there are a couple elements which the anti-side do not acknowledge

Let me start out by saying that I think the current vaccination policy is insane. Forcing millions of babies to receive the jabs they do is simply wrong, and to force additional (ubtested) habs upon them as well is also crazy. And if I could go back in time, you can bet your ass things would have been done differently with my children...

However, this is not a black and white issue, and the truth as it almost always does lies somewhere in the middle ground...

The first point I outlined above. Infants are not able to survive diseases like the measles or polio. Infants are extremly vulnerable to these diseases, and now that we have eliminated the natural protection that nursing used to afford them, they are extremely susceptible to these diseases.

I am not offereing carte blanche to te CDC to jab at will. many of the baccines that they are using or wish to use I oppose as either too dangerous (Pertussis), misapplied and too dangerous (Hep B), or unecessary (Varicella).

It is quite true that better sanitation and greater access to nutrition and medical care has allowed our people to see great reduction in the incidence or severity of most of these diseases. Pertussis deaths (not incidence) reduced by over 80% prior to mass innoculation, measles deaths (not incidence) by over 90%.

But this is not a universal thing. Polio is nothing to trifle with, as I stated above, and we shall be forced to continue to vaccinate against it until such time as it is gone from nature (like small pox). The wards of people slowly dying from polio did not dissapear until after we began innoculations, and whether the anti-side wishes to acknowledge it or not, those cases which were actually induced by the vaccination were much less severe than if we never did jab for it at all. That is just the cold, hard truth.

Measles is also a very serious disease. Although deaths from measles have greatly reduced (and had prior to the development of the vaccine) damage from measles did not diminish until well after we began jabbing in the 60's. The adverse reaction to catching the measles is profound mental retardation. Proper nutrition and sanitation did little to stop that. True the vaccine does present risk in and of itself even in monovalent form (it would almost adduredly irreparably harm infants to get this jab, why else would they wait till 15 mos?), but the incidence of MR dropped significantly after we began vaccinating for it. You cannot use the school figures for this, as prior to IDEA, most of the profoundly retarded children in this country were not sent to schools. They were sent directly into residential care. And tho these numbers are murky at best 9and very difficult to find) and are hard to slog thru for clarity (as autism soared, the reduction of "classic MR" is adulterated by the influx of LFA who were most often labeled as such) still it is possible to see that the measles vaccine actually is effective in its purpose.

The second point is that viruses like the measles are lviing creatures of a sort, and have the ability to adapt. So the measles that was caught by children in the 40's may not be the same exact measles that could be caught in the 90's Some viruses are very slow to change, others (like influenza) can change several times in the same decade. At what point in time would measles adapt itself in such a way that it becomes a killer we cannot guess. However, mutation of viruses does not happen unless they are actively multiplying inside a warm body. And so preventing them access to 3 1/2 million such bodies is an absolute necessity.

The problem lies with the safe application of the vaccines, and with ensuring the vaccines are as safe as possible. Triple live virus shots must be eliminated. The use of needless jabs like Varicella needs to be eliminated. The use of misapplied jabs like Hep B needs to be eliminated. The lying about the inherrant danger of Pertussis needs to be eliminated. We (the vocal anti-vaccine militants) have pressured the FDA to remove thimerosal from new production, which will have a profound impact upon autism prevalance (and very possible dyslexia, ADD and MR as well), count on it.

But I grant carte blanche to noone. The truth in any matter is always in the middle ground. And in the end, what is always the most important is the truth.