Splendid Blogging dad-to-be Zygote Daddy recently posted an article on his Blog about vaccinations. In it, he makes some interesting points about the necessity for various vaccinations that gave me pause for thought. In it, he argues that the most sensible course of action is to weigh up the risks of injecting a tiny baby with a disease (which is essentially all a vaccination is) against the effects of that child ever developing that disease.
I'm not going to reproduce his entire article here, so go and read it, but he makes the both funny and entirely sensible observation, 'Did you know that they give a Hepatitis-B vaccine to newborns? [...]Where, pray tell, is my little boy going to be picking up a sexually-transmitted disease?'
Of course, the baby could also get it from sharing a needle or a tattoo, so it's not quite as clear cut as he suggests...
But actually, of course, it is precisely as clear cut as he suggests and he's quite right. The only possible sources are as follows:
1) In the event of a sexual attack by someone. We know that such horrific things do happen, but no one would seriously claim that the baby is given an immunisation as a precaution against such an eventuality, would they? (That's a rhetorical question.)
2) From a tattoo. I have a tattoo. I am not entirely averse to them. Even if I were one of those people who felt the need to cover themselves from head to toe in tattoos, I wouldn't think it appropriate to decorate my child. And of course, it would be entirely illegal to attempt to get it done. Not very likely.
3) From a needle. Well, given the 'no tattoos' parental-fascism above, the only person likely to be coming near our daughter is... a doctor trying to give immunisations! If I didn't see a needle intended for some part of my newborn child coming out of sterile wrappings, I'd like to think I'd tell the quack to get to fuck.
I don't know, I hadn't thought much about vaccinations really. I don't *know* much about it.
There was the big scandal over the MMR jabs a few years back, and that was all over the papers here. There were concerns that the combined Measles, Mumps and Rubella jab could cause autism after a report in The Lancet. There was vociferous support on both sides of the debate with the anti-brigade saying there needed to be an independent enquiry into the allegations and the pro-brigade saying there didn't need to be any such thing as the jab was perfectly safe; the research behind the article was flawed and it would be a waste of money. Eventually, the fuss seemed to calm down in favour of the pro-brigade. (More on the debate here)
One thing I do know is that you spend a lot of time getting needles shoved into your child:
Two months
Diphtheria + Tetanus + Pertussis + Polio + Hib
Pneumococcal
Three months
Diphtheria + Tetanus + Pertussis + Polio + Hib
Meningitis C
Four months
Diphtheria + Tetanus + Pertussis + Polio + Hib
Meningitis C
Pneumococcal
Circa 12 months
Meningitis C + Hib
Circa 13 months
Measles + Mumps + Rubella
Pneumococcal
And it doesn't stop there. It goes on for years.
Anyway, Zygote Daddy's post contains a lot of thought provoking stuff, and I'm honestly not sure where I sit on it all as yet, but it has made me think. I've mentioned it to K___ too and we obviously need to discuss what is in the interests of our child and see where we are.
Perhaps we'll go with all of it, perhaps we won't, but we'll try and ensure we know what we're talking about when we make those choices.
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