My mom friends and I have been talking about vaccines and what their decisions were on giving their child shots, spacing the shots out or not doing them at all.  Some parents just follow what their pediatrician recommends and others do their own research in order to make a more informed decision.

Some of my friends have decided to get only certain vaccines and to space them further out so that their child’s system is not inundated with too much to deal with at once.

My philosophy in keeping my child healthy and treating childhood illness comes from information that I’ve learned from my mother-in-law (and articles written by anthroposophical Dr. Philp Incao) which is based in anthroposophical medicine.  Anthroposophical medicine is based on the idea that the human being includes soul/spiritual aspects as well as the physical.  It uses the same scientific principles as Western medicine , but it also uses naturopathy and homeopathy (taking into account that we are spiritual/energetic individuals and not just identical objects made of water, blood, flesh and bone that all respond to the same kind of treatment.)

So basically anthroposophical theory believes vaccines are not beneficial to building immunity.  To explain this theory, you’ll need to understand how childhood illness is actually beneficial to building your child’s immune system.

The belief is, a child’s body is constantly breaking down and rebuilding and actually needs to go through these “healing crisis” (like a fever or other illnesses) in order to build proper immunity.  If we prevent our bodies from experiencing these “healing crisis”, our bodies are not as strong to fight disease.  All common childhood illnesses are actually inflammation rather than infection. The conventional thought is that germs have invaded the body and that causes the body to get sick– this is not true.  The fact is that we are surrounded by germs, bacteria and viruses all the time.  We all carry many types of bacteria naturally and we do not want to be bacteria-free because it would throw off the balance that keeps us healthy. (Think about any eco-system, like the ocean, it is full of bacteria, but it naturally balances itself out or it gets “sick” too).  So taking in small increments of bacteria/dirt is actually good for us.  In fact, a recent study found that more and more city-dwelling kids are getting asthma and allergies and the numbers continue to rise astronomically.  Researchers say that living a life that is “too clean” is what is causing the problems and they site that children who live on farms with animals are the healthiest because over time, they take into their system the bacteria found in the animal’s mouths.

So a child’s body is constantly breaking down and rebuilding on a cellular level in order to grow.  The immune system does this breaking down by creating inflammation and/or fever to destroy and digest the debris created by the body– that’s why you see children getting lots of rashes and making lots of mucous because their system is actively working.  Debris that is not cleaned out acts like a poison in the body and can cause allergies or repeated inflammations later on.  Germs can multiply when the body is doing this cleaning process when the living cells begin to die and are being cleaned out.  But germs don’t cause inflammations, but rather they feed on them (and as a result, and imbalance can occur).  So every cold or sickness is really an inflammation and a healing crisis that is cleaning out the body.  And homeopathic and anthroposophic remedies help promote this cleansing process and help the illness work its way out of the body so that the healing can take place.  Antibiotics, aspirin, tylenol and other anti-inflammatory drugs cool down and suppress the fire of the immune system so that the symptoms subside before the illness has fully worked its way out of the body.  Even though the symptoms are gone, the drug never heals the inflammation and the immune system is left weakened.  The way to rid the body of inflammation is through fasting, purging and sweating (which worldwide folk-medicine recognizes) and that is why fever (chills and sweating) is a way of burning the inflammation away and leaving the child temporarily weakened, but ultimately stronger and renewed.

**Important to consider– when your child has a fever and you give him or her tylenol to bring the fever down, when the tylenol wears off, the fever can spike and cause convulsions.  This does NOT happen if you DO NOT give your child tylenol, but many people feel safer when they feel they are controlling the symptoms, when in actuality they are interfering in the healing process.

So what about vaccinations?
The diseases that the vaccines are meant to prevent are acute inflammatory illnesses that usually involve fever and rash (like measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough and chicken pox).  These acute healing crisis are what strengthen the immune system and are part of a child’s healthy development process in the anthroposophical view.

