Dear Readers,

S.L.B. writes Lifeline from Portmore, St Catherine. His first child is nine months and S.L.B. is a religious man committed to natural ways. He doesn't like drugs and pills. He is concerned about all the immunisation shots his little daughter is receiving. He feels all these injections of foreign germs into the baby must result in some adverse effect.

He feels most of the illnesses the child is being vaccinated against are fairly uncommon at this time and so, possibly, unnecessary. He believes a healthy child with good natural immunity to infection should do quite well without all these shots.

SLB needs to understand that these awful childhood diseases are now actually not commonly seen BECAUSE of a successful childhood immunisation programme which is protecting our children against the diseases.

diseases

However, pockets of these diseases (the germs) still exist and can attack those who are not immunised and are at risk. Many years ago, it was common for families to bury one or more of their children lost to these diseases!

Vaccines protect children from serious infections which can make them very sick, leave them disabled or even result in death. Most vaccines work by prompting the body to produce fighter cells against specific viruses and bacteria by exposing the body's protective defence system to a weakened or killed form of the organism.

Vaccines containing killed viruses or bacteria cannot give a child the disease. Only in very rare instances can a child get the disease from a weakened (attenuated) virus or bacteria.

All vaccines are tested extensively for safety and purity before they can be used. Vaccines have resulted in a healthy, happy childhood for many. In countries where vaccination is inadequate children are still being brain-damaged from meningitis and dying from the complications of whooping cough, measles, polio and the other germs against which immunisation is possible.

Natural protection can be obtained by the child being infected naturally with the disease and surviving it. Surviving it without permanent injury is the real problem as is evidenced by those paralysed in the last polio epidemic, who live and work with their disability among us. All medications, including vaccines, can have side effects, but side effects associated with immunisations tend to be minor and would include a fever for a few days and sometimes in babies, mild irritability or fussiness, for a few hours.

Over the years people have tried to link childhood autism, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) to various immunisations. There is no existing proof in support of this.

For vaccines to work properly, the proper immunisation schedule needs to be followed. If all the doses are not given the child will still be at risk for contracting the disease.

vaccines

There are actually a few groups of children who are not given vaccines. This is not because they don't need the vaccines but usually because they are known to be allergic to eggs, a component of which is present in some vaccines.

Children with seizure disorder are usually exempted from the Oral Polio Vaccine and where there is immuno-compromise (the body's defence system has broken down), for example, children with AIDS or children on cancer treatment, these children will not be vaccinated.

The positive gains of immunising our children adequately far outweigh any probable side effects and I would urge S.L.B. to see that his daughter's immunisation schedule is adhered to fully.

Write to:

Lifeline

PO Box 1731

Kgn 8

- A.J.M.