A Pox Upon Our House!

We've got it. Finally, we've got it!

The chickenpox had arrived!

*doing the Snoopy dance*

Yes, I'm actually excited. I missed the few "pox parties" my mommy group had a couple years ago and I was worried the littles would get out of childhood without the pox. Which is just not good news. And yes, if you haven't guessed, we don't vaccinate for chickenpox. We actually don't vaccinate for anything, but if we did, the varicella vaccination would definitely not be on the list.

The uber-scary tactics of Merck (the vaccine developer) with their sinister commercial rubber duckie, trying to convince the world that everyone is going to die without the chickenpox vaccine, makes me cringe with embarrassment for them, and seethe with anger at the people who actually believe it.

Getting a good case of the chickenpox naturally (as opposed to getting the vaccine) may provide a stronger, lifelong immunity. Getting the vaccine, however, exposes you to the dangers of the vaccine itself (which are unproven but still a risk) and studies have come to show that the vaccine itself isn't very effective. The "outbreaks" that Merck and others have been trying to use to "prove" that chickenpox is dangerous have occured, largely, in already vaccinated populations.*

Do people die from chickenpox? Yes. But it's extremely rare, and it happens primarily in the very young, the very old, and those whose immune systems are suppressed. And the truth is that no one dies from chickenpox itself - there is always a secondary complication, and it is often iatrogenic (i.e. doctor caused. For example, giving a child Ibuprofen/Nsaids during chicken pox has been shown to increase the risk of flesh-eating bacteria (necrotizing fasciitis) and strep toxic-shock, which are two of the major complications of chickenpox that can lead to death in the otherwise healthy.)*

Merck itself characterized chickenpox as a "benign, self-limiting disease." And yet we're vaccinating all school-aged children? Why, again? Oh right... because we make billions from the vaccines given, and we have access to those children and can strong-arm parents into believing it's required! Like the Hepatitis-B vaccine given to newborns (which serves no purpose except to guard against the possibility they may grow up to be sexually active, IV drug users) the chickenpox vaccine serves no real purpose (except as protection against the 1-2 week vacation from school!)

Dr. Mercola makes a good point, actually, that a strong natural immunity against chickenpox, which is a version of the herpes virus, may protect children later in life from those types of viruses that could cause MS, AIDS, Bell's Palsy, or even cervical/penile cancer. (Oh, but wait, they've developed a vaccine against that, too, haven't they? I wonder if the chickenpox vaccine will cause a rise in herpes-related viruses?) *

One scary possible complication of the chickenpox vaccine itself is its limiting effects. We may be just prolonging the inevitable. Adults may end up the ones who get chickenpox (when it's called "shingles" and is a living hell compared to the childhood version!) and many more people die from shingles than they do from chickenpox. *

So for those of you who think I'm crazy or irresponsible for thinking about exposing my children to chickenpox on purpose, all I have to say is, do your own research. Look outside the box (i.e. outside of mainstream big-pharma studies.) If I'd continued to homeschool, I'm sure a "pox party" is just where they would have contracted chickenpox, but thankfully, school took care of that worry for me.

We've got the pox!

I've got a spotty, itchy little boy (and a girl who's already got the runny nose/fever starting) who I'm dosing with cat's claw, olive leaf, echinachea, burdock and nettle... instead of Ibuprofen.

He's already taken a bath in colloidal oatmeal along with herbals (calendula, nettle, lavender.) And of course, we're avoiding sugar (feeds that virus!) and eating lots of plain yogurt!

Now I just have to plan my own pox party... anyone else need the pox?

Dead Fascist Horses

Not to beat a dead horse to death or anything, but... (well I guess you can't beat a dead horse to death, can you? It already being dead and all... unlike the nipping pony in the Verizon wireless commercial, who apparently has a taste for dog houses...)

What the hell is wrong with New England? Are they planning to break off and form a fascist state or what? First Maryland with its "Vaccinate Or Go to Jail" policy, and now New Jersey's "Preschoolers Must Have Flu Shots" mandate? What's next, Big Brother?

Not to pick on New England or anything. Really, all of America seems to be either passionately embracing or just laissez-faire accepting all the tenets of fascism that currently exist in our country without any more than a casual, indifferent shrug. Even those outraged by the personal freedoms and liberties being taken away from Americans at every turn feel pretty powerless to stop it.

