May join Navy Nurse Corp, concerned about vaccines.

just_cause, BSN, RN · Aug 9, 2009

Belletree,

I found this as a pretty good 'at a glance' reference:

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/theorderlyroom/l/blvaccinations.htm

My personal opinion is that the vaccine schedule was administered quite well and have never had or seen any 'bad' side effects. There are some vaccines you receive based upon the risk of who you are and where you go - such as Small Pox and Anthrax.. however these are driven by congress / DOD.... Remember anthrax vaccines several years ago - some people opted out - then the program stopped then it was restarted.... it was all pushed from higher. Despite it being frustrating to have your sequence stopped when gov wanted to halt the project... only to restart it later and you restart the schedule... I was still willing to take the chance vs the risk of the vaccine... plus its pretty low danger compared to all the other risks that some will take. I agree with your statement on not sweating it.

belletree · Aug 9, 2009

I checked out the "about" page. It was very helpful! Are they given at once or spread out over time? You increase your risk of reaction by getting many at once. Thanks

just_cause, BSN, RN · Aug 9, 2009

... it depends.. your unit will have an individual like a medic whom tracks the records and there are periodic sessions where you get your updates to keep you on schedule. Sometimes it's driven by other events, like seasonal flu shots or nasal spray... some are driven by where you are going and who you are.. like if you are given anthrax you might be a grunt and exposed to that possibility.. or the threat was deemed worthy for them to pass on X number etc....

I really never found anything bad about the shots/vaccines and felt it was typically administered well.. at basic training it wasn't exactly 'fun' treatment but it was efficient.. from an organizations POV

belletree · Aug 10, 2009

"at basic training it wasn't exactly 'fun' treatment but it was efficient..." What do you know about the officers programs. Are they required the same "fun" treatment? Nice use of parentheses in side a quote!

allnurses Guide · Aug 10, 2009

Hello All, I am interested in joining the Navy Nurse corp for several reasons. I think it is a great way to get a lot of different experiences in my job field, exciting to travel wherever they may send me, and I like the structure that the military provides for your life as well as the fantastic benefits and ability to advance your career. I am concerned about the amount of vaccines that I would have to undergo. I have seen personally some of the side effects of having a lot of injections at one time on certain people and am worried about the fact that they don't always tell you what they are injecting into you. My husband was a Marine and he said that the military doesn't care what you think about what they put in your body. So my questions are: 1. Do you know what vaccines and how many you will be subjected to, 2. Have you seen adverse side effects? 3. Is there a conscientious objector rule (say religion or known allergies or health problems) that can get you out of it. I may decide that I just have to "suck it up" if I want to join the Navy and I am prepared for that answer too, but want to be as informed as possible. Thanks!

1. You have to get all the normal childhood vaccines during officer training, unless you can provide proof of immunization or immunity (they are not going to draw a titer for you at officer training you will just get the shot). After initial training you will get additional vaccines on as needed basis...smallpox/anthrax/yellow fever etc.

2. Other than the very basic side effects (sore arm, mild myalgias, low grade fever etc.) I have never seen any serious side effects.

3. No suck it up or don't join is the rule......if you have a true allergy to one of the ingredients then you could potentially get out of getting the vaccines or possibly not be allowed to join....

Julian C. Land · Jun 9, 2010

I am researching vaccines currently. I found your questions to be very good...

Incidentally, my BS is in Chemistry. My MS is in Industrial Hygiene (what is Industrial Hygiene, right?! you can Google it!).

My understanding is that....

Vaccines have a risk associated with them. So it's important to not take injections unless absolutely necessary. Those of us who join the military or medical complexes, at times, feel we need to sign up with these massive industries from a survival perspective, or because we want a certain lifestyle in mainstream living. And some of us are so passionate about helping dis-eased folks to heal, that we feel such a strong calling, we are willing to take the risk of the vaccines (take a few shots for the team!).

