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5.8 Story: Immunization story




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This article is from the Childhood Vaccinations FAQ, by Lynn Gazis-Sax lynng@alsirat.com with numerous contributions by others.

5.8 Story: Immunization story

From: sunfire@earthlink.net (Joseph Karr O'Connor)


Dear Lynn Gazis-Sax,

I've been to your Web site and I have a story you might want to post there:

Helpless Child Under Fire

When the subject of vaccinations first came up for my daughter, Siobhan, I
set out to gather information from friends. We had been in a group which
met to study what the birthing process was all about, and I began by asking
people in this group what they were doing about immunizations for their
children. My wife, Linda, does legal research for a living and she started
bringing home reams of research about vaccinations. Soon we could see it
was proper to call vaccinations off as long as possible. Siobhan has severe
developmental delays. Her only diagnosis is Infantile Encephalopathy, but
that's just a label to put on an as yet unexplained situation. She is
unable to communicate verbally and can't walk and she'll be 3 years old in
July. She looks to be moving toward walking but is not close at all to
speaking. She developed exactly backwards after a diagnosis of "failure to
thrive" early in the first year.

We resisted all minor and major efforts to get us to vaccinate her.
Receptionists would exclaim in horror or bewilderment: "She hasn't had her
shots?" Doctors would sniff loudly and bark condescendingly. At best it was
as if we were daft and had to be humored. At worst we were threatened with
child neglect. One doctor finally told us that in New York state (Ithaca,
New York, is where we lived 'till we moved back to California in January of
this year) all doctors are required by law to support vaccinating children
and if one is found not actively pushing vaccinations that their license to
practice is revoked immediately. I don't know how much of that is what I
made out of what I heard or what the doctor made out of what he understood
to be the facts, or a combination, but from my experience it might as well
be true. Even when you can see it in their eyes that they know something
different they lie right to your face and say it's OK, just do it, you'll
be glad, do it for the child, etc.

It's like when I go anywhere or do anything with my daughter and someone
wants to manipulate me into doing something I don't want to do and they
point at her and tell me to do it for her. I was at Midas Muffler the other
day and the first thing the mechanic pointed to was a hole in the catalytic
converter cover and he told me "Well, to do it right you'll have to replace
the whole thing" meaning the entire exhaust system. Considering I went in
to get only a tailpipe that was quite a leap. I argued with him, first by
pointing out that a 1/4 inch hole in the catalytic converter cover is not a
hole in the catalytic converter, and second with the fact that I didn't
want him to do it right, I just wanted him to fix the broken parts. This
got his dander up and he brought in the manager. The first thing the
manager did was point at Siobhan and say: "Don't you want to make it safe
for her?"

Even our neurologist, the head of a major pediatric neurology department in
a major hospital told us calmly to go ahead, there was no reason to delay,
there would be no side effects, etc. Finally, after many months of MRI/CAT
scans, blood tests, etc., the same neurologist proposed some tests to prove
or disprove the absence of two rare diseases... both of which would
contraindicate vaccinations! This, after he told us to go ahead with them!
When we took her in for a battery of tests and Linda stayed overnight with
her in the hospital, a young, idealistic, brainwashed resident in the unit
gave me a little lecture about vaccinating right there in the hall as I
held my daughter in my arms with a catheter in place to collect a 24 hour
urine sample--a sample they failed to collect properly so most of the
reason for our hospital stay was negated! Now... if they couldn't do a
urine sample properly, how can I expect them to manufacture a vaccine which
is safe? I told this young doctor-to-be that we were waiting for the test
results before proceeding, as the diseases we were testing for would
contraindicate vaccinations. She didn't hear me at all. I could see in her
eyes that she was looking at me like I was a bug. A bug that needed
squishing.

Finally, when Siobhan was two and a half years old, due to an outbreak of
Pertussus in our area, we decided to give her DTaP. The first shot seemed
to have no effect on Siobhan, but she was surprised when she was jabbed
with the needle, like she was surprised that anyone could willfully hurt
her. What a poor dear she is. We decided that perhaps our fears of the
immunizations were unfounded, and based on this we decided to go ahead with
all the rest of the shots. The second DTaP shot six weeks later sent her
immune system haywire, the third shot, killed Polio, brought her down so
low that her herpes infection took over and the fourth one, HIB, changed
her personality drastically. If it weren't for homepathic medicine and a
timely dose of a remedy she'd be a very sad little girl with no center...
way off balance.

I waited a long time before agreeing to immunizations and now I know it's
the wrong thing to do. We have never given her antibiotics even though
they've been prescribed several times, once by a doctor who told us she'd
have to either take them or she'd be ready for the hospital immediately.
(She was, at that moment, on the road to recovery, we just didn't know it
at the time.) She's never had an ear infection as far as I'm concerned. She
may have had some fluid buildup once or twice which the doctors described
as ear infections, but since doctors use the phrase "ear infection" all the
time it's difficult to tell if that was true. I credit her lack of ear
infections with the fact that we never give her a cold bottle, never let
her drink lying down, give her echinacea extract when she's sick, never
give her antibiotics--and didn't vaccinate her. If we're right about this
then following our own path has given us great rewards in that direction.
It seems to me we should follow our own counsel about the vaccinations.

Since the bureaucracy we are currently dealing with is demanding that we
continue the vaccinations in spite of the fact that there has been damage
from them we have determined that we must take a personal beliefs exemption
on behalf of Siobhan. We found that there is no one who can help us with
this. Linda did the legal research and wrote the letter. This is the first
draft, the second one was cleaned up and turned in. I have witheld the
names of the doctors involved, as I feel there is no need to make their
names public, which posting on the Internet tends to do>;-> We have not yet
heard from the program Siobhan is in, which is demanding the vaccinations,
whether or not this letter will be accepted by them as a personal beliefs
exemption.


 

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