the chickenpox if you had recently been exposed to it. I'm sure it's similar for other diseases.

I'm not one to say that parents should not decide to vaccinate because it's not my decision to make. It's a decision that each family should be able to make based on their unique circumstances and their own beliefs about vaccinations. Doctors should be willing to sit down with families and have a full conversation about vaccinations including what situations puts a child more at risk for certain illnesses, potential complications from the illness as well as potential complications from the vaccination itself. Doctors should also be prepared for the fact that outbreaks CAN occur in fully vaccinated populations and should be on the lookout for symptoms of diseases children are vaccinated against both in vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Doctors should be on the lookout for reactions to vaccines as well and do everything possible to work with the parents to get to the bottom of those complications as well as make a full report on those complications instead of trying to sweep them under the rug. In other words, there should be full disclosure from everyone involved with vaccination from doctors all the way up to the CDC. Because really, without that full disclosure, without people being upfront about EVERYTHING related to vaccines and diseases, the sense of mistrust will continue and vaccinations will continue to be a hot button topic.

In the meantime, parents will continue to have to make the best decision they feel they can make based on what they know and everyone else really needs to just have and show more respect to the decisions that parents make for their children. Until that happens, there will be many more cases of groups blasting each other over this very contentious topic.

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This is another site I'm looking forward to checking out. Natalie keeps asking me to spell words for her all the time and I think she will enjoy playing games and learning spelling that way over taking spelling tests.

We took a little bit of a break but now I'm hoping to finish up the "year" by October.

Okay, I never said I was conventional but that is the plan so far. We're still using Time4Learning and I plan to continue with that until she finishes the first grade portions of math, language arts, and languages arts extension and the second grade portions of social studies and science. After that, I'm going to either look into other options or continue on with Time4Learning. I really like how everything is already set up and how easy it is for Natalie to navigate it which means she's working fairly independently. However, I'm also thinking I would like to at least add to it as well, especially in the subjects my daughter is particularly interested in, like science. I'm still trying to figure out how to get it all together though and I think eventually I will, just will take a bit of planning and a lot of organization both skills I'm not the greatest at, I admit.

And, in the meantime, I would like to also start working with Isabelle on pre-school stuff. Not much as she'll only be three but a start especially as her sister is working. I'm getting some ideas in my head too on things I can try, especially as my oldest is really into My Little Pony. I swear I spend half of the day just thinking of everything!

So, while we're doing all of this, I'm also trying to get the girls out and doing activities because this is the time of year when all of that is available. I'm trying to encourage Natalie to read as well as that's been something she hasn't been too big on doing on her own. She loves when I read to her (and unfortunately, I'm not a huge fan of reading out loud myself) but getting her to read on her own or even read to her sister is not so easy.

Next couple of weeks I'm trying to get as much in as possible then Natalie is supposed to be off for a week at summer camp. After that, I'm hoping to go full speed ahead until early September.