My Biggest Pet Peeve

All right everyone, it's time for me to be extremely controversial.  However, after an experience today at work, I have once again decided the following:  to not vaccinate your child is irresponsible and stupid.  All those against vaccination have so far failed to show me any evidence that vaccination is dangerous.  Vaccination does not cause autism.  Not even close.  That study has been disproved multiple times and then rescinded.  The authors of that study falsified data and had invalid experimental/control groups.  The experimental group was not random.  In fact, the experimental group had family members with autism.  Which is a huge no-no. 

Anyway, I have seen anecdotal evidence.  But most of the anecdotal evidence can't even actually be linked to the vaccines.  And those that can, here is my response:  I know that there are children who have been vaccinated and then had seizures and died.  And that is tragic.  But you can maybe (repeat: maybe) find one or two children as examples.  Here's what I can prove to you.  Diphtheria kills.  Pertussis kills.  Tetanus kills.  Measles kills and/or cripples.  Polio kills and/or cripples.  HIB kills.  Mumps kills.  Rubella kills.  Pneumonia kills.  Influenza kills.  Are we seeing a pattern here?

In the New England Colonial period, 80% of children under the age of 10 died of diphtheria.  In 1920, approximately 15,000 children died of diphtheria.  Pertussis is the leading cause of vaccine-preventable death.  Basically, I feel for the parents of the one child who you can demonstrate had a (probably) allergic reaction and died.  But when we look at it statistically, it doesn't really hold a candle.

Luckily, that incident I mentioned?  One family's mind has been changed about vaccines.

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