Growing Up Vaccinated, an Alternative Perspective to Amy Parker’s “Growing Up Unvaccinated”
I have always been quiet about my past experiences with vaccines; however, the popular article by Amy Parker entitled “Growing Up Unvaccinated” clearly deserves an alternative perspective.
I am the 80’s child of normal parents who followed the CDC recommended guidelines for vaccinating their 5 children. As babies, my mother tried breastfeeding all of us, however, she could only produce enough to feed us for 2 weeks. My mother had no other choice but to supplement with formula until we were old enough to drink regular 2% milk. You know, the kind of milk that you buy in grocery stores that have additives like hormones and antibiotics. Of course my parents weren’t aware of that at the time, so needless to say, we were drinking a lot of that kind of milk. My parents also brought us up on an incredibly normal diet like salad, spaghetti and meatballs, macaroni and cheese, pizza, taco’s, lasagna, cereal, chips, candy, LOTS of candy, and even McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, and Arby’s.
We had a normal suburban lifestyle. We grew up with all of our neighbors, played outside, walked everywhere, played sports, and danced. We were allowed to drink soda, and even though we were unaware that the water was fluoridated, we drank plenty of that too.
My parent’s did everything they could to keep us healthy, and like I said, complied with what was expected of them by the CDC vaccination schedule. My siblings and I grew up having every single vaccine on the shelves in the 80’s. I also grew up with developmental delays and cognitive learning disabilities. I was always in those classes at school that assist children who are slow at learning. Let me tell you, it’s not any fun growing up feeling like you are dumber than your peers. Anyway, I’ll get straight to the point.
I specifically remember a time when I was seven; there was this huge deal about getting the Hepatitis B vaccine. There were clinics all over town offering the vaccine; so of course, my mother had all 5 of her children there to get vaccinated. Not even a day after I was vaccinated, I started to become very sick. My lymph nodes in my neck were swollen, so naturally I thought I was developing strep throat. Then the lymph nodes in my pelvic area started to became very swollen to the point where I couldn’t sit down or walk. I also started noticing these little red dots forming on my feet. Eventually those red dots spread all over the bottom half of my legs and spread all the way up to my knee’s to the point where the dots were no longer dots, they were huge purple splots (yes, I called them splots). My head, neck, stomach, and legs were extremely puffy and swollen. No matter how many times my parents took me to the doctor, there was nothing that they could do because they had never seen this illness before. I remember being so sick that I would secretly hope that I would die than to have to keep feeling that sick. At seven years old, I would literally pray to God to take me and relieve me from the pain I was feeling.
It wasn’t until about a month and a half later when I started getting better. After all the tests that were performed on me, they finally discovered that I was having a reaction to “foreign protein” in my blood. So, how in the world would foreign protein get into my blood stream? Well, the doctors wouldn’t discuss this with my parents. Eventually my condition was swept under the rug.
Let’s skip a few years down the road when I was in my 20’s. I too was diagnosed with pre-cancerous HPV. I had to go through the normal process of frequent visits to my doctor. Like most cases, however, the pre-cancerous cells went away on their own. Then I received my first round of Gardasil shots. A day after my shot, my lymph nodes in my pelvic area became extremely swollen to the point where it was too painful to sit down or walk. I made an appointment to see my gynecologist, and all she could say was it looked like I had strep in my pelvic area. How the heck would I get strep in my pelvic area?? At this point I was old enough to figure out that I was having a reaction to the Gardasil vaccine. There were only two instances where I had swollen lymph nodes in my pelvic area, and I knew I had to find out if the illness I had when I was seven was the cause of a vaccine. Luckily, my mother is an avid journal writer (and author), so I was able to look back at my mothers old journals when I was seven. Low and behold, the day after I received the Hepatitis B vaccine, I started having swollen lymph nodes in my neck and pelvic area, my entire body was swollen, as well as the red “splots” that spread on both of my legs.
Let’s skip another few years, I was 27 when I found out I was pregnant with my first child. Given my experience with vaccines, and growing up in a pro-vaccine family, I naturally wanted to do more research in the world of vaccinations before I made the decision to vaccinate my child. I decided to give my old physician’s office a call to see if I could get the past history of my conditions. This was not an easy process, but I eventually found out that the name of the condition I had when I was seven had been “mysteriously” erased from my medical records. Are you serious? So according to my medical records, the condition I had when I was seven, never happened? Hmmm… Something is not adding up here!
