I have 2 year old and 5 year boys. We have been very slow to vaccinate, including breaking up the M-M-R into separate shots. They haven't gotten the flu shot yet and they don't have a compelling reason to get it. Their immune systems are robust and they get sick less than most of their friends.

My "faith" is vaccines was shaken long ago after learning about why some vaccines are required (chicken pox is required to cut down on sick days by parents), why multiple vaccines are given at one time (because poorer kids go to the doctor less often so give them as many as possible) and why mercury was removed from most vaccines (it's fine, no problems, don't worry but we're removing it anyway, please don't sue us).

Me again.
We are doing all the vaccinations because they are required for school (public and private schools). You can get a religous exemption which is usually by the city/county government.

Spreading out the vaccines is expensive. The individual vaccines (such as MMR) and extra doctor visits are usually not covered by insurance.

I vaccinated my children because I did not want them to have the risk of contacting preventable childhood diseases.

We knew a teen at church who although vaccinated, contracted whooping cough. She coughed so hard the blood vessels in her eyes burst and she missed nearly a semester of school. Why would I want that to happen to my children?

My husband and I got our flu shots this year, and we didn't get the flu. It's my belief that the presence of a vaccinated community keeps incidents of the flu to a minimum, even if the vaccination isn't perfectly adjusted to the current strains. I have better things to do with my time than spent it sick.

I find it interesting that nobody follows up on what country produced this years flu vacine. I doubt that it was the U.S.

Note that the incidence of measles is way up in the UK (and one boy has died), as a result of scare tactics against the MMR vaccine (which never contained mercury).

link

There are compelling reasons to be vaccinated. The chicken pox vaccine was not developed for working parents! Children who are immunosuppressed can die from this illness. Themirisol has no place in vaccinations and it is best if the mmr is broken up. It is a cost and time savings factor for Drs. to give it this way.

The flu vaccine was not very effective this year but that does not mean that no one should get it next year. Medicine is not perfect but it is pretty darn good.

1. You probably get a larger dose of mercury from tuna fish suchi than a dose of a thimerisol containing vaccine.
2. When a substantial percent of a population is vaccinated against a disease with a human-human mode of transmission, the percent of unvaccinated individuals developing the disease decreases significantly. That's why (with polio vaccine)unvaccinated individuals or the small percent in whom the vaccine did not "take" (one never knows!) have an almost zero risk of developing polio, as long as they stay in the U.S. Always recommended to re-vaccinate against polio when traveling to an area where it is still endemic!
3. Flu vaccines are produced in the U.S. The CDC and the pharmaceutical companies producing the flu vaccine miss their antigenic targets less than 10% of the time (the last significant miss was winter 1995-96, and I did get nailed). You wish you could do as well in Las Vegas or the stock market!

A survey was conducted to establish the
diagnostic accuracy of doctors in relation to patients who the doctors thought had measles.
Every time the doctor identified measles he was asked to take a swab and send it to the laboratory.
Of 700 doctors taking the test how many do you think got it right?
If you guessed 70 or 10% you got it right.
So 90% got it wrong?
The point being that peoples perceptions of what is true is so often based on statistics which they read in the newspapers or on television, and is put out by some group with a special interest in
promoting a point of view which supports their marketing efforts.
To overcome this bias it is important to ask who is doing the study of say measles
and why. Have they a financial interest.
Are you getting the whole story.
As shown last week Merck "made up" their own studies and had their own in house doctors sign them as though they had done the research as reported in the influential
medical journal,JAMA. who were reporting on
information uncovered by investigators
in the Vioxx case where the company paid out $4.85 billion to people who were damaged by that drug.
Just because some authority says something is true, be that the government, the Pharmacuetical Cos, or doctors, does not mean they are correct or are stating the
truth in whole or in part.
A healthy diet, exercise, and good family
and work relationships is the best protection against any virus.
Unfortunately the junk food that many eat
today is a recipe for a lifetime of ill health both mental and physical and a guarantee of obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.