Tag: morality

How Can the Unvaccinated Spread Diseases They Don’t Have?

Folks who are intentionally unvaccinated often have a hard time understanding why the rest of us might be a little leery of being around them.

That’s especially true if we have a new baby in the house, younger kids who aren’t fully vaccinated and protected, or anyone with a chronic medical condition who can’t be vaccinated.

Why? Of course, it is because we don’t want them to catch measles, pertussis, or other vaccine-preventable diseases.

“How can you spread a disease that you don’t even have?”

It’s true, you can’t spread a disease that you don’t have.

But infectious diseases don’t magically appear inside our bodies – we catch them from other people. And if you have skipped or delayed a vaccine, then you have a much higher chance of getting a vaccine-preventable disease than someone who is vaccinated and protected.

So, just avoid other people when you are sick, right?

“…the increased risk of disease in the pediatric population, in part because of increasing rates of vaccine refusal and in some circumstances more rapid loss of immunity, increases potential exposure of immunodeficient children.”

Medical Advisory Committee of the Immune Deficiency Foundation

That works great in theory, but since you are often contagious before you show signs and symptoms and know that you are sick, you can very easily spread a disease that you don’t even know that you have.

An infant hospitalized during a measles outbreak in the Philippines in which 110 people died.
Children with measles are contagious 4 days before through 4 days after their rash appears, but you often don’t recognize that it is measles until they get the rash! Photo by Jim Goodson, M.P.H.

There’s the trouble:

  1. being unvaccinated, you or your child are at higher risk to get sick
  2. when you get sick, you can be contagious several days before you have obvious symptoms
  3. you can spread the disease to others before you ever know that you are sick, or at least before you know that you have a vaccine preventable disease

This makes intentionally unvaccinated folks a risk to those who are too young to be vaccinated, are too young to be fully vaccinated, have a true medical exemption to getting vaccinated, or when their vaccine simply didn’t work.

measles-santa-clara-county
Folks with measles often expose a lot of other people because they don’t yet know that they have measles and aren’t showing signs and symptoms yet.

In fact, this is how most outbreaks start. Tragically, kids too young to be vaccinated get caught up in these outbreaks.

Keep in mind that these parents didn’t have a choice about getting them protected yet. Someone who decided to skip their own vaccines made that choice for them.

And remember that while you can’t spread a disease that you don’t even have, you can certainly spread a disease that you don’t realize that you have.

What to Know About The Unvaccinated Spreading Disease

If you aren’t going to get vaccinated or vaccinate your kids, understand the risks and responsibilities, so that you don’t spread a vaccine-preventable diseases to others that you might not even know that you have yet.

More on the Unvaccinated Spreading Disease

Which Vaccines Contain Aborted Baby Parts?

If you are already on the fence about vaccines, there are probably some you want to avoid…

For many parents, that likely means skipping all of the vaccines with aborted baby parts and fetal tissue.

Which Vaccines Contain Aborted Baby Parts?

Do vaccines really contain aborted baby parts and fetal tissue?

“Have you read the CDC’s vaccine ingredient list? Why would they list aborted baby parts as ingredients if they weren’t actually in vaccines? Just because there’s only a little baking soda in a cake doesn’t mean it’s not in there. In fact, a little baking soda can have quite the effect on a cake and the person eating it. If it’s on the label, it’s in the vaccine.”

Megan Heimer on What You Didn’t Know About the Aborted Baby Parts in Your Vaccines

Are you surprised that the CDC’s vaccine ingredient list doesn’t list aborted baby parts as ingredients of any vaccines?

It does list:

  • WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblast cells
  • MRC-5 human diploid cells

But cells are not tissues or body parts…

Cells make up tissues and tissues make up body parts, but that doesn’t sound as scary, does it?

“Given that many vaccines use aborted fetal cell tissue (where a viable fetus was medically and voluntarily aborted, not miscarried), there is clearly a valid, religious argument for not submitting to these shots.”

Sarah Pope on How to Resist Pediatrician Pro Vaccination Tactics

Immortalized cell lines, like the WI-38 and MRC-5 cell lines, even lose their tissue characteristics.

This type of anti-vaccine propaganda is likely why so many anti-vaccine folks still think that aborted baby parts and fetal tissue are ingredients in vaccines.

The Pontifical Academy for Life reaffirmed the "lawfulness" of using vaccines to protect children and those around them.
The Pontifical Academy for Life reaffirmed the “lawfulness” of using vaccines to protect children and those around them.

They aren’t. Not in any vaccine.

Some vaccines are made with fetal embryo fibroblast cells (the WI-38 and MRC-5 cells) from cell lines that are derived (they can replicate infinitely) from two electively terminated pregnancies (abortions) in the 1960s. That certainly does not mean that any vaccines contain aborted fetal tissue or baby parts though.

