Flu Vaccines and Vaccinations in General

Okay, another post where I could really step on a lot of people's toes here, but you need to keep in mind that this is one person's opinion, but a rather strong one at that. Actually, if you were to ask my parents or husband there isn't much that I really care about that I don't have a strong opinion about, but that's another story.

Back to vaccine's, if you read late last night, you'll know that the flu has passed through my household for the first time in MANY years. As a matter of fact, I think this is the first time in my adult life that we have ever had the actual flu; fever, chills, body aches, etc. Two out of three of the kids have had it and even Tom got it and missed two days of work, which is unheard of. I honestly can't remember the last time that he was home due to being sick, like many of you, he does not have sick time, so he either has to take vacation time or no pay.

So, with that being said, I would like to say that I think that we are going way to far with the vaccines! In my opinion the reason the flu bugs are getting so smart is because the vaccines are getting smarter as well. I strongly believe that if we would allow our systems to naturally become immune to most of the things that Mother Nature hands us, that we would be better prepared to deal with some of these more serious bugs.

I did get the shots when the children were younger, and hated every minute of it. Those shots are ones that have been around for years and have been researched extensively, if a vaccine has not been researched for more than ten years, it does not go into my child, period. I try to find a happy medium between re-exposing my country to things that we have hopefully already rid ourselves of, and deciding not to go to extremes. I think that our government and media make it very difficult for a person to make a wise choice for themselves and has used many fear tactics to get citizens to get these shots, partially to make money for pharmaceutical companies.

I really believe that this is true with animals. Case in point; last spring we had brought in some llamas that still had their fighting teeth and to integrate our herds we needed to remove them. To do this, we take a specific type of wire and saw the teeth off so that the llamas can't hurt one another when they determine their positions in the hierarchy. We figured that we would have the vet out since we were handling all of the boys anyway, we ended up de-worming, vaccinating all of them and doing the teeth on a few of them. Two of the older boys needed their front teeth worked on as well. The following fall when it was time for our packing season, two of my best packers were extremely underweight, and we even lost one of them due to a stress fracture. There is not one doubt in my mind that it is due to all of the work that we had done on him that spring. If I could turn the clock back, I would do the teeth only, maybe the de-worming, and have left it at that.

I have always done the kittens and puppies the same way; get the initial shots, follow up with any legal necessities like rabies and that is it. So far our track record is exemplary, we had a Rottweiler that lived to be 13 and a Great Dane that lived to be 11. Our rescue Great Pyrs have not been quite as good, but those I have not been in charge of until they came here. We had a cat that had tested positive for Feline Leukemia and was told to immediately put down, he lived to the ripe old age of twelve, and for a mountain cat, that is OLD!

I believe that vaccines can be an underlying cause not only to undermining Mother Nature, but to much more serious issues like cancer in animals (do I dare say it out loud, humans?), immune issues of all sorts, and again a huge money maker for pharmaceutical companies that are already making plenty of money from Americans that don't know enough about what they are buying.

Now, don't get me wrong, I do understand that many people do need these vaccines and should rightfully get them. To me, that makes my argument all that much stronger; if those of us that have good, strong immune systems would quit falling for all of the hype, it seems to me that the vaccines would work better for those that really need them.