I decided to research the ingredients to the vaccines, which to my surprise, I found that they are made with human and non-human biological ingredients (aka “foreign protein”). Hmmm…. Could this add up? Could this be the “foreign protein” that the doctors told my parents my blood was having a reaction to? How else would “foreign protein” get into my blood stream? Through my research, I also saw pictures of little newborn infants who have just been vaccinated from Hepatitis B, with their bodies swollen just like mine had been. Many of those babies actually died and doctors are telling those parents it’s because of some rare disease, and the parents are forced to believe it! If I would have died from my illness, do you think my parents would have known it was because of the Hepatitis B vaccine? No!
The FDA has a history of rolling products out to the public without proper clinical testing, because of the push (and money) they receive from the pharmaceutical companies. Then months later you will hear the FDA having to recall the same products that they had just approved as being “safe,” because there have been continued reports (emphasis on “reports”) of extremely harmful reactions to those products including death. They don’t take those products off the shelves because “science” proves that they cause those side effects. Clinical trials are meant to test the reports of side effects. Not the “science” of side effects. So if the FDA recalls products because of continued “reports” of harmful and possibly deadly reactions to the products they approve, then the story should be the same with vaccines, right? Wrong! For some reason, vaccines are exempt from this protocol, and are kept on the shelves for your children to be injected with no matter who’s child has become permanently injured by vaccines. So what’s their solution? To implement a Vaccine Injury Compensation Program for individuals to be compensated for their injuries. This is not an easy process, however, parents have to present their case in front of the vaccine injury court, and they are either awarded or denied compensation. This compensation, might I add, is paid for by YOUR tax dollars, not the pharmaceutical companies who make the vaccines.
It is because of this, as well as my personal experience that prompted me NOT to vaccinate myself OR my children. My daughter is completely unvaccinated and I’m proud to report she is a completely healthy three-year-old, and she is on par with her development and learning abilities. No, I don’t take her to a “holistic” practitioner. She goes to a regular pediatrician like every other kid.
Despite my condition when I was seven, I was a pretty healthy kid. I had Chicken Pox, like most of the kids I grew up with. My mother grew up having Measles, Rubella, and Pertussis, like most people in her generation did. The fact of the matter is, we all lived through them. Seeing as how Ms. Amy Parker is not dead, it seems as though she lived through her childhood illnesses to tell her story. The amazing thing is most have life-long immunity from contracting some of those diseases naturally, something that vaccines don’t guarantee.
To Ms. Amy Parker, if you are so inclined to speak about vaccines and “anecdotal evidence,” you should also know that “herd immunity” is not only a myth, but has NEVER been scientifically proven either. You would ALSO know that live-virus vaccines shed. Meaning, the virus stays in the recipient’s system and sheds the virus to other children. This is similar with children vaccinated with inactivated or “dead” viruses or bacteria. For example, there have been over 12,000 cases of Pertussis in the United States in the year 2013. The FDA has come out with an official statement saying that the outbreak was caused not only by waning immunity of vaccines, but vaccinated children can still become infected with the disease without always getting sick and spread the disease to other children. This is the acellular DTaP vaccine, the same vaccine used for Pertussis all over the world. If this is true for Pertussis, the possibility of this happening with other vaccines is not far behind.
Hearsay, anecdotal evidence, or whatever the case may be; it doesn’t take a “scientist” to put two and two together.
By Maegan Soria
Source:
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm376937.htm
Parents for Vaccine Safety 
Thanks for the interesting read. We stopped vaccinating after our son reacted and became very sick from his two month shots. He is now 3yo and healthy. I believe if we would have continued to vaccinate our son he wouldn’t be the same 3yo. Moreover two of my close friends battled vaccine reactions almost after each round. With one, the doctors still do not know why he has seizure like behavior when his sugar levels are down in his body.
Instead of taking a real concern towards the concerns/reasons of the anti vaccination parents the article written by Amy Parker only bashes them.
