It’s fairly easy to provoke an argument among parents, since so many hold such strong views on a variety of parenting choices.  “Some topics of discussion can really get parents riled up - cloth vs. disposable diapers, circumcise or not, breast vs. bottle, cry it out vs. co-sleeping, on and on and on. And another topic that can get heated is that of vaccinations. Do you vaccinate on schedule according to doctors, do you refuse them altogether, or do you pick and choose?”

Most parenting choices don’t require scientific evidence to make an informed decision.  In most cases, we simply do what works for us.  But when it comes to vaccination, our actions have a greater span of influence than we may realize.  When parents choose not to vaccinate, “what the well-intentioned parents and guardians fail to realize, largely because most of them did not live prior to the vaccinations we take for granted, is that what may seem just minor illnesses remain potent dangers and are still possibly deadly.”  In fact, “when some parents and guardians stop vaccinating their children, we all become more susceptible to viruses again – it is called a reduction in the herd immunity which is actually strengthened when a majority of the population is resistant – they act as a barrier, stopping the disease from attacking even the most vulnerable.”

That is, if enough people forego vaccinations, we ALL - vaccinated or not - are at greater risk to contract these diseases.  That’s why vaccination is a public health issue.  As one blogger paraphrased Offit: “When vaccines work, nothing happens. People take them for granted.”

Not only is it amazing “…to learn that many of the vaccines we give children today were invented relatively recently,” but also to realize “…that they were created, at the time, in laboratory conditions [we] can’t fathom, and tested before regulations made products safer and red tape made the process a little slower is simply mind boggling.”  It was certainly an “uphill battle Hilleman sometimes faced to get adequate funding and facilities.”

However, some of Hilleman’s methods are deserving of criticism.  “Many vaccines at the time were tested on institutionalized mentally retarded children.  Hilleman rationalized it by pointing out that retarded children, who were confined to institutions, were at greater risk during outbreaks of diseases…”  That “not even Hilleman’s use of retarded children as lab rats gets more than a sentence of critical scrutiny” was especially disturbing to one blogger.  But another blogger concluded instead that “There are some perceivably ugly bits to this story, and they are not shied away from, but are stated and humanized without sensationalizing.”  And another blogger, discussing the testing done on volunteers (as opposed to those in institutions or his own children), concluded that “it says a lot about him that they would be willing to allow him to inject a live strain of a dreaded disease into their bodies - clearly he gained a lot of trust based on his work.”

As in the first half of our blogger reviews, the alleged MMR-autism link was a common topic.  This blogger summarized the book’s take extremely well:

“In clear, simple, and direct language, he details the scientific studies that have been undertaken to address the hugely troubling and important question of whether vaccinations cause autism. A complicating factor in answering this question is that the MMR vaccine (thought by some to be the bad guy with respect to autism) is typically administered at around the same time that the first symptoms of autism tend to appear (between the ages of one and two). Thus when a parent searches for antecedents to his or her child’s autistic behavior, the MMR vaccine readily comes to mind, because it was most likely administered close to symptom onset.

Offit reviews a number of studies examining the autism-vaccination link and concludes that there is no evidence of a connection between the two. The rates of autism in children who receive the MMR vaccine are no higher than those in children who do not receive the vaccine; it’s that pure and simple.”

Meanwhile, another blogger recalled her own personal experience with rotavirus - specifically, when her toddler son was infected:

“When the author mentioned a new vaccine for rotavirus, I had a flashback of my son at 20-months laying on the couch too weak to move and too sick to even care. For five days, he couldn’t even keep down a few swallows of water. He lost more than six pounds in a 12-day period. My husband was out of town. I was alone and overwhelmed with fear for my little boy. I’m grateful that now other children won’t have to endure such misery. And many parents won’t have to either.”

Thanks to the rotavirus vaccine - invented in part by the author of Vaccinated, Paul Offit.

Many valid reasons to delay vaccinations do exist - a family history of sensitivity leads the list.  But considering how much time we parents spend researching other choices, it only makes sense to fully explore the science behind vaccinations before opting not to follow the course.  As one blogger concluded her review: “Before you decided to not vaccinate… I encourage you to read this book.  Before I read this book, I thought vaccinating was a good idea.  After reading it, I KNOW it’s a good idea.”

Thanks to all of our parent bloggers who read and reviewed Vaccinated!  If you’d like to purchase a copy yourself, click here!