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NovelApproach -> RE: Vaccines (11/3/2010 7:52:29 AM)
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I am very strongly pro-vaccination. I work with kids with special needs for a living, primarily kids with Autism, and I make it a point to be up-to-date on my shots. My clients are especially susceptible to swine flu, and since many of their parents buy into the vaccines-cause-autism bullshit, some of them have un-vaccinated younger siblings who could, you know, die of easily preventable diseases. (And don't get me started on the GFCF diet that accompanies that. My one real goal in life is to meet Jenny McCarthy and punch her in the face.) Do I think its possible that some people have negative reactions to vaccines? Yes. Do I believe there's such a thing as "vaccine injury?" Yes. Do I believe vaccines cause Autism? Frak no. Do I believe that except in the case of known allergies/sensitivities vaccines are worth the potential risk? Absolutely.
On the topic of Herpes Zoster - My younger sister's been vaccinated against shingles, my baby brother was vaccinated against chicken pox, and my future children will be too. I wish I could have been - I had chicken pox when I was eight, and got my first shingles infection when I was 18. Six years later, I'm still in pain.
The one shot I'm not quite sure about is Gardisil. Don't get me wrong, I'm completely cool with the suggested ages - just because someone's too young to be interested in sex doesn't mean they're too young to be sexually assaulted - but I'm concerned about the shot itself. I feel like it was rushed onto the market, and there wasn't enough research done. Since it came out, there have been some really weird neurological side effects - seizures, paralysis, that kind of thing. They're few and far between, but unusually scary and not quite as rare as most serious side effects. I talked it over with my gyno and we decided I would skip it - my boys and I practice poly-monogamy, and after being with them for a good long while I'm still testing clean for HPV and they're not planning on being exposed to anything or anyone new. If the situation changes, we'll re-evaluate the vaccine. On the other hand, my college-aged sorority-girl sister had the same talk with the same gyno, and they decided that in her case they would go ahead and do the shot - she's not sexually active yet, but she's at a higher risk for sexual assault, and neither abuse nor consensual first-time sex needs to be complicated by STI's or cancer.
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