I think the most important argument here is, "What do you mean when you say vaccinate?" Do you mean fully vaccinate? Updating every time there's a new update over the years?
Does "vaccines for children" mean all of the vaccs, all but one, or all that work for the child?

Personally, I am 3/4 down the natural route (in my own opinion), 1/4 down the medical. Medicine definitely does work and has its place. But often, it has mistakes. Sometimes it makes things worse. However, natural remedies often have much less severe (if any at all) side effects (though I don't know of any natural replacements for vaccines, just saying they have medical merit in some areas).
Often, exercising, eating healthier, eating less sugar, being careful/not even being around sick people daily, is enough to keep an immune system up. I do all of these but exercise regularly. :P

I've had this draft for about two months now, and I kept meaning to post it. Now that I have a chance at double food... why not?

An edit before I post:
My family and I were talking about vaccines just yesterday in the car. The mercury in vaccines is often waved off, but a friend's dad had said to her one day (paraphrased by me, this guy has a Phd, so he'd probably not talk like I am :P) "Sure, there may be more mercury in a can of tuna, but when you're eating that mercury, the process is different than when your body is absorbing it into your bloodstream from the vaccine." I don't know how the process is different because my mom only told me that part, but he and his wife believe that the mercury in some vaccines can lead to certain health issues. (And their mom has spent hours and hours researching, from both sides I believe. So she's a lot more knowledgeable than the average person about it.)

I don't know much about the mercury except that when eating the percentage that gets taken into the bloodstream is often less than if you would inject it immediately into the bloodstream.

The all natural way sometimes fails just as well as the medical way (as you put it) and at those times these vaccines are a way of preventing these outbreaks and the vaccinations of the majority of the population is actually a way of protecting the general population as well (e.g. those allergic to the vaccines or children too young to receive them)
Technically the vaccines are mostly a weak strain of the original virus (often also an unviable strain), so basically because your own body has fought that weak strain it's afterwards capable of making the antibodies it would usually make to fight the original illness itself, but it makes them without you having to experience the full effects of the illness itself.
Out here the only side effects I've really heard much about are the ones that are caused by the vaccin having a stonger strain than usual (usually causing two days or so of the person feeling under the weather, but that's usually it), or caused by an allergy.
To be quite honest I'd like to go down the natural way, but I know I can't. It's not something I can do due to general allergies and I am too aware of the other consequences of not vaccinating against certain illnesses and running the risk of reintroducing them to a non-vaccinated population (if everyone took the natural way, that would be a Huge risk and I just can't justify it for myself)

I dunno... I guess in the end it's more a question of background, location and general circumstances that can allow or dissallow the use of vaccines?

Edit: I checked and apparently the component that contains mercury is not allowed to be used anymore for most vaccines in our country. Especially for vaccines for children and the weaker groups of the population. But even when used the percentage in our bloodstream would apparently be only as much as eating a meal that contains fish for a day or two...

I believe vaccines do more good than harm. There hasn't been any proven connections between vaccines and things like down syndrome. There was one article written a few years ago, but got pulled because of some issues that arose to prove his theories were not true.

I am vaccinated, and my daughter is getting her vaccines as she goes (she's only 14 months old) because I believe it's better to be safe than sorry with some of these awful illnesses out there.

~Disclaimer, I am strong with my ideas and beliefs for this so I may sound rude to some people~

Vaccinations are great, have you ever had to worry about dangerous disease outbreaks? No, and do you know why ... because we all get vaccinated.

The problem with people who advocate anti-vaccination is that they haven't lived though tough times which you have to be scared of getting deadly diseases which now are preventable. These people who advocate are only experts in using google, as in using google to find the "evidence" which supports them.

Vaccinations are the #1 thing for children and are of up most importance for our general health in society. I believe that if your child is not vaccinated they should not go to schools because they are a danger to everyone else. How would you feel if your child passed away because of some parents incompetence who believe that vaccinations are related to autism which has no scientific proof *that I know of* and even if it does, it would be very low.

Would you love to live in a world which half of our population don't vaccinate? Would you love to see people around you die from diseases which haven't had an outbreak for many, many years?
If you answered no for one of those questions ... Get vaccinated.
If you respect the people around you and would love to live in a world without deadly and preventable diseases.
Then please, get vaccinated.

I always assume that when we speak about vaccines it's the ones you give your very young child and not so much things like flu shots and other yearly shots.

I think vaccines for babies/young children are important since they are more vulnerable than an adult or teen with an immune system that's been up against different things. I feel that at 25 I don't need a flu shot, I just kind of trudge through it since I know I'll be okay. A small child, someone with a weak immune system, and elderly people are more at risk and should be the ones that get flu shots. Kids that go to school as well maybe to try and keep it from spreading (like that's possible with little kids)

The fact that millions- billions of people are vaccinated and nothing wrong happens to them is proof enough that anti-vaccine people are just grasping for straws.


I'm also reminded of yet another video I saw. It was a short one, basically it was "if google was a person" and it was a man at a desk and a woman is there and asks. "Search for articles on vaccines causing autism" and the guy is like "Well, I found 500 articles saying it doesn't, and one that does." There are two piles of papers, one large and one a single page. The woman grabs the single page and says "I knew it" and walks off. The guy then shouts after her "Just because I have it doesn't mean it's true!"

@Cecona I assume that as well, and I also think I may have watched that video too.

And that is why you should always look at various pages and check out their sources and check the sources out as well. Because I know some websites just post things without sources which just are not true.

Definitely, I've had people say nonsense and then back it up with a "source" but the source ends up being a one or two paragraph article with no names, specifics, or sources on where the info came from.

From what I've read so far it really only seems to be the U.S. that have these anti-vaccine people. There are probably people in other countries, but I highly doubt they are as insane as the ones here, insisting and trying to force their views on other people.

I would be okay with people turning down vaccines for their kids if not for the fact that a child can pass that illness on to another child and cause that child to become very sick and maybe even die.

It's not just your child as risk if they go unvaccinated, it's every child that has yet to be. Shit like Polio still exist, and it's very easy for an adult that never had chicken pox to catch it and end up in the hospital or maybe the morgue.

I think chicken pox was the only thing I didn't get a vaccine for, since I remember having it as a small child. Some parents will purposely have their kids catch chicken pox so they don't have to worry about getting it later in life.