Not to beat another dead horse... but those foul Star Wars movies have stuck like Exxon on a duck in my brain, and all I can think of is Amidala's line in Star Wars episode-something-or-other: "So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause."

Do you think I'm crazy? An alarmist? Sometimes I feel a little like Mel Gibson spinning Conspiracy Theories but while I learned what I did within the public education system in spite of itself, my tenth grade history teacher, Mr. Tymrak, would be appalled if I simply herded myself along like the rest of the sheeple in the pen.

Here are the basic tenets of fascism:

* The truth is revealed once and only once.
* Parliamentary democracy is by definition rotten because it doesn't represent the voice of the people, which is that of the sublime leader.
* Doctrine outpoints reason, and science is always suspect.
* Critical thought is the province of degenerate intellectuals, who betray the culture and subvert traditional values.
* The national identity is provided by the nation's enemies.
* Argument is tantamount to treason.
* Perpetually at war, the state must govern with the instruments of fear. Citizens do not act; they play the supporting role of "the people" in the grand opera that is the state.

Is it just me, or does this sound eerily familiar?

We're fiddling.

Rome's burning.

No one cares.

Pass me a heaping helping of Oprah's Favorite Things and a double dose of Reality TV so I can ignore the terrible reality right in front of me, would you?

Vaccinate or Jail?

Parents in Maryland were threatened with jail time on Saturday if they didn't vaccinate their children. On the spot. That's right, nurses with needles were lined up and waiting... and so were police officers.

No, I'm not kidding.

I know I've already made my views on vaccinations pretty clear, but this just really goes too far. Last time I checked, personal freedom was a liberty we still enjoyed in America. Or... we're supposed to. Did someone invent time travel when I wasn't looking? Is this American 2007? Or Big Brother 1984? Perhaps Moscow 1930?

Apparently, immunization paperwork is more important to the police state of Maryland than the paper the Bill of Rights or the Constitution are printed on. Because that's what this is about. Paperwork. A bureacracy gone mad.

Maryland schools claim they've "sent notices" to parents, mostly of middle-schoolers who haven't received their hepatitis-B and chicken pox boosters (two of the most questionably mandated shots in the entire vaccine schedule, I might add) who haven't turned in their paperwork saying that 1) their child has been vaccinated or 2) they wish to waive the vaccination.

Come to find out that many of these parents had turned in their paperwork. Several times. The school, however, "misplaced" it. Oops. Sorry about that. Off to jail with you, school officials--do not pass go, do not collect $200. What? You're not sending them to jail for their paperwork error? Oh, but you're willing to threaten parents with jail time for not turning in paperwork they actually did turn in?

Filing that under "things that make you go hmmmmm..."

Oh, and get this. I love this. Many of these kids waited in line on Saturday to get a chicken pox booster so their parents wouldn't go to jail. Chicken pox--a vaccine that has such dubious effectiveness and value that the federal Immunization Advisory Committee could only rationalize making it mandatory in the first place by arguing that it would prevent parents from losing about a week's worth of time from work. In other words, it was an economic argument, not a medical one.

Now, the police state of Maryland is threatening to throw parents in jail for ten days because their children haven't received a vaccine mandated solely on the grounds that it would keep parents from missing work in the first place...

Filing that under "things that make you go 'DUH!'"...

It reminds me of the same logic vaccination proponents use when they argue that non-vaccinated children are putting other children and the public health at risk.

Um... hello!? If the vaccines WORK as well as the government says they do - then your vaccinated child is perfectly safe around my non-vaccinated one. Unless you went to the G.W. Bush backwards school of logic, that's the only conclusion you can come to.

And if you're going to accuse me of getting a free ride on the system, because a majority of people still vaccinate - I can tell you right now, I'm willing to live in an America that doesn't vaccinate. At all.

So call me a skeptic, call me a crunchy, granola fruitcake because I follow not only the hard evidence and research, but my intuition. Go ahead. But I do have a sixth sense about this issue. I don't see dead people... I see dumb sheeple.

Vaccinations: Where Do You Put Your Faith?

There was an article today in Yahoo news about parents who are claiming religious exemptions to vaccination, when in actuality their religion doesn't prohibit vaccination. The implication is, of course, that these parents are doing something wrong. The article seems to say that these parents are putting not only their own children at risk, but other children as well.

I don't immunize my children. It isn't because I'm a lazy or neglectful parent. In fact, the opposite is true. I've done extensive research on the subject and have come to the personal conclusion that the possible risks (known and unknown) of the vaccines themselves are worse than the diseases they are trying to prevent.

