We got a letter from the government telling us our daughter should be vaccinated-we refused

[pnwmom]

43. Thank you, KellyW.

Like you, we believe in vaccinations and have almost always accepted the usual vaccinations on the usual schedule.

One exception was the polio vaccine. We had some elderly relatives in a very rural area who had never had polio vaccinations, and we were concerned about exposing them to our son if he had the live virus vaccine. At the time the research was clear: the live virus vaccine was killing some people every year -- AND all the diagnosed cases of polio were coming from the live vaccine rather than the wild polio germ, which had been wiped out. In that circumstance, the killed vaccine was more than adequate to protect the population. However, our doctor was still following the standard recommendations, which hadn't changed to reflect the research of the previous few years, so he -- like the vast majority of pediatricians -- only offered the live virus oral vaccine.

Fortunately, the public health department did offer the killed virus vaccine, so we sat there for a couple hours one morning waiting for my son's turn to get the shot.

Five years later, it was time for our other son to receive his polio vaccine, and by then the FDA had changed its recommendation to fit with the research; the killed vaccine I'd wanted for my older son had become the new standard. That time I didn't have to sit in the public health department for hours because I could get it from our pediatrician.

Thank you for your OP and for speaking out for informed consent and against vaccination absolutism.