The Jenny McCarthy Body Count

I am happy that you took on this topic. The fact is, there is just not enough easily accessible, unbiased information available to new parents. It’s easy to get scared. I like to think of myself as a logical, scientifically minded person. I’m a nurse. I think medicine and science are very good things. I think vaccination is the magnificent public health breakthrough that it really is – but when I heard the anecdotal stories, I got worried.

I researched all over again, even though I had two healthy, fully vaccinated children. I didn’t find enough information to dispute the claims, but that’s because it’s hard to prove a negative. In the end, I went with a delayed schedule, prioritized by illness. It was a huge pain in the ass, but I’m still a little uncomfortable with babies getting 7-8 vaccinations at a time. I still don’t understand why babies need vaccinations against Hepatitis, other than from a pragmatic standpoint. There’s not a lot of IV drug using, sexually active one months olds out there. I’m sure my doctor thinks I’m insane, and he should just tell me so. He won’t though. I work with a lot of physicians, and most take the stance of telling the patient what to do with no alternative, or letting the patient determine their own course with inadequate information. Explaining things seems to be too much work.

The medical establishment needs to learn to talk to patients. It would help to drown out the mass hysteria and straighten out some simple confusion. Most patients either feel bullied or ignored, and that’s not a good public health policy.

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YES! THANK YOU! I wrote about the topic last July (http://myothercar.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-i-vaccinate.html) and I agree with you.

I think we are so spoiled and ignorant as to how “times were” before now, that we make up these mythologies to compensate.

“Gee back in the day no one had autism and women had natural childbirths without any medical intervention and it was this natural, healthy, happy utopia!”

BULL. Thank your lucky stars that we’re not burying kids and the moms who couldn’t expel them, or got an infection from it, by the dozen like “they” used to.

Go take a trip to Africa or a third world nation and see for yourself what these diseases we shouldn’t be concerned with are doing.

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I completely and wholeheartedly agree with what you wrote. I can’t believe there are parents still not vaccinating their kids. I’m sorry but the thought of my child dying from a preventable disease is something I’m not willing to risk. I know as parents we have to be good (and smart) advocates for our children…children don’t have a say in this matter so we just gotta hope that parents will make good choices on their children’s behalf. There are so many other horrible things in the world, like kidnappings, cancer…you know, things that are not preventable….those are the things I worry about constantly.

With that said, I do believe in adjusting the vaccine schedule so children are not receiving so many vaccines at once. With the live viruses, I made sure my children got just that shot in that visit and then I rescheduled the other ones at various times to spread them out. Not out of fear for autism or anything, but more out of the concern that if they do have a bad reaction to a vaccine, at least I’ll know which vaccine caused the reaction so I can let our dr know for the next time my child needs that vaccine.

This was a great post …thanks for sharing your thoughts

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Ooops, I just read my comment and I made it sound like kidnappings weren’t preventable. I should have just written “etc, etc, etc” after that comment!!

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I really appreciate your post. I often feel I’m in the minority for vaccinating my children. Some moms who found out how premature my daughters were at birth really gave me an earful for vaccinating my kids. Well, that’s WHY I vaccinated. With such fragile immune systems I did what I could to not put them at an even higher risk of various diseases. Thanks not just for your post but for backing it up with facts.

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When my oldest was born in 94 I don’t remember there being such a controversy over vaccinations. It never would have occurred to me to delay or deny them altogether. As my other children were born, we always vaccinated on schedule because it seemed like the logical thing to do. Luckily my kids never had any adverse reactions. Why wouldn’t I choose to protect my children against these potentially deadly illnesses?

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I give both my children all the recommended vaccines. In my opinion, why would I take the chance of them catching something that could have been avoided.

Thank you for this post. I had no idea either that it was such a heated topic as well.

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All I have to say is ” You go girl” !!! I am so very sick and tired of this topic on the con basis. Sometimes I just want to ring people’s necks.
With a Masters in nursing, I very often get questions and debates regarding this very same topic. More often than not, the topic isn’t debatable thanks to mass ingnorance and celebrity status.
The next one: Fillings give you AIDS..

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My first ex husband’s current wife has refused to immunize/vaccinate their children. She blames their first child’s somewhat autistic symptoms on the mercury in the vaccinations. I don’t know if the little boy is autistic. I doubt it as he acts nothing like the autistic kids I used to work with. I know more and more kids are being diagnosed with autism or Asperger’s or something on the spectrum but I don’t think this kid is in that group. I am not a doctor, I don’t play one on tv but if the doctors haven’t diagnosed him as autistic I don’t think she should. Ex is pussy whupped and just goes along with whatever she says but seems to me they are really taking a risk with this kid and the one that came after him.

