"I am the 70s child of a health nut. I wasn't vaccinated. I was brought up on an incredibly healthy diet: no sugar til I was one, breastfed for over a year, organic homegrown vegetables, raw milk, no MSG, no additives, no aspartame. My mother used homeopathy, aromatherapy, osteopathy, we took daily supplements of vitamin C, echinacea, cod liver oil..
I had an outdoor lifestyle; I grew up next to a farm, walked everywhere, did sports and danced twice a week, drank plenty of water. I wasn't even allowed pop; even my fresh juice was watered down to protect my teeth, and I would've killed for white, shop-bought bread in my lunch box once in a while and biscuits instead of fruit like all the other kids. We only ate (organic local) meat maybe once or twice a week and my mother and father cooked everything from scratch - I have yet to taste a Findus crispy pancake and oven chips were reserved for those nights when mum and dad had friends over and we got a "treat."
As healthy as my lifestyle seemed, I contracted measles, mumps, rubella, a type of viral meningitis, scarlatina, whooping cough, yearly tonsillitis, and chickenpox, some of which are vaccine preventable. In my twenties I got precancerous HPV and spent 6 months of my life wondering how I was going to tell my two children under the age of 7 that mummy might have cancer before it was safely removed.
Anecdotal evidence is nothing to base decisions on. But when facts and evidence-based science aren't good enough to sway someone's opinion, then this is where I come from. After all, anecdotes are the anti-vaccine supporter's way. Well, this is my personal experience. And my personal experience prompts me to vaccinate my children and myself."
