children and innoculations

Exactly. There's no real controversy among anyone who's looked at the actual science. Like those who don't believe in global warming or evolution, there are some people who can never be convinced by any amount of evidence.

i have a 9 month old so we're in the whole shots phase right now. when we first started with our pediatrician they separated the shots. now they don't because Merck does not separate the shots any more.

Merck no longer manufactures the shots separately. According to Dr Sears, you should just get any shot that contains aluminum on separate visits. The vaccination schedule in his book is pretty easy to follow, as long as your pediatrician is on board.

Check with your doctor or check with the park slope parents group (maybe someone else can tell you where to find them)

Vaccines can be a bit of a shock to the system so I think parents and doc's separate them out a bit, esp. in babies these days. It's not necessarily b/c of a parent keeping their child from being vaccinated (which is very bad--see the measles outbreak in the UK. Bad.)

As for the autism link, from my understanding (lots of reading and school and work that exposes me to very specific discussions of this stuff) , the signs of autism happen to begin presenting around the same time as vaccines. And as someone else said, the individual who started the autism stuff has been debunked--the medical records used to support his paper in no way support his hypothesis and show that he falsified data. No shades of Grey.

A similar, hotly debated link: silicon breast implants and autoimmune disease. They were banned b/c of a concern that women who got them were also getting an autoimmune disease--there was no actual evidence, just mass hysteria after a few young, sick women went on the news saying the silicon made them sick. It also happens that the particular disease that's been around a while, starts showing signs and symptoms in young women (early 20s, give or take a few years). This happens to also be the same age group who gets implants the most. Once extensive studies were done in large numbers it was concluded that the silicon implants had no part in the disease and they are no longer banned.

besus wrote: We actually found that our pediatrician does not use vaccinations that contain thimerisol.

His job is made even easier because thimerosal is rarely used any more. Furthermore, MMR doesn't have it and NEVER had it, as stated in the table here:

http://www.fda.gov/CBER/vaccine/thimerosal.htm

sir_eccles wrote: [quote=besus]We actually found that our pediatrician does not use vaccinations that contain thimerisol.

His job is made even easier because thimerosal is rarely used any more. Furthermore, MMR doesn't have it and NEVER had it, as stated in the table here:

http://www.fda.gov/CBER/vaccine/thimerosal.htm

While it is rarely used any more in creating new vaccinations, it is, in fact, still around.

sir_eccles wrote: If you want a simple explanation of why it makes no sense to spread out the shots, here is a pretty well written article:

http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/immu/too_many.html

While this article addresses the fact that one shouldn't be fearful of the amount of pathogens found in the vaccines, it does not address the additives, like aluminum, which is what most parents are fearful of. We know the toxic amount of aluminum for an adult, but no tests have ever been done to determine the amount safe for babies. That is why tests which contain the possibly harmful additives are spaced out.

NYkittyNY wrote: [quote=sir_eccles]If you want a simple explanation of why it makes no sense to spread out the shots, here is a pretty well written article:

http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/immu/too_many.html

While this article addresses the fact that one shouldn't be fearful of the amount of pathogens found in the vaccines, it does not address the additives, like aluminum, which is what most parents are fearful of. We know the toxic amount of aluminum for an adult, but no tests have ever been done to determine the amount safe for babies. That is why tests which contain the possibly harmful additives are spaced out.

I would like to point out that MMR doesn't have aluminum in it either.

If you would like some random articles about aluminum why it is in vaccines and the relative risk:

http://www.immunizationinfo.org/vaccine_components_detail.cfv?id=61

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20040129/aluminum-in-vaccines-poses-no-harm

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400319/Aluminum-A-Vaccine-Danger.html

NYkittyNY wrote:

I would like to point out that MMR doesn't have aluminum in it either.

If you would like some random articles about aluminum why it is in vaccines and the relative risk:

My response was about vaccines in general, and not just the MMR, because the article you suggested reading was also about vaccines in general.

The OP was specifically asking about spacing out MMR. Three concerns (thimerosal, aluminum and too much of a shock) are generally raised as reasons for doing so. I have provided evidence that MMR has neither thimerosal nor aluminum and further evidence that the amount of exposure is insignificant compared to the number of microorganisms encountered in daily life.

this should be on the family or kids board. or go to Park SLope Parents where they have tons of information about this. This is a specious argument based on bad science. but hey--decide for yourself.

If we're going to be snarky about typos/spelling errors, it's thimerosal, or thiomersal, not thimerisol.

On a related note, is anyone around here old enough to have grown up with Mercurochrome? It made your cuts and scrapes look so festive!