Measles, mumps, diptheria, whooping cough--they're all diseases that rarely cause fatalities, and usually only in the immunodepressed, the extremely young (newborns, for example... who can't get vaccinated for these things) or the very old. Polio, which is the big, scary one, only causes paralysis in a very, very, very small percentage of cases. And in those cases, most people who do get the paralytic version of polio actually fully recover.

Maybe it's my Aquarian nature, but I'm not the type of person who is going to follow along with the rest of the sheep just because the government says so. I do believe vaccination programs were begun with the best of intentions--but we all know that good intentions don't always lead where we think they will.

I think the vaccination program is, like any bureaucratically run organization, bloated, outdated, and in need of a major overhaul or an outright burial. There have been many studies done that prove vaccines aren't as effective as the government would like you to believe.

From personal experience, I can tell you that I was vaccinated for rubella (which is a disease that can cause harm to a fetus if contracted by the mother) after having my first child because according to the titers, I wasn't immune. Three years later, I had my second child. According to the titers, I STILL wasn't immune to rubella. So I got another shot. Seven years later, I had my third child. Guess what? Still wasn't immune. I've had a total of four rubella shots in 10 years, and the levels still show that I'm not immune the disease.

The truth is, vaccination itself has become a huge money maker, for doctors as well as for individual states. Doctors actually get bonuses if their vaccination rates remain above a certain level. The federal government gives out tons of money to the states to offer "free" vaccinations to families. And I'm not supposed to be suspicious of this huge pharmaceutical money machine? Hmm... I don't think so.

For me, the most basic human right is personal freedom. I'm not against vaccinations themselves. If you want to vaccinate your child against the evil chicken pox - go right ahead. I will support your right to do so. But I should be supported in my decision not to vaccinate as well. Everyone should have a right to make their own health care choices, whether they go against what Mr. Bureaucrat says we should do or not.

Fortunately, I live in Michigan, where my right to choose for myself and my children is actually supported. Unfortunately, Michigan is one of only seventeen states in the union that will allow that sort of exemption. In the rest of the country, as the Yahoo article points out, parents are forced to lie and claim vaccination is against their religion.

The article says:

"Do I think that religious exemptions have become the default? Absolutely," said Dr. Paul Offit, head of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and one of the harshest critics of the anti-vaccine movement. He said the resistance to vaccines is "an irrational, fear-based decision."

One of the harshest critics of the anti-vaccine movement is the head of infectious disease? Oh what a surprise. How much is this doc accepting in "bonuses" to keep the immunization rate high, I wonder? As for the decision not to vaccinate being irrational and fear based? I'd like to ask Dr. Offit if he'd like a mirror. Because his response is the most irrational and fear-based one I've ever heard. It goes against the evidence, and frankly, I think the doc's a little afraid of getting thrown off the vaccination money train.

(And don't get me started on Dr. Offit. He's one of the holders of the rotavirus patent. The one that was originally pulled off the market? Yeah that one. According to the Wall Street Journal, he gets paid to teach other doctors about the "safety" of vaccines. And he owns stock in Merck, who manufactures the rotavirus vaccine now on the market--but he's on the CDC advisory board. Holy conflict of interests, Batman! Oh, and that particularly vaccine costs 5x as much as most vaccines.)

Let's look at the "facts" Dr. Offit and his cronies seem to want to believe. If vaccinations are as effective as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cite, then what is Dr. Offit afraid of, exactly? The CDC claims (depending on the vaccination) a 97-100% success rate.

Then why does the doctor from the Yahoo article say:

"When you choose not to get a vaccine, you're not just making a choice for yourself, you're making a choice for the person sitting next to you," said Dr. Lance Rodewald, director of the CDC's Immunization Services Division.

If vaccines were anywhere near the 100% effectiveness they claim, there should be no worries about those who have already been vaccinated. They're protected for life -- right?

The truth that Dr. Offit and other vaccination proponents don't want you to know is that contracting these childhood diseases - measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough - during childhood actually gives someone lifetime immunity to that disease.

Most of these involve a few days to a week of illness and are milder for children than for adults. In fact, immunizations often just prolong the contraction of these diseases, and when someone's supposed "lifetime" immunity from a vaccination runs out and they get the mumps, for example, an adult man could end up sterile.

