I was born in the 1960’s. As far as I am aware I had what was known as the triple vaccine back then, composed of Diptheria, Tetanus and Whooping Cough, with Polio on a sugar lump. I have a scar on my arm either from the BCG, for TB, or for smallpox, so I must have had at least one of those too at some point. Did I get a vaccination for smallpox or for TB, or both? Who knows, cos I don’t.
I remember the “6 needle” injection at secondary school, the Heaf test. It came back positive, which was good, it meant no injection for TB. As a girl, I believe I also got something for rubella, for when I had babies!
I can’t believe that my mother would have questioned them. I never questioned them either. Not even when I went off to Nursing School aged 19, and they wanted to give me the whole round again. I rolled up my sleeve like a sheep. The doctor knows best after all don’t they?
As a child I caught chicken pox, mumps, measles and I think German measles. No big deal! I don’t even remember having them. I survived, I am still here, pretty healthy to be honest.
At some point in my nursing career the Hepatitis vaccine was added. A? or B? I do not know, but I obediently went along and had it, as I was told I could not nurse without it. I travelled to Africa in the early 80’s. Did I have the Yellow fever vaccine? Possibly, if they told me I needed it, then I would have got it.
So you can see that I have had my fair few number of vaccines over the years. And like the majority of people didn’t question them.
In the mid-80’s I was working on an infectious diseases unit in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. On the unit we were responsible for reporting cases of Notifiable Diseases to the authorities, when a case was identified by microbiology report. At the beginning it was for things like whooping cough, meningococcal menigitis, salmonella, campylobacter. We DID NOT report measles, mumps or rubella. But in the mid 1980’s we were asked to report these 3 diseases. We were told that a vaccine was in the pipeline, and the authorities wanted to be able to measure the effectiveness of said vaccine.
I started to ask myself questions. Why would you need a vaccine for something that I had had, and survived? These 3 childhood diseases were not killers, that we had been told the diseases were, which were in the triple vaccine and polio. It didn’t make any sense to me.
My daughter was born in 1996. I may have had a few misgivings about giving a perfectly healthy baby her 8 week vaccinations, but I obediently did. It was only when it came to the MMR that I hesitated. I put it off, I didn’t agree with it being given, and from my recollection, nobody challenged me on it. They may have asked me twice, but I think they just accepted what I said, due to my nursing background, and possibly because they felt as I did, they had had the normal childhood illnesses and had survived.
By 1996, I had left nursing, and was in the middle of my training as a McTimoney Chiropractor, where I learnt a very different approach to health. This may have had an impact on my willingness to question vaccines a little. Certainly my daughter’s pre-school boosters were not given pre-school! I knew enough about the body to know that the 1st introduction of any substance that the body will develop an allergy to, is never at the 1st dose. That is when the body mounts an immune response and makes the anti-bodies. I also knew that they have chosen to give toddlers 2 doses of MMR, because they did not know which children had made the anti-bodies, so just to be sure, they gave all children a second dose. I believe that is where so much of the issue lies. Having this knowledge, I agreed to my daughter getting 1 dose of the MMR, and no more.
10 years later, in 2007, she was in the 1st year of being offered the Gardasil vaccine.
I SAID NO!
I knew that this vaccine had been trialled on young women, but here they were, wanting to give it to pre-pubescent girls. It had never been tested on that age group. How did we know what affects it would have on their young, developing bodies.
It was an easy decision to take, as a mother, but not for my daughter to accept.
The memory of her screaming at me, whilst curled up on the stairs “You want me to die of cancer, don’t you?” will remain with me forever. I wondered what story had they been telling the girls at school?
So that is my history regarding vaccinations, up until 2 years ago. I considered myself someone who vaccinated for deadly diseases, with vaccines that had a proven track record, but was not going to vaccinate any child of mine for childhood illnesses that I and all my family and friends got, and not one person that I knew ever died. Nor was I going to vaccinate for a disease which can be controlled by safe sex and limiting sexual partners, to prevent the spread of the HPV virus.
In early 2017 I watched the full series of Ty Bollinger’s The Truth of Vaccines
It opened my eyes. I first met on screen Dr Suzanne Humphries, Judy Makovits PhD, Dr Lawrence Palevsky and many others. It took me down the rabbit hole, it made my head spin.
Now I am willing to write about what I have found, based on their work, and the work of others.
Thank you for reading this far. If you have any comments or questions, I will do my best to answer them.
Joy
A Joy of Health Nutrition and Beauty 