most of us think of our own health but what about the kids (autism)

[Crankin]

I am not saying that there aren't bad reactions to vaccines, but those reactions are allergic in nature; they have not been been proven to cause ASD. My oldest son had the "unusual high pitched crying" side effect mentioned after his first DPT shot, at age 3 months, with a fever. So, we decided not to give him the "P" part of the rest of the series. Flash forward 13 years and he came home from summer camp with a never ending allergy thing, that morphed into what we thought was bronchitis. He had whooping cough. He was so sick that I thought he was going to die from not being able to breathe. It took him 3 months to recover, although he only missed a couple of weeks of school. Turns out, someone else at camp had it, but they did not get as sick as he did. My younger son did not get the pertussis part of the shot, either, but I always prayed he was never exposed to it, after the first one got sick.

[Eden]

Indeed, there most certainly can be bad vaccine reactions and probably the most common one that is serious, is allergy, especially to egg albumin, as many vaccines are cultured in eggs, but even that is pretty rare. The ASD link however was published by a researcher, Andrew Wakefield, who was subsequently proven to be a total fraud. He was banned from practicing medicine for "ethical lapses" and it wasn't just the article either…

[zoom-zoom]

When people choose not to vaccinate their kids due to completely fraudulent and unsubstantiated claims of Autism risk it says to me that they'd prefer to risk death of their child(ren) than risk that their child end up like my son or my nephew (son is high-functioning, nephew has more severe ASD). And now these anti-vaxxers put at risk those who cannot receive vaccines due to allergy or other verified risk. Herd immunity for Pertussis has been destroyed in a community just hours from us. And Polio has made its return in some areas, too. Only those who never knew anyone disabled for life by Polio would choose to shun that vaccine.

People wearing tinfoil hats need to be sequestered on an island far away from the rest of us who choose to not be Science-deniers. Right now my asthmatic self is nervous about going out in public because our area's flu outbreak has been deemed at epidemic levels. Even with the flu shot, if I catch the flu it guarantees that I will require nebulizer breathing treatments and almost certain development of pneumonia.

[Crankin]

Well said, Zoom-Zoom. While my asthma is almost never an issue now, I had the flu about 20 years ago and it did turn into pneumonia. I had a 104 degree fever for 4 days, was on anti-biotics for 6 weeks, and I had to take 8 weeks off from my job teaching classes at the gym, although I returned to regular job after a week. I coughed for 2 months. This was a real lesson to me. I'm not someone who is a germaphobic (in fact, quite the opposite), but in flu season I become fanatic about negating my risks. I am quite sure if I didn't, and I got the flu, I'd be going down the same path as you.