Do you believe that children today are over vaccinated? I know that some of the vaccinations are life saving, but maybe some are not necessary. What do you think? I am really interested in this topic, and love to hear opinions on this.

    

I wonder this too. I don't know the absolute answer, but we walk the middle road; selective and delayed vax. We have done most vaxes, but not all and we didn't allow them to give 5-6 shots at a time. We went back for additional visits.

I actually spent hours and hours when pregnant looking at the data on which vaccine injury cases the US govt actually paid damages on. The old DTP shot was nasty based just on the number of injury pay outs--lots of successful complaints. The DTaP shot is much better with fewer serious side effects that make it to pay out.

But other vaccines that have been combined (i.e. MMR), actually had fewer injuries when administered separately. So not all the 'new' shots have been an improvement.

So the theory may be perfect (and I've studied vaccines formally in college) but the practice and implementation kind of suck sometimes.

Gardasil in particular bugs me because some girls have died and society seems to think that's okay. I don't plan on having DD get that one any time soon.

But we are doing flu shots and H1N1 shots because I am immunocompromised.
V

I just heard about an oral option for the polio vaccine..has anyone looked into it or heard about it? It makes more sense to me that it be "received" orally however I'd like to find out what's in it before making any comments.

I thought all polio vaccinations are oral - 40 years ago I took my polio vaccination in a little drop of pink liquid on my tongue!

I am a passionate supporter of vaccinations. They save our children suffering and save their lives. If my mother in law had had that benefit in her childhood, she wouldn't be fighting post polio syndrome in her retirement. If the fellow I dated years ago had had a chicken pox vaccine, he wouldn't have caught it as an adult while doing a rotation on the pediatric ward and suffered three very miserable weeks fighting chicken pox as an adult!

read up on all vaccinations before subjecting you children!

I think a lot of parents worry about the safety of the current CDC vaccination schedule for their children. Before and after birth to age 6, children born today in the US are given 49 doses of 14 vaccines. More than twice as many children have chronic brain and immune system dysfunction today than in the 1970's when half as many vaccines were given to children. As a parent to two young children, I am concerned about vaccines--why is it necessary to give an infant 12 hours of age in the nursery a Hepatitis B shot when he/she is in no imminent danger of contracting Hepatitis? I happen to like Dr. Sear's alternative schedule which provides a nice balance between protecting infants from diseases while slowing down the intense schedule. You can find a nice example of it compared to the CDC schedule at the website focusautisminc.org