[Bree124]

Classicdame - what about the grief-stricken faces of parents who lost their children to vaccine injury, whether it be by death or long-term neurological injury? The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program exists for a very real reason. There is no way to say whether that little three year old would have died or had catastrophic neurological damage as a result of a vaccine reaction. This isn't a clear-cut area - there are risks and benefits to both sides. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing if your child will be the fluke who will react to a vaccine, and there is no way of knowing if your child will be the fluke who dies from chicken pox.

[oneLoneNurse]

Philadelphia, had a case of a sect refusing vaccinations about 20 years ago. Kids died because they had not had the vaccinations. I think in the scheme of things vaccinations are the less risk way to go.

[wtbcrna]

Originally Posted by Bree124

This isn't a clear-cut area - there are risks and benefits to both sides. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing if your child will be the fluke who will react to a vaccine, and there is no way of knowing if your child will be the fluke who dies from chicken pox.

Basically, it comes down to statistics it is much safer for everyone to get the vaccine with occasional rare side-effects vs. not getting the vaccine and having minimal to moderate chance of having a severe side-effect or even death from the illness.
Don't forget we have wiped out small-pox, and it is predicted that polio will be wiped out if the world vaccination program keeps on track. There are several diseases that could be eradicated with same management plan.

[BabyRN2Be]

Originally Posted by Noryn

So I am confused. Is there a flaw in this system or if you belong to a particular religion you can be a public health risk?

I find this last statement a little interesting.

Before my daughter was born, I interviewed a highly recommended pediatrician. My first inclination was for my daughter to not have routine vax, or at least delayed. When I brought this up to my daughter's future pediatrician, her reply was very interesting.

A little background: We live in a suburb of a medium-sized city in the Midwest. In this town is a sort of "megachurch" - and it may be too small to be considered a megachurch, but it is still very large. One of the tenets of their faith is that parents need to have faith that God is going to protect their kids and that parents should not immunize their children.

The result? In our city, there has been a huge resurgence of childhood diseases that had been very rare in this area. The pediatrician said that because of this church, she recommends that all children living in this city be immunized. She said that if I had lived within the larger city limits should would not be as concerned about my child not receiving the immunizations but because we live in this suburb, she is very concerned about the kids living here and possibly being exposed to diseases that were previously very rare.

However, she left it up to my husband and I to decide what to do for our baby. After all that my baby has been through (a month in the NICU after her birth), I've become a little more protective of her. At a recent appointment I had made the remark that I was concerned about pertussis. The ped said, "It's funny you should mention that. I've just admitted a child into PICU with pertussis. It's becoming a huge problem in this area because of [the church who doesn't vaccinate]." We are getting the DtaP for Brianna at least, but she's letting us delay others. She has no problem with Brianna not receiving the Hep B shot at all. I appreciate that she's being open to our concerns while protecting the children in her practice by suggesting which vaccines to immunize Brianna with now and delaying others.

Long story short: it's very interesting that one church's beliefs are becoming a public health threat in this area. Sorry I got a little long-winded there, but I did appreciate this ped's education on problems in this area and the reasons why it's important for a child in this suburb to get vaccinated. As the ped said, one afternoon at the local Wal-Mart can make a child potentially very sick.

ETA: I hadn't seen OneLoneNurse's post before I had made mine. She talks about a sect not vaccinating their kids and children dying. That's more or less what's happening in this area because of one large church.

[rph3664]

Originally Posted by classicdame

I took care of a precious 3 yr old girl whose parents did not get her vaccinated because they figured if everyone else was vaccinated she would be ok. She died from complications due to chicken pox. I cannot forget the faces of those grief-stricken parents.

I just remembered this.

Our parents didn't deliberately expose us to chicken pox because they heard about a child whose parents did this, and he got varicella encephalitis and was left severely retarded.

Chances are, this might have happened regardless of how he was exposed but we will never know.

As for the megachurch, I've never been a Metallica fan but its singer, James Hetfield, was raised in the Christian Scientist faith and saw his mother die unnecessarily of cancer when he was quite young. He once addressed this issue and that he heard many times that animals don't go to doctors unless we take them, and he said, "If a deer knew how to fix a broken leg, it would."

[rph3664]

We have the Hep B vaccine as a standing order for newborns, and our overnight pharmacists say that the nursery probably sends back 90% of the ones we send up because the parents refuse it.

We have to discard them because we don't know how they were stored or if they went into the patient's room and are therefore considered contaminated. I brought this up with the pharmacy director but haven't heard any more.

Before it was on the standing order, it was only given to babies whose mothers were Hep B positive or were being put up for adoption; either was probably less than 1% of the births where I work. Some of the doctors ordered it as well for the few Amish babies born there, since their culture does not consider pregnancy a disease (which it usually isn't) and they rarely have prenatal care and only come to the hospital if complications arise. We probably would have given it if the parents requested it, but I never saw any evidence of that.

[chaitea7]

I work in a hospital that routinely gives newborns the HepB vaccine as part of the standing orders. I would estimate that approximately 20-30% of the parents refuse the vaccine. We keep the vaccines in a medication refrigerator with a return box for pharmacy. I don't know if they are discarded once returned there or not.

[november551]

I'm not trying to derail this thread any further, but we held off on getting my son immunized for many years (won't go into the details but it had to do with my wife's religious beliefs). I finally got him immunized when he was 5 and ready to start school. It was a pretty terrible experience for him when he finally got them. Seven intramuscular injections in one physician visit!! I realize it's a bad experience for any child, but I definitely regret not doing it sooner when he was a baby and his memories would have been a lot more limited of the experience.

2 years later and he still brings it up from time to time. Pretty traumatizing.

[chaitea7]

There are risk to both getting the vaccines and to not getting them. Parents must not loose their ability to make decisions for their children. The key is to provide information, education, and allow them to make an informed decison.