Great article! One minor point of clarification, the study that was recently released that you referenced on the “shedding” of the DTaP vaccination is not entirely accurate. Since DTaP is not a live virus vaccine, it is not able “shed” the virus to other children. The “baboon study” referenced by the FDA involved researchers exposing the baboons to the pertussis bacteria after they were vaccinated. So the baboons were vaccinated, *then* exposed to pertussis, and then became asymptomatic carriers of the live virus and spread it to other baboons. The FDA story was not clear that the viral transmission occurred after the baboons were exposed to pertussis post-vaccination.
“To test our hypothesis, infant baboons were vaccinated at 2, 4, and 6 mo of age with aP or whole-cell pertussis (wP) vaccines and challenged with B. pertussis at 7 mo. Infection was followed by quantifying colonization in nasopharyngeal washes and monitoring leukocytosis and symptoms.” http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/11/20/1314688110
Thanks! After re-reading the statement by the FDA, I can see what they meant when they said vaccinated children could still carry the virus without always getting sick and spread the disease to others.. meaning, vaccinated children could still contract the illness from others without getting sick and spread the virus to other children including infants who are more susceptible. I will have to correct that in my blog. Thanks for the heads up! 🙂
Thank you for sharing your story!
that is stupid to take your child to a normal doctor because the way this country is going, they will eventually take away your kid for not vaccinating. Even though, I agree with you that vaccines are dangerous and nobody should ever be vaccinated. This country is quickly becoming communist and you should be very careful, go to a holistic doctor, they are better anyway.
So, when I was about 7, I also had the strange purple blotches all over from my feet to my knees. My parents took me to several docs who even did biopsies, and found nothing. They couldn’t explain it. When I grew up ( I didn’t forget, cause I have two scars from the biopsies), I started to research, trying to find what they might have been! I found NOTHING from modern day. I found one article about the exact disease/purple shadows in The 1800’s. I haven’t met anyone else who had this! Maybe I can start researching in new places, I wish my parents ha taken pics! It wasn’t like it is now though, where parents could share and talk the minute something happened! They went to tier doctors. I bet docs can’t stand that parents are becoming so informed, but, we don’t really have a choice, they don’t inform us! This is actually a great idea, respond to the propaganda, don’t stop, keep callin them out! There are hundreds of thousands of vaccine injured children. Their parents all have a story!
A simple google search will tell you (on countless reputable websites) that herd immunity is valid…not to mention scientific textbooks. As a healthcare worker, I know all too well the benefits of herd immunity. Don’t preach that people need to do their research when you, in fact, have not.
Actually, if you do your research, you will only find other people TELLING you…. Not proof. Also, you will NOT find proof vaccines actually work. Please, do your research. You may even find proof…. Vaccines are the reason many of these diseases….. and the new disorders are present. Do some research, come back, and we an discuss further. I have about 17 years of research under my belt, and am willing to go rounds, just not with someone who is simply repeating what they’ve been TOLD.
Kieran – Before you attack this mother, I suggest you do some research of your own.
The herd immunity theory was originally coined in 1933 by a researcher called Hedrich. In the original description of herd immunity, it occurred only if people contracted the infections NATURALLY. Naturally-acquired immunity lasts a lifetime.
Vaccine-induced immunity does not apply in the same way since it lasts for 2 to 10 years at most. This is why vaccine manufacturers began, silently, suggesting boosters for most vaccines because they discovered the vaccines didn’t last.
Unless you have been receiving your boosters, your childhood vaccines are no longer “protecting” you. You have as much or as little protection as an unvaxed person.
Learn more at…
http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/02/18/the-deadly-impossibility-of-herd-immunity-through-vaccination-by-dr-russell-blaylock#sthash.3ZMpdKYL.dpuf
Learn more at: a website run by MD’s (who do not do the original virological and immunological research) an ND (Doctor of Naturopathy; a title only regulated in 17 states and DC), DO? …
Please indicate research verifying a quantifiable difference in length of ‘natural’ vs ‘induced’ immunity. This is to support your claim “Vaccine-induced immunity does not apply” (Be careful here. Vaccines come in many forms, for many maladies arising from many organisms, and completely different reasons.)
In 1933, how many characterized, commercially available immunizations existed?
Accounting for individual differences, your final argument may be substantive. Determining which persons have more robust immune faculties and those who are more susceptible may allow for more judicious vaccination in order to reduce complications in future.
