All The Best To Those Back At It!

I just wanted to send out wishes for a smooth, enjoyable, enlightening and certainly less stressful new school year to all of my colleagues who have already started their new school year.

Happy New School Year!!!

To Vaccinate or Not?

 

As the beginning of a new school year approaches, parents every where will make a trip or two, to visit doctors for general checkups and in some cases, vaccinations.  And just because your child is out of grade school, don’t think it is over.  

Before the start of my freshman year of college, I endured two painful rounds of MMR vaccinations (the 2nd produced visible redness on my brown skin, intense swelling all over my upper left arm and some silently shed tears) that I will never forget.   But what has really got me to thinking about vaccinations is not necessarily the fear of what an unvaccinated kid can potentially pass on to me.  No, lately I have been more concerned about the potential short term and long term side effects of those vaccines on kids.

Having worked with kids affected by Autism, I have closely followed the latest findings and theories on this devastating condition.  After reading an article on parents who refused to vaccinate their children, my mind immediately recalled a conversation with a former professor who refused to vaccinate her own two young children.  Back then I thought of her decision as one made by a trend-bucking-back-to-nature-I-follow-my-own-rules-and-want-to-be-different-yet-I’m-socially-and-health-concious kind of woman.  I don’t feel the same way anymore.  I now think that in many ways she was ahead of a lot of parents then, in her thinking, and ultimately had the best interest of her children at heart.  I must add that this is the same woman who unknowingly introduced me to vegan food and tofu.  Both of which I eat and enjoy on a frequent basis to this very day. 

I even began to wonder about seemingly “harmless” vaccines such as the flu shot.  I received the flu shot one year while I was a junior in college.   My temperature reached 103, I was given antibiotics, an oral expectorant and a nasal spray, in addition to a few breathing treatments.  Never before had that happened and it hasn’t happened since.  That was the first and last time I ever received a flu shot and I haven’t been that sick since.  However, even though health officials and a few people that I’ve met swear up and down that “the flu shot does not cause the flu.”  Being that I’m no medical professional, nor have I thoroughly researched the issue, I’ll just leave that alone……. I can only go off personal experience and thus convey my personal experiences to you.

So, I thought I would turn to you out there, parents and educators alike.  What are your feelings concerning vaccines and the current vaccination schedule?  Are you for parents having the right to refuse all or certain vaccinations?  Do you feel as if you are being put at risk by those who refuse to vaccinate their children and be vaccinated?

P.S.  That “nurse” looks a little too happy holding that needle! Kind of scary isn’t she?