"JG" wrote in message ...
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Beware of vaccine bullies

Michelle Malkin

February 4, 2004

Why on earth should we vaccinate our newborn baby against Hepatitis
B --a virus that is contracted mostly through intravenous drug use
and
sexual contact? That is the question my husband and I had for the
doctors and nurses at the hospital where our son was born two and a
half
months ago.

Because among those who *somehow* contract Hep B in childhood, in
about 30-40% of the cases, a vector is never found. Mom is Hep B
negative, there's no blood or sexual contact...there are other,
as-yet-unidentified vectors.

Scaremonger. The likelihood of an infant/child who has diligent parents
and is not subjected to to "high risk" persons--e.g., the Malkins'
son--contracting hep B is no doubt so ridiculously small as to be
laughable.

*I'm* the scaremonger? That's a laugh. The other vectors *aren't
identified*. How you know that you're being diligent in protecting
your child against these vectors if you don't even know what they are?


snip

We declined to give our son the
politically correct Hep B shot, decided to do more research, and
then
took up the issue with our pediatrician.

Boy, were we in for a rude awakening. Our doctor parroted the
American
Academy of Pediatrics line and mindlessly emphasized the efficacy of
vaccines in eradicating childhood diseases. Well, we weren't
questioning
their collective efficacy. We questioned what the individual health
benefits and health risks to our newborn were. Physicians have
blindly
plied vaccines before that have done more harm than good. A
childhood
rotavirus vaccine, for example, was approved for widespread use in
1998
and withdrawn from the market less than a year later after causing
an
increase in the incidence of painful bowel obstruction among
infants.

Wrong. The incidence of bowel obstruction was NOT higher in the
vaccinated population. This author is doing some parroting of her
own.

Our doctor, however, pooh-poohed our inquiries about potential side
effects. He seemed to have no idea what those risks were and no
interest
in finding out. He was also incredibly condescending: "95 percent of
what you read on the Internet" is unreliable, he sermonized, as if
we
were too dumb to separate scientific fact from fraud.

And this "informed" research led her to decline Prevnar? Well
informed indeed.

In the end, we concluded that some of the vaccines were more worth
the
risks than others. At my son's two-month checkup, the pediatrician
expected him to receive a triple-combination shot called "Pediarix"
(consisting of Hep B, inactivated polio, and DTaP, which covers
diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis), as well as HiB (for
certain bacterial infections) and Prevnar (for meningitis and blood
infections). I reiterated my refusal of Hep B, accepted DTaP and
HiB,
and asked to put off polio and Prevnar. In response, I received a
threat: Get all the vaccines or get out of our practice.

Why should the doctor be compelled to keep a patient whose parents
don't follow his recommendations?

Who said, or even suggested, he should?

The author's entire thesis appears to be about the unfairness of the
doctor kicking her kid out of his practice. She referred to it as a
"threat".


I can tell you *I'm* in no hurry to
take care of a kid with Hib meningitis, nor invasive pneumococcal
disease nor pertussis.

This author is free to find a doctor who will allow her daffy
decisions to usurp his training and better sense. No one is holding a
gun to her head to *make* her get her child vaccinated; why does she
have her panties in a twist because this particular doctor won't play
her game?

It doesn't sound to me like she has "her panties in a twist" at all.
What did she write that gave you the impression she was bothered by
having to engage a pediatrician more amenable to her views? Sure, she's
"bitter" and obviously ticked off by the doctor's condescending attitude
(good for her!), but I would think she's more than happy to find another
pediatrician

What did she write? Let's see...the "coercion", her "bitterness",
calling the Hep B "politically correct", being "threatened"...the fact
that she even bothered to write an entire article in the first place
leads me to believe she has a bee in her bonnet over this issue.


It's called choice: She chose not to have her child fully
immunized...the doctor chose not to have her child as a patient.
Pretty straighforward, I say.

Yes. So? Looks like both parties will get what they want.

Exactly.