2month visit w/ allopathic ped: no vaccines! Find out what happened...

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone.

Some of you may remember me as the new member that introduced himself to

the group last week as a father of 3, husband to 1, with a wife

that's a Pediatric NP (looking for a new doc in Northern VA). Well,

today we went to our current ped for the 2-month " well-baby "

visit and refused all the shots. I've enclosed our story here but

if it's too long and gets cutoff then feel free to contact me off

list. Also, do the same if my attachment doesn't come through and

you'd like a copy of my Trusty Spreadsheet. ;-)

Last week I `presented my case' to my wife using the spreadsheet

I created earlier which basically helped me evaluate the risk/reward of

each vaccination. When I started seriously looking into this a year ago

I thought that I might recommend `taking out one or two'. Now,

after more time and research I can't really justify any of them

(none of the 2-4-6 month ones at least). I asked my wife to review the

spreadsheet and get back to me with her rebuttal, if she had one.

We've talked about it a few times and while I can tell that

she's not comfortable with not vaccinating she has not put pen to

paper to refute what I presented or to make her own arguments.

Which brings us to today, the 2-month checkup for our baby! Now mind

you this is an allopathic pediatrician whose entire staff are basically

colleagues of my wife (and fully support vaccinating all their kids). I

took the day off to attend today's appointment because I've been

preparing for this battle for months. This morning I was printing off

`supporting documents' (including my spreadsheet!) as we rushed

out the door.

So the visit is going fine… the nurses do the typical measurements,

weight, etc, then the doc comes in and asks us some of the normal

questions…. How is she eating, sleeping, behaving, etc, etc. After

which he says " So, do you either of you have any questions or

concerns? " This is when my wife smiles nervously and looks at me

like `Here you go, Mr. No Vaccine, have at it!'

Showtime.

Now obviously I can't remember exactly what I said but I think I led

off with something to the effect of " For years I've been hearing

about the dangers of vaccines and quite honestly I thought those people

were full of you-know-what but I've been looking into it for the

past year or more and I've got some real concerns. " He sort of

rolled his eyes and said something about `how he'd been getting

a lot `of these' since all the `recent media attention'.

He elaborated for a bit until I stopped him to say, no, it had nothing

to do with any recent media coverage. I pulled out my trusty

spreadsheet (henceforth referred to as `TS') and told him that I

basically created a risk assessment for each vaccine and based on that,

at the end of the day I didn't feel that the vaccine risk outweighed

the risk of getting the diseases themselves.

Seeing my TS I think he realized that this was going to be a tough sell

so he suggested we talk about it after my daughters physical

examination. Then, after a few uncomfortable minutes of that, we got

back to it.

He basically started with " what are your concerns " to which I

stated that one of my major concerns was Aluminum. I asked him if he

knew what an acceptable amount of aluminum was for a 10lb baby. His

reply was: " First it was the mercury, now it's the Aluminum,

soon it will be something else… it's always something. " He

went on to say that Aluminum was NOT a neurotoxin like Mercury or Lead

and that it's found in the environment and is ingested all the time

and there was no reported toxicity level for Al. At this point I

interrupted him to say that while I agreed with his last point I had

found that there is some data available on the subject…. Currently

they recommend that certain IV (I can't remember the name right now)

solutions contain no more than 25mcg of Al per 1 litre bag and that

patients only receive 1 bag/day. I also told him that a study was done

which showed that premature babies, due to reduced kidney function,

should not receive more than 4-5 mcg of Al/kg of body weight. I told

him that if we extrapolated that for my daughter's current weight of

10 lbs that was roughly 70mcg of Al. I then asked him what he thought

my daughter, and her presumably well-functioning kidneys, could handle

(she would have received ~800-1200 mcg of Al today had we allowed all

the shots). Again he felt that there was no Al risk whatsoever.

I asked him if he knew what Polysorbate-80 was or what its function was.

He admitted that he had never heard of it before. (Polysorbate 80 is in

DTaP and is a pharmaceutical used to assist other medications in passing

through the blood brain barrier. It's used frequently in patients

receiving chemotherapy. But in my book injecting Polysorbate 80 +

~1000 mcg of Al = a very bad idea): Info on Polysorbate 80 at

http://www.whale.to/vaccine/palevsky.html

Instead he wanted to talk about all these `alternative'

arguments and how (you'll love this) there are a lot of people

pushing `this stuff' because they're making a lot of money

from it. He used Dr. Sears as an example. I had to stop him right

there. I told him that first and foremost Dr. Sears is PRO VACCINE and

that he recommends all the shots, only he suggests spreading them out a

bit. Secondly, I said if we wanted to get into the money aspect of

things there are ~4 million kids born a year… that's a whole lot

of money to be made on vaccinations. If we want to get serious about

who's making money, it's not Dr. Sears and his handful of books,

it's Merck and the millions of vaccines they sell. This point

seemed ridiculous to him.

I think he understood that he did not have the required facts to debate,

or even speak intelligently about, the points I was raising so he took

another angle. He said that this debate is similar to flying in a plane

vs driving in a car in that most people are afraid of flying but

it's been shown to be much safer than driving. Year after year

countless people die in automobile accidents but airplane crashes are

very very rare. Now, being that I'm in consulting I'm no

stranger to analogies. In fact I can analogize (?) with the best of

them. But right then and there in this doctors office it seemed like a

gigantic waste of my time and I had little patience for it.