Wow, lady. I’m sorry about all the issues you have had, but the way you lay into your mother for feeding you spaghetti, Mac n cheese, and fluoridated water, and vaccinating you, was SUCH a turnoff for me, I didn’t even read very far beyond your introduction. I would have read more were it not for that.
I don’t know what your family was like, but based on your post, it sounds as if you are blaming your mother for causing all your problems, when all she was doing was her best. It sounds like you’re creating a victim scenario, when really, you have some learning disabilities and had some bad reactions to vaccines. And I am sorry you had those, really I am. I had a terrible reaction to an antibiotic once, and it sucked bug time, but I had to take an antibiotic to cure my infection so I don’t blame my IBS and dyscalculia on it. Or on my mom. You know what I’m saying?
I grew up much like you, in the 80’s. We are probably around the same age, in fact. I wasn’t allowed to eat much candy, and I was breastfed longer than you were, but other than that, we ate like regular kids. My mother has four of us, and we were well fed. I would never, NEVER write publicly that she caused my health problems by vaxxing me, feeding me Mac n’ cheese, spaghetti, the occasional fast food, and not buying me filtered water or whatever. If that’s the worst thing that happened to you and me, we were really lucky kids.
I’m just saying the first part of this post really rubbed me the wrong way, and because of it, I didn’t read the rest of it. There are kids who are truly abused and neglected and if they had mothers who would feed them spaghetti and get them vaccinated, and try their best to keep the kids healthy and strong, they’d be grateful.
It looks as though you are a mother. I am too. You and I have more options than our mothers did, for feeding our kids really good things, which is fantastic! My daughter LOVES Mac n cheese so I get the most “organic” kind I can, feed her as many fruits and veggies as she’ll take, and move on, knowing I’m doing the best I can for her. I also vaccinate (on a modified schedule) because I really think its the best thing for my kids (not saying I know what’s best for yours).
Anyway, I’m not knocking you for your stances on vaccines (though I disagree with them), I’m just saying I may not be the only one who reads your introduction the wrong way.
Oh no, I was absolutely not blaming my mother at all. I was trying to portray that my mother was a very good mother, she did everything she could to follow through with the CDC guidelines and what was expected of her to keep her children healthy according to the medical industry. She fed us breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day and gave us water, of course back then nobody really understood that the food wasn’t healthy for us and nobody understood that the water was fluoridated. My mother did try breast feeding us but her body didn’t allow her to. She was not the cause of my illness, the vaccine was.. And the shady business of the medical industry not giving my parents any information as to how the foreign protein got into my blood. If my mother had known that the cause of my illness was because of the vaccine, she would have definitely discontinued vaccinating us. However, that wasn’t the case because they kept that information from my parents. It wasn’t until I was in my 20’s where I was able to make the connection myself. Anyway, I apologize if that was mis-communicated.
It definitely wasn’t miscommunicated. I did not get the impression once that you were blaming your mother. In fact, my Mom did the same for me, thinking she was doing the right thing. It was definitely relatable, if anything! Great article and definitely don’t apologize to people who just want to bark about semantics because they disagree about your stance on vaccines. We need more people like you!
I absolutely disagree amandadees82. In the article written by Amy Parker (which this is a response to), Ms. Parker went to great lengths to describe how her Mother had raised her. She described the lifestyle, foods, etc… that she experienced as a child. This article did the exact same thing. Since this article was written as a response to “Growing Up Unvaccinated” it made complete sense for the author to also include that information. I personally didn’t feel that either Amy Parker or maeroxx was blaming their Mother’s for what happened to them.
Thank you for sharing your story. As a child from the 80s, I can totally relate.
I was vaccinated as a child. I developed eczema, asthma, tons of allergies, had chronic bronchitis… I used to live on medications and followed doctors suggestions. No doctor could provide explanations… Why was I so SICK? I listened to doctors and my health didn’t improve.
Once I STOPPED vaccinating, stopped all pharmaceutical drugs (even Tylenol), changed my diet and lifestyle, I overcame ALL my health conditions. No more allergy pills, no more bronchitis, eczema disappeared, no more inhalers… no more pharmaceuticals… no more health conditions. My health did a 360 when I took my health into my own hands and stopped listening to doctors.
