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Vaccines
Deciding Not To Vaccinate: My Personal Journey Into Freedom
by Mindy Goorchenko
When I was pregnant with my first son Noah, I took for granted that I would be vaccinating him like every other parent I knew who took their kids in for “shots” every few months. I knew I had also been vaccinated, and up until that point in my life, it had never occurred to me to question that practice.
About a month before Noah was born, however, the irony occurred to me that, even though I was planning a natural, unmedicated birth, and even though I had eaten a pristine diet during pregnancy, avoiding even food preservatives, I was unconsciously planning to have my child injected with strange chemicals, viral and bacterial substances, and other toxins. I knew I needed to think more about this decision, and I felt grateful this thought had occurred to me before he was born. No doubt once I had my baby in my arms, it would be harder to find time to research the subject or think deeply about it. I expected at least a few months of utter exhaustion.
I began my “research” in the shower—long, drawn-out showers spent deep in thought about all I had come to understand about vaccines throughout my life. My mind immediately hit a snag. Weren’t these shots mandated by law? Why should I even be questioning vaccinations if my child is required to get them in order to be an American citizen, attend school, etc.? I spent about five full minutes pondering that thought, and then moved on. I have never been timid about questioning the status quo, and I knew that I would never do anything to harm my child, even if the law required me to do so.
Next, I thought about what I knew about the basic premise of vaccinations: injecting the body with a substance which is similar to an illness will cause the body to remember that illness, thereby causing immunities to be made and preventing the body from catching that disease. This, at first, seemed reasonable. Unfortunately, it rested on a presumption regarding the human body which I have never believed: that the human body is inherently weak and that mankind’s inventions make it stronger. I have never seen evidence of this. On the contrary, looking at formula feeding, cribs, bottles, strollers, and our bizarre American foods, I’d place my faith in breasts, arms, and vegetables any day.
Next, I considered the health of the American population. If vaccines work, we should all be living to ripe old ages and dying in perfect bliss after a life of good health. Obviously, this is not the case. I can’t count the number of people I know who have either had heart attacks, dealt with cancer, or know someone who has. Most children I see in the supermarket have snot dripping out of their nose or their parents are discussing recurrent ear infections with other parents. While I did not assume that vaccines were causing all these problems, I also knew that immune function obviously didn’t achieve perfection through vaccines, and I suspected immune function was on the decline. Everyone’s always sick. These are my unscientific, not-supported-by-statistics, observations about the people around me.
Once I established that vaccinations were not aligned with my philosophy about health, I set to work researching the subject in the time I had left before Noah was born. I began by purchasing a book by Neil Miller called Vaccines—Are They Really Safe and Effective? I highly recommend this book. It presents a great overview of the controversies surrounding vaccines and confirmed my suspicions that these injections were not helping American children achieve good health. There are many, many books now on the subject of vaccines. One I particularly like is Tim O’Shea’s The Sanctity of Human Blood — Vaccination is Not Immunization. His style is more heated than Miller’s and makes a strong case for preserving the purity of the infant’s bloodstream. Books like these supported my instincts with facts and made me more confident in my decision to leave my child unvaccinated. The National Vaccine Information Center supports the right of citizens to exercise informed consent and make educated, independent vaccination decisions for themselves and their children. They are a parent-led, non-profit organization with a wealth of information on their website.
It seemed intellectually sound to explore both sides of the issue, so I spent a lot of time on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) website. Ironically, the very organization which approves the use of specific vaccines in America unwittingly convinced me even further of the dangers of these concoctions. In fact, I consider the FDA’s website to be the primary source of scary information which helped me make my final decision. For example, did you know that the FDA conducts none of its own research? Drastically under-funded, it relies on research provided to them by the pharmaceutical companies. I learned the advisory boards of the FDA consist of not only doctors but of shareholders to pharmaceutical companies and representatives of the companies themselves. Most disturbingly, I learned how, frankly, there is no way to guarantee the safety of a vaccine in the human population without injecting it into large quantities of children and seeing what happens. The vaccine manufacturers are not even liable for any negative consequences of their products—damages are paid out through a fund which is maintained through a portion of proceeds paid for by consumers of vaccines. At the end of the day, parents are the ultimate decision-makers for their children and must deal with the results of those decisions. I knew I couldn’t trust this type of process to truly hold my child’s best interests in mind.
I returned to the original question regarding the legality of this decision and felt relieved to have learned that, in this free country, there are vaccine exemptions in every single state for religious, philosophical, and/or medical reasons. I have compiled numerous accounts of parents who have refused to vaccinate their children and have read surprisingly few “horror stories,” other than the occasional confrontation with a misinformed school official. One good friend of mine received pressure to watch films of children who suffered from diseases supposedly prevented by vaccines. In my opinion, any scare tactics are a violation of the law. You, as a parent, are still free to make decisions regarding your child’s health. The National Vaccine Information Center’s website can lead you to resources regarding the laws in your particular state and how to exercise your freedom. In my personal experience with my oldest son’s school enrollment, I have simply signed my exemption with no questions asked. Now, I am battling to refuse my own tuberculosis test as a parent at a parent-participation school. More on that later after I’ve won the battle!
Mindy Goorchenko lives with her husband Alex and their four unvaccinated children, Noah, Wolfgang, Psalm, and Zoya. She can be contacted via their website www.EarthBirthProductions.com, a resource for childbirth educators and parents.
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