When it comes to vaccinations, FACTS MATTER.

Vaccines are a hot button issue for a lot of people. My purpose in this blog is not to make fun of anti-vaxers, or demean them in any way. It's simply to present facts.

I know the word "facts" seems to have kind of a negative connotation these days, which I truly do not understand. Facts are good! Facts are one of the truly unbiased things in the universe. They are absolute truth whether you think they are or not, whether you "believe in them" or not, and they do not discriminate against anybody. 

The first fact I'd like to present you with is that a few years ago, I graduated from pharmacy technician school and I was a nationally licensed, CPR qualified, CPhT (Certified Pharmacy Technician). So when I talk about medicine, I'm not just spouting off random things I read on the internet. I went to school for this. I know what I'm talking about.

Next, I'm going to post some links where you will find factual information about vaccines. Everything I talk about in this blog will be from a trustworthy, reliable, factual website.

https://www.vaccines.gov/

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/index.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136032/

https://www.scribd.com/doc/25983372/FACTS-WWSM-280110-Final-Complete-Corrected

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367

https://www.apha.org/topics-and-issues/vaccines

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm

https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/safety-availability-biologics/common-ingredients-us-licensed-vaccines

https://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/understanding-vaccines/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/vaccinescalling-the-shots

The information on these websites was gathered by real doctors and scientists who are experts in their field. This information is factual because it has been tested, peer reviewed, and verified by other experts who did their own scientific testing. 

All of that being said, let's get started. And what better place to start than at the beginning?

By beginning, I mean Andrew Wakefield. The person who originally started all of the misinformation that we currently have about vaccines. (The link to the article about him is the third one on the list of links I posted above.)

The article states: 

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield and 12 of his colleagues published a case series in a medical journal called The Lancet which suggested that the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine may predispose to behavioral regression and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Despite the small sample size, the uncontrolled design, and the speculative nature of the conclusions, the paper received wide publicity and MMR vaccination rates began to drop because parents were concerned about the risk of autism after vaccination.

Almost immediately afterward, studies were conducted and published, refuting the link between MMR vaccination and autism. The logic that the MMR vaccine may trigger autism was also questioned because a temporal link between the two is almost predestined: both events, by design (MMR) or definition (autism), occur in early childhood.

A retraction of the interpretation of the original data was published by 10 of the 12 co-authors of the paper, and it stated, "No casual link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient." This was accompanied by an admission by The Lancet that Wakefield had failed to disclose financial interests. Wakefield had been funded by lawyers who had been engaged by parents in lawsuits against vaccine-producing companies.

The Lancet completely retracted the Wakefield paper in February 2010, admitting that several elements in the paper were incorrect, contrary to the findings in the earlier investigation. Wakefield and his team were found guilty of ethical violations (they had conducted invasive investigations on the children without obtaining the necessary ethical clearances) and scientific misrepresentation (they reported that their sampling was consecutive when, in fact, it was selective).

They were also found guilty of deliberate fraud (they picked and chose data that suited their case, and they falsified facts). The British Medical Journal has published a series of articles on the exposure of the fraud, which appears to have taken place for financial gain.

So, in layman's terms, he literally got paid to make up a bunch of lies about vaccines. Nothing he said was true, and he lost his medical license for lying and being unethical. If you google "scholarly articles about vaccines and autism" you'll find that many many studies have been done on this topic, and none of them have ever found any link between the two. In my list of links above, I've included a link to one such study.

Next, I'd like to discuss the ingredients in vaccines. Many of the ingredients found in vaccines that people tend to worry about can actually be found naturally in everyday foods that we eat. When applicable, I'll mention what food contains said ingredient.

I HAVE A HEARTBEAT TOO.

Abortion has been in the news a lot lately. I've been reading a lot of news articles, and the comments on those articles. There's a lot of this kind of stuff: "Just don't have sex!" or "Just use birth control!" or "Just have the baby and give it up for adoption!" or "But it has a heartbeat!"

Let's address these things in order, shall we?

1) "Just don't have sex!" Really? Really?? Come on. We all know that this is just unrealistic. This is not Medieval Times. You can't just expect people to not have sex just because they don't want a baby. It's just not going to happen. People like sex, and that's ok. They should be able to enjoy it without having to worry about being executed by their own country just because they got pregnant and decided they didn't want to be.

2) "Just use birth control!" Well, a lot of people do use birth control. But a there are a lot of people that don't have access to affordable birth control because our healthcare system is kind of fucked up. One place that people - both men and women - could go for affordable STI testing and birth control is Planned Parenthood. But, we all know how forced-birthers feel about Planned Parenthood. They want people to use birth control, but they don't want them to have access to birth control. You can't have it both ways people. Not to mention the fact that birth control is only 99% effective. There are certain medications and even vitamins, that when taken, can completely negate the effects of birth control, or at the very least, make it much less effective. If you're even a few hours late taking your pill each day, that can also make the effectiveness go down. Even other forms of birth control can fail. Women have gotten pregnant while on the Depo shot. Condoms break. Hell, my mom had her tubes tied 2 years before she had me. Nothing is 100% effective. Nothing. Plus, there are women that are unable to take any kind of birth control because of other medical reasons. "Just take birth control" is not a solution. It helps, but it's not perfect.

