Benedetta,

I agree that every vaccine causes inflammation. But I believe that in some cases it is still a good idea to get certain vaccines, such as the tetanus series. As always, it's a question of risks vs. benefits. If you look at the many millions of people who got the tetanus series before the vaccine and autism epidemics began around 1990, you'll see that very few had obvious vaccine reactions, and most lived healthy lives. In the '60s, when virtually all children got the DPT series, those who reacted usually did so to the pertussis component. I'm certainly not saying that just the tetanus vaccine would always be safe: it wouldn't be, but it usually was. In the '60s, almost no one had autism and relatively few had asthma or allergies. And virtually no one got tetanus or diphtheria, both horrifyingly cruel diseases with high mortality even with hospital treatment. In the '60s schools were filled with millions of healthy, attractive, well-behaved children who could speak, answer questions, read, write, socialize, and grow up to become normal, productive adults. Thirty per class, and we all sat quietly and did our work respectfully and quietly. No aides or paras anywhere for anyone: no one needed them. And almost all of them had gotten the DPT series with kindergarten booster and also the polio series of vaccines. And we all got natural measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox.

Tetanus was never a common disease, but it still caused hundreds of cases a year, and before the vaccine was introduced, it had about a 50% death rate, even with hospital care. Diphtheria was much more common, called the children's angel of death, it killed thousands of children a year, choked to death. We've discussed polio: it was sometimes fatal, but not usually, but it paralyzed thousands of children every year before the vaccine. Hib meningitis killed one in a thousand babies thirty years ago, before the vaccine. The vaccines for them were effective, and they virtually wiped out the diseases. It may be that many of the children had lingering inflammatory states from the vaccines, but most of them never showed any signs of it. And they didn't die of the diseases.

I wouldn't recommend any of the other vaccines, and not polio unless it came back, and not Hib for breastfed babies not in daycare. And I recognize that the Hib vaccine causes peanut allergy in one in fifty children, but fewer die of peanut allergies than died of Hib disease before the vaccine. Every parent MUST consider all aspects of this issue before making a decision. The only definitely bad decision is to get all the recommended vaccines just because a doctor tells them to, and it would also be definitely bad if the parents didn't take vaccine damage seriously. But once there were even three or four unvaxxed children who died of tetanus, diphtheria, Hib disease, or were crippled by polio, their stories publicized, then people would flock back to the doctor to get their children all the vaccines, and we would lose much of the ground we've taken.

You're welcome.

I fleshed out this idea of opposing the government vaccine program in an article a couple years ago. I think you will find it to be of interest.

At the time, my primary goal was to persuade libertarians to give high priority to vaccine matters, but people with other political orientations should also be able to relate to what I wrote.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/08/d-saul-weiner/oppose-the-vaccine-program/

I would not criticize Hugh Hefner for Playboy. I would point out that it was playful, as opposed to the truly brutal pornographic magazines like Penthouse. As far as I know, no woman was compelled to pose for or otherwise engage with the magazine. Sort of like prostitution, which is legal in some areas now. Certainly not the way I would want to make a living, but I think it should be legal.

He had children who were at his bedside when he died. He must have had a fairly positive relationship with them. He contributed to Jenny McCarthy's campaign. He was not a monster.

And as horrendous as many practices in the vaccine industry are and have been for over a century, the tetanus vaccine, at least, works to prevent tetanus in the vast majority of cases. Virtually every American child got the series from the '40s on, and very few of them had either an obvious reaction or a condition like autism, until the vaccine epidemic started around 1990, with more vaccines added to the schedule. And close to none of them got tetanus. In WWI, many thousands of soldiers died of tetanus, but in WWII, in which all the soldiers had been given the vaccine, close to none of them did. At a certain point, you have to say, Well, while it doesn't have God's imprimatur, it is really not reasonable to wait until the day it does to get it. It has worked to almost eliminate tetanus among the vaccinated, a horrible disease with no specific treatment even in hospitals, and a fairly high death rate, like ten to twenty percent, even with excellent hospital care. Billions of people have gotten the vaccine with no apparent reaction, and no tetanus.

And I think parents should use similar reasoning to research every vaccine. I don't think many pass the test, but if polio came back here, I'd say parents should give serious thought to giving their child the series, which wiped out polio here in just a few years. Ditto if diphtheria came back here, although since the tetanus vaccine is only given together with the diphtheria vaccine here at this time, it's academic. And parents should learn about Hib disease and the Hib vaccine (after the age of four months old). Read Heather Fraser's The Peanut Allergy Epidemic. The vaccine DOES cause peanut allergy in one in fifty people in the US now. However, in the '80s, only thirty years ago, one in 200 babies got a serious case of Hib disease, and one in a thousand died of it. The pathogen is in the respiratory tract of nearly everyone. Most of us get subclinical immunity to it by adulthood. Probably if babies did NOT get any other vaccines than the ones mentioned (and DT not before the age of two years old), if they were breastfed and NOT in group care, they would be pretty safe from Hib disease. But the vaccine wiped out Hib disease within a few years of its introduction. It can cause many adverse reactions, including autism, but most babies get it without reaction and do not get Hib disease.

I'd recommend that parents refuse all the other vaccines. But they MUST be aware that diseases like Hib and tetanus are still possible and still extremely serious, often fatal. The vaccines would probably protect them from these diseases, and only getting one or two vaccines (I'm assuming polio isn't going to come back, but it might) would be pretty safe.

While the vaccine companies testing is dishonest and untrustworthy, should be better, it would not be possible to EVER prove that any medical product is absolutely always safe for everyone, because that could never be the case. Parents must consider both sides, then make their choice.

Which is not to say that the vaccines themselves should not be criticized, only that we should emphasize that it is a fatally flawed system which gives rise to these damaging products.

David Weiner...I agree!

My definition for "anti-vaccine" is:
informed intelligence and principled ethics.

"Safer vaccines"...until someone spells out, and definitively proves, exactly how it will ever be safe to purposefully tamper with the immune system, whose intricacies we know so little about, by injecting heinous, toxic, and damaging ingredients made in heinous ways, using products manufactured by one of the most fraudulent and evil industries on earth, I hope that people will stop using this phrase.

And for the record, "safer" is not an acceptable benchmark...only "safe and without ability to cause harm" is sufficient. And even then, always voluntary, without any government interference, coercion, penalty, or cost.

"Safe vaccines" is an oxymoron, and "safer vaccines"' is not an acceptable standard...we must not sugarcoat those facts.