Those original cells aren’t even involved in making these vaccines any more.

The cells used today have been copied, over and over again. They are descendant cells, which is why a common way to explain all of this, is to say that vaccines are said to have a “distant association with abortion.”

And even then, the cells are removed before the final vaccine is produced.

That’s why the National Catholic Bioethics Center states that that:

“One is morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion. The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine. This is especially important for parents, who have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them.”

And why it is said that Catholics are “morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion” and that “it should be obvious that vaccine use in these cases does not contribute directly to the practice of abortion since the reasons for having an abortion are not related to vaccine preparation.”

What To Know About Vaccines, Abortion & Fetal Tissue

Vaccines are safe and necessary and do not contain aborted fetal tissue or body parts, although some do have a distant association with abortion.

More on Vaccines, Abortion & Fetal Tissue

The Catholic Church and Vaccines

We hear a lot about the Catholic Church and vaccines.

The Catholic Church teaches that it is lawful to get vaccinated to protect
The Catholic Church teaches that it is lawful to get vaccinated to protect “our children, public health, and the common good.” The National Catholic Bioethics Center

Maybe it is because Pope Francis led a polio vaccine campaign when he visited Mexico.

Pope Francis helped launch a polio vaccine campaign when he visited Mexico in 2016.
Pope Francis helped launch a polio vaccine campaign when he visited Mexico in 2016.

Or because Pope Francis thanked members of the Rotary International during an Audience at the Vatican, where the Pope “emphasized the importance of vaccinations against polio and urged Rotary to continue.”

History of the Catholic Church and Vaccines

Pope Francis isn’t the first Pope to promote vaccination.

Way back in the early 1800s, Pope Pius VII said the smallpox vaccine was “a precious discovery which ought to be a new motive for human gratitude to Omnipotence.”

But wasn’t there an anti-vaccine pope too?

Some claimed that Pope Leo XII had said that “Whoever allows himself to be vaccinated ceases to be a child of God. Smallpox is a judgment of God, the vaccination is a challenge toward heaven.”

He didn’t say it though – the anti-vax edict from the Pope was imaginary!

There was no anti-vaccine pope.

Endorsement of vaccination by the Catholic Church had started long before the smallpox vaccine. As early as the 1720s, Jesuits were inoculating Indians in the Amazon against smallpox.

Other noteworthy events in the history of the Catholic Church related to vaccines include:

  • 1757 – Pope Benedict XIV was inoculated against smallpox
  • 1780s – introduction of public vaccinations by the archbishop of Bamberg, Germany
  • 1821 – Council of Vaccination
  • 1800s – priests routinely led processions of people to get vaccinated against smallpox
  • 1862 – Catholic missionaries vaccinated the Quwutsun in the Pacific Northwest

Sean Phillips, in examining the records of the Osler Library, has also found “a story of close cooperation between clergy and the state from the earliest stages of the vaccine in France…” That was important, because when smallpox epidemics were raging, the clergy functioned “as a conduit between the medical community and the majority of cities, towns, and communes in France throughout the nineteenth century.”

Vaccines and Abortion

Of course, one of the main reasons that vaccines and the Catholic Church comes up at all is because of abortion.

The Pontifical Academy for Life reaffirmed the "lawfulness" of using vaccines to protect children and those around them.
The Pontifical Academy for Life reaffirmed the “lawfulness” of using vaccines to protect children and those around them.

What does abortion have to do with vaccines?

While much of what you hear about abortion and vaccines isn’t true, some of it is:

  • Vaccines do not contain aborted fetal tissue.
  • Some vaccines are made in cell lines that originated from fetuses that were aborted over 40 years ago.
  • These vaccines are made in descendent cells from either the WI-38 and MRC-5 cell lines, which have been duplicated over and over again and are grown independently. So, “it is important to note that descendent cells are not the cells of the aborted child.”
  • The descendent cells don’t remain in the final vaccine after it has been purified.

It should be clear now why they say that these vaccines are said to have a “distant association with abortion.”

“For its part, Catholic social teaching entails a duty to vaccinate in order to protect the vulnerable.”

Paul J. Carson on Catholic Social Teaching and the Duty to Vaccinate

And why it is said that Catholics are “morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion” and that “it should be obvious that vaccine use in these cases does not contribute directly to the practice of abortion since the reasons for having an abortion are not related to vaccine preparation.”

“Since there is no Catholic teaching that the use of these vaccines is sinful, schools cannot allow Catholic parents to claim a religious exemption from the requirement of immunization.”

