Vaccinating with an Open Mind

I’ve been asked by an old friend to respond to an article published by Doctor Kurt Perkins, a Doctor of Chiropractic from southern Colorado with a background in biochemistry and genetics.  In this episode of Intervals…no one on either side of the “Vaccination Debate” will change their minds. I believe, as a fact, in the critical importance of vaccinations and the immunization schedule BUT I also believe that we should continue to test vaccinations and the effect of the vaccination schedule to ensure that people are not made to suffer.

In other words, having considered the overwhelming scientific evidence I’m inclined to feel that vaccinations are important, and that herd immunity due to the vaccination schedule is real…based on the evidence.

HOWEVER, I’m not an immunologist…I’m an engineer, not a doctor…so I have about the same credibility as a certified wellness practitioner…but that’s okay, I’m going to go into this with an open mind.

Here’s the blog post my friend asked me to read with an open mind: http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/dr-kurt-why-i-will-never-choose-to-vaccinate-my-own-son-and-any-future-kids-my-wife-and-i-have/

Here’s the study I referred to: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10493337

Here’s my problem with a lot of the arguments raised in this blog post: http://naturalmomma.tumblr.com/post/69552734721/logicalfallacies

Here’s a classic definition of “vaccine”: A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as foreign, destroy it, and keep a record of it, so that the immune system can more easily recognize and destroy any of these microorganisms that it later encounters.  

And then there’s THIS: http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/shocking-news-antivaccine-chiropractor-ignores-science/

AND this: ]http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/BiologicsLicenseApplicationsBLAProcess/ucm133096.htm