Yesterday we offered you a ticket in which the pediatrician Carlos Gonzalez He answered some questions related to vaccines and, above all, to the arguments that “anti-vaccine” people use to explain to parents why we should not vaccinate our children.
Today we offer you the rest of this interview:
Dr. Uriarte (author of one of the best known anti-vaccine books) says that it is recommended to be vaccinations with a single virus and wait six months to put a different vaccine.
Well, I think that says it as "lesser evil", in reality what he recommends is not to vaccinate, period. Vaccination separately is currently impossible (separate vaccines are not marketed in Spain), and it would be dangerous, as I have already said. For most diseases, the risk is maximum during the first year.
We can also read Japan as an example: it is said that in the mid-1970s, Japan raised the vaccination age from two months to two years and went from 17th in the infant mortality ranking to be 1st. Is this true?
No, and it is very easy to check: by searching on google: “immunization schedule, Japan”, in a few seconds you will find the vaccination schedule of Japan. Get vaccinated after three months. It is true that in the 70s they delayed vaccination at two years. It was a wrong decision, which resulted in a severe epidemic of pertussis and the death of dozens of children. Of course, they re-advanced the vaccines.
Another argument is the benefit that the pharmaceutical companies get with the vaccines. Could it be that they try to scare us with diseases that we will probably never suffer so that we receive a vaccine that costs a “pastón”?
Make accounts: how much do you spend after a year on toothpaste, and how much do you spend on vaccines? Of course, laboratories make money with vaccines, just like the one who grows lettuce makes money with lettuce (is that why they tell us that the vegetable is healthy, to get rich? You can't go looking for conspiracies everywhere !). But Barça's annual budget is higher than the total expenditure on vaccines in Spain (including papilloma, which is as expensive as all other meetings). Laboratories earn much more money making cough syrups, vitamins and restorative or wrinkle creams than with vaccines.
What is your opinion about the influenza A vaccine and the WHO declaration of pandemic?
"Pandemic" does not indicate the severity of the flu, but its extent. The WHO declared a level 6 pandemic because there was a level 6 epidemic (a new influenza virus that causes infections in several countries on different continents). It is true that more vaccines were bought than were finally necessary. But it is difficult to predict what will happen months ago, and governments prepared for the worst. Do we want the government not to buy vaccines until at least 10,000 people have died, or what is the plan? The really tragic thing is that, because of the lies of some enlightened people (I received chain mails ensuring that the vaccine was a biological weapon to exterminate the population), many people who should have been vaccinated (pregnant, chronically ill ...) He got vaccinated. And the flu existed, and the hospitals were overflowing, and many people died, and some of them would have been saved with the vaccine.
What would you say to those people who argue that breastfeeding is the best and most natural vaccine and that thanks to it you can skip industrial vaccines?
Breastfeeding is not a vaccine, it does not induce the formation of antibodies. It has been proven that breastfeeding decreases (but does not completely eliminate) the risk of some diseases, such as Haemophilus and pneumococcal infections. But it does nothing against pertussis, measles, tetanus and many others. Children who breastfeed have the same right as others to get vaccinated, and should do so at the same age. It should be stressed that, if vaccines are not given before, it is not because children are protected naturally, but because vaccines are not effective before. I wish they were. Younger children, who have not yet been vaccinated, are protected by group immunity: if everyone else gets vaccinated at the right age, there will be no one to infect them. In March 2009, a month-old Australian girl, Dana McCaffery, died of whooping cough. Her two older brothers were vaccinated, but she didn't have time. She lived in an area with low vaccination coverage, and someone who had pertussis infected her. Probably an older child, with a mild illness. This is the website that their parents have created to honor their memory and to encourage people to get vaccinated: //danamccaffery.com/ Dana was breastfeeding.
From homeopathic medicine there is talk of homeopathic vaccines for some viruses and remedies that mitigate the effects when a baby catches the disease for other viruses, treating them from the first symptom. As they comment, they are safer and also effective. What do you know about it?
Numerous studies prove that real vaccines are safe (that is, they have relatively few side effects) and effective (that is, they prevent diseases they claim to prevent). No study proves the safety or efficacy of so-called homeopathic "vaccines." We are willing to accept that they are safe, since they are only very expensive sugar pellets, and therefore are not likely to have side effects. But of course they are not effective. And there is also no homeopathic "medicine" capable of curing or alleviating any infectious disease. Of course, like many infectious diseases, if there are no complications, they heal on their own, homoeopathy serves to "treat" uncomplicated cases of chickenpox, measles, influenza or mumps. In those cases, a glass of water is an equally effective and much cheaper treatment.
What do you think about optional vaccines (pneumococcal, rotavirus and chickenpox)? Does the fact that they are not part of a calendar make them unimportant?
On the contrary, it is not that they are unimportant because they are not on the calendar, but that our authorities have not put them on the calendar because they consider that, given the efficacy of the vaccine, the incidence and severity of the disease and the price of the vaccine, these vaccines are not important enough at the moment.
What can lead someone to invent arguments against vaccines?
It's a mystery.
And this ends the interview we did to Dr. Carlos Gonzalez. I think we have touched on the most relevant topics, but if you have unresolved questions you can leave the questions in the comments of this post and will be published in a third entry with the answers of the well-known pediatrician.