Thanks for explaining how all of this stuff works it is very interesting.

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i have been keeping up with this topic in the news. whenever i hear a story or see one on the web, i make sure i read it – just so i know.

the thing about research and findings that bother me is that the information changes so frequently, you don’t know who to believe. i totally agree with what you said, we don’t know enough about what causes autism and usually when people don’t know, rather than to say so, it becomes the blame game. sometimes the answer is “we don’t know”.

my child has received all of her shots from day 1 and we have no regrets.

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The current vaccine schedule makes sense from a public health standpoint in an effort to get the maximum number of children fully vaccinated early, when they are more likely to be more compliant with frequent office visits.

All of my children are fully vaccinated but I did choose a delayed schedule. Since my kids were not in child care while infants I felt more comfortable with them being a little further along in development in case they did have an adverse reaction. I made an informed choice and followed through on my obligation to make sure their care was completed.

Celebrities exploit the situation and give often misguided advice on a whole slew of topics (economics, politics, immunizations, the family bed, you name it) Anyone with half a brain should rely on their own health care provider and their own research rather than the celebrity of the week.

At the same time we all need to develop relationships with our health care professionals where we can conclude what works best for each family and decide on a schedule that everyone is comfortable with.
Vaccines are a great defense against many dangerous pathogens and we are fortunate to have safer vaccines developed over the last 20 years.
Celebrities need to stick to their acting, singing and not portray themselves as medical experts.

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The scary thing too, is we adults are going to have to get a bunch of booster shots for when all the un-immunized kids start getting sick!

Liz’s last blog post..The Jenny McCarthy Body Count

I have spent the past two years doing a TON of research on this subject because it is (obviously) very important to me to do the best thing for my son. When I started out, I was open-minded to both sides. . .now I personally don’t agree with either. We are not comfortable not vaccinating at all, but also not comfortable giving him all of the standard shots together. So, we have been separating them, which means he gets them all, there are just breaks/delays between them so that his immune system can stay strong because there are a lot of nasty ingredients in them that do lower the immune system. There really is no reason that a tiny two month old needs 6 vaccines at once. Splitting them up to do 2 or 3 at a time means you have to go to the pediatrician’s more often, but that’s not a problem for us. Plus, our son doesn’t even cry because they can do them in one prick. My son has been super healthy (only having 2 colds virus’ in his first year when the average is and I have peace of mind that we are doing the best we can for him – we’re still protecting him against diseases but also hopefully avoiding autisim, add, hyperactivity, a lowered immune system, and other brain disorders which there is still info out there swearing there is a link. I wish that I would hear more about the option to separate/delay vaccines because that seems like the happy medium, a great compromise, but instead so many people are getting turned off by the two opposite sides that they’re not even considering an alternative. ANYWAY, I’m glad you got the award the other day!

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P.S. I saw that I’m not the only one who responded that they are doing the delayed schedule. My doctor is 100% on board with it (and willing to answer all of my questions and talk with me as long as necessary; he said that there is not enough evidence either way so if this makes parents feel more comfortable then so what)! The Vaccine Book by Dr. Sears is another very objective, open-minded doctor who tells the good & bad of both sides for parents to make their own decisions. More & more doctors are supporting this delayed schedule – it used to be that my friends couldn’t find a pediatrician that would allow it, now most all in my city do because there is nothing wrong with it.

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I have my 3 girls on a delayed schedule also. When interviewing pediatricians I specifically asked if they would help educate me and guide me through this process. The doctor I choose has real, 2-way discussions with me about which vaccine should be next according to our current circumstances. He passes me articles and asks me questions as well as answering mine. THAT is how it should be.

Thanks for the straight talk Mother!

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Right on. I keep seeing these moms who say things like “I’m an informed parent; I DON’T vaccinate!” and every time I think, “wow, I thought you kinda LOOKED stupid but you had to go and open your big mouth and remove all doubt, huh?” I often wonder if these mothers are either lemmings (following other morbidly stupid parents off the cliff to their kids’ deaths) or sloths (just plain too lazy to keep up with the immuniation schedule). Either way, we need more people like you to push the truth about immunizations and the falsehoods surrounding them. Good work. *applause*

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