My brothers and I were not vaccinated because my mother’s father, an MD, investigated them, then warned her strongly against having us vaccinated. When I had my own child, I planned to do the same. Once, I allowed myself to be pressured/guilt-tripped into having my daughter given her first vaccination when she was a baby, but as soon as they did it, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I knew without any shred of doubt that I had just allowed something very wrong to happen, and I never allowed myself to be guilted into doing something I believed harmful to my child again.

She turned out to be healthy and whole, thank God, and was highly praised by a Waldorf Eurhythmy instructor as being the only one, out of all the children he taught, who had a strong, sure sense of herself in three dimensions. There was more Eurhythmy talk in praise of her and her sense of her physical and spiritual self, but I admit it kind of went over my head, since I knew and still know next to nothing about Eurhythmy. I took a lot of her Waldorf school’s methods on faith.

Also, once, a long time ago (but alas, after the above vaccination incident), on a service called CompuServe (which charged by the hour, and good riddance to that profit model!), I had a lengthy debate about vaccinations with an MD. He was all for them. I was saying there are a lot of risks and that a lot of diseases that had supposedly been eliminated by vaccinations had, in fact, already been on the decline, and in fact were nearly gone in areas where mass vaccinations had not taken place and where those mass vaccinations could not have had any effect because of lack of interchange. His argument finally degenerated into ad hominem attacks, which is usually a sign that the person being attacked has, in fact, won the debate.

This was an open debate, so I wasn’t surprised when, during the height of the debate, someone sent me a private message. He said he had been on the national board of the AMA, and that every doctor on that board knew the risks. He also said that not one of those doctors would have their own children vaccinated. What does that say about the relative risks versus benefits of vaccinations? He didn’t tell me that I couldn’t pass on what he said, though he did say that if I ever identified him, he would deny it. (Fortunately, I have honestly forgotten his name.)

The bottom line is, parents have to make this decision for themselves. But I recommend you do the research first, and then do what you believe is the best thing for your child, no matter what anyone else (even me!) says.

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