I found the most helpful books for me to read were:

Saying No To Vaccines by Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, and The Sanctity of Human Blood by Tim O'Shea

And yes, of course there are risks with vaccines. The pro-vaccine folks claim the risks of the disease are generally worse than the risks of the vaccines. The beware-of-vaccine folks claim that often the risks of the vaccines are worse than the risks of the disease, and they advise that we learn that each vaccine is different in terms of ingredients and risk, and of course the risks of each disease are different. I would like both sides to talk about the actual risks of even contracting the disease in the first place, and I believe this would likely bias the debate in favor of the be-aware-of-vaccine folks. In the book Saying No To Vaccines, Dr. Tenpenny lists the ingredients of each vaccine in her book, and she discusses each vaccine chapter by chapter. She encourages folks to make informed decisions, so you aren't too surprised or upset if you are one of the unlucky people who end up with a vaccine-related illness. Also, VAERS is a website where some-but-not-all folks report vaccine-related illnesses, fya.

I definitely try to live my life avoiding vaccines if possible. My plan is to get the titers in a few weeks, then go from there to minimize my risks. We don't need a doctor to order titers. We can get them commercially through a lab. For example, we can get them here:

Saying No to Vaccines: VACCINE TITERS: ORDER THEM DIRECT FROM THE LAB

I read on another thread that we can get the titers through college campus health centers much cheaper, or through government health clinics. I intend to try to save money, of course, but if I have to, I'll use Direct Labs (see link above).

If you need support, encouragement, and motivation to take the extra steps to get the titers, and avoid vaccine bullying, read the books above, and perhaps use Google and stay up on the vaccine illness reporting like in the videos below. In my view, researching both sides of the vaccine debate, will keep us more balanced relative to nurse education and relative to helping others and protecting ourselves.

So sad when the unlucky folks suffer the consequences and risks of vaccines; I realize most people don't suffer severe acute injury, but perhaps many of us actually do suffer long term negative consequences that we aren't aware of (toxicity is a matter of dose and a matter of one's immune system and other contributing factors, so if you are taking injections, perhaps attempt to optimize your immune system first AND space out the injections...this is another story....immune optimization)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4MIm1mB7GM

USN2UNC · Jun 9, 2010

I was in the Navy from 99-03....received every vaccine including 12 rounds of Anthrax while I was stationed in the Middle East. It was no biggie. I, and the 103 other people in my boot division that I spent all day with for 3 months, did not seem to experience any adverse reaction. If you are allergic they will not force it on you. You should have that listed on all the Meps paperwork though. Ooorah.

carolinapooh, BSN, RN · Jun 9, 2010

"at basic training it wasn't exactly 'fun' treatment but it was efficient..." What do you know about the officers programs. Are they required the same "fun" treatment? Nice use of parentheses in side a quote!

No. Getting the vaccines you need as an officer is nothing like the "cattle call" that was Basic, where we all lined up in our tee shirts and our underwear and got gunned in the arm. At COT it was more like a regular clinic appointment.

carolinapooh, BSN, RN · Jun 9, 2010

I was an Air Force cop and have a deployment vaccine record literally longer than my arm. The only one I had an immediate reaction to was yellow fever - it gave me a fever (ha ha) with a pretty quick onset and made me a little dizzy. That lasted all of two hours.

I too had the full round of anthrax - and typhoid - and about five or six others that not everyone gets. I'd get out my shot record for all the weird and wonderfuls but I'm actually way too lazy.