So since vaccinations provide limited duration immunity, may contain potentially dangerous and toxic chemicals, and often only prolong getting the disease it's supposed to prevent, it seems to me the only rational decision available to a parent would be to waive immunizations.

If it comes down to lying and saying it's a "faith-based" decision, or putting my faith in Dr. Offit and the Vaccinations=Money Squad...

I'm all for lying.

Puking, Pumpkins, Plumbers...

Day two of the mysterious fever and unknown illness of the two youngest homo sapiens in the house. Slight congestion seems to be apparent, and a low to midgrade fever, along with general malaise. The "Could Be Anything" Bug has struck!

We don't do doctors unless we have to--which generally means being sick longer than 3 days or a high fever or something like that. And we don't have a doctor here, yet. Which will be tricky, because we don't vaccinate. I'm considering selectively vaccinating--perhaps polio--but for the most part, I think the body is pretty amazing and made to heal itself. Of course, I'm not like some religious zealot about it or anything. If someone gets cancer, we're getting the radiation and chemo... WHILE we do all the alternative stuff. (Spitting on the ground twice and knocking fervently on wood after even typing that out loud!)

So I'm hoping the Ibuprofen will be enough to hold off the Could Be Anything Bug long enough for the kids' immune systems to kick in. They both crawled into our bed this morning while hubbie was getting ready for work and made a mommy sandwich, asking for medicine.

But Z said: "Not the pink kind. It makes me pook." That's her version of "puke." She says she hates "pooking." Now, really... who doesn't? But ever since I gave her a dose before I realized it was stomach flu and not just a rumbly tummy and she immediately threw up all over her Strawberry Shortcake sheets, she has continually refused the "pink stuff," believing that it was the medicine that make her vomit. I assured her that she didn't need any of that kind of medicine, dosed them both up with Motrin, and we cuddled in bed to watch Muppets in Space.

Sick days are jammie days, so we didn't get out of ours. Until the phone rang. The -plumber, who was supposed to be here last Friday, but called with a family emergency and rescheduled for Monday, but never showed up or called... finally wanted to come out. Today. About nowish. So much for mommy having a jammie-day, too. I jumped in the shower and started straightening, trying to decide just how much mess was acceptable for the impending plumber visit.

The problem Mr. Plumber was coming to fix was twofold. 1. We have a leak in the ceiling which is just under the bathtub. 2. We have little to no water pressure. For a month I have been waiting 20 minutes for a bathtub to fill up to bathe the kids. I call our morning showers "drizzles." The best I can describe it... if you close your eyes while you're under our shower, you'd swear someone was peeing on your head. It's that bad. So while I was a little miffed at actually having to get showered and dressed today, I was actually looking forward to Mr. Plumber's visit.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a two minute affair after all my running around-- loading the dishwasher, sweeping junk from the counters into a box and tossing it into the garage, and swishing the toilet bowl brush around that well-water stain in the bottom. He stayed long enough to tell me that it wasn't a problem with the plumbing, it was a problem with the caulking. "Bathrooms are supposed to be waterproof," he said. Well. Really? Duh. "Yours isn't." Um, yeah. We noticed. When I asked about the water pressure, he said, "That's a problem with the well. You need to call a well technician." Oh. And here I thought plumbing was plumbing. Apparently not!

So Mr. Plumber left, none of the problems fixed, and I stood at the front door watching forlornly as he drove away... and that's when I noticed the pumpkin. Well, it's not actually a pumpkin yet... it's just a vine growing out of a pot. The woman who lived here before us planted a pumpkin for us "for the little ones," she said. I thought it was sweet. I had never really considered how long pumpkin vines grow. Guess I should have paid more attention during those Charlie Brown specials? Not only that, but they're very pokey. I went out because I noticed some brown leaves near the top that I figured I should pull off... but ouch! Prickly little suckers!

I have no idea if it will actually grow a pumpkin or not. Even if it does, I have a feeling she planted it rather late. From what I'm reading, we should have fruit already... and there's nothing I can see that resembles a pumpkin. But it's kind of fun to watch the vine trailing along the side of the porch, getting bigger every day. It's rather strange and alien. Of course, growing things in general are all a bit odd to me. The thought that there might be something attached to that spikey vine that we could consume? Weird!

Of course, I'm the mom who said, "That's true" when my youngest answered the question, "Where does milk come from?" with "The store!" This whole living in the country thing really is going to take some getting used to...

Anyone know a good well-technician in the area?

That's okay... all I have to do is go next door and ask the neighbors...! :)