Vaccination Myth #5:

"Childhood diseases are extremely dangerous..."

...or are they, really?

Most childhood infectious diseases have few serious consequences in today's modern world. Even conservative CDC statistics for pertussis during 1992-94 indicate a 99.8% recovery rate.

In fact, when hundreds of pertussis cases occurred in Ohio and Chicago in the fall 1993 outbreak, an infectious disease expert from Cincinnati Children's Hospital said, "The disease was very mild, no one died, and no one went to the intensive care unit."

The vast majority of the time, childhood infectious diseases are benign and self-limiting. They usually impart lifelong immunity, whereas vaccine-induced immunity is only temporary. In fact, the temporary nature of vaccine immunity can create a more dangerous situation in a child's future.

For example, the new chicken pox vaccine has an effectiveness estimated at 6 - 10 years. If effective, it will postpone the child's vulnerability until adulthood, when death from the disease, while still rare, is 20 times more likely than in childhood.

"Measles parties" used to be common in Britain; if a child got measles, other parents in the neighborhood would rush their kids over to play with the infected child, to deliberately contract the disease and develop immunity.

This avoids the risk of infection in adulthood when the disease is more dangerous, and provides the benefits of an immune system strengthened by the natural disease process.

About half of measles cases in the late 1980's resurgence were in adolescents and adults, most of whom were vaccinated as children, and the recommended booster shots may provide protection for less than six months.

Some healthcare professionals are concerned that the virus from the chicken pox vaccine may "reactivate later in life in the form of herpes zoster (shingles) or other immune system disorders."

Dr. A. Lavin of the Dept. of Pediatrics, St. Luke's Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, strongly opposed licensing the new vaccine, "until we actually know...the risks involved in injecting mutated DNA [the vaccine herpes virus] into the host genome [children]." The truth is, no one knows, but the vaccine is now licensed, recommended by health authorities, and quickly becoming mandated throughout the country.

Not only are most infectious diseases rarely dangerous, they can actually play a vital role in the developing a strong, healthy immune system.

Persons who have not had measles have a higher incidence of certain skin diseases, degenerative diseases of bone and cartilage, and certain tumors, while absence of mumps has been linked to higher risks of ovarian cancer. Anthroposophical medical doctors recommend only the tetanus and polio vaccines; they believe contracting the other childhood infectious diseases is beneficial in that it matures and strengthens the immune system.

Vaccination Truth #5:

"Dangers of childhood diseases are greatly exaggerated in order to scare parents into compliance with a questionable but highly profitable procedure."