Nurses children and vaccinations, how do you feel?

Nurses General Nursing

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I am on another forum that is very anti-vaccinations for children (or anyone for that matter), and it got me thinking how do nurses and other healthcare workers feel about vaccinations and anti-vaxer's. Most of the posters on that forum are very hostile to anyone in healthcare and no matter what a healthcare worker posts it is always wrong or they are spying for "The Man". :uhoh3: They tend to see healthcare workers as uninformed, uneducated, and uncaring. How do you feel about vaccinations for yourself or children? Do you ever have people that are very anti-vaccination and what reasons do they give? And do you think that most people that decline vaccination are informed about or understand the effects of the route they are taking? I am not trying to judge, I am just very curious.

Specializes in Med-Surg, Wound Care.

I agree people should make INFORMED decisions and not simply parrot what scientists hired by pharmaceutical companies and the government that received money from the pharma companies tell us.

But most often parents are not given the choice to make informed decisions, because even though it is supposed to be the law that possible side effects and dangers are mentioned to the family (which are very real) it most never happens. If it is mentioned at all it's usually that the benefits outweigh the risks and that's the end of it. Unfortunately, most people put blind faith in doctors.

My feelings in a nutshell!!! As you can tell I have a healthy mistrust of the Pharmaceutical industry right now.

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My feelings in a nutshell!!! As you can tell I have a healthy mistrust of the Pharmaceutical industry right now.

AMEN! They are corporate America with profit motive as their prime motive. Their first obligation is to their stockholders.

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Specializes in Government.

I look at the vaccination question through the eyes of an old timer....I only got polio vaccine and then proceeded to get every other childhood disease. I would not wish them on anyone. I think it is amazing that children no longer have to get mumps or chicken pox. They are both dreadful.

In my 10 years working pediatrics, I saw thousands of children with whooping cough, chicken pox and mumps. The parents always said the same thing: "we didn't think those diseases were around anymore....didn't seem any reason to vaccinate".

My cousin's son got whooping cough at 10 and has some serious disabilities from it. My cousin thought he'd be safe because "everyone else was vaccinated".

Vaccinate/don't vaccinate....I think it should be a parent's choice. I just hope it is an informed choice.

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Specializes in Peds, GI, Home Health, Risk Mgmt.
Who is angry :uhoh3: ?

I agree people should make INFORMED decisions and not simply parrot what scientists hired by pharmaceutical companies and the government that received money from the pharma companies tell us.

But most often parents are not given the choice to make informed decisions, because even though it is supposed to be the law that possible side effects and dangers are mentioned to the family (which are very real) it most never happens. If it is mentioned at all it's usually that the benefits outweigh the risks and that's the end of it. Unfortunately, most people put blind faith in doctors.

And if my nephew is not sterile or blind I doubt it is because he was vaccinated.

Also, smallpox was already declining before the vaccine came into use. Diseases tend to run a natural course.

So, I am informed. Thank you for the genuine concern.

Motorcycle mama: your nephew most likely was vaccinated with the current form of mumps virus vaccine, which is a live attenuated one. So it is possible that he could have developed a mild mumps infection, but this is not a common occurrence.

Complications from mumps are rare, but can be serious including fatal viral meningitis:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/mumps/DS00125/DSECTION=6

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/im/vpd-mev/mumps_e.html

Mumps vaccination, like all other public health programs can be boiled down to a cost-benefit analysis: "In a cohort of 1 million people, the vaccine would prevent over 74,000 cases of mumps and 3 deaths and the cost-benefit ratio is 7.4:1." http://virology-online.com/viruses/MUMPS6.htm

If you join the US military, you will be vaccinated if you were not previously vaccinated.

http://www.vaccines.mil/documents/937MIP-Mumps.pdf

Smallpox would not have disappeared without the massive efforts that went into eradicating it,

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/smallpox/DS00424

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/smallpox/en/

and it is still holds the potential of being used as a biological weapon.

http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic885.htm

The mortality rate for smallpox infection is 30% and currently only slightly more than 50% of the population in the US has been vacinated against it, so that if it were release here in an act of terrorism, the results would be disasterous.

As concerns increased about vaccine safety and complications, Congress responded by creating the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&sid=cp109dULmR&refer=&r_n=hr515.109&db_id=109&item=&sel=TOC_233345&

http://www.vaccineinfo.net/yourrights/legalhelp/injurycomplaw.shtml

which is similar to worker's compenation for employment injuries as a mandated non-litigation program to compensate persons injuried by vaccines.

In a perfect world there would be no disease, pestilance, war, famine, pollution, or overpopulation. Some people believe that the new deadly human diseases that seem to arise out of nowhere (e.g., HIV, Ebola) are nature's way of protecting the earth from the ravages of us humans. Something to think about--would the other species that we cohabitate this world with be better off if we were exterminated?

HollyVK RN, BSN, JD

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Specializes in acute care.

Great...sounds like there needs to be some work on developing alternative vaccines for that one then (at least here in the US)! Then people wouldn't be put in such a bad position of having to use a vaccine produced in a cell line derived from aborted fetuses in order to not risk serious problems in babies from their mothers contracting rubella. Either way one chooses to go, there's a moral problem. :banghead:

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Something to think about--would the other species that we cohabitate this world with be better off if we were exterminated?