National Catholic Bioethics Center on Vaccines and Exemptions Granted by Schools

Catholics can seek an alternative vaccine when available and “register a complaint with the manufacturer of the products as an acceptable form of conscientious objection,” but the The National Catholic Bioethics Center states that “there is no moral obligation to register such a complaint in order to use these vaccines.”

Not only are we morally free to get vaccinated and vaccinate our kids, but the National Catholic Bioethics Center says that parents actually “have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them.”

What to Know About the Catholic Church and Vaccines

From measles to HPV, the Catholic Church recommends that your family be vaccinated and protected.

More About the Catholic Church and Vaccines

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What Is the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules?

There is plenty of evidence that the standard immunization schedule is safe and effective.

What about the alternative vaccine schedules that some folks push?

Is there any evidence that is safe to delay or skip any of your child’s vaccines?

Alternative Vaccine Schedules

Many people think of Dr. Bob Sears when they think of alternative vaccine schedules.

Bob Sears appeared on Fox & Friends in 2010 for the segment
Bob Sears appeared on Fox & Friends for the segment “Vaccines: A Bad Combination?”

He created both:

  • Dr Bob’s Selective Vaccine Schedule
  • Dr Bob’s Alternative Vaccine Schedule

He didn’t invent the idea of the alternative vaccine schedule though.

Well before Dr. Bob appeared on the scene, Dr. Jay Gordon had been on Good Morning America with Cindy Crawford to discuss vaccines and how she had decided to delay vaccinating her baby.

Where did she get the idea?

After the segment, Dr. Jay stated:

“They edited the segment to make me sound like a vaccination proponent. We also have to understand the impact of a person as well-known as Cindy Crawford delaying vaccines for over six months.”

Jay Gordon

Dr. Jay has long talked about only giving infants one vaccine at a time and waiting until they are “developmentally solid” before vaccinating.

1983 historical immunization schedule
When Bob Sears came out with his vaccine book, Jenny McCarthy was also pushing the too many too soon myth and rallying folks to go back to the 1983 schedule that left kids at risk for meningitis, pneumonia, blood infections, severe dehydration, epiglottitis, and cancer from Hib, pneumococcal disease, rotavirus, hepatitis B, hepatitis A, chicken pox, HPV, and meningococcal disease.

Similarly, other folks have pushed ideas about delaying and skipping vaccines before Dr. Bob, including:

  • Donald Miller and his User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule – no vaccines until age two years and no live vaccines and when you begin vaccinating your child, give them one at a time, every six months (first published in 2004)
  • Stephanie Cave – starts at 4 months and delays many vaccines
  • homeopaths with immunization schedules that say to wait until six months and then start giving nosodes every five days
  • chiropractors with immunization plans that say to get regular chiropractic adjustments instead of vaccines
  • Paul Thomas‘ vaccine friendly plan
  • Jenny McCarthy and Generation Rescue’s Turn Back the Clock immunization plan which recommends substituting the latest schedule with the 1983 immunization schedule or a schedule from another country, like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, or Iceland.

Of course, Dr. Bob is the one who popularized the idea of the alternative vaccine schedule in 2007, when he published The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child.

That’s when parents started to bring copies of his schedule into their pediatrician’s office, requesting to follow Dr. Bob’s schedule instead of the standard immunization schedule from the CDC.

What’s the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules?

There is no evidence that following an alternative vaccine schedule is safe for your kids.

“No alternative vaccine schedules have been evaluated and found to provide better safety or efficacy than the recommended schedule, supported by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the CDC and the Committee on Infectious Diseases of the AAP (the committee that produces the Red Book).

Pediatricians who routinely recommend limiting the numbers of vaccines administered at a single visit such that vaccines are administered late are providing care that deviates from the standard evidence-based schedule recommended by these bodies.”

American Academy of Pediatrics

What’s the first clue that these so-called alternative vaccine schedules have absolutely no evidence behind them?

They are all different!

Paul Thomas, for example, doesn’t even offer his patients the rotavirus vaccine. Dr. Bob, on the other hand, has it on his list of vaccines that “that could protect a baby from a very potentially life-threatening or very common serious illness” and is sure to give it at 2, 4, and 6 months.

How slow should you go?

Both Dr. Bob and Dr. Paul give two vaccines at a time with their schedules, but Dr. Jay and Dr. Miller say to give just one at a time.

“Would any scientist give SIX vaccines at once to a baby? Asking for trouble. One at a time makes so much more sense.”

Jay Gordon

And while some start their schedules at 2 or 4 months, others delay until 6 months or 2 years.

There is also the fact that the folks who create these schedules admit that there is no evidence for what they are doing…

“No one’s ever researched to see what happens if you delay vaccines. And do babies handle vaccines better when they’re older? This is really just a typical fear that parents have when their babies are young and small and more vulnerable. Since I don’t know one way or the other, I’m just happy to work with these parents, understand their fears and their worries, and agree to vaccinate them in a way that they feel is safer for their baby.”