Like you, my experience and my research led me to do things a little differently with my daughter. She is also 3 years old, unvaxed… never touched a pharmaceutical…none….zero. She is still breastfed, eats an organic diet. She goes to preschool, has been on over 50 flights, 7 countries… we don’t shelter her from the world and all she ever caught was a few cold/flus which she overcame naturally. She is living a very different experience than I did as a child and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence.
While the media is reporting outbreaks of flu, measles, whooping cough, our family has been untouched and healthy. We have our own natural ways prevented illness and it’s working.
I’ve come to realize that HEALTH DOES NOT COME IN A SHOT or PILL.
Thank you for writing this! I have family who are two and three generation unvaccinated and they are healthy as horses. I on the other hand was fully vaccinated (my mom was a nurse) and I got sick once a month my entire childhood with mysterious, unexplained, constant sore throats and lymph swelling. In college, after my round of college vaccines, I kept catching bronchitis over and over and over, every few months. I even broke a rib from constant coughing. Once I ditched the vaccines and antibiotics and started eating better I’ve had an excellent decade of strong health. Anecdotal evidence goes both ways 🙂
OMG people, it doesn’t matter if your vaccinated or not, if your going to get sick you will, as for the major vaccines….protect your child for goodness sake….jeez! I am so sick of people saying that vaccines causes this, vaccines causes that….maybe its just in your genes??? just saying..enough already, have fun watching your child die of polio because you were against vaccines!
Mel – I encourage you to continue researching before you make such childish, judgmental, disrespectful comments to parents who genuinely care for the health of their children.
Awesome – great piece:-)
What a wonderful article. Thank you for your story, I always think it’s so brave of people to tell their individual stories, knowing that they are currently going against the majority – so congratulations. I was wondering if you would mind if I used your story on my new website http://www.myvaccinestory.com I am currently in the process of completing it, and am collecting vaccine injury stories – which is what the whole website is dedicated to – vaccine stories from all ages, around the world, about all vaccines. I’m trying to bring awareness to everyone about the dangers of vaccines, and I think one site with (hopefullY0 thousands of stories, could help. I’d love it if you wouldn’t mind submitting your story. Thanks!
Yes, please share however you feel! Thank you!!
This is a fb page with all types of stories, idk if uve seen them before.
https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=372638272814622&__user=609410735
Good luck! An interesting thought, stories like Amy Parker’s are so rare, it went viral lol, cause no one believed it. Yet, you can find vaccine injury stories by the thousands!
Before marrying my wonderful wife, I was naive to the negative consequences of vaccinations. I just did what the doctors said. I figured, “They are the doctor, they must know what they are talking about.” I too had a severe reaction to the Hep B vaccine. When I was 19, I was heading to the Philippines. I was told I had to have the Hep B vaccine. I complied and within a day I was severely ill. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sick. I was so sick that I wasn’t sure I would still be able to go to the Philippines. Luckily about two weeks later I began feeling better, but there is no doubt in my mind that it was a direct cause of the vaccine.
I am so grateful to my wife who has educated me in the dangers of vaccines. Had it not been for her, I probably would have just done what the doctors said and vaccinated my own children. I would have never known I had the right to refuse them. And who knows what might have happened to my children.
I have three children and one on the way. They have never been vaccinated. They are pretty healthy. And when they do get sick, they recover very quickly. My son beat chicken pox in a day and a half.
I am a school teacher, so I am often coming home after being around sick children all day. My children have been subject to these illnesses but I know it has made their immune systems stronger. They recover very quickly. I am so grateful for to my wife for providing me with the most important education I have received. That is the dangers of vaccinations and my rights to refuse them.
Thank you everyone for your kind words!! I hope my message will inspire others to do more research before making the decision to vaccinate. My daughter and I share the same blood type, and also share our genetics, so there could have been a good possibility that the same thing that happened to me could have happened to her as well. The Hepatitis B shot is the first thing newborns are exposed to after they are born, there is absolutely no testing done to see if their little bodies can handle the vaccine. Having to experience what I experienced first hand, I honestly did not want to take that chance with my daughter. That was my decision for her. We all have our reasons, and this was mine.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story!