3) "Just have the baby and give it up for adoption!"

I can't help but think that the people that say this have never been pregnant or given birth in their lives, and they have no idea what it is that they're actually saying. They make it seem like being pregnant for 40 weeks and giving birth is as easy as taking a shit. If women were able to go through an entire pregnancy and give birth without it affecting their own bodies at all in any way, we'd probably be having a different conversation. But the fact is that pregnancy and childbirth change a woman's body forever. And THAT is why women are fighting against all these abortion bans so hard. It's not because they want to kill babies for shits and giggles on a Thursday afternoon because they have nothing better to do with their spare time. It's because women have a right to bodily autonomy.

So, bodily autonomy means that the only person that has control over what happens to your body is you. You are the only one who can decide whether or not to pierce your bellybutton, or get a tattoo, or donate blood, or donate an organ. Not a single other person on the planet can make those decisions for you. This even applies to corpses. Dead people. With that in mind, let's go over what pregnancy and childbirth do to a woman's body...

I'll start with a few links:

https://www.womenshealth.gov/pregnancy/youre-pregnant-now-what/body-changes-and-discomforts

https://www.womenshealth.gov/pregnancy/youre-pregnant-now-what/pregnancy-complications

https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/episiotomy-types#3

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gestational-diabetes/symptoms-causes/syc-20355339

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/preeclampsia/symptoms-causes/syc-20355745

I'm sure there are plenty more links where those came from, but these cover quite a bit.

Now, for those of you who are too lazy to click a link and read it for yourself, I'm going to go over some of these things.

Stretch marks: There are a very small handful of women that are blessed enough to not get a single stretch mark during pregnancy. The majority of women though do get stretch marks. They are a result of your body growing and stretching faster than your skin can keep up with. Women not only get them on their bellies, but also on their breasts, thighs, and butt. These stretch marks may fade over time, but they will never go away. Stretch marks are forever. Permanent scars.

Gestational diabetes: Getting gestational diabetes is not only bad for the baby (excessive birth weight, pre-term birth, respiratory distress syndrome), it's bad for mom too because there's a chance that she'll end up having diabetes for the rest of her life.

Pre-eclampsia: I had pre-eclampsia with my son. Symptoms usually include excess protein in your urine and high blood pressure. Other symptoms include: severe headaches, nausea, vomiting, temporary loss of vision, and impaired liver function. The only treatment/cure for this is to deliver the baby. If you don't, there's a possibility that it could turn into full-blown eclampsia. If that happens, the woman could have a seizure and die.

Episiotomies and vaginal tearing: Sometimes, the baby's head or shoulders are too big, or the baby comes out too fast, and your vagina will either rip open, or the doctor will cut it open with a scalpel. The incision the doctor makes is an episiotomy. There are 4 degrees of episiotomies.
*First degree consists of a small tear that only extends through the lining of the vagina. It doesn't involve the underlying tissue.
*Second degree is the most common type. It extends through the vaginal lining as well as the vaginal tissue.
*Third degree involves the vaginal lining, vaginal tissue, and part of the anal sphincter.
*Fourth degree is the most severe. It includes everything the third degree does, plus the rectal lining.
A third or fourth degree tear/episiotomy can cause the woman to lose control over her bowel movements until it is completely healed.

I have only listed 4 things that pregnancy and childbirth do to a woman's body. There are literally dozens of other side effects and medical complications that can take place. You can view some of them by clicking on the links above.

There are many, many reasons that a woman might need an abortion, but these things alone should be reason enough.

Why do people think that forcing diabetes, seizures, and anal tearing on a woman is perfectly ok?

Imagine for a second that any of these things could happen to the father of the fetus. Imagine how readily available abortions would be if there was a risk of a man's penis tearing all the way down the shaft and clear through to his anus, causing him to not have control over his bladder or bowels for months until it healed. If you wouldn't force that on a man without his consent, then you can't force it on a woman without her consent either.

This is why women can't just "pop the baby out and give it up for adoption." It's because pregnancy and childbirth will literally change (and possibly destroy) parts of her body forever. THAT is why it is the woman's choice, and the woman's choice ALONE, whether or not she wants to carry a baby to term. When we say "MY BODY, MY CHOICE" these are the reasons we say that. You cannot FORCE any of these medical complications on a person without their explicit consent.

Last, but certainly not least...

4) "But it has a heartbeat!" 

You know who else has a heartbeat? THE WOMAN. The woman has a heartbeat. Not only does she have a heartbeat, but she also has friends, a significant other, other children that may need her, a mother, a father, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. She is a whole person, and she matters to everyone in her life.

My kids right now are 13 and 15 years old. If I were to die because of pregnancy-related health complications, my teenagers would miss me a whole lot more than a fetus that doesn't know who the fuck I am. My kids are TEENAGERS. They would remember me, and grieve my death. To that fetus, I'm just a face in a photo.

Strangers have no right to force me into a life-threatening situation. The only person that gets to make decisions like that about MY body and MY life is ME.

I have a heartbeat too.