He could see he wasn't gaining any ground there so out came `old

faithful'…. He started recanting stories of unfortunate children

who had come into his office with Meningitis or other infectious

diseases and had suffered tremendously or even died.

I listened patiently but then had to politely interrupt again. I told

him that my wife had also seen a child in her practice who unfortunately

died from a rare strain of flu right in her office and that that death,

and all childhood deaths, were tragic and horrible but unfortunately,

also a part of life. Sometimes it happens. I also told him that

it's also important for to remember that there is death and tragedy

on both sides of this issue and I invited him to go read the

testimonials of parents who had lost their children to adverse vaccine

reactions. Children who had seizures, autism, brain damage, or went to

bed never to wake up again. I told him that while his stories were

tragic and emotionally difficult they existed on both sides of the

argument.

One of his closing points was something to the effect of " I just

hope that if you all go see a movie and there's someone in there

who's hacking and coughing with Pertussis your child doesn't get

it. Because these diseases have a way of finding the unvaccinated

kids " (he repeated that last point several times in our

conversation). My immediate reply was " So, are you saying that if

my child is vaccinated you can guarantee that she wouldn't get

it? " This was slightly amusing because he didn't understand

what I was going for and began explaining to me how vaccines work…

(yes, I've done all this research but I don't understand the concept

behind basic vaccine theory) " we take a small amount of the disease

and inject it so your body recognizes it…. " . I interrupted him

to say, " No, what I'm asking is `If my child gets the

vaccine are you saying she will be 100% immune to this disease? " At

first he answered yes but then he caught himself and said that no,

nothing is 100% guaranteed but there is a very, very, small failure

rate. I asked him if he could provide me numbers as to the known

failure rates of these diseases. No comment.

He asked us if we'd be interested in getting any of the vaccines

today and I said that we had already decided that we would not get any

today. We wouldn't get any until my wife and I were in complete

agreement on which ones we should get and why. I asked him if he had

any recommendations and he said Pneumococcal and Hib. He also said that

if we were opting out we'd have to sign a form which states that we

are refusing them against the pediatrician's judgement (darn! I should

have asked for a copy). We said no problem. As he brought the form in

and my wife signed it (alright PNP-wife!!!) he said that they were

`required to do this by the insurance companies'. When I asked

why he said that if our daughter were to end up in the hospital with one

of these diseases and consequently racked up a $100,000 bill the

insurance company could come back to them and ask why she wasn't

vaccinated. To that I said " Wow, that's interesting, what if she

WAS vaccinated and that still happened? Could I sue the vaccine

maker? " He said he didn't know. I told him I probably

couldn't since vaccine-makers have complete legal immunity. He just

took the form and walked away smiling politely and nodding (like you do

when a crazy person suddenly starts asking you questions on the street).

Oh, to that point (crazy person) I offered him a few documents: my TS,

an article on aluminum in vaccines

(http://www.whale.to/vaccine/palevsky.html), and Dr. K

Stoller's resignation from the AAP. At first he took them, then

thought about it, and refused (something tells me he was worried about

possible `legal ramifications' although I can't image how

that would work..)

There were a few more points made by he and I throughout the course of

our 15 minute conversation but I really can't remember any other

relevant points right now. Overall I think he's a very nice guy and

I guarantee you that he thinks he's doing the right thing. He truly

believes that vaccines are " Safe " and " Effective " ,

there's no doubt about it. Although I asked him at the end of the

appointment if he was still interested in treating our family (he said

he was) what I should have asked him is " are you still able to

respect our decision and us as parents. " Because it was pretty

obvious to me that he doesn't.

In my opinion this guy was convinced to the core that what he was saying

was true. I had initially thought he gave us all this time (in

allopathy 20 minutes with a doc is FOREVER) so that we could have a

discussion about vaccination. Now that I sit here and write this I

realize that those 20 minutes were meant for him to educate me on why I

was wrong. That's why he never gave me a chance to speak. What I

was saying was completely irrelevant. He was the teacher. I was the

petulant student.

That being said my advice would be that if you have a pediatrican you

like and you are considering not giving vaccines, ask them if they would

be willing to consider it. Tell them you have serious concerns that

you'd like to discuss (assuming you're not 100% sold on no vaccines and

genuinely want their advice). Then, during the visit, lead the

discussion. Lay out your case and talk about Aluminum, Polysorbate 80,

SV40, and everything else. Ask them to give you FACTS and studies to

reference. Force them make a sound case that is pro-vaccine. If they

can't do it then you'll know that their decision to push vaccinations is

not based on their own personal knowledge but their blind trust in the

system.

My wife wants to stick with these guys but I think it's a mistake.

Who wants to be treated like a fruitcake and constantly harassed for

their decisions? I'm hoping she sees the light before our next

visit. Meanwhile I've found another family practioner here in the

area and we'll be going to check him out in a few weeks (his wife is

holistic and they share a practice so I'm hopeful!). However, if

anyone knows of a good holistic or homeopathic doc that they would

recommend for kids in the Northern VA area I'd sure appreciate it.

Although this battle has been one but I suspect the wider war will rage

on for many years to come (doctor visits, school exemptions, family

disapproval, etc, etc, etc).

It helps to be prepared and to have a loving supportive spouse!

(and being over 6ft tall and 250 lbs probably doesn't hurt either).

;-)

Have a great weekend and take care,

-paul