HollyVK RN, BSN, JD

I know I would choose to be exterminated before I would join the military.

The world will go on whether we are here or not.

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Specializes in High Risk In Patient OB/GYN.

Another antivax (for my family!) nurse here! I got whatever was required as a child, but nothing once I started making my own decisions. For the record, I have lost my immunity to Rubella and my measles is equivocal. My son, unfortunately, was partially vaxed but will be receiving nothing further, and my future children will not be getting vaxed.

There was a poster who wrongly assumed that non-vaxed children were probably home schooled. This is not so. My son is 7 (will be 8 next month) in 2nd grade at public school--we filled out an exemption form. I'd like to homeschool him, but being a single mom, that's not possible right now. Off topic.

No one I've known has ever had their children get sick and gotten mad at their doc for not preventing it or doing something about it. Ever. How rediculous! If anything, most people I know are irked at the peds because they CAN'T get teir kids infected with chicken pox (present company included), or measles or mumps. In fact, Chicken Pox Parties are very common amongst anti-vaxers, with some people driving hours to attend an outbreak.

Garden Dove--thank you for saving me lots of time and typing exactly what I was thinking! Big time heretic here.

I'm also very weary of antibiotics for minor infection (esp. those that are most likely viral-ie ear infections). My son gets nursed back to health with a warm blanket, some tea, maybe some kiddie herbal supplements, and the best nutrition he can comfortably tolerate. It's worked very well thus far. No one here said to go to a SICU to a Pt with multi-system involvement with a high fever and use cold cloths. That's just silly. (Besides, the only cold I advocate using on a feverish person who is not seriously ill would be a cool damp cloth to the forehead--as a comfort measure, not a way to decrease the fever)

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Another antivax (for my family!) nurse here! I got whatever was required as a child, but nothing once I started making my own decisions. For the record, I have lost my immunity to Rubella and my measles is equivocal. My son, unfortunately, was partially vaxed but will be receiving nothing further, and my future children will not be getting vaxed.

There was a poster who wrongly assumed that non-vaxed children were probably home schooled. This is not so. My son is 7 (will be 8 next month) in 2nd grade at public school--we filled out an exemption form. I'd like to homeschool him, but being a single mom, that's not possible right now. Off topic.

No one I've known has ever had their children get sick and gotten mad at their doc for not preventing it or doing something about it. Ever. How rediculous! If anything, most people I know are irked at the peds because they CAN'T get teir kids infected with chicken pox (present company included), or measles or mumps. In fact, Chicken Pox Parties are very common amongst anti-vaxers, with some people driving hours to attend an outbreak.

Garden Dove--thank you for saving me lots of time and typing exactly what I was thinking! Big time heretic here.

My kids go to public school, too.

Something really funny happened yesterday. Well, my 82 y/o father-in-law has a physical therapist who has started coming to see him (the old man lives next door in a trailer). My husband went to the trailer when he was there, and the PT says he saw my thinktwice.com bumper sticker and can't believe he has found others around here who feel like he and his wife feel about vaccinations (he has two daughters). He then started talking about sheeple and all that, but it was funny. So, I guess we made a friend.

I love how pro-vaxers always assume people who choose not to vaccinate are ill-informed or stupid. And not that it proves a point one way or another, but this reminded me of my favorite person and musician, Neil Young, who was vaccinated against polio yet he contracted it when he was a little boy. He had to reteach himself how to walk, he is emaciated from the disease and I imagine polio was partly responsible for the violent seizures he has, now. Maybe he took the live vaccine, I don't know. But in his case he might have been better off not having a vaccine at all.

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I am not a nurse yet but I am a mother of three. I have had them all vaccinated, I breastfed, and used common sense when they were sick to not push meds down their throat for every little symptom. My oldest daughter is nine years old and never had an antibiotic (the other two unfortunately did have a few infections that needed treated).

I know I am taking some risks with vaccinations but I believe for the most part it is better than the alternative. No matter the situation there are always going to be pros and cons and I personally feel vaccines have more benefits than potential harm. Unfortunately, there are people who have had bad side effects but I still believe the good outweighs the bad. My only problem with non-vaccinators is I feel like they are taking the easy way out. Those of us who vaccinate take the risks that go along with vaccines but are helping to stop the spread of some horrific, preventable diseases while others just suck up this benefit by standing idly by. I do believe it should be their choice to partake or not, nobody should be forced into anything, but again I think they are taking the easy way out while others do the work.

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Wow, this is great. I'm very hush hush about this at work. Everyone knows about my 6 homebirths, but only one nurse whom I totally trust knows my opinion about vaccines.

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Wow, this is great. I'm very hush hush about this at work. Everyone knows about my 6 homebirths, but only one nurse whom I totally trust knows my opinion about vaccines.

Have you ever had people say, you're a NURSE and you don't vaccinate your children??? You should know better!!!

Oh, for pity's sake. :rolleyes:

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Specializes in Public Health, DEI.

What forum are you on that is so anti-healthcare workers? I've heard plenty of rancor about vaccines, but I wasn't aware that there were people out there who oppose our entire profession on principle. Spying for ''the man''???? Whatever could they mean?

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