Bob Sears on The Vaccine War

But there has been research on delaying vaccines.

Unvaccinated kids aren’t healthier – they just get more vaccine preventable diseases. Most of which are life-threatening, even in this age of modern medicine, with access to good nutrition and sanitation.

So whether you only get one or two vaccines at a time; delay until four months, six months, or two years before you get started; skip all live vaccines or just wait until your child is “developmentally solid” to give them;  or go with some other non-standard, parent-selected, delayed protection vaccine schedule, the only things that you can be sure of is that there is no evidence to support your decision and that you will leave your kids unprotected and at risk for getting a vaccine-preventable disease.

“…when I give your six-week-old seven different vaccines with two dozen antigens, I am supposed to try to convince you that the adverse reactions you have heard about are just coincidences.”

Jay Gordon

Better yet though. Find a pediatrician who will listen and answer your questions about vaccines, concerns about vaccine myths and misinformation, explain that no vaccine is optional, and not just simply pander to  your fears.

What to Know About the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules

There is no evidence that skipping or delaying any vaccines with an alternative vaccine schedules can keep your kids safe from vaccine preventable diseases.

More on the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules

Nelson Mandela on Vaccines

Nelson Mandela was long imprisoned in South Africa for protesting against apartheid.

After 27 years in prison, he was elected president of the African National Congress (ANC) and eventually became the first elected President of a democratic South Africa.

Nelson Mandela, in addition to all of his other great works, helped get millions of kids around the world vaccinated and protected.
Nelson Mandela, in addition to all of his other great works, helped get millions of kids around the world vaccinated and protected.

A lesser known fact is that Nelson Mandela served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for The Vaccine Fund, which provides financial support to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).

“Giving children a healthy start in life, no matter where they are born or the circumstances of their birth, is the moral obligation of every one of us.

I find it heartbreaking that 3 million people, most of them children, die each year from diseases that we can prevent with simple, inexpensive vaccines. These are children who would have grown up to support their families, their communities, their nations. They would have been productive members of societies that are still developing and need their children to be healthy and strong.

By preventing these deaths, we not only would save children’s lives, but we also would help strengthen communities and contribute to the development of strong and prosperous nations.”

Nelson Mandela

During his time working with the Vaccine Fund, from 2001 to 2004, he worked to get more and more kids vaccinated and protected against vaccine-preventable diseases.

“A world free of unnecessary disease would be a world more able to cope with the realities it cannot change. A world less burdened by preventable disease would be a world of more balance and greater opportunity for all. Because as a society we are only as strong as the sum of our parts, we all suffer loss when 25 percent of our global family is incapacitated, as it is today. We all lose because too many of our children will never have the opportunity to realize their talents, to share their unique gifts, to focus their courage, or to inspire their fellow citizens to shape a better world.”

Nelson Mandela

kick-polio-out-of-botswanaBefore his work at the Vaccine Fund, as President of South Africa, in 1996, Nelson Mandela launched the “Kick Polio Out of Africa” campaign at the Organization of African Unity (OAU) meeting in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

He also committed the OAU to regularly monitoring progress of the campaign, which helped decrease the number of countries with endemic polio in Africa from 34 to just 2 in 6 years!

And it was Nelson Mandela himself that was “hugely influential” in making sure the campaign worked.

Tragically, we missed his goal of a world without polio by 2000…

“Children are our future, they are our best hope, their suffering our worst fear. Parents the world over will lie awake at night with fears and dreams in equal measure for what lies ahead for them. Our actions can help or hinder their development. With the resources that the world has at hand, it is possible to break the cycles of poverty and disease. Starting with immunization, we can reduce the inequities of our world and tackle today’s major epidemics, like HIV/AIDS, so that the next generation has an equal chance of life and health.

Guardians of health, we urge you to take up this challenge: we call on governments and civil groups, organizations of the United Nations system and nongovernmental organizations, philanthropists and responsible corporate citizens, to recognize immunization as a global public good. Meet your moral and financial commitments to the world’s children and make a greater investment in immunization.”

Nelson Mandela

As we get closer to that goal of eradicating polio, we shouldn’t forget that his hard work helped us get there.

We also shouldn’t forget our “moral and financial commitments to the world’s children.”

Let’s continue his work to get them all vaccinated and protected.

What to Know About Nelson Mandela and His Vaccine Advocacy

Nelson Mandela believed in the importance of education, that children should be able to live free from violence and fear, and that they shouldn’t die from diseases that can be easily preventable with vaccines.

More on Nelson Mandela and His Vaccine Advocacy