Re: doc10 to spud...

I'm glad you were one of the lucky people who didn't suffer any ill effects from those diseases.

Myself, my Daughter, my Grandchildren, my Partner, my siblings and all the people I know personally, had vaccines, and none suffered any ill effects at all. Just like billions of other people on the planet.

Neither personal stories make a case for or against vaccination, both personal stories simply mean we were lucky.

Whether to vaccinate or not, is a decision based on probability. The odds are pretty good that an individual will not suffer adverse effects from being vaccinated. The odds are also reasonably good that a person contracting a disease such as measles or chickenpox, will not suffer from complications. (the same odds do not apply to diseases such as whooping cough, diphtheria, polio, hepatitis, tetanus, and others, where the odds of adverse outcomes are greater).

A vaccinated person though, will not infect others, (who may have a whole different set of odds), with a communicable disease. An unvaccinated person may infect others with a communicable disease, and therefore be responsible for any adverse effects that person may suffer.

An example of this is my friend, who vaccinated her children against whooping cough. Her children attended a day care centre where there were unvaccinated children who had whooping cough, (although they had very few symptoms at the time). My friends 6 week old baby, contracted whooping cough from an unvaccinated child, and died 4 days later.

My friend was not told that there were unvaccinated children at the day care centre, and rightly blames the parents of those unvaccinated children for the death of her new born, as well as the day care centre for allowing unvaccinated and infected children to attend. The case is in the court system currently.

spud