Okay, so here is the complex, but important part to understand about a child’s body and vaccines and why it does not build immunity…
The immune system has two different missions when dealing with illness.
One (called the humoral immune system) is where antibodies (or defense proteins) are produced to recognize and neutralize foreign particles in the body (antigens).
The other (called the cell-mediated immune system) involves white blood cells and specialized immune cells which eat antigens.  These cells also drive antigens out of the body causing rashes and mucous which are signs of beneficial inflammatory illnesses in childhood.
These two immune system missions affect each other.  When the humoral system is stimulated, the cell-mediated system is inhibited.  Since vaccines stimulate the humoral immune response and depress the cell-mediated reaction, the debris never gets cleaned out of the body.  And even more important to understand, is that vaccines “prevent” a disease by depressing the cell-mediated immune system and it’s ability to expel disease-producing organisms.

So the bottom line is that an acute inflammatory illness (like measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, scarlet fever or whooping cough) develops the cell-mediated immune system which cleans out the body… while the vaccine activates the humoral immune system.  This is an important difference because the cell-mediated response is what protects a child from future illnesses and builds a stronger immune system against more chronic, long-term illnesses for the rest of a person’s life.  (Antibiotics also inhibit the cell-mediated immune system from working the illness out with rash or mucous and can increase the chance of chronic illness.  Although in some circumstances they are necessary and can save a life).

Research published in the Journal of the Medical Association (a well respected medical journal) shows that if a child doesn’t experience an acute respiratory inflammation they are at more of a risk of developing asthma and other problems.  The reason is that when a child has an intense but short-term respiratory infection the cell-mediated system is stimulated.  If this does not happen, the humoral system overreacts to harmless pollen and dust which eventually leads to asthma.

If a child is vaccinated against measles, the measles virus is in the body, but the child does not get the rash and some of the virus stays in the body.  This is like planting a seed in the body and then tricking the body into not rejecting it.  An article was written about this in the well respected British medical journal called Lancet.  It reported that the measles virus without rash is related to diseases in adult life like immune dysfunction, skin disease, degenerative diseases of bone and cartilage and some tumors.  The measles vaccine has also inflammatory bowel disease and diabetes in children showing up to be more prevalent in the last decade.  The report attributes this to the fact that the measles vaccine (as well as vaccines for mumps and whooping cough) reduces the ability of the pancreas to create insulin.

Since the more prevalent use of vaccines and antibiotics since the 1960’s the rate of chronic conditions in children have more than trippled.  This confirms what anthroposophical doctors have believed for more than 75 years– it’s better for an acute respiratory illness to run its course  (with appropriate herbal and homeopathic support) than to prevent it with vaccines or suppress it with antibiotics.

Since this is my belief, for me and my family, I will not do any vaccines an will not take antibiotics (unless in grave danger) and will not stop a fever with tylenol, asprin or similar drugs.  When my children get sick, I will use homeopathic and herbal remedies.  If there is some serious illness, I will of course consult the Kaiser Dr. and also consult other naturopathic and anthroposophical doctors to weigh my options and the affects.

Another huge thing that I believe affects our children’s health is our (both parents) state of mind.  If we are in distress, fearful, worried, depressed, sad, negative, angry or violent our children’s adrenal system is affected (fight or flight system) and this taxes the immune system and their emotional well-being.  If we are happy and peaceful, their bodies don’t have to deal with any strife and they can utilize all their energy for growing, developing and fighting off any imbalances that can create disease

How we approach our children’s health is an individual thing and takes serious thought.  Whatever we do, if we do it consciously with sufficient information to make our decisions, we can feel good about it without regret.  My parents believed in vaccinations, antibiotics and prescribed and over-the-counter drugs and they felt they were doing the best for us that they could.  I have been sick a lot in my life (nothing grave), so that alters how I feel about how I approach health for my children.  But I don’t hold judgement over anyone else’s rationalizations or decisions because I am sure you are going to do what you think is best for your child.  I just offer my perspective from my knowledge and research so that you can make your own informed decisions.

Your Sensible Girlfriend, Angeline