allnurses Guide · Jun 9, 2010

I am researching vaccines currently. I found your questions to be very good...
Incidentally, my BS is in Chemistry. My MS is in Industrial Hygiene (what is Industrial Hygiene, right?! you can Google it!).
My understanding is that....
Vaccines have a risk associated with them. So it's important to not take injections unless absolutely necessary. Those of us who join the military or medical complexes, at times, feel we need to sign up with these massive industries from a survival perspective, or because we want a certain lifestyle in mainstream living. And some of us are so passionate about helping dis-eased folks to heal, that we feel such a strong calling, we are willing to take the risk of the vaccines (take a few shots for the team!).
I found the most helpful books for me to read were:
Saying No To Vaccines by Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, and The Sanctity of Human Blood by Tim O'Shea
And yes, of course there are risks with vaccines. The pro-vaccine folks claim the risks of the disease are generally worse than the risks of the vaccines. The beware-of-vaccine folks claim that often the risks of the vaccines are worse than the risks of the disease, and they advise that we learn that each vaccine is different in terms of ingredients and risk, and of course the risks of each disease are different. I would like both sides to talk about the actual risks of even contracting the disease in the first place, and I believe this would likely bias the debate in favor of the be-aware-of-vaccine folks. In the book Saying No To Vaccines, Dr. Tenpenny lists the ingredients of each vaccine in her book, and she discusses each vaccine chapter by chapter. She encourages folks to make informed decisions, so you aren't too surprised or upset if you are one of the unlucky people who end up with a vaccine-related illness. Also, VAERS is a website where some-but-not-all folks report vaccine-related illnesses, fya.
I definitely try to live my life avoiding vaccines if possible. My plan is to get the titers in a few weeks, then go from there to minimize my risks. We don't need a doctor to order titers. We can get them commercially through a lab. For example, we can get them here:
Saying No to Vaccines: VACCINE TITERS: ORDER THEM DIRECT FROM THE LAB
I read on another thread that we can get the titers through college campus health centers much cheaper, or through government health clinics. I intend to try to save money, of course, but if I have to, I'll use Direct Labs (see link above).
If you need support, encouragement, and motivation to take the extra steps to get the titers, and avoid vaccine bullying, read the books above, and perhaps use Google and stay up on the vaccine illness reporting like in the videos below. In my view, researching both sides of the vaccine debate, will keep us more balanced relative to nurse education and relative to helping others and protecting ourselves.
So sad when the unlucky folks suffer the consequences and risks of vaccines; I realize most people don't suffer severe acute injury, but perhaps many of us actually do suffer long term negative consequences that we aren't aware of (toxicity is a matter of dose and a matter of one's immune system and other contributing factors, so if you are taking injections, perhaps attempt to optimize your immune system first AND space out the injections...this is another story....immune optimization)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4MIm1mB7GM

Care to site any credible references preferably meta-analysis or cochrane review. I already know you can't, because there are no credible studies showing that vaccines are unsafe. The few serious reactions that happen with vaccines are nothing compared to any other class of medication.

Julian C. Land · Jun 9, 2010

A professor of Microbiology I know who is also a friend of mine is in the military. She said one day in class that she felt deathly ill for weeks beginning right after receiving many military vaccines all on the same day; incidentally, she did not appear to be trying to dissuade the class from taking vaccines, but rather she appeared to simply be sharing. Coincidentally within weeks, she announced that she was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease and would need to take time away from our class. She and I became friends after this; I wanted to help her, and she let me.

In other words, a few years after she had the adverse vaccine reaction, she was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, one of the many auto-immune diseases. Many medical industry folks say things like "we don't know what causes auto-immune diseases," but some of us do know. Auto immune diseases - for the most part - appear to be caused by over toxicity. The immune system seems overloaded, overworked, and becomes hypervigilant, and begins attacking even it's own cells. An analogy may be a stressed dog or stressed human, where after so much stress, the organism begins overreacting to the point of direct or indirect self-destructive behavior.

Any who, it's possible that her vaccine experience is related to her sarcoidosis. However, this was not proven, and I am not claiming that there is causal affect; instead I am claiming it's possible that there is a correlation or even partial-causal affect. I say partial-causal, because when I went to this friend's house with bags of organic fruits and leafy greens and such, I noticed she and her husband had a sort of shrine to alcohol, and of course I did some outreach then and there relative to alcohol. What I am getting at is this:

Toxins enter the body via:

injection

ingestion

inhalation

absorption via skin and membranes

Her toxicity levels may have accumulated over time, and in my view, it's possible the vaccines triggered, accelerated, or partial contributed to her auto-immune dis-ease. When she suffered weeks of adverse reactions, her body was working to deal with toxins (if you read the ingredients on any vaccine, you will see that the ingredients are perceived by our cells as toxins; ingredient lists can be found; you have to look for them; they certainly aren't advertised to us by the sellers).

From what I understand, diseases processes can take decades. For example, a body can take 30 years to gradually develop what I call cancer-gone-wild (I describe cancer this way, because we all have cancer cells as a result of normal daily metabolism, that our immune systems eradicate daily, so I differentiate cancer from cancer-gone-wild to articulate the difference). I am betting the same is true for auto-immune dis-eases, that it can take years.

The moral of my monologue here is this:

Make sure to understand that we can feel and look healthy, but dis-ease processes may be lurking (it appears that for most, disease is certainly lurking; just look in our nursing homes and assisted living; this is not normal aging). For me optimizing my immune system is a priority, as well as specifically doing detox for my body, and this involves avoiding toxins when possible or at least working to limit them or reduce them.