Vaccination

Leo is now closing on three months and I can't transmit, in person or in writing, the intense emotions that I experience when I am with him.  More than anything, I want to protect him.  And how else do we protect our children from the messy world of germs, bacteria, dirty communal toys, and dirty public library books, and dirty people on the bus, other than vaccinate them?

"Did you know? The word 'immunization' comes from the world 'immune' -- which means protection from disease."  Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, A Parent's Guide to Immunization (2009).  

This is the kind of simplistic literature that I'm against when trying to make an intelligent decision about vaccinating my son.  This little pamphlet (we somehow ended up with a published version) is inexcusable.  But even a serious publication such as Your Child's Best Shot published by the Canadian Pediatric Society, in which vaccines are discussed scientifically, is so one-sided that it contains juvenile colour drawings bearing pro-vaccine messages done by children from across the country.  Is it a wonder that on encoutering this stuff intelligent, skeptical people will become instant critics? 

On the other hand, consider what the medical community is up against: vaccine skeptics who believe all sorts of unscientific nonesense about vaccines.  Statistically, vaccines are effective and the side-effects rare.  We also have an ethical duty to vaccinate our children.  It's a kind of a free-loader argument. Your child will be safe only if everyone else takes on the risk of vaccinating their children.  Vaccinating your children is both the rational and responsible thing to do.  So what is there to be afraid of?

First, consider the interested parties: pharmaceutical companies are very high on the list.  And, as Dr. Sears tells us in one of the saner books about vaccines: The Vaccine Book (look, I just found a critique of one of its most popular components, the alternative schedule) most doctors are not trained specifically in the area of vaccines.  Some vaccines also have a poor history.  They used to contain more mercury. Some of them still contain trace amounts.  Some vaccines also contain aluminum.  Today's science, of course, is always the best until tomorrow's science comes along and what we know and do today is exposed to be grossly unsafe and stupid.

And the saddest part about vaccines is the near certainty that your baby will cry for a few or many hours.  How sad is that? I consider myself to be a rational person and yet I find myself giving in to this emotional consideration. What's a bit of crying compared to the risks of a serious illness?  Rose's father, a physician, made this point: with a million Leos, the choice is easy; but when you have to choose for one Leo, it isn't so easy any more.  His advice: vaccinate him because of the potential guilt I'd face if Leo is infected with a preventable disease later on against which he could have been vaccinated.

Here's an even sadder part.  The world is a bad place with bad people and bad germs.  And my baby boy is surrounded by loving parents and sheltered from this bad world (with the exception of his bus rides with mommy).  I want to keep him sheltered from it but I can't.  Now that he is the world, he is as much a part of it as any of us.  Yes, one day my son will cry out of pain and frustration, but does he have to be three months old?  And do I have to be the one to make a choice that will make him cry so?