Health – Debating vaccination

Vaccination is a subject that often results in strongly divided opinions, heated debates and much controversy. So much so that when the recent Vaxxed movie was screened it was shut down in some places. The purpose of this article is not to scaremonger or express my opinion, but to help people to gather information so that they can make an informed choice with respect to vaccination.

The movie Vaxxed describes the alleged cover-up of results by the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) in the US. The thread of the movie is weaved around the recollections of a supposed whistleblower who was involved in the alleged cover-up of a link to autism. While I have no authority to comment on the validity of the allegations, there are some interesting other findings from the documentary that are harder to dismiss as just potential ‘conspiracy theory’.

The statistics for children developing autism (in the US) has exploded exponentially. This is seriously alarming, whatever the cause. I use the word ‘developing’ autism as in all the reported cases where parents have come forward they watch their normally developing children regress with development. Many have video footage to back up these changes.

Many parents (with autistic children) report seeing their children regress directly after vaccination. The children in these cases have had a fever followed by seizures which occurs shortly after vaccination.

It is also interesting to note that in California there are attempts to make vaccinating children compulsory. Currently, in NZ, there is no legislation that makes vaccination compulsory and public schools/early childcare facilities are not permitted to refuse entry to children based on their vaccination status. However, if there is an outbreak of a disease (that can be vaccinated for) then the children are asked to stay away for a period of time.
It should be noted that there is no compulsory reporting process with respect to side effects of vaccinations. So, if a child has a bad reaction, this may well not be recorded in any useful way. Also, vaccines do not have to be tested as rigorously as normal medications, so how we can be informed of any potential risks is hard to ascertain.

I would like to repeat that I am not attempting to influence anyone’s decision about vaccination, but to assist in information gathering. Currently, the majority of all readily available information comes from the manufacturers of the vaccines, so obviously this is not part of a balanced information gathering process. As with any information, I suggest always assessing who is providing the information, how credible the source is and what their motives are. The latter being the hardest to establish. All I suggest to people is to do as much research as possible from multiple sources and make your own decision. A useful organisation for a view independent of the vaccination manufacturers is vaccinationinformationnetwork.com.